Mmmm - Ferrite Donut core memory (measured in K)
Posted on 09/08/2006 6:26:11 AM PDT by Hydroshock
SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Judging by the grief that Microsoft is getting over delays in the release of Windows Vista, and the buzz surrounding the price it plans to charge for the next generation operating system, you'd think we were all hankering to get our hands on this hot new piece of software.
Don't believe the hype: There won't be lines around the block at midnight when Vista hits store shelves early next year, analysts say.
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"I don't expect anyone's going to be camping out at Best Buy waiting for this product," says Citigroup equity research analyst Brent Thill. "I think the pace of adoption will be slower than the market expects."
They can get it for you wholesale
Microsoft (Charts) gets more than 80 percent of its $13 billion in annual Windows revenue from PC makers, who install the operating system on new PCs. The cost of Windows - estimated at around $70 - is included in the price we pay when we buy a new PC. The proportion of people who buy copies of Windows at retail to install on their PCs is vanishingly small.
And the version of Windows that those retail customers have on their PC hardly figures into the equation. By and large, we buy a new PC when we need another one.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Debian-based? Gentoo is not Debian-based, or even inspired. It's package management is more like FreeBSD's on steroids. Unlike Debian, it is primarily a source-based distro (with some binary packages, from the freeware, but not FSF companies) with some allowances made for binary packaging.
IMHO, it is the best Linux distro currently in existence (it's what I'm writing this on).
Mmmm - Ferrite Donut core memory (measured in K)
If you like linux-ish stuff, but circumstances dictate wintel you might want to have a look at Powershell. IMHO, it's one of the more interesting things I've seen come out of the Vista/Longhorn development.
Thanks--I'll take a look.
Alright, you guys got a headstart on me with the comments tonight, but I'll jump in. At severe risk of getting flamed, here's the highlights:
1970 - FORTRAN engineering sims and P-CAP on a B5500 (keypunch)
1973 - PDP-8 assembler, paper tape, TECO
1974 - First pro job, research electronics designer.
1975 - Heard about the Altair 8080, scrapped own 8-bit 7400-TTL computer design.
1976 - Bought KIM-1, Tek 4010-1 graphics CRT, TinyBasic in ROM. 6502 assembler.
1977 - Wrote much graphics and utility software for 6502. First national code publication. First use of Apple-][.
1978 - First self-designed/built home computer. 1979 - Real-time industrial controllers, 6800 assembler.
1980 - Added core planes (64KB) to home computer.
1981 - Joined aerospace firm as engineer, became defacto sysadmin (a pattern to be repeated for the next 25 years).
1982 - First IBM-PC, 8086 assembler.
1983 - DSP-based geosynchronous spacecraft attitude control sensor for Intelsat.
1984 - First use of VAX/11-780, VMS, email. First of many Macintoshes.
1985 - 80168-based industrial process controller. Got first UNIX minicomputer, learned UNIX.
1986 - Wrote first complete interactive shell and utility suite. Programming in C.
1988 - Independent consultant, various projects.
1991 - First use of Windows.
1992 - Designing early PCMCIA hardware, software.
1994 - First use of NetBSD UNIX.
1996 - Engineering LAN of NetBSD and Win95. Wrote first website (handcoded HTML of course).
1998 - First of many iMacs.
2000 - First of many Linux boxes.
2001 - H/W+S/W for FireWire ext. hard drives.
2002 - First OS-X usage.
2003 - First use of Exchange. Wrote and deployed first corporate website.
2004 - Start lurking on FreeRepublic.
2005 - Sysadmin for hybrid network of BSD, Solaris, Windows, OS-X machines. First MacMini. Joined FR and started posting.
2006 - Running small (<1000 users) international corporate network for cutting-edge system software company.
So guys, even though I don't have an MSCE (never needed one), can I play, too? ;-)
I've gone to the Dark Side -- large scale business applications.
But I did lots of COBOL (of course), BAL, Z80 (when I had a business and wrote all our applications for our CP/M S-100 system), every POSSIBLE variante of BASIC, Fortran IV, WatFive, PL/1, APL (I can create a whole program in one line!), LISP, etc.
I still keep a hand in with ksh and DOS scripts and the like, but nowadays I head up implementation projects.
This is great, a whole mess of gurus on freerepublic. I am canceling my experts-exchange.com account =)
I had some programming classes in HS, worked in operations/programming at a small service bureau (way more ops than programming), moved to mainframe ops at a large financial institution (still there), I kind of fell into PC's. Currently network and email admin, and inheritor of weird problems.
Yep, I'm an engineer with a physics degree, working as a sysadmin. Go figure.
> I've gone to the Dark Side -- large scale business applications.
That's the REALLY scary stuff. You have my respect.
> But I did lots of COBOL (of course), BAL, Z80 (when I had a business and wrote all our applications for our CP/M S-100 system)...
Ah, S-100. Amazing it ever worked...
> every POSSIBLE variante of BASIC, Fortran IV, WatFive, PL/1, APL (I can create a whole program in one line!),...
Though not with any keyboard these guys would recognize!
> LISP, etc.
My wife was a LISP fancier. She's still got a big cardboard box in the attic with leftover close-parentheses.
> I still keep a hand in with ksh and DOS scripts and the like, but nowadays I head up implementation projects.
That's good stuff. The world runs on business apps, ya know.
Every time I open up yet another edit and type "#include <stdio.h>" I wonder what I'm doing with my life.
My daughter (13) has a dual-boot Linux/Win-XP box; she comes by her geekiness honest.
dayglored, That's a good list but how much of it is now relevant?? dubie to be successful you have the right attitude and don't let some know it all techie put you down. Is there wisdom from the older generation yes, as long as it is not condescending and supportive of your success and researched opinion!
You got that right.
I dunno. They might give you answers, whereas all we'll give you is a raft of sh!t and war-stories. Good-natured rafts, of course.
The BSD-Unix, Linux, Windows, and OS-X stuff is all current and keeps nice paychecks coming. All the CPU hardware stuff is fun but wildly obsolete. The peripherals experience is relevant -- I still do hardware designs for new silicon (eval boards and demo platforms) in my spare time. But the scene shifts and morphs constantly.
"There will always be a future in computer maintenance."
> dubie to be successful you have the right attitude and don't let some know it all techie put you down. Is there wisdom from the older generation yes, as long as it is not condescending and supportive of your success and researched opinion!
Dubie, I second that completely. I wasn't being one-up, I was trying to be funny, and show how much things have changed over the years. Nearly everything you do will be obsolete in 5 years and irrelevant in 10. Good for war-stories, but not much else.
If you take my 35-year litany as anything, it should be as a light-hearted "My God, what have I done?!?"
Don't fret, if you ignore them they go away. (Not)
What sort of network?
So much for Micr'soft's contention that Windows users can't learn anything new... like Linux for example.
> Untold millions of people worldwide have got the hang of Linux. Perhaps MS has turned you into a spoiled brat?
While I much prefer Linux over Windows, Tree of Liberty has a good point. Most people are happy to use "install wizards" and "setup wizards" and "config wizards" and what-not. Linux is working on it, but only Linspire is close.
I personally only compile from sources these days if I have to make changes -- otherwise I'm just as happy getting a precompiled binary and seeing if it'll run as-is. Which is most of the time.
ToL: have you looked at Linspire? I haven't used it myself (I'm a RedHat/Fedora fan), but Linspire is reputedly as friendly as Windows in most respects.
I've been in computers since CP/M days. That was a l-o-n-g time ago.
I think dubie is really sweet to be putting up with these jealous guys!
My side is mostly Windows, with a small but growing collection of Linux boxes. Some of those "wierd problems" involve integration to the mainframe. Over a hundred remote sites (and domain controllers) stretched across 3 states.
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