“Windows XP is more than just a pretty face. This top-to-bottom overhaul of the Windows operating system has something for everyone from families to business users.” Read the whole of the exhaustive review of Microsoft’s new product over at ZDNet.
ZDNet Reviews WindowsXP
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
It will interesting to see CNet’s “OS Death IV” with these 2 going at it, of course I have my money on Mac OS X for a couple of reasons, but no need to get into that now!!!
<rant>
What ridiculous system requirements. I have a celeron400 with 196meg ram and 6gig of harddrive. When I want to push my computer to its limits I play 3d games – not word-process. Jeeze. I think I’ll stick to redhat7.1 + windowmaker. Same goes for OSX by the way – both of these OS’s have way too much compulsory eye-candy. I can’t wait until around 2005 or so when MS discovers this amazing new moden flat widget look (again).
Around 10 years ago everyone used a command line (ie DOS, and its way worse than the bash shell) for at least somethings – I can’t beleive that people have become so stupid as to be unable to use a command line for anything. This whole command-line is hard thing is nothing but marketing tripe, of course something is hard if you have never used it, no computer interface is intuitive, people only think windows is easy because it is what they are used to.
</rant>
“no computer interface is intuitive”
Personally, I believe this statement to be “nothing but … tripe.” Well-designed interfaces are all around us, and one of the measures of a well-designed interface is how intuitive it is. Something that looks like a button saying “Burn CD,” for example, is a lot easier for most people to use than memorizing a string of (often arbitrarily-named) commands. Sure, using the command-line isn’t necessarily rocket science, but that doesn’t mean someone is “stupid” if he/she has difficulty using one.
The final shipping version of XP probably targets certified ‘Designed for’ Win-2k or Win-Me boxes (810e or 815e chipsets) and processor speeds of 700 Mhz or faster, preferably much faster (P4 boxes). From what I’ve seen so far, XP looks like a consumer/big-brother dot-net trap. My guess is that Win-Me was nothing more than a place-holder on newer machines used primarily for internet access until XP was released, but MS shamelessly sold Win-Me in the aftermarket anyway.
Red Hat 7.1 looks like it won’t support the 810e or 815e chipsets, and Beos sort-of dropped out about the same time that Win-Me boxes started to appear. Are these firms really trying to compete with MS? Or, have these firms just talked vapor to pump-up the stock price before they and their investors cashed out?
The Win-cartel monopoly really does appear to be just that, a cartel. Win-cartel will control the consumer side, Sun-cartel will control the industrial/automotive side, IBM-cartel will control the banking, finance, insurance side. I guess they call it “managed competition”.
It will interesting to see CNet’s “OS Death IV”…” whoops I meant to say…
It will be interesting to see CNet’s “OS Death Match IV”!!
Long night at work… sorry:-(
Are MS PAYING people to write these reviews?? It’s nothing but bull anyway. A bunch of windows anthusiasts (it’s amazing – they exists!!) writing an MS-glorifying review. in my opinion: BULL.
>in my opinion: BULL
Thank you for your (colorful) opinion. BTW, have you actually used XP and got this opinion first hand, or is it the product of today’s fashion that “all Windows suck” just because the Linux weenies say so?
intuitive adj 1: derived from or prompted by a natural tendency;
— rant starting now —
So your button with ‘burn cd’ relies on assuming that the user knows what a cd is, what is meant by burning ( I want to write a file onto it not destroy it), how to work a mouse, right click or left click, single or double click etc etc.
I know this is an extreme and silly example and I like the idea of selecting a bunch of files, then right-clicking and selecting burn to cd. But my point is that for this button to work people have to already understand the basics of the system. In order to use a computer you really do need to have some idea of what you are doing, like how to use a mouse, how to navigate a dialog box, how pull-down menus work and how to navigate a file-system.
Granted some interfaces make more sense or are based on other related concepts (gui representation of file-systems and filing cabinets) and people can figure out how to use them without too much difficulty.
This makes them well designed and thought out – intuitive is the wrong word. Intuitive is the buzz word which people like to use.
My major gripe is that people should be taught the concepts behind what they are doing, not what button to click on – then they would actually be computer literate. Right now we seem to be teaching people to be windows literate or mac literate. A funny example of this (for me anyway) was a boss who said that he couldn’t take his work home cause word didn’t fit on a floppy disk. He didn’t realise that his document was seperate to the application that created it. Its something that is obvious to me and probably you too, cause we have been taught this, not because it was intuitive. If it was intuitive then my boss would have know it too without any special training.
— rant ends —
Yeah I guess that is one thing that I am not going to say off hand on Windows XP just yet. I plan to purchase a new Dell Dimension 8100 to run my copy of BeOS 5 Pro on and also RedHat Linux (or Susi if I change my mind) and I may try to review Windows XP before sending it to the recycle bin. At least this way I can see what has really changed since Windows 95 (the era I left Windows for Mac, but have had my turn on Windows 98 and I am tortured daily at work with NT, at least until I buy a new Powerbook G4… which will be soon also:-). I don’t want to fall into the same prejudice group of people who hate Windows if I haven’t even at least given XP a test-drive and then I can make a fair opinion…. I can tell you right now that I despise the product activation process and I don’t care how easy or hard it might be… it sucks either way!!
So I guess I’ll have 30 days to do my review before the curtain falls 🙂
‘My guess is
that Win-Me was nothing more than a place-holder on newer machines used primarily for internet access until XP was released’
And to make sure that Windows installs of BeOS and QNX wouldn’t work.
“And to make sure that Windows installs of BeOS and QNX wouldn’t work.”
I am not trying to bust your chops or anything, but BeOS 5 runs perfectly beside Windows ME on my friends machine (I know I have used it)!
I am not sure of QNX though?!
I had a bear of a time getting BeOS 5 to run on my laptop because of WinME’s “missing DOS”. You can’t run Partition Magic because WinME refuses to boot into DOS mode, even though we all know WinME still has DOS (just hidden).
I agree with Skiver.
http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1501&p=1
Zdnet is nothing but marketing for M$.
Read a real review and then you will under stand why people say XP sucks.
Good review… at least from a technical standpoint! This type of problem also probably applies to Mac OS X since it seems to run slower than Mac OS 9 on the same hardware, but is this due to a new core sytem architecture, or was it just meant to be?! Well I guess I will find out when Mac OS X 10.1 comes out and Apple boast’s that is is going to be faster in performance… one can only hope so 😐
I remember reading a week or so ago that part of MS’s deals with OEMs was that if they pre-installed windows they were not allowed to have any sort of alternative bootloader on it. In other words sure you could buy a computer with win98 and beos on it but only the windows boot-loader so by default you couldn’t get beos to boot, I guess you could use a boot disc to replace the MBR with one with a beos friendly boot loader but OEMS were not allowed to ship it like that. If they did MS would revoke their license. This was never bought up in court cause MS considers their OEM deals to be trade-secrets and thus not discussable.
All your boot sectors are belonging to MS. 😉
as quoted from LeBuzz… http://www.lebuzz.com
As many of our readers know, Be Incorporated failed in its efforts to find a place in the desktop world, in large part, due to Microsoft’s restrictive control over OEMs, who were not allowed to sell Windows and BeOS in a dual-boot environment. Buzzer Dennis Wolf thinks this practice is patently unfair, and is calling on every concerned BeOS user to write the DOJ and ask them to focus their attention on the MS Bootloader issue.
“There is no other way to stop the Microsoft monopoly. I honestly believe the entire US and World economy will be ruined by the lack of innovation that really is happening. Just imagine if companies could make tech products without the constant fear of MS. You may very realistically lose your job when the full impact of what Gates and Company have done causes continued huge layoffs and business destruction month after month, year after year. The end really is coming. It begins with a stubborn obsession of not even trying to learn the first chapter in the book of monopolies.
“I am pleading for Linux and BeOS supporters to help ourselves at this time. If you agree MS must face the real issue of the Bootloader, then write the judge and introduce this new evidence please! http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/general.html Judges have no public email, so you must send a letter. Don’t forget to give the judge the important article link and full title, “He Who Controls the Bootloader”. Add some of the paragraphs to your letter! The case is starting again on Sept. 14, 2001. Please make our voice heard.”
OUR TAKE: Want to join Dennis in his letter-writing campaign? Here’s the address to send your letter to:
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
333 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 2000
For years Microsoft has been making billions of dollar profits. If you look at the advancement of their operating systems it is unbelievable that there hasn`t been made more progress during the years. The system requirements to play pacman has skyrocketed. The possibility for computer users to fix problems theirselves has been made impossible for most failures.
It looks like they have only used their finances mainly to brainwash the general public and to buyout or destroy competitive companies.
From Webster’s: intuitive, from intution: 1 immediate apprehension or cognition
You’re absolutely right in that the user must learn each paradigm, but one could just as easily say that with a command line, users must know what a keyboard is, what a word it, what a letter is, etc. etc. The nice thing about GUIs is that they don’t force you to memorize as much. Once you learn the fundamentals of the system, most things should just fall into place. That’s simply not true with command line tools, whereas sure there are some standards, but nothing close to a well-designed GUI (there are different letters used for similar flags in different programs, the order of the files is not always consistent, and even “–help” doesn’t work with all tools, as some require “-h” or “-?”, for example). This doesn’t make command lines bad, and I think too many people are afraid of them, but I think it does make them, on the whole, less intuitive. I choose “intuitive” intentionally because once you know a few basic rules in a GUI, you can often figure other things out; it’s “instant apprhension.”
I couldn’t agree more with your last paragraph, however. I’ve attended one “using <blah> <blah> class” at work (hey, it was required!) and I’ve looked through the “Teaching <blah> Visually!” books and they both had the same problem. Sure, they’re friendly and accessible, but they really only “teach” strict memorization of click here, then here, and then here. The command line does hold one advantage in this category, I guess; with the exception of simple “Type d:\setup to install the program” types of instructions, you really have to understand what you’re doing to get anything done. I don’t believe this is a fault with GUIs, however, but a fault with the way many people are taught to use them.
“Read a real review and then you will under stand why people say XP sucks.”
Great, so you post a three-page review to a beta version of the operating system. How fair.
As for speed with both XP and OS X, Super Mario brothers ran great on my Nintendo and MacWrite ran just fine on my Mac Plus. There’s a price you pay for extra features, better technology, and, yes, more eye candy. Processors and memory are so amazingly cheap that there’s no real reason anyone shouldn’t have at least a gigahertz machine in a few years, and by then, at least, you’ll be happy they made the leap (such is especially the case with Aqua, methinks).
Just a quick note….I used brackets which were stripped, so “using class” should read “using (program) class”, etc.
When I read that letter, I wanted to cry. Not because it’s so true, but because the BeOS community has been reduced to taking sersiously (and even following) such absurd calls to action.
“Just imagine if companies could make tech products without the constant fear of MS.”
Most companies would love to make products without the fear of a competitor. However, that is not the way the world is, thankfully.
“You may very realistically lose your job when the full impact of what Gates and Company have done causes continued huge layoffs and business destruction month after month, year after year.”
I’m not scared into action easily, and this certainly does not convince me of anything. I have never seen any economic evidence that Microsoft’s bootloader policies will cause company after company to fail, and most importantly, I have not seen evidence that the policies will cause companies that shouldn’t fail to die. (And yes, Be was a company that, sadly, should have failed. Nice initial technology isn’t enough.)
“The end really is coming.”
More “scare the people into taking action when they don’t understand what they are demanding” tripe. We see this all the time with people coming to convince the naive to “make their voices heard,” regardless of the fact that they have nothing intelligent to say. (My favorite is when the student group here at Berkeley BAMN goes to schools and tells young black children that they will never get into college without affirmative action, and thus they should support it; young children don’t have the mental capacity to weigh everything correctly, but as Calvin [and Hobbes] said, “If you can’t win by reason, go for volume.”). No reasonable person is persuaded by “you might lose your job unless you listen to me” arguments with nothing else beneath them.
“It begins with a stubborn obsession of not even trying to learn the first chapter in the book of monopolies.”
The letter is so thoroughly unconvincing in an economic, logical, and rational sense that I would certainly not trust his beliefs on “the book of monopolies.”
It’s hard for me to see the BeOS community being reduced to this.
The call to action was inspired by Scot Hackers last, but not least article on Byte.com… He is a very well respected individual of the BeOS Community even though I think he may have abandoned ship too, but that has not been confirmed nor denied… lets hope not!
Here is his great article(it is a must read)…
http://www.byte.com/documents/s=1115/byt20010824s0001/0827_hacker.h…
Enjoy 😉
“The call to action was inspired by Scot Hackers last, but not least article on Byte.com”
I fully understand this, and read Scot’s (mostly good) article. As far as I know, he’s never officially said “the BeOS is dead,” but even the slightest reading between the lines indicates his beliefs about the matter. Nevertheless, my contention is with Dennis’–sorry to use a strong word, but I believe it is one of the only appropriate adjectives–idiotic letter. The fact that it received such prominent attention on such a well-known BeOS site demonstrates the sad state of the BeOS community.
Why would you defend anything M$ does?
Yes I know its a review of a beta, did you really READ the review, the people
writing it said it was beta and performance would increase— slightly.
Your speed comment is pathic. I have a 400Mhz system. It runs win2000 and Debian very fast. The review showed that XP needs 500Mhz extra to just stay even with NT. I could not even run XP.
So if I had a 1Ghz processor I would have to upgrade to a 1.5Ghz processor JUST TO KEEP PERFORMANCE EVEN with I already had.
Oh yeah I see companys wetting themselvs to run out and upgrade to XP.
The real question is what the hell did M$ put in XP to require that kind of hardware just to barly run. Sounds like another scam to sell new hardware to me.
“Why would you defend anything M$ does?”
Why would you blindly attack everything Microsoft does?
“did you really READ the review”
Yes, and apparently unlike you, I understood it.
“So if I had a 1Ghz processor I would have to upgrade to a 1.5Ghz processor JUST TO KEEP PERFORMANCE EVEN with I already had.”
The review claimed a 25-30% performance drop, and hence someone with a 1.5 GHz machine would need to upgrade to a 2 GHz machine to stay on par (as is plainly stated in the article). It’s not 500 MHz for every machine. Funny that you criticized *me* for not reading the article, isn’t it?
“The real question is what the hell did M$ put in XP to require that kind of hardware just to barly run”
They were comparing speeds using far faster systems than most people have. It doesn’t take a noticable speed drop to come up with big percentages when the numbers are already so small. It sounds impressive to jump by, say, 500%, but if you’re talking the difference between a .5 and .1 nanoseconds loading time, who cares? (Note that this is an example and does not reflect the review in question)
More fun: You said Windows 2000 runs “very fast” on your 400 MHz system. In terms of MHz, your machine is 73% slower than their test machine. Yet you state “what the hell did M$ put in XP to require that kind of hardware just to barly run,” the “that” implying the 1.5 GHz machine mentioned a few sentences earlier. The article you linked to and were so adamant that I didn’t read said Windows XP runs at about 25-30% slower than Windows 2000. Which means their machine running WinXP should still be, in very loose terms, 43% faster than yours running Win2k. Yet for your machine you claimed “very fast” performance but WinXP would “barly [sic] run” on their machine. Nice consistency.
Even more fun: You called my speed comment “pathit [sic],” yet you did not address it beyond misquoting the article and performing incorrect math (not to mention directly contradicting yourself). So let me address it. Every now and then, you have to upgrade your hardware. This is the case whether you have a Playstation and want to play PS2 games, whether you have a mountain bike and want to have really nice shocks, or if you want to get all the benefits from a new operating system. If you don’t find the benefits worth the price of the upgrade (which you won’t need, since I’ve seen beta2 of XP run fine on a 400, but that’s a different matter), don’t buy it. Clearly, when comparing OSes, if one requires better hardware than another, that’s a mark against it. However, this mark is really nothing than an increase in the price, and by itself certainly doesn’t make an OS “suck.” The ultimate evaluation comes from how much you can do with it (and how easily it is used) compared to its competitors. Price is merely one factor.
Please forgive me if your post did not convince me.
“The fact that it received such prominent attention on such a well-known BeOS site demonstrates the sad state of the BeOS community”
You can’t be pointing the finger at the whole community for one person’s opinion, and yeah the BeOS community is in a sort of chaos right now while we await Palm’s final verdict on BeOS’s future. I do agree with you on the letter itself, but the fact of the matter is that Microsoft does have the OEMs where they want them… now is it totally Microsoft’s fault?… not really, if the OEMs can’t stand on their own and give consumers what they really want then it is the OEMs that should be getting the bad press, not Microsoft! I’ll be honest with you, I am not a fan of Microsoft by any means and people that know me here in these discussion forums can tell you that, but I think that it is getting out of hand with this Microsoft -vs- DOJ thing… I feel Microsoft is guilty though I don’t believe that they should be split up, but I just wish they would get this thing over with and quit wasting US tax dollars on a dead issue…
Internet Explorer is not King, and Netscape is not dead and never will be!!!
“Next!”
😉
“Why would you blindly attack everything Microsoft does? ”
Oh thats simple.
I have been watching M$ attack and destroy real computing innovation(real innovation not that marketing BS) for 20 yeah thats twenty years.
How long have you been using computers?
Have you ever programmed? I have in Pascal,Fortran,Python,and C.
I only use their $hit because I have to.
I am soooooooooooo tired of computer science controled by a bunch of spoiled brat, money hungry, A$$holes.
That goes for all computer companys not just M$. $un is just as bad.
“How long have you been using computers?
Have you ever programmed?”
I’ve been using computers for about 14 years now and program in C/C++, Scheme, and Java. I don’t see the relevance of this when pertaining to the merits of Windows XP. You mention Microsoft’s “$hit” yet you admit that you blindly attack their products; it seems you don’t make a very objective judge.
For what it’s worth, the technology market isn’t computer science; it’s business. If you want straight CS, go back to college, because straight science rarely exists outside of academia. It’s a company’s duty to be “money hungry”; that doesn’t make them evil. Personally, I strongly dislike many things about Microsoft and their policies, but that’s not going to keep me from admitting the areas in which their products are superior.
I prefer to not doing anything blindly…
>I prefer to not doing anything blindly…
Right on Billy!
Eugenia, any chance for logins? I’d love to be able to edit messages with glaring typos (such as that last comment
I am leaving for France in less than 10 days and I will be back in full computing action only at the end of October again, so…
If you got sections of your posts you want to change, ICQ me and I will edit the database.
Around 10 years ago everyone used a command line
——————-
Bah. Never experienced the brilliant Amiga, obviously…
Your going to France? Lucky. Have a fun trip!
I am going to France to get married again with my husband. This time in a church, and with my family present (they will be flying from Greece). 🙂
For years Microsoft has been making billions of dollar profits. If you look at the advancement of their operating systems it is unbelievable that there hasn`t been made more progress during the years. The system requirements to play pacman has skyrocketed.
————————
I still can’t find a version of arkanoid (a 2d game!) half as playable, half as beautiful sound and graphics-wise, and half as enjoyable as the version that graced my Amiga and fit on a floppy. Same can be said for most of Amiga’s games. For the PC to have this much ‘power’ today, and yet be so lame, is awe-inspiring.
>Why would you blindly attack everything Microsoft does?
Because they are clearly a force for evil, pushing us into an inevitable Orwellian nightmare. You know, even if their products didn’t suck and annoy me constantly, I think I would still boycott them solely on moral and ethical issues, rather than a lifestyle choice.
Considering the blind allegiance to Micro$oft and general fear of the unknown which afflicts the unfortunate, average, American, I think it is no stretch of the imagination that MSFT will have more power over and impact on our lives than the federal government. This is unacceptable.
You all used to play “Lemmings,” right?
As far as the .NET initiative and XP, I’m scared to death of it. The only reason anyone would allow ALL of their personal information to live on M$FT servers is becauuse they DONT understand the underlying paradigm of what is happening to their data. I am willing to bet than any intelligent competitor to M$FT will not allow use of .NET by employees, not because of any anti-m$ft ideoloy, but rather just because it is a huge security risk.
Even the windoze lovers i know will admit that microsoft is inherently evil. You must work for them or something.
Apple OSX will win.
Viva!
I love you all.
The reason I mentioned how long I have been using and programming computers was to try and show that I am not a blind M$ hater. I know how $hitty their stuff is. Technology is not served by the behavior of these companys. When you mention how its a companys job to be money hungry bastards, I have to disagree. Companys behavior have gone down hill into a moras of greed and avarice. If you look at history you will see companys like ATT/bell labs. They invented tons of technology that we use everyday. Lasers,Unix,the transistor. Bell labs took huge amounts of funding and provided huge gains for society. ATT new that most of the reasearch Bell labs did would go nowhere yet they funded them anyway. Hell Bell labs even used to have a radio astronomy dept. People got greedy spun them off into Lucent and the research died. SO you see real science used to exist outside of academia. The level of greed in the world today is truly shocking, greed is destroying this society, and companys like M$ are leading the charge into oblivian.
I guess taking a moral stand on an issue is no longer popular. I guess all that counts is stock options and the bottom line. If thats true than god help us all because society is headed for a fall just like Rome.
The way M$ conducts business is just plain wrong, both in legal and moral ways
if you can’t see that then I would hope you would open your eyes. Go read the findings of fact from the anti-trust case.
If you disagree or just don’t give a damn then thats your option. For me I an sickened by where computing is compared to where computing could be.
One last example; The x86 arch/ PC system is one of the worst ever designed, yet it’s the most common. If it were not for windows we could be using far better systems. Think how much better computing would be if we were all using something like Beos on top of Alphas?
Or Amigas with 1GHz PPCs?
“I think I would still boycott them solely on moral and ethical issues, rather than a lifestyle choice.”
Note that there is a world of difference between these two statements: “Microsoft’s products are of poor quality, and thus people should avoid them,” and “Microsoft’s products are sometimes of high quality, but the company’s ethics are horrible, so people should avoid them.” As to the latter statement, I would agree in many ways that Microsoft is a “bad” company. However, I have seen little to no evidence supporting the former statement, at least where Windows 2000/XP, IE, and Office are concerned. If nothing else, no superior alternatives currently exist.
As you said, most people don’t know/think about Microsoft’s ethics. This means that they will choose the product which works best for them; the ethics won’t factor into the decision. Thus, as a competitor, it is doubly important to acknowledge the strengths of their products so your competing products can be superior. The hare who sleeps, confident in his superiority, will lose, and there are countless examples in the computer industry which demonstrate this.
“You must work for them or something.”
In what you may find ironic, I just finished up an internship at Apple. Again, acknowledging the strengths of a product don’t mean you love its parent company. In fact, it’s one of the greatest services you can do to its competitors.
“OS X will win”
I hope so. It’s mostly a great foundation, but right now it’s still playing catch-up in terms of features and speed. I would love for OS X to be the best OS out there, hands down. Right now, it’s not yet the case. Hopefully, we’ll see this someday (soon
.
Hey cool! Have a great time
“I know how $hitty their stuff is”
You haven’t demonstrated any such knowledge. All you’ve done so far is misquote an article on their new product which deals with nothing but speed, which, as I’ve established, certainly isn’t the only metric of quality. You then shifted into “MS is evil” dialogues which are completely irrelevant to the topic at hand (namely, “WinXP sucks”).
“greed is destroying this society”
Ayn Rand and I would disagree with you, but that’s a much different topic not worth going into here.
“People got greedy spun them off into Lucent and the research died.”
Research has to be funded somehow. If you’re not willing to put up the money, you can’t insult others who don’t want to, either. Unless you’ve been sending checks to companies all these years with “this money must be used for pure research” notes, you’re saying it’s immoral that others won’t pay money for your benefit. Definitely an interesting moral perspective.
“The way M$ conducts business is just plain wrong, both in legal and moral ways”
I never argued otherwise. I was concentrating solely on the quality of the product in question. Read my above post for clarification on the difference between two types of statements regarding a company’s ethics and the quality of its products.
“If it were not for windows we could be using far better systems.”
Since you claimed twenty years of experience with computers, I think (and hope) what you meant to say was, “If it were not for the need for backwards compatability and the reality of platform dependance, we could be using far better systems.” By “platform dependance,” I mean the simple fact that a program written for DOS/x86 won’t run correctly on the BeOS/PPC (and won’t run with a standard BeOS interface, won’t take advantage of various BeOS-only features, etc.).
> In what you may find ironic, I just finished up an internship at Apple.
So you did work for M$.
It`s M$`s money that keeps apple “virtually” alive nowadays. It still amazes me though that apple could survive this far with a very much lacking OS for anyone with an IQ above 80. Seems M$ is turning more MacOS like with every new release though.
M$ has to keep a non-competitive company like apple alive to make sure they won`t get in trouble further: M$: “Look we have competitors! And we are even helping them to survive!!”
Nice response. I appreciate your level headed and sensical critique. Good points. Although I am being honest here, I am also absolutely kissing your ass:
I’m an MBA student at a well ranked school (Finance and Information Systems). Any advice on how I could get a resume in to Apple in for a summer internship for 2002 could severly alter my life, and would be greatly appreciated. Apple is at the very top of my company list.
Thanks,
Ron
I personally had a friend at Apple who circulated my resume internally, and Apple comes up here at least once a year to recruit for interns. However, failing those channels, I think http://www.apple.com/jobs is pretty much the way to go.
For what it’s worth, I found Apple’s internship program to be fantastic, so good luck!
Ok, I’m not going to stamp on peoples arguments here but I will say something about having to live in a MS dominated world.
MS has had a history of letting people down on their software products. DOS was a joke, Windows 95 was a major dissapointment for the computing establishment and every software release has been a downward sprial. More code, more great unusaed functions, more crap to get in the way of what users wanted to do. These are the reasons I prefer the little gem BeOS as an OS. Apple although innovative in the 80’s has also been stagnant and the killing of the competition in the Power PC platform is one reason why I will NEVER GO THERE. It is ironic that Windows 2000 is what I was expecting Windows 95 to be back 6 years. Even still, 2000 has it’s problems and the graphic headiness gets, often, in the way of just doing the job.
Now for the crux of what this post is about. Although I don’t like MS software I do aknowledge that for me to do what I want on a computer, I have too use it. I am currently setting up a home music studio with Win2K at the core. Now for me, a person who supports computers and builds hardware based solutions in media intesive industries (Video post production, Music production, Graphic Design/Pre Press) I have found there are a wealth of tools on the internet that allows me to customise Win2K for my purposes. The ones I use the most are
Power Toys (limited subset of the complete offereing including Tweak UI)
Reg Cleaner
XSetup
and for great Win98 situations where IE f’s up ones system Win98 Lite.
These tools alone allow for a much better MS computing experience. Although I still find that OS vs OS BeOS wins hands down, the problem being lack of applications and further support.
Apple OS X, time will tell but without competition in the hardware sphere, I’m not game to go there
Linux, I would recommend heartily in building networks but on the front end it doesn’t have what it takes.
BeOS, god only knows and time will tell. I keep my fingers crossed for this one and hope some company continues its legacy on the desktop.
other OS’s (BSD, Solaris, OS2, AtheOS, QNX, etc) they all have their place but I see none of them replacing Windows on the desktop in the next 5 or more years so I don’t bother with them.
One can trim the MS fat if they want to but it requires knowledge of the OS and also of the tools being used. I hope one day to see a really simple and well designed OS challenge MS on the desktop and show the world what computing can Be.
My motto is to tread lightly and keep life and everything you do simple and to the best of your ability, then you’ll have time to enjoy living instead of being bog down with confusion and angst.
Piers
Yikes! That sums it all up. Objectivism is Adam Smith’s “Invisible hand” economic philosophy mixed with the amoral world view of Nietzsche. Unfortunately, too many of our political and business leaders subsribed to this perverted world view. Alan Greenspan, Bill Gates, and the list goes on.
Whew! But that is a different topic…
Subscribing to such a world view says more about you than I care to comment.
The fact that you proudly proclaim Ayn Rand philosophy as your own is sad commentary for our times, indeed….
WindowsXP? We will all just have to wait and see, won’t we.
Most likely a 400 mhz amd K6-2 though. I’ve heard they’re really slow with WinXP.