BIG BROTHER BILL GATES PROTECTOR OF ALL,,,, ARRGH!

[Gilbert]

Read it and weep!

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt

[computerdude]

Wow....... I couldn't even finish it... the driver sig. revokation thing was where I stopped.

Thanks for the article though!!

[Gilbert]

Seriously considering a switch to MAC. At least for the home PC anyway. For work, I'll hold out with my XP Pro OS for as long as possible, or until support dries up, and Bill forces me to change.

[meagain]

Gilbert - What specifically in the article are you referring to? It's pretty long and I don't have the patience to go through the whole thing.

I switched to Mac in early December-ish. My only regret is waiting so long. Not only is it (iMac) beautiful, it works flawlessly and offers SO many cool features. I want nothing to do with MS's crap now. My husband gets Toshiba laptops from work and after seeing what my Mac can do, seems to be sold that getting a Macbook Pro for work is the only way to go. Funny.... his boss had no clue one could buy Parallels for $70 or use the free Boot Camp to run windows on the mac. Fingers crossed. I hope to get a cute white Macbook soon.

DO IT GILBERT!

[DrWho]

That article was full of worse case scenario speculation - gotta love how they tried to put it in a format typical of objective research...

Not saying I disagree with any of it - but if any of it is true, then it's obvious the people at MS understand the market and are catering their product to the right people...

The ethics of digital piracy protection certainly go both ways and it's also something that would need to be implemented at the hardware/OS level to ever be effective. Making such a broad move would be a giant step in changing the entire industry as a whole...some people being unable to play legally purchased software is just going to be one of the growing pains. There's no way around it.

But if you're against the protection of intellectual material, then I can see why you might be complaining...

[Audio Flynn]

That article was full of worse case scenario

speculation - gotta love how they tried to put it in a format typical

of objective research...

Not saying I disagree with any of it -

but if any of it is true, then it's obvious the people at MS understand

the market and are catering their product to the right people...

The

ethics of digital piracy protection certainly go both ways and it's

also something that would need to be implemented at the hardware/OS

level to ever be effective. Making such a broad move would be a giant

step in changing the entire industry as a whole...some people being

unable to play legally purchased software is just going to be one of

the growing pains. There's no way around it.

But if you're against the protection of intellectual material, then I can see why you might be complaining...

Who;

Maybe

you read very little of the notes. To me the big thing is all the

encryption will make you buy a faster computer and it will remain slow

with all the enryption going on. And then there is obselecence of non

Vista approved devices perhaps like USB 2.0 DVD burner used to back up

my data. Degradation of audio and video quality.

I have

been suspicious of Gates for about 2 decades now. You do not get that

rich in a few short years by being as benevolent as he works so

hard to be in the recent past in the public eye.

I have

discarded a couple thousand dollars of software from WIN 3.1 and other

operating systems. Zero focus on backward compatibility by the captians

of industry and government is another lobbyist bribery scam.

When

they cry the blues about copy protection they should be after the

organized crime copiers in China and Mexico and elsewhere; not the

consumer.

Several titles of music software I have purchased 4 times.

I

will avoid Vista as long as I can. Gates trained me on that by him and

Gateway forcing me to have Milenium Edition on a prior PC when I

specifically asked for WIN 98 it came with Millenium Edition anyway.

Think

Gates is a nice guy try Millenium for 3 months. If it was a car I could

win a lawsuit on it, but crappy software never gets you a refund.

[DrWho]

Windows ME was a piece of crap - I'd even take 95 over it anyday of the week []

As far as backwards compatibility - it's my understanding that their valiant efforts to maintain it are why the new OS'es aren't "so wonderful". At least that's what my classmates / TA's / professors that have been doing internships / consulting work over there are telling me. They spend most of their time trying to keep as much software as functional as possible - which means they have to carry around old bugs and poor decisions...things decided upon in the 80's when the technology was in its infancy. It's a lose-lose situation really. You can't improve anything without losing backwards compatibility or hurting performance. But these problems aren't native to MS....they're just more noticeable (wider user base and a much larger pool of software).

I guess from a user's perspective that's no excuse, but isn't that the result of a market in its infancy? People were getting killed all over the place when the automobile started becoming popular. I think it's a matter of time until there's a little more regulation (like the traffic laws) and better vision as to the future of the market (which will make planning for backwards compatibility easier).

I've got Vista installed on my computer right now and I haven't had any problems with copyright crap, but I'll have to give it a closer look. The fact that the OS uses 60% of my 1GB of RAM sitting at idle is a bit annoying, but apart from that I think I can get used to it. I'm sure the hardware industry is looking forward to a new demand on processing and memory capabilities.

[pauln]

I think Big Brother Bill has detected your post and disabled the link - when I copy the link and paste it into the browser address line it CHANGES the txt ending to html and the page that comes up just says, "Test". Changing the address line to end in txt makes no difference. Anyone else having this problem?

Mac is the way to go. As soon as my ethernet card arrives I'm switching over to my beautiful 1997 PowerMac 6500 - first PC to hit the 300MHz speed. I'm running the super stable 7.5.5 OS and plan to use iCab as my browser. Although the 6500 is a relic by todays standards it is faster than my multi-GHz Dell, it has a builtin zip drive, CD, it runs Excel and Word faster, and I'm really looking forward to getting away from Explorer.

[sfogg]

Mike,

"Windows ME was a piece of crap - I'd even take 95 over it anyday of the week Sad

As far as backwards compatibility - it's my understanding that their valiant efforts to maintain it are why the new OS'es aren't "so wonderful". At least that's what my classmates / TA's / professors that have been doing internships / consulting work over there are telling me. "

It is a load of.....

Look at the monster potential backwards compatibility issues Apple faced changing from PowerPC RISC chips to Intel CISC chips. The entire instruction set is totally different at the very core of the hardware. They had to basically support two different versions of their OS to run on two completely different types of CPUs. They built a translation layer (called Rosetta) into the Intel version so that software written for the PowerPC chips would still run on Intel machines. They changed their developer tools so that developers can very easily create a universal binary which runs natively on both platforms. They had to do all this and yet the transition to Intel was actually very smooth. So much so that Apple was able to complete the transition *ahead* of schedule in 7 months instead of the year they were originally predicting.

My wife had a G3 iBook. A G3 is several generations of CPU ago... G3,G4,G5 then Intel. She got an Intel MacBook a few months ago. When you boot the MacBook for the first time it asks you if you are upgrading from another Mac. If you are you connect the two together via a firewire cable and boot the old machine in 'transport' mode.... Hold T down when you turn on the machine and it basically turns the machine into an external firewire drive. The new machine examines the old machine and asks if you which user accounts you want to transfer. You select them and basically hit go. 1 hour later *everything* on her old machine was transfered to the new machine. All her programs (configured identically), her email, pictures, networking, movies, documents, photos, desktop background ...everything were on the new machine. It literally looked and was setup identically to her old machine. And that was moving from a machine with a totally different type of CPU in it.


Shawn

[el jopez]

Most of the points made in the article have been known for quite some time already, and to me don't come as a big shock at all. If you are just now learning about this I'm sorry, but please don't feel that switching platforms secures you from this type of encroachment in the future.

Personally I believe <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Vista is a step in the right direction for everyone as a whole. Less legacy coding (i.e. Apple), based off of Server 2003, with more bells and whistles to appease those who tout Apple for its bells and whistles (though some claim its to little to late) and an attempt to rain in on piracy. DRM does nothing to penalize those who it was designed for, only the innocent user. Alas such as life.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Is there a rush to upgrade to Vista? Not really, however for the next generation of Direct X PC 10 gaming, quad core support, maybe this time next year Vista will be worth it.

[jheis]

double post

[jheis]

Beware!

M$ is the basis of the universally loathed iDrive system imposed on all current BMWs and is reportedly going to be imposed on new Ford products as well. As long as M$ is included, I will never buy another BMW. I have never owned a Ford product, but if M$ is part of the deal, never will (unless, of course, it's an Aston Martin DB9) [H]!

[Gilbert]

I think Big Brother Bill has detected your post and disabled the link - when I copy the link and paste it into the browser address line it CHANGES the txt ending to html and the page that comes up just says, "Test". Changing the address line to end in txt makes no difference. Anyone else having this problem?

Mac is the way to go. As soon as my ethernet card arrives I'm switching over to my beautiful 1997 PowerMac 6500 - first PC to hit the 300MHz speed. I'm running the super stable 7.5.5 OS and plan to use iCab as my browser. Although the 6500 is a relic by todays standards it is faster than my multi-GHz Dell, it has a builtin zip drive, CD, it runs Excel and Word faster, and I'm really looking forward to getting away from Explorer.

I do like Mac's, but there is literally no real structural design software for them. None of the major software writers covers the Mac OS.

My only complaint about the macs (other than software availability) is the fact that you can't get into the OS (i.e. like editing the registry), and it can be a real pain in the arse when it comes time to swap out hardware. The Mac OS is pretty darn solid, but if your a tweaker, they pretty much leave you out in the cold.... Like where I'm at right now, with all this freaking snow and ice.

[Gilbert]

Beware!

M$ is the basis of the universally loathed iDrive system imposed on all current BMWs and is reportedly going to be imposed on new Ford products as well. As long as M$ is included, I will never buy another BMW. I have never owned a Ford product, but if M$ is part of the deal, never will (unless, of course, it's an Aston Martin DB9) [H]!

The idrive is not that bad. BMW's current iteration is pretty darn slick, and watch out, because Audi has adapted a similar gadet already. While in Arizona a few months ago, I got a rental Audi A6, brand spankin new car too, talk about luck, they usually stick me in an smoked out Taurus, or Impala. Anywhooo, I took a real liking to the Audi, so much so, that I stayed the weekend so I could take in some sights. But the idrive gadget in the Audi was slicker than snot in a champagne glass. After a day, I was able to quickly navigate through all the cars features, including stereo adjustments. It really was slick. The Beemers have also come a long way.

Don't know if you guys know much about the ICETEA bill or some achronym similar to that, (Intermodal Surface Transpertation Efficency Act), but let me tell ya..... if you hate features like dynamic stability control (which can't be disabled) your gonna hate the cars of the future. As a result of ICETEA, cars manufacturers are gonna start taking away more and more control from the driver, and I mean it in a BIG, MAJOR way. The big citys will be the first to get it, but it will only be a matter of time before it filters down. I've read quite a bit about it, and it sucks. Just like microsoft.

[Gilbert]

Most of the points made in the article have been known for quite some time already, and to me don't come as a big shock at all. If you are just now learning about this I'm sorry, but please don't feel that switching platforms secures you from this type of encroachment in the future.

Personally I believe <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Vista is a step in the right direction for everyone as a whole. Less legacy coding (i.e. Apple), based off of Server 2003, with more bells and whistles to appease those who tout Apple for its bells and whistles (though some claim its to little to late) and an attempt to rain in on piracy. DRM does nothing to penalize those who it was designed for, only the innocent user. Alas such as life.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Is there a rush to upgrade to Vista? Not really, however for the next generation of Direct X PC 10 gaming, quad core support, maybe this time next year Vista will be worth it.

I guess you'll enjoy it then when your new CD doesn't allow you to make copies or permit you to rip selected songs for a personal compilation. Or when your limited to how many times you can listen to it, or when your limited to how many times you can rip a song from it. Same goes for DVD's. And I guess you'll be over joyed when your forced to buy select hardware (CD burners, DVD burners, External HD's, etc. etc. etc.). that's compatible with or geared toward your fancy OS. Not to mention that fact that you'll be thrilled when your OS crashes from a registry that's worst than millineums piece of crap OS. And you'll be bursting with pride your PC's dual 200 trillion GigHz chips runs like crippled turtle because of all those fancy bells and whistles your new vista OS will have. Yea, that's really something to get excited about. And if you think next year Vista will be worth the switch, I'd like to make you bet right now that it will still a worthless piece of crapola, that very few will be waiting in line to get, except for you though, you and Bill Gates.

[Gilbert]

Mike,

"Windows ME was a piece of crap - I'd even take 95 over it anyday of the week Sad

Amen brother. Bill got richer than rich and burned trillions of people worldwide with that crapola that he smooth talked down their throats. I switched to NT way back when, and to say something decent for Bill, Windows XP (NT based) is a pretty solid OS.

Sorry el jopez, I did get a bit carried away. But I guarantee you, vista is not what you think it will be. And it's gonna get the same kind of reviews (helll, it's already getting those reviews, what am I saying) as the Millineium version did. Pure crap. Go to any hardcore PC forum, read and learn. MS Vista is crap.

[el jopez]

Gilbert Gilbert Gilbert,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Apple already does this with all songs bought off of iTunes. You are only allowed to copy your songs up to 5 separate computers, nothing new. Most CD's have new copyright technology where its almost impossible to legitimately rip songs to your computer now, not when <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Vista launches. A year ago there were a few cd's with a different DRM system that made it impossible to play the CD's on your computer; the CD's had to be ripped and the reburned in order to play. Sony received bad rep for that one.

However, what many of you fail to realize that there are many competent programmers out there that bust balls to ensure that the people who do take interest in the technology do not get screwed over. Tweaks, cracks and patches always come and always will. People cried bloody murder when XP came out with its new security features and the world kept on spinning. And ya, you might want to upgrade your components per every system since legacy drivers just don't cut it. Think you can really use all the parts from a Mac OS 8 machine on a OSX? Hardly.

And to be honest, my XP machine has NEVER crashed or blue screened on me nor has my registry fallen apart.

[Gilbert]

Gilbert Gilbert Gilbert,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Apple already does this with all songs bought off of iTunes. You are only allowed to copy your songs up to 5 separate computers, nothing new. Most CD's have new copyright technology where its almost impossible to legitimately rip songs to your computer now, not when <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Vista launches. A year ago there were a few cd's with a different DRM system that made it impossible to play the CD's on your computer; the CD's had to be ripped and the reburned in order to play. Sony received bad rep for that one.

However, what many of you fail to realize that there are many competent programmers out there that bust balls to ensure that the people who do take interest in the technology do not get screwed over. Tweaks, cracks and patches always come and always will. People cried bloody murder when XP came out with its new security features and the world kept on spinning. And ya, you might want to upgrade your components per every system since legacy drivers just don't cut it. Think you can really use all the parts from a Mac OS 8 machine on a OSX? Hardly.

And to be honest, my XP machine has NEVER crashed or blue screened on me nor has my registry fallen apart.

I know, I know, I know.... It's nothing new to me. I have an iPod nano. HOWEVER, I have some custom software that lets me get away from the itunes trap.

As mentioned previously, XP is a decent OS. IT's essencially NT, but geared to include gamers who were fed up with the other previous versions of crapola software that your friend Bill sold. But as for the tweaks, security updates, and patches always being available.... you are dead wrong. Because they will not always be available. Remember Win 3.0, 95, 98 and now Millineum. What happened? Bill stopped offering support. Even Win XP.... Have you ever tryed downloading SP2 lately?

The time is coming when you friend, Big Brother Bill, willsay NO MAS. NOW YOU MUST BUY MY LASTEST AND GREATEST CRAPOLA OS.

Don't believe me,.... wana make a bet?

[seti]

Windows 2000 Pro was the best windows ever and it has been downhill ever since.

I have two pcs at home one PC runs 2000 pro another runs linux and then my personal computer is a Mac Book pro.

[el jopez]

That was my point about the programmers. You have found a "workaround" because another competent programmers created something for your needs. Thats what I meant, people, not big corporations will create the workarounds that will make things easier for some, though it may take some work on the users part to implement, in the end it give you greater freedoms. We agree there I think [Y]

SP2? Nope dont need it, since I got it when it first came out (2-3 years ago?) and learned how to slipstream it into the regular XP install discs. Very handy and yes I do agree in ending suppport for other platforms. In a bussines model your job it to get people to support your current product, so you end support for your old products as the new one will be considered the norm.

What I feel and many peopel feel will be the biggest challenge to Vista adoption will be XP itself; its a sound platform with over 4 years worth of support and software. I don't think its worth upgrading now nor do I think calling a product crap when I doubt you havent even used or tested it is entirely fair.

But to be fair and rational about it, how about the hardware vendors that create parts, namely video and motherboards. If one part of the equation says HDCP support from the graphics card level up is stanard for PC's, now that Apple has switched to Intel as well, don't you think this same systemwide DRM integration will popup on Mac's as well in the near future? It would be foolish to think you'll never be subject to it.