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I don't remember my old Model-100 ever going down . . . |
Posted on 12/01/2006 7:49:10 PM PST by Zakeet
As he took the stage to usher Windows Vista to market, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer last week tried to put the software's laborious birth behind him. The company's 71,000 employees -- and the entire PC industry, for that matter -- could be excused for breathing a sigh of relief, too.
"It's an exciting thing to finally be here, and that's probably all I'll say about the past," Ballmer said at the unveiling from Nasdaq's cylindrical high-tech building in New York's Times Square. Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 also were introduced, and 30 more products will follow over the next year, all part of the same technology wave. "This is the biggest launch we've ever done," Ballmer said. Microsoft will spend $450 million marketing it all.
Yet for all the design missteps, overly ambitious plans, and personnel changes that led to a five-year lag between versions of Windows, questions about the future of Microsoft's software are top of mind for customers and partners. Ballmer swears to never let as much time elapse between Windows versions; the question now is how the company can keep churning out innovative products on a compressed timetable.
"Vista is the last of the Big Bang operating system releases from Microsoft," Credit Suisse research analyst Jason Maynard wrote in a report last month.
(Excerpt) Read more at informationweek.com ...
I did. From what I see, they ripped off "google desktop" search, and the rest of the stuff I see is either useless to me, or more-cpu-consuming versions of the functionality I already have
It will be a long time before hardware mfgs. stop making 2k drivers. They're basically the same as XP drivers. Heck, most hardware still comes with 98 drivers, and some still with 95.
I'll probably load a boot drive with XP so I can take advantage of 64 bit, as well as DX10 for upcoming games, but will probably continue my software development on my win2k box. Besides, most of my stuff is moving to the internet, so it's mostly portable anyway and the OS doesn't really matter.
Vista just seems so bloated, besides the fact that Microsoft is trying to move everyone toward subscriptionware. I don't want to be locked into a monthly fee for my OS (in the future), and if anything, that might be the eventual downfall of Microsoft.
Average Mac users
make AOL subscribers
all look like wiz kids.
One word speaks volumes.
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I don't remember my old Model-100 ever going down . . . |
Preach on! Oh, and isn't it interesting that, as soon as various enthusiast and game websites started reporting how much slower Vista was than XP, reports began to surface on how Microsoft was restricting (via EULA) the benchmarking of .NET processes and apps? If you can't make it faster, make it illegal to benchmark...
I'm not saying they're great "new" features for any OS but for Windows they would include isolating drivers from the kernel process. Now, in theory, the driver for Cap'n Joe's Super Duper Really Neat video card won't crash the kernel.
While I've yet to have this problem personally by far most crashes I've seen on various Windows computers are the direct result of really, really crummy drivers. More so than spyware and malware.
Even the administrator account can't do anything without jumping through hoops. Even logged on as administrator if you want to change something you have extra clicks. Ditto if you want to run a command line session that requires administrator privileges; you have to invoke a special command line session.
Nothing new for other operating systems but a major change to Windows (and a pain in the butt to me). I haven't yet tried it but in the next several I'm going to throw some nasty stuff at it and see if AV software is even necessary. If that's the case the savings on AV software licensing fees could be a factor.
Granted these features are probably not worth an upgrade to most users including, I'm guessing, you, but a lot of my clients who don't listen to my hardware and security advise find them interesting.
Search is another area.
Obviously an operating system is simply a tool and a trim carpenter hardly needs a framing hammer but I am seeing some interest from some depending on what they perceive their needs to be.
None in particular. I just don't see, from an end-user perspective, what there is in Vista that is worth dropping $200-$300.
Office nerds don't need it to run Office (yet).
Ubergeeks use Linux anyway.
Gamers will grumble, and the ones that are tight on money will just get a Wii. :p
I'm sure there are all sorts of neat little technical bells and whistles, but other than some flashy graphics and a little more conviencience, what's the practical difference?
You are correct, to the extent that there is an appreciably broader spectrum of Mac users than PC users.
My mother uses an iMac to send email and occasionally look at something on the Web, nothing more. She would be completely baffled if you told her to run a CHKDSK or install AdAware or hit Ctrl-Alt-Del. In four years she has never seen the computer crash, and other than pulling the power cord out of the wall, she would have no idea what to do if it did.
Every PC user, because of the feeble, insecure nature of shitty old Windows, is required to learn these un-intuitive time wasters, pay someone else to do it for them, or lose the use of their computer.
But at the top end of the spectrum, if you go to a computer science department or a hi-tech industry convention, you will see Macs in numbers out of all proportion to their overall market share. The smartest users of Windows are abandoning it wholesale. They realize that under the candy-coated Macintosh user interface lies a heavy-duty BSD Unix that (despite a few quirks) is a worthy competitor to Sun or any of the other big hitters in the Unix market. Microsoft had better be very, very concerned about this trend becoming an avalanche in the business world.
Corporate IT departments will not lead this change, because they make their living fixing screwed-up Windows machines. Macintosh steals bread off their families' tables. I'm convinced this explains their sneering dismissal of all things Apple.
No, the impetus will be from the top down, when a CEO gets a PowerBook and discovers that he can manage it perfectly well himself, without needing a fat bearded smart-ass in a T-shirt to come into his office every month or two, reeking of pot and Doritos, to weed out the malware or re-install Windows.
When people like this figure out the cost savings that would result from an all-Mac desktop environment, and maybe even an XServe or two on the server side, I predict that Mac market share will double or triple or quadruple. The hardware acquisition cost differential is of trifling insignificance next to what companies are spending to keep their Windows installations booted and virus-free.
I can even foresee a scenario ten years or so down the road when OS X (or OS 11, or XII) reigns supreme even in the business world, and Microsoft is an MBA case study in how to drive an 800-pound gorilla of a company into the ground. You read it here first.
-ccm
I'll give you that. Flight Simulator is cool.
Otherwise, the best thing about MS-Windows is Pinball.
For example, I commonly configure my desktop to run with 8 windows. When I boot my laptop at work first thing monday morning, I open up a browser on desktop 1. Then I go to desktop 2 and open up 5 terminals, which in turn open up sessions to the 45 (Unix) systems that I regularly support. All the Dev, Test, and Prod systems are segregated to their own terminal window with different background colors so I can tell where I am instantly. Desktop 3 gets a copy of the Evolution email client. Desktop 4 will have a VMware console. Desktops 5-8 will have programs I run somewhat more infrequently, like openoffice, performance monitors, and various other stuff I need to support our servers.
I really like this because I always know where everything is, and I can quickly go from one app to another just by switching desktops.
Is there anything like this that you know of that comes standard with OSX?
Amen. When my former employer finally adopted OS X, there was a one-day class to prepare folks, some coming from Windows, and some from OS 9. I was exempt, because I'd already been using it for about two years at home, and functioned as an informal instructor to follow up with folks in the office. Expose was far and away the biggest hit, and you could walk down the row of cubicles watching people tap F9-F10-F11 practically giggling.
The first time I tried expose (after I upgraded to whichever version of OS X introduced it), I sort of shrugged and thought it was cute, but it didn't impress me much. Within two weeks, it was a constant part of my workflow. And that's the kind of litle things that make Apple so much more enjoyable to use -- touches that save you a second or two at a time a couple hundred times a day.
Easy.
Go to the Start menu.The benefit of doing this is that not only will CHKDSK fix problems with the file system like indexes and security descriptors, it will defragment the indexes. Your disk defragmenter can't defragment the indexes, because it runs after the operating system is completely loaded and doesn't have exclusive access to the disk.Pick Run.
Type CMD in the dialog box and press OK
When DOS window pops up, type CHKDSK [Drive name:] /F
If you do this to a system disk, a message will appear saying:Repeat this sequence for all the partitions you want to check. Some data volumes will run the fix option of CHKDSK without rebooting.Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by anotherPress Y, and you'll get this message:
process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)
This volume will be checked the next time the system restarts.Reboot the computer, and CHKDSK will run and fix your hard disks at boot time. It may reboot several times to fix all the partitions you have chosen. Once CHKDSK has fixed all the partitions, Windows will reboot again and start a normal session of Windows.
I concur absolutely. I felt that way even before OS X, which was a much bigger leap than the one from Win 3.1 to Win 95. I can admit in hindsight that OS 9 was buggy and crash-prone; OS X is a dream. My one gripe is that Apple is still sticking with the one-button mouse. It's easy enough to add a two-button mouse, but you're still stuck with the one button on the laptop trackpad.
See post #98 for a succinct description (with links) of Exposé, the coolest thing to happen to a user interface since the mouse.
All new Macs include the iLife software. There are thousands of Mac programs available from Apple, Microsoft and third parties.
The iLife suite is no joke. If you think you have something like iPhoto because you have image cataloguing software that came with your camera, or you think you have something like iTunes because you have Windows Media Player, think again.
A frequent complaint from Windows users is "I can't run ..." to which my reply is, forget what programs you can run. What do you want to do? There's almost always a Mac equivalent that will do the same work, open the same files, connect to the same servers and run on the same network. You don't sit on the on-ramp wondering if an American highway is going to be Volkswagen-compatible, do you?
There are exceptions. Some very specialized apps don't have a Mac equivalent, but they're not an issue for 99% of users. I have only run across a couple of things I couldn't do on a Mac, and they were Web sites that probably would have loaded just fine, but which were set up to refuse to load, because the site designer couldn't be bothered to test on anything other than IE on Windows.
Macs can run Windows now, but like all Windows computers, that requires more maintenance and security precautions, which is no fun.
There's a pretty cheap program called Parallels Desktop that runs Windows in a Mac OS window, so you don't have to reboot. It's da bomb. It does, however, require a licensed (stage whisper: or otherwise) copy of Windows, which ain't cheap.
So on my Mac, I have Windows XP just a click away. Turns out, the only thing I've used it for is to check how Web pages I've built look in Windows browsers. HTML rendering is still maddeningly inconsistent.
For someone who's switching to Mac, and who already has a copy of Windows and a stash of Windows software, Parallels could be a good set of training wheels to ease the transition. Especially for time-sensitive work, where you might have to bail on the whole learning experience to get something done the way you already know how.
If you've run emulators on the Mac before, like SoftWindows or Virtual PC, forget all about that. Current Macs have Intel processors, so all that has to be emulated is the BIOS. Windows on Parallels is on a par with a comparable PC, though I haven't tried any first-person shooter games yet.
And I don't sweat malware all that much, because if I get infected, I can just wipe and restore from a backup disk image. I keep all my important data on the Mac side.
Sweet Mother, no!! Assuming you *like* Linux, why would you want Big Bill to get its hands on it?
is microsoft a monopoly because
1: there is only 1 os for ppl to choose?
2: because it is the most supported by 3rd party development companies.
3: because they unfairly beat the competition?
now i dont like bill gates politics nor am i a micro~1 fanboy. But I just cant get on the micro~1 is evil bandwagon. I think they basically won the OS wars in the late 80's early 90s. And then the browser war. IE was hands down better then netscape at the time, easly beat mosaic too. Yes they copied others innovations, or should i say "adapted". Should we call Ford evil because they copied Mercades benz antilock braking system? No.
Face it MSW is the default OS for computers. If you dont like it build a better mousetrap.
Oh, that's bringing back some memories. For straight-up text, it was hard to beat. I saw a lot of reporters toting Mod100s around. Weighed about a pound, and could run for about a week on two AA batteries.
It wasn't until about 2000 that I found a laptop that had enough portability, simplicity and batery life as that Mod 100. Of course, I could never use it to watch DVDs on a plane.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Microsoft has made a recent deal with a major linux distribution (Novell - allied with Suse of Germany ). Speculation is that Microsoft is lining up some linux core code which might become part of later MS developments. There has long been a rumor that one day MS will offer a Microsoft Linux. Having tested Vista as a beta and RC tester, I would prefer the latest versions of linux, although I still use XP daily. By the way, I have tested dozens of linux dists in Vmware running under XP as a host. Ubuntu linux seems to be the leading contender at this time. Installing and running it is about comparable with installing XP on a new machine.
Follow this link. I would have pinged you but I had already written this answer before I read your reply
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1747302/posts?page=113#113
>I know a pretty good amount about computers, defrag, et >al, but I am ignorant on the CHKDKS/F at bootup, will you >tell the procedure, please?
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