I never thought it was possible, but as it turns out, Microsoft has managed to produce some pretty good commercials for its brand new operating system, Windows 7. They are quite product-oriented, and carry the slogan "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea".
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Member since:2005-07-13
Being critical is one thing, and is by all means not only acceptable but necessary. But your not just being critical, you are insisting everyone is wrong but you. That’s not having an opinion and presenting it, that’s suppression of everyone else’s. I agree with some of your points (I too think that 2003 was the god of OS’s, 2003 R2 ultimate 32 bit has been my desktop OS for a long time), but opinions are just that. It’s not a distinct science where scientific method rules out another educated guess by trial, error, and proof; to say that windows 7 (example) is not worth the upgrade and is not worth paying for is not based on fact and therefore people who think it isn’t are no more correct than those who think it is. Case and point, no one is wrong OR right, it’s all just words…
Edited 2009-10-22 23:26 UTC
Member since:2005-09-06
I agree that windows 7 really doesn't feel that much better. In fact I am annoyed that the "classic" mode looks so not classic. The only thing that made me go "cool" was the changing desktop background, but that wore off fast.
To me it feels comparable to 2 gnome releases. I just don't see why its getting such praise, except for the fact that dell/hp/microsoft is telling everyone its the best thing ever and everyone seems to believe it.
Note: I have only used it for around a day now, so my opinion might change. Also I don't have a negative opinion of it, just not "wowed".
Member since:2009-02-11
No, it's not. In OS X (and linux afaik) you only need to sudo when installing something, when you mess with protected files and when you change system setings. I can't understand why people keep saying that a system needing administrative rights to do the simplest things is a good thing.
In my opinion UAC is not only annoying, but also ineffective. Given enough false positives, users will start ignoring it. And since false positives are the only thing I've ever seen from UAC that's what everybody is doing. If it would fire up only once a month (when needed), then a user wouldn't be so eager to press continue.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2009-02-19
Most of the problems with UAC trace back to the fact that they're trying to use a privilege-escalation-based security system with an account that already has administrator rights.
In most Linux systems, you'll log in as an unprivileged user. When you need to do something sensitive, you'll use sudo to run a process as root that will perform the task you want done. Once you run a process ass root... it's root, no more questions asked.
In Vista, you're a privileged user by default. UAC guards certain functions that even the privileged user cannot perform without authorization. UAC will therefore annoy you every time you perform that action, even if you're doing it multiple times from within one process that you've already authorized once.
That's the big problem, IMHO. If Vista had used a Linuxy model, where you weren't privileged by default, you only ever had to escalate a process once, and once you where privileged, the security system wouldn't ask you any more questions, then that approach would've worked fine. The big problem is that you can take pains to run a process as root... and UAC will still whine at you, possibly repeatedly.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Member since:
2005-07-06
Hardly a stepping stone.
Vista was basically a completely new platform, 7 is an enhancement to Vista.
I'm not saying it is a service pack, but don't call Vista a stepping stone.
to be honest, all this "7 is great" stuff is pretty freaking iritating. Most of what is in 7 is in Vista. The reason why Vista was iritating was because things like drivers had to be re-written from scratch, so they sucked, things weren't in the same place so people were no longer comfortable with where they were, people had to get used to UAC (people say UAC is annoying, it is really no different than sudo or OS X's pirvleage elevation system, people just weren't used to it), etc...
Vista hate was all hype (negative hype), 7 love is all positive hype.
In the end, it's ALL hype, and sheep go along with it.