Vista Makes CNET UK's List of "Worst Consumer Tech" 484
Several anonymous readers pointed us at CNET UK's Crave blog for a list of what is or was, in their opinion, the worst consumer tech in history. Vista comes in at number 10, in company with Apple's puck mouse (number 6) and Sony's CD rootkit (number 9). According to Crave: "[Vista's] incompatibility with hardware, its obsessive requirement of human interaction to clear security dialogue box warnings and its abusive use of hated DRM, not to mention its general pointlessness as an upgrade, are just some examples of why this expensive operating system earns the final place in our terrible tech list." That's gotta hurt a little, coinciding as it does with Apple's Don't Give Up On Vista attack ad.
Vista is #10? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Informative)
Windows Vista says there's a byte error in the file and refuses to play the movie. This is Windows Media Player, same version as the version on XP.
Vista DRM is a little over-zealous. Or maybe Vista itself just is incapable of playing movies.
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Windows Vista says there's a byte error in the file and refuses to play the movie. This is Windows Media Player, same version as the version on XP
A bug isn't the same thing as 'abusive DRM'. Have you tried contacting MS about this? I'd also suggest doing an MD5 hash to check for data corruption.
I know as soon as I say 'there nothing I can't do on Vista that I can on XP' there will be legions of anecdotal 'I can't do this, that and the other' responses. It doesn't change the fact that the DRM stuff is a myth.
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, considering Vista's "Content Protection" is talked about very specifically by Microsoft itself, including Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers) [windowsvistablog.com], it would appear that nobody including Microsoft is denying its existence in Vista, or that it goes far beyond what any previous operating system would do with regard to "Content Protection."
Here's a quote specifically from the the link above, which is provided by Microsoft itself:
"Windows Vista includes content protection infrastructure specifically designed to help ensure that protected commercial audiovisual content, such as newly released HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, can be enjoyed on Windows Vista PCs. In many cases this content has policies associated with its use that must be enforced by playback devices. The policies associated with such content are applicable to all types of devices including Windows Vista PCs, computers running non-Windows operating systems, and standalone consumer electronics devices such as DVD players. If the policies required protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs."
Just because you have yet to run into Vista's DRM or that you don't deal much with A/V content that would cause you to notice limitations when using Vista doesn't mean that it isn't a significant issue for many people. Oh, and if you read the questions Microsoft responded to in the Vista blog you will also notice that Microsoft does admit the DRM will increase CPU resource consumption.
Wired [wired.com] also has an article covering Vista's DRM that specifically addresses criticism of Vista's DRM and Microsoft's response to that criticism. And if you'd like to see what your boss is reading, Forbes [forbes.com] also has an article on Vista DRM entitled "Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You."
Perhaps you should do some research before you post.
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Interesting)
You completely miss the point. It is not Vista or any other OS's business to dictate to users above and beyond the necessities of serving the users up to the capabilities and limits of the hardware. Nor is it remotely practical to attempt to enforce anything using what essentially boils down to an "evil bit", as it is so easily circumvented and so often wrong. And the rules that it is trying to enforce are themselves excessive, of doubtful utility, subject to interpretation, changeable at the drop of a large bribe, and difficult to follow. So there are 3 reasons why Vista's attempt to do so is annoying, insulting, and stupid. Vista should have stuck to the business of operating the computer, and let the users worry about the morality and legality of the uses to which they would put it. Vista shouldn't be a nagging nanny, "helping" people obey ethics that they are too "stupid" to figure out for themselves.
You saying it's a "matter of legal compliance" completely ignores the impossibilities of actually forcing compliance, even upon somewhat willing users. You might as well be implying the answer to the question "how do you put a giraffe in a refrigerator?" with "open the refrigerator door, put the giraffe in, close the door." Just about anything can be used to break the law. People can be shot, stabbed, strangled with pretty much any sort of wire (network cables, piano wire, guitar strings, etc.), run over with cars, bludgeoned with hard drives, and on and on. But you don't and you won't see "smart" knives. Even if it was possible to make a "smart" knife, circumvention is as easy as whipping up a plain old knife out of pretty much any old sheet of suitable material. Stone Age tech-- actual Stone Age as in 8000 B.C.-- can circumvent a "smart" knife. Cameras can photograph anything-- there is no way to selectively cripple them so they won't photograph copyrighted material. If such a thing as a camera that "respects" copyright could be made, few would willingly buy it even if it wasn't more expensive, slower, and prone to false positives. Before there were cameras, there have always been eyes and visual memory. Suppose there was a "smart" car that wouldn't exceed the speed limit or allow the driver to run red lights or steer into oncoming traffic. The car still couldn't tell if one of the passengers had just robbed a convenience store, or memorized a few pages out of a book. Nor could it tell when it might be time to break the rules, as for instance in a medical emergency. And the car could still be hacked. An OS is no exception to these basic facts of nature that neither copy protection nor "evil bits" work. Don't know what drugs MS was on when they actually seriously tried to make a "smart" OS capable of preventing its users from committing just one kind of crime, and, like obscenity, a very difficult to define and detect crime at that.
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It is not Vista or any other OS's business to dictate to users above and beyond the necessities of serving the users up to the capabilities and limits of the hardware
I agree with you, but that's not my point. Read up on the Image Constraint Token [wikipedia.org] and you'll realize that MS's hands are tied in this matter. By law, to play HD media that uses the ICT, they need to provide the protected video path, or if the hardware does not support it they need to downsample media with the ICT bit set. They have no choice in the matter. Nor does Apple or anybody else who doesn't want their butt dragged into court by the MPAA.
Every single Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player you buy in a store to
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, I am not saying this is fair. I'm saying, blame the MPAA or the govt. for not stepping in to rectify this bullshit situation, instead of yelling bloody murder at MS when they have no choice in the matter.
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It only needs *one* person to make an effort and the pirates have their copy.
Meanwhile, countless "legal" people are being inconvenienced and expensed because of the DRM. People should have the right to make backup copies of their paid-for media. Accidents happen, thefts happen, etc., etc...
Legal complaince? (Score:5, Funny)
- Ford, Toyota, Hundai et all enforce speed limits.
- Bacardi, Budweiser enforce amounts of alcohol you drink before getting behind the wheel.
- Gun companies enforce gun laws.
Did you get it or should I throw more analogies at you to remark how idiotic is for MS to be enforcing the wishes of content producers?
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:4, Insightful)
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If it plays on default Mac, Linux, Windows XP and Windows 2000 installations, I don't need to know what codec it is, do I?
Actually, I would bet that it *doesn't* play by default on a fresh installation of Windows 2000 or XP. At several points, you *will* have installed codecs on your OSes; if you've ever installed a media player, ripping software, DVD player, or many others. Only you haven't yet on Vista. Download and install one of the many thousands of codec packs floating around if you really can't be bothered to work out what codec your DVD ripper is encoding into.
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And while I'm digging myself a hole here on
Don't worry, i won't flame you :) (Score:2)
1. I've had troubles reading DVD's from other regions... in XP. "You can only change your DVD region code only 4 more times". If things go as I've read, Vista won't be any better.Perhaps you don't have trouble because all your DVDs are Region 1, but that's not the case with the rest of the world.
2. Have you actually tried to *back up* your DVDs? (beca
Re:Don't worry, i won't flame you :) (Score:5, Insightful)
No offence, but this exact same statement (well, statements) can be made about Apple as well. What's preventing them from injecting new DRM into OS X in a future update? Because Jobs wears turtlenecks? The only operating system I trust in that respect is Linux and its variants so I guess I'm agreeing with you in that respect. I'll tell you what -- and I am a man of my word and owner of Gutsy Gibbon on DVD -- if Vista ever screws with me when it comes to backing up or playing my digital media, I join the FOSS army faster than you can say Monkey Boy.
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Informative)
And I can only assume you've turned off the security prompts if you like the OS. It drives me bananas to click on something, have the computer lock up for a second, redraw the screen shaded, and then pop up with a security warning. Just a warning. No prompt for a password. Nothing. I feel so much more secure for losing that 5 seconds of my life every time I want to look at that control panel.
It's a POS. I'm sure you could make it work as well (or possibly better) than XP, but who has that kind of time? It's broken as shipped. And fixing it makes Linux's foibles seem easy to deal with. I'm a Linux fanboy, but I at least recognize Windows 2000 and XP as being perfectly decent operating systems. Vista is not. I'd prefer to use Windows Me over Vista. It crashes about the same amount and is quicker.
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To be precise.... (Score:2)
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, for example, the Silver Surfer. Offhand, I can't think of any other examples.
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:4, Funny)
Elroy Jetson?
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Video gets downgraded to crap if you don't have crappy DRM through the whole path. I tried recording some shows and and get sorry Charlie messages. I tried to burn the shows that I could record to DVD and get sorry Charlie messages.
Sorry, I don't want a computer telling what I can and cannot do. I switched to Mac and multimedi
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Insightful)
With Vista, you can no longer do that. It does stop me from ripping that 2 second sound byte from DVD that I sometimes want for my own use. In fact, that's the only reason the XP box still exists; it would be just Ubuntu if not for that one thing. So, to be fair - there is more DRM in Vista than in WinXP. It hasn't hurt much yet for me - but it has been a small pain. I think what we need hear is more honest talk from folks who have tried it and seen what sucks and what doesn't and a little less vitriol from some folks anyway who haven't even tried it.
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One of the complaints of Vista was the shutting down of other processes when protected media was playing up to and including completely disabling analog outputs. Reduced resolution includes the streaming web radio station playing in the background. Try playing a HD movie while listening to a webcast. Either the resolution of analog outputs is reduced or shut off. DRM often shuts down the unrelated un
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Interesting)
They snuck it in under the guise of improved security, when the real purpose is to stop people from making drivers to intercept DRMed data. For proof of this, try watching certain DRMed content in 32-bit Vista with an unsigned driver loaded - it won't let you.
End result? People who want to still get past the DRM, developers have to pay large yearly amounts for a code signing certificate (which can be a severe cost for small-time and Free/Open Source developers), and users have to pay more to offset development costs.
Not a myth (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe some overblown exaggeration made by some blogger and the Zdnet blog you're citing is specifically attempting to debunk them.
That doesn't prevent Vista's DRM to suck anyway.
- About the HDCP/DRM
Needing a whole DRM stack just to connect your screen is what I find the most abusive.
It's MY display that I BOUGHT legally with MY OWN MONEY.
It's MY graphic card that I BOUGHT legally with MY OWN MONEY.
I have complete legal ownership of both these items.
THEN WHY THE HELL MUST THERE BE A DRM STACK that has to decide what goes on my screen and what doesn't ?
Why is it putting arbitrary restriction on what I can do with something I own legally ?
All this stupidity only because the **AA are afraid that someone *might* attempt to pirate digital content at no loss using the digital transmission.
(As if all this has prevented Muslix64 and Co to design a method to decode HDDVD & BD using keys dumped from software).
The some idiotic design is replicated on other channels, including the audio path. And give the ability to the audio player to refuse to play if it considers the driver stack insecure.
- About the drivers for Vista 64.
Sorry, but Windows Vista 64 driver models seriously challenge free drivers (like kxProjet [lugosoft.com] alternative drivers) and completely prevent open source driver project ( like 3DFX Voodoo 3/4/5 [3dfxzone.it] - which are compatible with 64bit system : XP 64).
The former, as a free/beer project may not have the budget to buy signing keys.
The later, as a free/speech project need to grant its user the ability to do whatever they want with the code. Should a newer patch be available for either Mesa or Glide, I should be able to recompile mine and load them (the recent patches to enable Quake4 on MesaFX comes to mind as an exemple). Without a signing key, it's something impossible to do. This both contradict the fundamental liberties that organisation like FSF are fighting for, and also violates GPLv3 (don't know if currently there are GPLv3 drivers being developed).
Yes, one could find signing key from other CA. But that cost money that some project don't have, or would require every single end user to have access to the key in order to keep the basic software freedoms.
And the ActiveX fiasco (and the various CA-signed malware that has appeared in the past) has already shown that merely signing code won't actually guarantee it's quality.
So these two are clearly both useless (video content got copied anyway, signing has never kept out malware) and arbitrarily restrict users freedom (I should decide what goes on my hardware, without needing to pay additional fee just to use something I've already paid for).
Re:Vista is #10? (Score:5, Interesting)
You offer an opinion backed by personal experience.
I offer an alternative opinion, backed by John Locke's original description of the dynamics of a fair market. Here is my opinion:
Calling DRM "abusive" is redundant, but appropriate. Furthermore, "Digital Rights Management" has nothing to do with managing the rights an individual has under copyright law, nor does DRM benefit the creators of the materials it is attached to. The beneficiaries of DRM are third party corporations who once had a purpose in preparing and distributing old media like vinyl and eight-track tapes, but are now obsolete and too dinosaur-stupid to figure out how to do anything else with their resources.
DRM is at best only one more weak reason for The Revolution. It isn't a particularly good reason of itself: history will regard it as insignificant.
And that also pretty much summarizes the problem with Vista. After years of promising all kinds of significant improvements in computering, when it finally came to market, we found that Microsoft had switched focus away from the significant things that were promised, and instead concentrated its efforts on insignificant and sometimes irritating "features" like DRM.
The revolution will not be televised; you will not see it in Vista commercials. The revolution will not come from Redmond. It is, however, unfolding all around you, and you will see it if you bother to look beyond the commercials for other ways to get things done and make your life richer.
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Because that's a good business. One site criticizes Vista, the other defends it. One hand slaps you and the other provides the cure. Ad money goes to the same boss.
Explain something to me . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
You have obviously never used one (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You have obviously never used one (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Explain something to me . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Vista and the Sony rootkit can cause onsets of rage or heart attacks in few cases, but that mouse was an ergonomic disaster. Using it for a few hours cramped your fingers so much that many male Apple users ended up lonely at night, without their hand being able to perform its marital duties.
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We eventually determined that every once in a while, a participant would hit the lever's stop hard enough that the vibrations would propagate through the table and cause the puck mouse to click itself. This could happen because
Re:Explain something to me . . . (Score:5, Informative)
If you RTFA, you'll notice that the ordering of the items in the list seems arbitrary, and that the authors don't really refer to any sort of ranking within the list.
And yeah.... the puck mouse did suck, but it also wasn't horribly difficult to go out to buy a new mouse if you hated the thing. It was the first apple peripheral, after all, to use a universally standard interface. (Apple really led the pack with USB and Firewire. The PS/2 interface *still* shows up on many PCs! It's a bit sad, however, to see FireWire slowly dying out, as it was undoubtedly the technically superior interface for data transfers)
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Re:Explain something to me . . . (Score:5, Funny)
011
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1. The Dialup modem
2. The built in camera
3. The backlight dimmer (very important for power consumption)
additionally several things were just hosed - like the fact that inserting headphones did not disable the laptop built in speakers
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What if you don't have a legitimate copy of XP? What if you only have the laptop and the restore (Vista only) CD?
Easy from a 'task' point of view. Not necessarily easy on the wallet or on the hardware.
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If you bought any other product that required two replacements for defective hardware, I guarantee you would not be saying that. Try this: replace the "360" in the first sentence above with any one of the following: "Camry", "47 inch plasma television", "lawnmower", "food processor". See? It sounds ridiculous.
Why do people have this double-standard about the Xbox 360? If it's broken on you twic
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It's not limited to the Xbox; you can see similar low expectations with lots of computer or electronic devices. There is a general laziness/stupidity (it can be hard to tell the difference) that average users display due to basic computing that they do not display for things at least as complex, such as their finances, politics, religion, job skills, love lives, etc. This is why there arose the
Re:Explain something to me . . . (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think anyone has ever complained about the gaming experience, or how HD DVDs look on the XBox 360, but a lot of people have complained that it's not reliable, and a gaming system that can't game is, in most people's minds, a POS, or something equivalent.
Out of curiosity, how often does yours break? I know someone who went through three in a matter of six months. He ended up buying another one to ensure that he had a spare around when one needed to be sent in for warantee work...
Think different? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish they would go back to the ads showing how sexy the technology they offer is (like the PC with a mess of wires in the back compared to the iMac with nothing but the keyboard and mouse or the continuing awesome iPod ads with catchy tunes from bands with moderate success prior to the release of the video) instead of those crappy "attack" ads. Hell, go back to the old ads with the geek chic that was ever so popular here on Slashdot even.
Just enough talking about Vista and Windows -- they're starting to sound like politicians. In fact, they've been picking up other bad habits. My wife and I went into the Apple store at the Mall of America and while I was gawking and drooling over those huge displays, two of their employees launched a Best Buy style sales attack on her. She actually said, "you know, we used to enjoy entering this store and you're now very much like Best Buy, you might want to rethink that." The sales people actually left her alone after one replied, "sorry, I will bring that forward." Who knows if they did or not.
Think different, again, please!
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With microsft posting double digit increases [news.com] in Q4 revenue from client(vista) and business(office) divisions compared to last year, I guess microsoft failed at failing.
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It runs on batteries??
Re:Think different? (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, and I really can't say I like my Mac. I do, however, love those huge displays that I don't see demoed in any other store like they are in the Apple store. If drooling over hardware like those displays makes me an idiot, I guess I'll deal with it but for you to assume that it was because I was just drooling over it w/o any practical use for it then you're sorely mistaken.
as much as I dislike Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
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I've seen systems shipped with vista that had unsupported or broken components.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_(computer) [wikipedia.org]
And your sig mentions the xbox, is that not a case of microsoft building their own machines? They are diversifying into many different areas, who's to say they won't start making workstations again? Especially with the rising marketshare of apple, and the fact many people like the close integration between hardware and software.
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I'm not even sure "onerous security notifications" and "adherence to DRM" are valid statements. If you're seeing a bunch of UAC prompts, either you're running some really crap apps that don't understand how to work in a multi-user environment, you're doing a lot of admin work (in which case you may as well just turn off UAC), or you're doing som
Re:as much as I dislike Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
That's three times more than are necessary.
Obviously Vista has to follow certain rules in order to play HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray content, but that's the fault of the MPAA, not Microsoft. Either you implement the secure pipeline and require hardware to match (HDMI-everything), or you don't get to play that content at full resolution.
And if Microsoft, with 90+ percent of the market, said, "No, if you want to get your movies into our market, you'll get rid of this annoying, overhead causing crap that our consumers hate."
And as for the old, debunked rumor from several years prior to Vista's release you should read this [auckland.ac.nz], last updated earlier this year.
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In an average week of work + home computing, I see maybe two or three UAC prompts the entire time, and I'm running with UAC on.
That's three times more than are necessary.
To be honest, my personal experience with Windows Vista is not one I cherish nor want to repeat, but 3 times a week? I think I do more than that that requires me to authenticate on both Mac OS and Fedora during a week. That is, of course, depending on what you are doing to your computer, but power users tinker, and it's a good thing that tinkering requires authentication if it is exploitable.
Re:as much as I dislike Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
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By default, Microsoft should have left HD playback out of the OS. MS should have a HD/Content protection option for those who want to pay for a HD drive and use it with HD content. Build in HD DVD content protection into on OS that is loaded on a PC that doesn't even come with HD drives is a terrible mistake.
The ball wo
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Obviously Vista has to follow certain rules in order to play HD-DVD and/or Blu-Ray content, but that's the fault of the MPAA, not Microsoft.
BS. The *AA members need Microsoft more than Microsoft needs them. Imagine the hurt if MS announced that their systems will no longer play anything other than Red Book audio CDs. What's Jane Teenager more likely to do: run out and buy a Mac or just download her albums from now on?
Microsoft happily caved, pure and simple. They give the excuse that "the *AA made us do it!", but that's just a convenient cover story so they don't have to admit that they want DRM (so they can be the next iTunes Music St
Re:as much as I dislike Vista (Score:5, Informative)
True. Many people don't own printers or scanners or sound cards, and so will never notice that half their peripherals are now driverless.
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I'm not sure you understood my argument, I didn't say that Vista ran well on the hardware it supposedly does based on its system requirements. But that if I take off-the-shelf hardware, hardware that Vista will run well on, and show people how to install it and get it running smoothly, no one will bother me. If you do the same with OSX, though, if you run it on anything but the approved hardware (conveniently sold by Apple) and then show other
Order (Score:2)
Rootkit not as bad as puck mouse? (Score:2, Redundant)
How can a mouse with a somewhat confusing design be "worse" than someone selling a rootkit that compromises the security of functionality of your computer? Shouldn't crappy design take a back seat to outright sabotage?
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I agree that the mouse was poorly designed, but I used one a few times, and it didn't really cause problems. Every once in a while you'd realize it was oriented wrong, but it didn't break anything. As long as you kept it oriented wrong it was fine.
It's certainly not worse than Sony installing a damned *rootkit* on your computer on purpose. You're right, it did what it was designed to do, which was infect your computer with malware and break it. Now honestly, put your anti-Apple sentiments aside, which
The article should have been called (Score:5, Funny)
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Why the pro-Apple stance when the mouse was worse? (Score:3, Insightful)
(Yes yes, I know, "You must be new here."
Re:Why the pro-Apple stance when the mouse was wor (Score:2)
Torture device. (Score:3, Funny)
Gates gambles on Longhorn (Score:3, Informative)
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Virtualization is how Linux will win. (Score:3, Interesting)
Faint damning is almost praise. (Score:3, Insightful)
Praising Microsoft products again, I see.
Microsoft has once again released a product before it was finished. That has wasted the time of many, many educated people, dragging down their quality of life and their productiveness.
That is NOT "pointlessness". That is abuse.
The Crave "article" is embarassing (Score:5, Insightful)
The abundance of "lists as articles" makes me want to vomit, but this one takes the cake. They just randomly put down ten tech mistakes in an ad-baiting format (click here to see the next on the list - we won't tell you what it is, but if you click here, we'll get more ad revenue!). What's the time period? What are the criteria for selection?
The writers just pulled nonsense out of their asses, and somehow that passes as valuable information. In this so-called Information Age, one would think better writing would rise to the top. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. We get crap, but at least we get it instantly!
Windows, OS X, and Linux user (Score:5, Insightful)
You Just Made The Baby Jesus Cry!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh no it's not. UAC is not a security feature. I don't know what it is, security is not it.
"processes running in the sandbox are running as you, and so can read and write any files, Registry keys, and even other processes to which your account has access. That caveat creates major gaps in the walls of the sandbox and malicious code written with awareness of the restricted environment could take advantage of them to escape and become full administrator."
http://blogs. [technet.com]
How quickly we forget... (Score:3, Interesting)
Almost all of these complaints were exactly the same when XP was released. Memory, drivers, utility, etc... Vista runs all my games (which is why I have it) without a hitch, even the old DOSBoxed ones. I know we will have Mac fanboys up and down the aisles here so my probability of being modded down is higher, but so much software written for OS9 doesn't work on OSX any more at all. At least I can say that four OS versions later (95, 98, 2000, XP) and software CONTINUES to work (maybe not all of it) well... that's not too terrible either. I'm not saying Vista is "the shit" either -- I much prefer my Macbook for the OS use, but when I want to play my games, old and new... I can run them on Vista without a hitch.
I'll wait for SP1 to see how well Vista fares in the future, but as it stands right now, I haven't had a BSOD or a crash in over a month, and my games play fast and furious, though I do lose a few frames per second since the drivers just aren't as good for Vista yet.
I'll be patient, and remember my history.
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Along with the change from OS 9 to OSX, Apple has also changed from POWER to IA32, which is a completely different architecture.
How well do apps for Win 95 work on an AMD64 Vista computer? What about hardware drivers? Backwards compatability is cake if you are still using the same ISA, or a compatable ISA, see PS3:PS2 as compared to Xbox:Xbox 360.
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uac = ! evil (Score:3, Informative)
My friend who is a Mac die hard tells me - but you need to fiddle with the UAC prompt when setting the clock! Well? Guess what - you do on the Mac as well. Same with installing most apps, setting a good chunk of settings as well.
Also on the Mac if you try to copy a file into a directory you don't have permission to - it prompts for elevation - same as Vista.
I think most people are pissed off because it doesn't work like XP which let you have free run of the machine, but then the slashdot crowd bemoans the fact that XP is insecure. Microsoft fixes that - and now Vista is crap - I don't get it.
Fact is - I play games on my Vista box, browse the net, and watch "pirated" videos on it - and gasp - it works quite well. My TV tuner work, my scanner works, both my printers work, my video card works, everything works - and this is even the x64 version. I rarely ever have to deal with UAC unless I'm installing something.
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The difference is that only a few tasks on a Mac asks you for a password while nearly everything in Windows is considered an admin task. As an owner of a Mac, I can g
Re:uac = ! evil (Score:4, Interesting)
The only time you'll get -spammed- with UAC prompt is if you put user files directly in your C drive (in vista, user folders are in C:\Users, as opposed to Documents and Settings bullcrap of XP. That was one thing I was quite jealous of from Unix-style system, as they have more sensible defaults on that one, ie:
MS isn't kidding when they say the worse part of windows is bad software... Without bad drivers you can go for years without ever seeing Windows crash, without bad software you can go for weeks without seeing UAC...
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Last time I saw the UAC prompt on my Windows machine is when Firefox wanted to update itself. Before that I haven't seen it in at least a month.
If your
The Puck beats the rootkit? (Score:3, Informative)
Vista, MS garbage (Score:4, Interesting)
Puck mouse (Score:5, Interesting)
It may look much slicker, but Apple still could have learned from a similar design failure from a few years earlier. The old VAXstation 3100s [rwth-aachen.de] used a round mouse, and everyone hated the fucking things. As with the Puck mouse, you couldn't easily tell by feel how it was oriented, and with three buttons instead of one it wasn't difficult to accidentally use the wrong one.
At least Apple avoided the other problem with them. The VAXstation mice didn't use a ball, but a pair of cylinders mounted so as to engage the surface at right angles to each other. When you were using it at the edge of the mousepad, one of they cylinders would invariably go past the edge so that the cursor would stop moving in one direction.
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???
I use a 3-button mouse both at work and at home. The problem wasn't with the number of buttons, you ignorant foob, but the fact that with the mouse turned the wrong way it was easy hit the wrong one. If you're trying to do a quick copy to the command line in an Xterm, it's most annoying.
TFA isn't really about Vista (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, Vista is a crappy product, but its presence on this list isn't particularly noteworthy or interesting. And Vista is lame in a mostly non-mysterious way: thanks to preload arrangements, they're guaranteed some market success no matter how bad it is. Vista doesn't make you wonder, "WTF were they thinking? Did they really think they'd be able to sell this?"
The bad mouse is the same. If you bought an iMac at the wrong time, you were going to get one of those. It's lameness didn't really endanger Apple's profitability much.
No, the true "star" of this story has to really be the Barcode Battler. That is just spectacularly bad, and makes you wonder how they imagined making any money.
Re:Where's the DRM? (Score:4, Informative)
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That is hyperbole, there are plenty of people that leave it on. Turning it off is easy, however.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum [wikipedia.org]
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I'm too lazy to think of any product, maybe that's why I think they're cool?
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I can't think of anything else, except some of their games
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