Hostile ta Vista, Baby 663
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton adds his experience to the litany of woes with Microsoft Vista. Unlike most commentators who have a beef with the operating system, Bennett does a bit of surveying to bolster his points. Read his account by clicking on the magic link.
My brand-new-out-of-the-box Windows Vista machine could not access www.facebook.com. A nearby XP machine could, but the Vista machine couldn't. I went back to Circuit City to try out the other Vista demo machines, and they could access other sites but not Facebook, either. And that honeymoon feeling that you get when you buy a new computer and expect it to solve all your problems, was over for me. Having built my latest career on helping people access Facebook where they were blocked from it, by some cosmic joke was Vista now blocking me from getting to Facebook on my own machine?
I know, another article bashing Vista, what could be more banal. (Kids! That word, meaning "trite" or "unoriginal", is pronounced "ba-NAHL". If you say it the wrong way like I did in an interview, it sounds naughty and you sound stupid.) But in my own random survey of 30 Vista users on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service (a handy way to check these things), three quarters (23) said the only reason they were using Vista was that the PC store they went to didn't sell XP machines any more, and about half of all respondents (14) said that they would go back to Windows XP if they could. So I don't want to get a bunch of e-mails with Ron Paul links in the signature saying "Nobody has to use Vista if they don't want to!" (I'm aware that a survey of 30 people is too small to be scientific, but it's enough to get a ballpark figure for about $5 on Mechanical Turk.) Besides, the more people write testimonials to what they found frustrating about Vista, the more likely it is that some future version will keep what is good about the new OS, while providing a less frustrating interface (suggested name: "Vista 98").
It turns out the Facebook issue was not really Microsoft's fault -- www.facebook.com had a broken IPv6 record, and Vista defaults to using IPv6 where XP used IPv4, so that's why the host wasn't working. (In case you run into this with any other Web sites on Vista, I fixed the problem by disabling IPv6 in network settings and rebooting.) But it was one more example of something that used to work pre-Vista and then stopped working, and every case like that adds up to the overall frustration of switching to a new system, regardless of whose fault it is.
I hasten to add that I am not some partisan Microsoft basher. I like XP just fine, never more than when I went back to it after a few days on Vista, and I still think for that matter that Vista would be easier to switch to than Linux. Having been involved for years with free speech activism, I run into a lot of people in the same circles who are strong Linux advocates, apparently because the concept of "freedom of speech" is closely aligned with "making every file search as simple and stress-free as a Hamas hostage negotiation". So every year or two I'll try out the latest version of some Linux distro to see how long it would take to get used to it. In 2005, full of optimism, I cheerfully booted up the latest version of Shrike, then tried to find a directory and discovered I could not right-click on the hard drive root dir and specify the name of a directory I wanted to search for (that only worked for files, not directories). I posted a query to a Linux newsgroup, and a respondent told me that the solution was to open a command prompt and type "man find", which I am aware is a polite way of saying "screw you, newbie", but which I dutifully followed anyway and got an output screen of which the first paragraph was:
find searches the directory tree rooted at each given file name by evaluating the given expression from left to right, according to the rules of precedence (see section OPERATORS), until the outcome is known (the left hand side is false for and operations, true for or), at which point find moves on to the next file name.
and that was all my Linux for that year. Maybe I'm overdue to try it again. (Microsoft gives away their Virtual PC program that makes it easy to try other operating systems; I think it's a ploy to make us appreciate Windows more.) Now, I love the concept of a freely-distributable, freely-modifiable operating system, and I've recommended Linux to people when you need it to do something cool that Windows can't do, like bypassing Windows security by booting a PC from a CD. And it's done a lot of good for organizations like the One Laptop Per Child program, which can keep their costs down by using a free operating system. But to this day I've never heard an answer to one question: Since even Linux advocates admit that it's harder to use, what can you do with Linux that you can't do with Windows, to make it worth switching over to? If I was nervous about Vista because some of the interface had changed and some of my old programs no longer worked, it wasn't helpful to tell me to switch to a system where all of the interface would change and none of my old programs would work.
So, I wanted to like Vista. I knew that eventually everyone would have to upgrade anyway, so, not wanting to be left behind, I wanted to switch to Vista because of the same factor that spammers use to get your attention: "Other guys are improving themselves, why aren't you?" But there were some things I ran into almost immediately:
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Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer no longer have the "File / Edit / View" menu bars across the top of the window. Was this a big problem under XP? When the menus gave quick, two-click access to most actions that you could take within the application, was there a grassroots movement to have them removed? I did eventually find that you can hit the "Alt" key to bring the menus back, but why put people through that frustration? The most annoying feeling while using a computer is being yanked out of thinking about what you're doing with the computer to having to concentrate on how to use it.
Perhaps the idea was to steer users towards using the buttons on the toolbar, but there aren't enough buttons to cover all the options located under the menus. If the UI designers wanted to steer users gently towards using the buttons, my suggestion would have been: Whenever the user picks something under a menu that corresponds to something accessible from the toolbar, display a dialog box which says for example, "In the future, you can print faster by clicking the printer button on the toolbar", along with a picture (and a "Do not show this message again" checkbox -- important!).
- Windows Explorer also did away with the "Up" button that lets you browse from the current directory to the higher-level directory. Again, probably not in response to a groundswell of users demanding for that button to be removed, when it took up about one square centimeter of screen space. Supposedly Windows Explorer makes up for this by displaying the entire path to the current directory in the address bar, so that if the path is "C:\Financial Records\Chris Pirillo\ Pectoral Real Estate\", you can click on "Chris Pirillo" to go one directory higher. The trouble is that I frequently give my directories extremely long and descriptive names like (this is a real example) "Flash-Player-8.5.0.246-beta2.downloaded-2006-03-20-from-labs.macromedia.com" so that I can keep track of where and when I got each piece of downloaded software, in case I ever need to go back to a previous version that the software maker no longer makes available because they're trying to steer me away from it (ironically, "Vista syndrome"). With a directory that has a long name like that, the higher-level directories aren't visible in the address bar, so I had to locate it manually in the left-hand tree view panel. OK, knock off the violins, the point is that I didn't have to do that in XP.
- I have an older monitor, so I wanted to turn ClearType off. The IE7 help file describes how to do this in IE, but that didn't work for me no matter how many times I tried, and my eyes were aching by the time I found out that in Vista it's a default system-wide setting that overrides IE's setting until you change the system-wide one. I would have suggested putting one line in the IE7 help file: "Note: if your operating system such as Windows Vista is set to use ClearType system-wide, you must disable this as well to disable ClearType in IE."
- Virtual PC, which worked on all versions of Windows XP, is not supported on Vista Home Premium. I need Virtual PC (for reasons other than Linux-bashing), so this was a deal-breaker.
- Telnet no longer installed by default. Even though I use a different telnet program for regular use, telnet.exe was handy to test whether a remote machine was reachable on a given port. (For example, in a command prompt, type "telnet www.yahoo.com 80" and when the command prompt screen goes blank, that means the machine www.yahoo.com is accepting responses on port 80, the standard port for Web traffic. Try connecting to port 81 instead, and you get no response on that port. This can be useful when diagnosing problems with Web servers and other programs.) Even though it's not hard to get telnet back, why would they go to the trouble of removing it?
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The aforementioned Facebook problem. This seemed so startling at the time that I almost stopped everything to write an article just about that, musing on Microsoft having so much power that all PC stores were now exclusively stocking computers running an OS that, at the time anyway, couldn't access Facebook. But then I asked another bunch of users on Mechanical Turk, and all respondents using Vista said they could access Facebook after all. Of course, this wasn't a random sample, since users who bought Vista and couldn't access Facebook, probably would have returned their machines a long time ago, but I'm still not sure what caused it to work on some machines and not others -- all I know is that Facebook was inaccessible until I disabled IPv6.
I know Facebook is reading these articles, since in November I wrote about how you could circumvent Facebook's system of verifying that users were real high school students, by doing the following: "(1) create a profile of a non-overweight girl and sign up as a member of a high school network, pending confirmation; (2) search for several boys in that network and send them friend requests; and (3) wait for at least one of them to confirm you back". Shortly afterwards, Facebook changed the verification system, so that now, if you're confirming someone who is a pending member of a high school network but no one else has confirmed them yet, Facebook warns you, "Only check this box if you're absolutely sure that you know this person." So, whichever of Mark Zuckerberg's friends is reading my articles: Clever idea, and, keep the IPv6 records working.
That was as far as I got before I stopped trying to get used to Vista and started taking notes for this article (working title: "Vist Vucked"). From the Mechanical Turk users who responded to my survey, the other most common reported problems were: software compatibility, hardware compatibility, difficulty with the UI, and running too slowly. Presumably the first two problems will improve over time, but the UI will always be hard to switch to as long as users can't find functions that were easy locatable in the old interface, and if it runs slower than XP, that will always be a factor no matter how fast your computer is. (However fast it runs Vista, you'd always be able to make it run even faster with XP instead!)
The best things I've heard about Vista have been that (a) it is the most secure Windows ever (which Dave Barry says is like calling asparagus the "most articulate vegetable ever"), and (b) it features better multimedia integration. To which my responses were: (a) the number of incomprehensible warnings that Vista flashes at a user whenever they look at the computer funny, does not make it more secure, because users will condition themselves to just ignore those warnings, and (b) I hate watching TV on my computer anyway.
Since TV/PC integration is a major selling point for Vista, I thought this last issue was worth looking harder at: Do people really want to use their computers to watch TV? My computer monitor is in an office where I sit up close when I'm working; but TV feels more comfortable to watch from several feet away, and in my office I can't even scoot my chair back that far. (And if I lived with family, I doubt they'd want to crowd into my office to watch a movie.) In fact, I like the psychological separation of the TV set in the living room from the distractions of the computer in the office: I go in there when I'm done with everything in here. The only way I'd regularly download and watch movies would be if I had a way to send them wirelessly to my TV, but a wireless PC-to-TV converter and the corresponding receiver together cost about $200.
Seeking more validation of my opinions from strangers, I did another survey of 30 Mechanical Turk users, asking if they would rather drive to a movie rental store or download a movie online for the same price. Almost half (14) said they'd rather drive to the movie store, citing the comfort of watching the movie on their TV as opposed to on the computer. Another fourth of the respondents (8) said they'd download the movie but only if they could send the content to their TV to watch, and only the last fourth (8) said they'd actually watch it on their computer monitor. So the future of convergence between PC and TV will probably be not in all-in-one systems but in devices that link the PC in your study with the TV in your living room, and since there's no household name yet for PC-to-TV linkage, the field is wide open for some lucky company to make a product that becomes synonymous with the concept, the way "TiVo" is easier to say than "Digital Video Recorder". Maybe that will be a boost for systems like Vista. If that happens at about the same time that a Vista successor is released that makes the interface easier to switch to from XP, I'll bet that will be the tipping point that gets people switching voluntarily. (Of course many people will switch by then just because they need a new computer and they couldn't find one with anything but Vista on it.)
Anyway, I was only trying a new Vista machine because the hard drive on my old computer died, but after all the data had been recovered, I just installed a new drive in the old machine and went back to XP, while my Vista machine was returned to its perch, gargoyle-like, on the shelves at Circuit City, waiting to pounce on the next unsuspecting wretch with dreams of self-improvement through newer computer purchases. The only remnant of Vista that I have left is IE7, which was installed by my Windows XP restore disk and can't be removed, and which is incompatible with some sites and programs that I need, so I've been using Firefox more and getting to like it. That's lucky, since I've already offended the loyal software-logo-wearing constituencies of Vista and Linux, and wouldn't want to deal with the Firefox crowd too. As my friend Anne Mitchell says, "Admitting you hate Firefox is almost as bad as admitting to being Republican." (Except that when Firefox screws with a page, the chat logs don't end up on national television. Ba-dump-bump!)
This just in... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
Frequent Slashdotter hates Vista
Up next, Frequent Slashdotter finally moves to Ubuntu, feels that this is the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
Killer app not really needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yes, but other than being useful, usable, reliable, extensible, free, and unencumbered, what does Linux have going for it?" - Hamilcar Barca
No, really, I get it. Linux needs a "killer app" and all that. For me, it's general media munging on the cheap. I can back up DVDs, transcode movies to other formats (like storing some cartoons and such on my Treo to keep kids entertained) and so forth. I can play practically any media format on Earth without having to install little background processes from various companies on my machine (Quicktime, Real, etc.) (Linux also ran most of my Windows games better than Vista did.)
That's not enough to make a bunch of people switch en masse, I totally agree. But the 'barrier to switching' has dropped enormously just in the last couple of years. There are a lot fewer dealbreakers, Linux is getting good at a lot of these little niche areas too, and more and more of the real action is moving to the web anyway. There won't be a "Year of the Linux Destkop" any more than there was a "Year of the Linux Server" - people will just switch over, a few here, a few there, and eventually it'll be a solid and respected option among many on the desktop, the same way it now is on the server. (Linux is effectively immortal, so it's got all the time in the world to wait.)
Vista sucking is a nice short-term bonus for Linux, but the long-term trends are what counts here.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
For a long time Windows user, Linux is just as hard as Windows is for a long time Linux/Unix user.
This has nothing to do with GUI, TUI or whatever. I'm sure most people forgotten, but when "regular/average" users started migrating from DOS to Windows they found it very difficult and confusing.
Doing something different from what you are used to is ALWAYS more difficult. Get over it.
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Doing something different from what you are used to is ALWAYS more difficult. Get over it.
Lets say I want to switch over to Linux because its more secure. Now lets also say I work with Photoshop and other professional digital art packages. Now your saying that my switch will be more difficult cause switching is always difficult. To get software that is not officially supported on Linux to work is a "bitch" to do and Photoshop is one of those programs, and don't say use GIMP cause it has a serious handicap of not supporting CMYK.
The thing is that we can get everything working on Linux you
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
The flaw in your thinking is that you are only trying to find Linux versions of Windows softwares. But you will also have difficult finding Windows versions of many Linux/Unix softwares. Yes, I know about Cygwin and others, but that is just like telling people to use Wine.
One more point you make is about the time needed to get a Linux workstation up and running. I agree that is true for many of the favorite Linux distributions here on slashdot, but not always true. I have a few clients that use RedHat Enterprise, and the time it takes for them to get a RHEL computer up and running is about the same they take to get a Windows computer up and running.
You do have a point that for the applications (usually pirated) that Joe Sixpack uses are not always so easy to get on Linux (Corel and Photoshop). But them I have to ask what a person that works with Corel and Photoshop all the time want for a Linux computer. They already picked the software, so their options is not limited by the security, capabilities or easy to use of a given OS. They are limited by the OSs supported by the software itself.
This all falls a little off the "easy to use" discussion, like comparing apples and oranges. Lets take a comparative scenario. A Windows and a Linux workstation, both running OpenOffice. Which will be easier to use ? For me, Linux. For most people, Windows, because that is what they are used to.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:4, Interesting)
THANK YOU for bringing this up, because it's seriously the only thing that keeps me from switching completely over to Linux. I run dual-boot Mac OS X Leopard and Ubuntu Gutsy. Until there's an exact equivalent (not an "almost" equivalent) to Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Fireworks on linux, I can't switch. At all. Not only do I need those to communicate with clients (a lot of slashdotters completely forget that some of us geeks studied design, too), but I'm used to using them, and that's more than just switching OSes. The key combinations in those programs are so deeply ingrained in my very soul that I'm just used to rocking out designs absurdly quickly. Because I'm so used to these programs (NOT because they're inherently better; Photoshop I'm looking at you!), it would be a severe blow to my productivity to have to switch to anything else at this point. Switching from Photoshop to Fireworks for web design mockups (not photo editing) was like a religious experience for me because it genuinely was more efficient and, most importantly, all those little key combinations were the same.
It pains me to say it, but open source software needs to focus on making software that feels the same as what people are used to. Then, people will be more likely to think the price is right to switch.
CYMK? (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's right. The new and improved system wide Clippy.
Don't give them ideas. Some asshole will read this and go to work at Microsoft on Monday and people are going to talk about actually doing this. Clippy is a smug little bastard, and he should die.
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We Fear Change! (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a commonly propagated misconception. For anyone that has a basic understanding of what they are trying to do, good interface design should make things simple, regardless of what you are used to.
I have worked through various versions of DOS, Windows, Solaris, Linux and other Unices, and Mac OS, as well as various Commodore products in the last 30 some years.
There is always a learning curve when switching to a ne
Linux will NEVER have a killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
It'll never happen. That is, Linux will never have a killer app that is not also available on window$.
Reason: Any killer app produced by the open source crew will be ported to window$ in the blink of an eye after(perhaps even before) said app becomes "killer".
Any closed source killer app that runs on Linux will be poorly supported(compared to FOSS apps) as all are now and the prime source of revenue will be the window$ version which will always be bugfixed and otherwise updated more often/before the Linux version.
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Re:Linux will NEVER have a killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask the OS/2 guys how well that worked out [wikipedia.org]. Nobody developed for OS/2, since they could just write a Windows app and have it work on OS/2. But without native OS/2 apps, there was no real reason to adopt OS/2...
Linux wins by being easier and cheaper to develop for. Fortunately, there are good cross-platform libraries these days, which make porting a lot simpler. And the spread of such cross-platform apps for the key user needs (e.g. Firefox & Thunderbird) makes switching to Linux much less of a learning experience.
INNOVATION is the killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this is exactly what Linux doesn't need, at least not if you want it to be successful on the desktop.
STOP TRYING TO MAKE LINUX BE WINDOWS!!! People already have Windows, they don't need a replacement. That's why they don't switch. The "replacement Windows" idea was already tried: it was called OS/2 Warp for Windows, and we know what happened there. (Never heard of it? Bingo.)
Look at where Linux's successes are: Servers and mobile devices - places where Linux doesn't try to emulate Windows. Places where developers actually innovated instead of just copying. The robustness, versatility, and stability of a Linux server - that's the killer app for servers. The portability and the ability to do unique interfaces like those on the XO or the Eee - that's the killer app for devices.
It doesn't just work for Linux. Apple too sees the most success where it has tried to take the lead: the iPod, iPhone, MacBook, etc. In this case it's the simplicity and/or distinct function-meets-form interfaces that provide the edge. If they made the iPod be like every other MP3 player, and the MacBook like every other laptop, Apple might not even exist now.
Don't try to beat Microsoft at its own game. You can't. The way to beat them is to change the game entirely. I've been saying this for years, but sadly developers still waste tons of time and effort trying to make Linux be Windows. If only they instead put this into making the next big breakthrough in user interface or computer design using Linux as the platform. Something that 15 years for now will make us say "I can't believe we used to use a desktop window interface" in much the same way we now talk about dumb terminals and typewriters. It's gonna happen anyhow, so why not do it on Linux?
I don't know what this something is yet but I do know nobody's going to find it if all they are looking at is Windows.
Re:INNOVATION is the killer app (Score:5, Insightful)
Until the companies that make the applications I use start releasing Linux versions, I can't make Linux my only operating system, no matter how much I would like to.
I'm doing my best, as a music and video producer, to use the apps that work in Ubuntu Studio. They are getting better all the time, but they're just not there yet. I've got to get my work done. I've got a development system with Ubuntu Studio and I use it for lots of tasks (especially rendering and management of my clips and samples) and it's effective, but I've got an investment in virtual instruments and effects (audio and video), midi and video gear, and they just won't work there. But every year it gets better and I keep trying.
Of course, the best thing that could happen is to have a strong third party create a professional operating system that works on my hardware. I'd use OSX in a second if it ran on my system, but I'm just not seeing enough difference between Apple and Microsoft to justify the huge commitment required for me to give up my Windows apps and preferred hardware for a Mac, and I've got a basic opposition to any OS that requires proprietary hardware.
Finally, I'd say that OS/2's failure wasn't because it didn't work or wasn't as good as Windows. But that's an old issue and I hope it doesn't permanently discourage those that would develop a new commercial desktop OS.
Re:Killer app not really needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
useful: In the same way that Esperanto is useful. Yet, almost no one uses that either. Why? Because they would have to learn something new.
usable: For some people in some circumstances. But, what about those people that never want to see a command line? Or have laptops with broadcom wireless? Or want to use an app not available for whatever distribution they are using? Or a Windows program that won't run under WINE?
reliable: Yeah, and so is a properly maintained Windows box.
extensible: Most people don't care about this. The vast majority of people are not going to "extend" their operating system, even the geeks.
free: Windows came with my computer and it would have cost MORE to get the computer without Windows. That makes Windows effectively free to me. My time is valuable. Linux is not free when I have to sink time into getting and installing it.
unencumbered: Most people don't care about this. Most people don't even have a clue as to what you are talking about.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's much less of a problem these days. Every damn gizmo in the world - cell phones, kiosks, even DVD players - comes with its own menu system and all that. People - particularly the younger crowd - are used to learning new interface variants all the time. And the GUIs for Linux are getting pretty dang polished by now. Speaking of which...
They don't have to; not any more than most Windows type
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Linux is useful: To most users, no more so than a computer with any other operating system installed; and often less so because the programs that they rely on to get their daily work done are not available.
Linux is usable: Did you read the part of the article where searching for a directory is mentioned? There are a large number of things that could be done to increas
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Oh, and as for Windows crashing while running games using the latest drivers: Sometimes the latest drivers are crap. As an example, the latest XP d
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Oh that's easy. Linux comes with stuff like find, xargs, grep, sed, etc. So, for example, if I have a text file like this(which I often do in the course of my work):
I can find all the res
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You are th
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No, not even close. A killer app would have to appeal to the masses, not just computer geeks who want to run one OS on another.
The killer app for the adoption of PCs was VisiCalc, not because it appealed to computer geeks, but because it appealed to many businessmen.
A killer app for Linux would have to be available on Linux or work best on Linux, appeal to everyone, and have a strong enough appeal to make it worth while to learn a new system.
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First off, dual monitors.. what a PITA it isn't funny... okay, it really wasn't that bad.. enable the nvidia restricted driver... reboot, open a command prompt, type sudo nvidia-settings (WTF!?! Command Prompt, already lost about 1/2 of any potential users there)... Enable the second display, twinview, position right-of
Second, I'm using 4gb of ram, so x64, or lo
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Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's absolutely correct. But it's not like Windows just works. In point of fact I've spent Waaayyyyy too many hours of my life pursuing weird problems in Windows, clearing malware off windows PCs, waiting for the stupid thing to boot, or shut down, or trying to persuade it to please -- god damn it -- correctly install some piece of software that purports to be Windows friendly/compatible/tolerant and installs just fine on the supposedly identical machine in the next room.
In point of fact, modern Linux distributions have a fair chance of coming up and running Open Office, a web browser, and an e-mail program without tinkering. They may well play CDs and MP3s. If, OTOH, you want to run GoogleEarth, you're likely in for a long afternoon.
At least with Linux, I don't have that ongoing "I really paid money for this piece of excrement?" feeling that I've had with every Windows since 95.
I will be a happy man if I never have to run Regedit again.
Re:This just in... (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, you don't have to worry about it "coming up", either - since you almost never have to reboot it, unless your distro just sent you a kernel upgrade.
The only time I reboot Linux is when I had to boot into Windows to do client work. And I dread that, because as soon as the desktop comes up on Windows - there's a problem. It might be waiting updates, it might be anything. The one thing I can guarantee is - there's a problem. And that problem will take an hour to resolve, delaying the reason I booted into Windows in the first place.
Anybody who thinks Linux is "hard" is simply someone who doesn't need anything more than a browser and an email client anyway.
Fortunately I've never paid for Windows since I got XP and 98 free from a developer who had open seats, and I got 2003 Server and some other Windows software (which I've never used) free from the educational program I was in. So I've never had to complain about the cost - except of course for the cost of my wasted time on this crap.
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I don't disagree, but I would add that neither are PCs.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdotter discovers after years of XP bashing that he in fact is an avid XP supporter.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
AAAH!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
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Anon because I modded in here already . . .
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess MS should have checked every IPv6 site out there and ensured they worked fine, and if they found any that didn't (like facebook, because they are too incompetent to setup IPv6 correctly for their site) then IPv6 should again default to not enabled.
Oh, lets not forget "30 isn't a good scientific sample size, but because I live in my mom's basement and can only spend $5 to get 'statistics, I'll continue to use data I know is not representitive to prove my point. Oh yes, and I understand that such polls regardless of size are worthless, because people happy with Vista won't go out en masse and post praise."
What an ass.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The responsibility of checking that sites display properly falls with the IE team. The responsibility of ensuring that IE can connect to webservers falls with the networking team. The responsibility of ensuring that your server can be reached by
Most puzzling (Score:4, Informative)
"Where do you want to go today?"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Just because you want something doesn't mean you are going to get it"
Finally, a reason to buy Vista! (Score:5, Funny)
banal (Score:5, Funny)
Canal with a B (Score:2, Informative)
I've never heard this word used in English before, but he's correct that in French it's pronounced like canal with a B.
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I've never heard this word used in English before, but he's correct that in French it's pronounced like canal with a B.
Re:banal (Score:5, Informative)
According to one source [reference.com]:
There are few things more satisfying than demonstrating that a pedant is wrong.
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The article's author is presenting a pronunciation opinion as a "fact":
(Kids! That word, meaning "trite" or "unoriginal", is pronounced "ba-NAHL". If you say it the wrong way like I did in an interview, it sounds naughty and you sound stupid.)
The fact is that only a mere 46% of a set of experts in American English pronunciation agreed that banal rhymes with "canal". In other words, that set of experts would disagree with his claim.
From American Heritage:
"The pronunciation of banal is not settled among educated speakers of American English. Sixty years ago, H.W. Fowler recommended the pronunciation (rhyming with panel), but this pronunciation is now regarded as recondite by most Americans: it is preferred by only 2 percent of the Usage Panel. Other possibilities are (rhyming with anal), preferred by 38 percent of the Panel; (rhyming with canal), preferred by 46 percent; and (the last syllable rhyming with doll), preferred by 14 percent (this last pronunciation is more common in British English)."
Source: http://www.bartleby.com/61/18/B0051800.html [bartleby.com]
Next thing he'll be telling us is that "Windows Vista" and "Piece of Shit" aren't hom
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Another one for the annals of Slashdot language usage.
Re: (Score:2)
You are correct. There are, in fact, 3 accepted pronunciations according to Webster, including the one that rhymes with anal!
I have to say, the submitter had more stick-with-it-ness than me. I lasted about 2 hours with Vista before I reverted to XP. I still periodically run Vista in a VM when my work requires it (mainly to fix Vista-specific problems in our app, which have been few, but major), but it drives me nuts whenever I have to u
Re:banal (Score:4, Funny)
To clarify, he was being an-AHL.
Can't access facebook? (Score:5, Funny)
You think personal use is bad? (Score:2)
Re:You think personal use is bad? (Score:5, Funny)
None of the vertical apps worked, he was calling tech support constantly. After leaving him that way for 30 days the next tech meeting we had him in, I said, "vista works perfectly on X's machine, do we still want to look at migrating?"
He spoke up and said, "NO! Let's test it for a few more months." after the meeting he asked for a second laptop, with XP on it so he can "compare".
his Vista laptop has not been logged in on for over 45 days now, I wonder why?
Nice read (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see if consumers decide that the Apple TV (take 2) is the lucky device to connect the internet and TV.
Re:Nice read (Score:5, Insightful)
I found the article to be written by someone just out of high school and happened to get A's in his English and writing classes. Half of the article just rambles about facebook. Another good chunk just talks about Virtual PC and the author's lack of knowledge about *nix. And as a reader, I can't be bothered to read commentary about the pronunciation "banal." In fact it is insulting to me because it implies that I cannot pick up and use a dictionary.
The only pieces of Vista (bashing) you can find in this article are the following:
The title of the article should literally be renamed to "Vista Can't Access Facebook :( (I'm Unbiased...Really! :)". I'll admit it, I have a facebook account, but I was dragged into it by a good friend of mine and haven't logged in for months. I don't care about your issues with facebook and I even doubt half of facebook care about your issues with facebook because they're probably inactive like me. If people like me don't care, why should people on Slashdot?
The only reason why Slashdot should like this article is because it puts down Vista. But if you read carefully, you will understand that the guy is actually a Microsoft kid that had a bad experience with one of Microsoft products. What geek doesn't or has never used *nix find? What geek actually prefers Virtual PC to the alternatives? I'm running VirtualBox on Vista with Ubuntu installed on VirtualBox just fine. What geek decides to go to Circuit City when his hard drive dies, buys a Vista PC, and later returns it? Perhaps his motives were to exploit Circuit City's return policy, but I'd rather go computer-less for three days than be bothered with anal Circuit City salesmen...err workers for even for 5 minutes. And real geeks use netcat, not telnet.
Something is seriously wrong with Slashdot if meaningless drivel like this gets on the front-page and categorized as "surveying". Oh silly me, this is Slashdot. Bash Vista = +5 informative. In truth I could probably write just as good of a bullshit article and call my "surveying" polling of random anonymous internet forums. (And for all you kiddies out there that's bullshit, you know the word that's commonly simplified to BS when you can't swear in school.)
There are many honest rants about Vista that I can accept. But this is not one of them.
Circuit City shoppers are the Slashdot standard? (Score:5, Insightful)
Has the slashdot demographic decayed this much?
Re:Circuit City shoppers are the Slashdot standard (Score:2)
Snobish Much? (Score:4, Insightful)
And can we skip all the crap about whose fault it is? Yes, Facebook screwed up. But if a leading OS can't access a leading web site, people need to know about it, and don't really care whose fucking fault it is.
I'm sure a lot of people are tired of hearing about How Vista Sucks. But the issue isn't going to go away. It's getting harder and harder to buy new machines that run XP, and Microsoft wants to make it impossible. This is stuff I want to hear about, especially when the writer covers problems I hadn't heard about before, like this guy did. As it happens, these issues are key for me, because I desperately want to get Vista's improved handwriting engine for my tablet; that makes Vista problems of extreme interest to me.
If you don't share that interest, well, nobody's forcing you to read TFA.
Re: (Score:2)
Circuit City shoppers ARE typical Windows users (Score:3, Insightful)
No, sounds like their DNS was broken. But anyway.....
This guy sounds like a typical above average end user. What is typically referred to as a 'power user' in that he knows the basics and is probably the go to guy for everyone else in his peer group. And all of his complaints about capricious changes in the Vista interface vs XP are valid for bith his group and the induhviduals at the bottom of the user pyramid. Change == bad pretty much sum
Re:Circuit City shoppers are the Slashdot standard (Score:3, Insightful)
I grok the general push to IPv6 and all, but you'd think they would have at least tried to follow the (what I thought to be)
O rly? (Score:5, Funny)
Vista's Security.... (Score:5, Interesting)
From Microsoft's perspective it's worth every man-hour that went into it because they can plausibly say, "But Vista is sooo great, it warned you and YOU ignored it. Sucks to be you." Which papers over the geek-fact that UAC is a permeable barrier to root-ish priviledge, so really nothing technically like sudo despite what Microsoft marketing will tell you.
Answers to Some of the Complaints (Score:3, Informative)
2) Up button is gone, but if you have a side button on your mouse that will take you up one level in Windows Explorer.
3) Telnet is dead, long live SSH. Like he said, it's easy to install telnet if you need it.
I run Vista Business x64 and it's far more stable than XP. The biggest improvements for me are the new Windows Update, the new wireless networking connection tool and indexed searching. I have no complaints about speed but I have 2GB of memory. I think those with 1GB or less probably have legitimate complaints.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Except someone that switched to Vista or IE7 would have no frickin' clue why the menus are missing. Doesn't MS have some usability testers that actually figure out if this shit makes sense to an actual user? Like, you know, the kind of person that might buy a computer at Circuit City?
weakly done (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this particular vista bashing bashing is very poorly done. Not reading TFA is standard for /., but admitting that one has only read the less impressive part of TFA while bashing lacks class.
Not to mention that no other OS seemed to have problems with Facebook. Vista was the only one that insisted in IPv6, and wouldn't fall back on IPv4. With the current situation, that's dumb. (Nor do I have any sympathy whatsoever with a claim by Microsoft about somebody else not following standards.)
Where files were downloaded from... (Score:2)
AmigaOS used to do something similar, anything you downloaded had a "filenote" that contained the full URL. A filenote is a smal text string associated with the file, a file comment.
I believe OSX Leopard can do something similar, because when you try to run something you downloaded it tells you where you downloaded it from... But i'm not sure how to query this information manually.
The Amiga implementation w
My favorite Vista rant... (Score:5, Funny)
So where does Microsoft even go to find programmers this stupid? Elbonia? How do you screw up an operating system this badly and still make money with it?
Re:My favorite Vista rant... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
(Windows 2003 Server user)
Re:My favorite Vista rant... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, I am a system administrator, and yes I can make vista run decently well and crash free on a computer. That's because I've had 20
Tried Linux? (Score:2)
Shrike? Shrike? I've used linux for around 4 years and I have never heard of Shrike, and I play around with all the unkown versions too. If you don't want to like linux, why don't you just try and use a distro that isn't mainstream and won't be nearly as easy/good/fun as something like Fendora or Ubuntu. Oh, w
shrike... (Score:3, Informative)
'Shrike' is the development name for Red Hat 9 [distrowatch.com]. Scroll down the distrowatch page to see the columns with release names.
Kind of like calling a Windows release 'Joliet', 'Chicago' or 'Cairo'.
Why all the cities in Illinois?
Re: (Score:2)
So, the predecessor of Fedora. (I'll note that I've never heard of Fendora.
man find (Score:2)
find . -type f -name "file_name_here" -print
It's a complicated command that can do a lot, but that basic example will work for the majority of your simple file searches. From there it might be easier to branch out and fuss with other options (such as -mtime 1 would search for a file modified in the last day) but this should hopefully get you started.
Peace.
This is an IPv6 conversion headache (Score:2)
His main complaint is really an IPv6 conversion problem. Facebook probably works on Vista from network connections that can't get an IPv6 connection at all, because the client presumably tries IPv4. But he was apparently testing from some connection that could pass IPv6 packets to Facebook, and Vista properly tried to use IPv6. It's a legitimate complaint if this problem isn't properly reported to the user.
We're going to be seeing more of this. Rollout of IPv6 to consumers only started a few weeks ago.
Re: (Score:2)
What the..? (Score:2)
I know, another article bashing Vista, what could be more banal. (Kids! That word, meaning "trite" or "unoriginal", is pronounced "ba-NAHL". If you say it the wrong way like I did in an interview, it sounds naughty and you sound stupid.)
Where on earth did this come from? Did your ADD suddenly kick in?
You what makes you sound stupid - it's throwing random sophomoric crap non-sequitirs like this into your harangue (BTW that's pronounced as if it rhymes with "meringue", which is a type of dessert).
I'm a Mac user, and I like puppies.
Hiding menus (Score:2)
Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer no longer have the "File / Edit / View" menu bars across the top of the window. Was this a big problem under XP? When the menus gave quick, two-click access to most actions that you could take within the application, was there a grassroots movement to have them removed?
While I am somewhat critical of how Microsoft elected to implement this feature, I like the fact that they are offering a hide menu bar feature. My opinion is based on how Amiga software was designed, which in all fairness was designed to accommodate a 12-13 inch monitor. The file bar employed auto hiding and most applications supported a full screen mode. In the microsoft world, it's rare to find software that uses full screen mode, something that is mega handy for desktop publishing/word processing no
kdawson: Did you even read this submission? (Score:5, Interesting)
- The writer spends majority of his 'review' on the fact that he couldn't access Facebook, despite the fact that he admits this was an issue with Facebook's website itself, not Vista.
- And an embedded link to rentmychest.com? C'mon kdawson, did you even read this submission?
- He gives his directories names like "Flash-Player-8.5.0.246-beta2.downloaded-2006-03-20-from-labs.macromedia.com"? Is this a joke?
- He complains about telnet.exe not being available, despite the fact that he doesn't use it normally in the first place?
- Is this a review of Vista, or an ad for Mechanical Turk?
My Vista experience... (Score:5, Funny)
The whole thing was very satisfying and I can type "find . -type f -exec grep some-string {} \; -print" whenever I want and it'll work.
(I'm not trying to bash Windows here--I just like Linux better. I bought the computer as a Linux machine and wanted to see what all the fuss was about and if it was worth keeping a small Vista partition around for a bit. Vista showed me it wasn't pretty quickly but I still have the install CD and license sticker in case I change my mind.)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Don't fork a new grep for each filename, if you can avoid it.
If that's not what you wanted, consider learning to use 'xargs', perhaps:
'find . -type f | xargs -n 1000 grep -l some-string'
The '-n 1000' is there in case the output of 'find' would exceed Linux's built-in 128k limit of command-line length.
Vista messed up Windows Explorer (Score:5, Insightful)
Minus: They totally botched up the column resizing method on the "details" view of Explorer. In XP, it's very cut & dry. YOu hover your mouse between the bars to resize them. Why is this now such a pain in Vista? I swear you have to go to the right a bit to it. It doesn't seem synced up with the mouse pointer "hot spot" end. It was never something that was broken to begin with, but they decided to "improve it". Even switching back to the classic Windows theme(I always do this to make remote desktop faster) still gives you the problem.
I do wonder if Vista fixed the annoying "searching for items" problem. You go into explorer, and you might have a few network drives. You quickly see a flash of your whole file tree, then it blanks it out for your convienence while it "searches for items". This might take a while.
Did they also fix the irritating "my network places"? It's tricky to remove the months-old entries in there(which pile up after a while), since if you directly click on one of the locations that might not be there anymore, it takes a 2 minute wait to say no. Then it's a bit annoying to delete.
The latest IE took TOO MUCH out of the freakin' gui. Bring back the basic buttons. I don't care if it takes up more real estate. I've gotten too used to the firefox button set.
How to really fix one of the problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the idea was to steer users towards using the buttons on the toolbar, but there aren't enough buttons to cover all the options located under the menus. If the UI designers wanted to steer users gently towards using the buttons, my suggestion would have been: Whenever the user picks something under a menu that corresponds to something accessible from the toolbar, display a dialog box which says for example, "In the future, you can print faster by clicking the printer button on the toolbar", along with a picture (and a "Do not show this message again" checkbox -- important!).
How to fix:
1. Read In The Beginning Was The Command Line http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html [cryptonomicon.com]
2. Realize that you once again traded in the crappy station wagon that broke down the day you drove it off the lot for another crappy station wagon, although newer, that broke down as soon as you drove it off the lot - same make, same dealer.
3. Come to the realization that as long as you think it's your job to excuse why your station wagon broke down - after all, everyone seems to drives one and everyone seems to give those excuses and suggestions - then you are doomed to keep buying broken down station wagons and you become part of the encouragement to dealer and maker to just keep up what they do - and some day, you'll be part of the mass of station wagon buyers that influenced someone else to follow this behavior.
4. Once this realization is established, the problem is solved, and it elegantly leaves you two options.
Option A - Rationalize away what you've just realized, and now your problem is solved: this pretty much includes not having any further questions on the subject and whenever you hear someone else complain about the idiocy of driving a broken down station wagon at new car prices, roll your eyes with the knowing, "he's just a Microsoft basher!" explanation.
Option B - Vow to never repeat this mistake. This pretty much includes going across the intersection to another corner, and picking up one of the free tanks - yes, I mean as in big, mean Army tank! - and drive it or the other corner and pay about the same as you did or will over your use-time for a sleeker, fun car that breaks down about as often as the Army tank - ie, virtually never. If you have something that can only be done using a broken down station wagon, you'll find your tank has a thing called WINE that will let you drive parts of the little station wagon around inside your tank or you'll find your sleek car lets you play broken down station wagon inside a couple of videogames called Parallels or VMWare.
Once you have followed this path, you will have magically answered this question, too:
But to this day I've never heard an answer to one question: Since even Linux advocates admit that it's harder to use, what can you do with Linux that you can't do with Windows, to make it worth switching over to?
If you solved your problem by going with Option B, you've realized that the question isn't going to be ever answered. Because you just asked, "Why don't I get a simple answer to one question: Ever since I saw that a tank might be harder to drive, why would I want a free tank that never breaks down when I can keep paying for the privilege of driving a crappy station wagon guaranteed to be broken down by design?"
If you solved your problem by going with Option A, you've realized that broken down station wagon drivers throwing good money after bad are much more clever than free tank drivers or sleek car drivers. (Don't forget to gloat, even if done ever so humbly.)
Hope it's not to late for the author in question - best luck, compadre.
PS - I have never recommended the online version of "In The Beginning..." - ever. I always insist people buy the book. It seems to help those preconditioned to buy what they can get for free to actually get
Misguided (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Who gives a fuck about Facebook's DNS problems? Vista is doing the right thing, here, by doing exactly as the DNS server instructs, with a preference toward IPV6 addresses. Any other behavior (including a preference toward IPV4) would be decried as horrifically broken and against progress.
2. News flash: Internet Explorer blows chunks. It's just as atrocious, in somewhat different ways, as any previous version of IE. And it behaves just as badly on XP (which tried mighty hard to get the user updated to version 7). This is is therefore not Vista issue. (Ok, ok. It's deliberately hard to install IE 6 on Vista. But Firefox and Opera seem to work Just Fucking Fine on any modern OS as well as his beloved Facebook, so what's the problem?)
3. News flash: The new Windows Explorer works different from old; lacks "Up" button. Just click on the directory name in the address bar, and you'll go there. For instance, if you're in C:\Windows, the address bar will show "Computer > Local Disc (C:) > Windows". Simply clicking on any portion of this will go up one or more levels in exactly one step. This is different from XP, sure, but it's no worse, and I personally prefer it.
4. Cleartype. I can't imagine how this dude managed to get lost turning off Cleartype. I just opened IE 7, pressed F1 for help, typed Cleartype into the box, and pressed enter. The very first link goes to a help section detailing what Cleartype is, and how to turn it on and off system-wide. (It's been my experience that Vista's help system is actually capable of being useful, in start contrast to previous versions of Windows.)
5. News flash: Virtual PC doesn't run on Vista Home. It also doesn't run on home editions of any other Microsoft OS, including XP Home.
6. Telnet is gone by default. Good. The security folks have been trying to get rid of it for years. Those who need it still have it available, and those who don't know better won't stumble onto it by accident.
I'll ignore the rest of the inane (i-NEYN) diatribe about Facebook, and the irrelevant OS-independent part about watching videos on TV, and just say this: Geez, man. You sure picked some insignificant things to hate. Vista's got some real issues and you've skillfully noticed absolutely none of them.
Never heard that question answered? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly, of course, the question isn't "can" vs. "can't". It's all about efficiency. It took me at least half an hour to learn to use find, and I found it just as confusing as you did. That first time. Back in 1989 or so.
Since then, I have performed thousands upon thousands of searches, and I can search twenty gigabytes of disk before the helpful little search puppy is done asking you if you'd like to search for a file. I can perform searches which are simply impossible using the standard Windows search tool, and I can perform them fast. Return on investment? Hundreds to one, easily.
I think this comes down to the dispute about the respective merits of bumper cars and more conventional gasoline engines. Yes, bumper cars are much easier to use, they're much faster to learn, and they're much safer. And really, there's nothing a gasoline engine car can do that a bumper car can't; I mean, they both go forwards and backwards, and they both turn. So pretty much they're the same thing, right?
People do not like Unix because it is easy to start with, but because, if you're willing to invest time in learning how to use a computer effectively, you end up being able to get your work done much faster. I don't know why the concept of investing time to learn to do something well seems so odious when it comes to computers, even though we're used to it in every other field of human endeavor. And no, you can't just "make it easier". The way you make it easier is to remove options, and replace fast interfaces with slower ones.
Bennett, when you write, do you touch-type at all? Do you type words, using an elaborate array of probably a hundred labeled "keys", or do you use a brilliantly simple interface which simply presents you with a pop-up menu of words? Wouldn't it be easier to use a pop-up menu, instead of memorizing literally tens of thousands of words, learning to spell them all, and then training yourself to type?
Imagine, if you will, that all of us Unix users are people who view computer processes, such as finding files, or manipulating their contents, as being just as important to our work as emitting sequences of English words is to yours. And imagine that we, like you, have been willing to put in serious time -- not ten or twenty minutes, but days or months or years -- to learn to do this faster, more efficiently, and with less wasted effort.
And you'll note that we're pretty much all using Unix. Maybe I use more NetBSD and OS X, and someone else here mostly uses desktop Linux, but we've all found that, compared to XP or Vista, the Unix systems offer us dramatically better efficiency and power, if we are willing to put in the time to learn to use it.
Just a thought.
I know why they removed Telnet! (Score:3, Funny)
Even though it's not hard to get telnet back, why would they go to the trouble of removing it?
Well, not many people use it. So they trimmed it out, to keep Vista from being all bloated with useless stuff.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It wasn't a fault with Vista but facebook.com had a broken IPv6 record
Then a list of stuff vista doesn't have or do, or is otherwise deficient.
In summary, he uninstalled Vista excluding ie7 because that wouldn't uninstall and proclaimed that Vista sucks.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:tl,dr (Score:5, Insightful)
Or not.
I suppose one way to get to IPv6 is to have the world's most notorious monopolist promote it.
I'm sure there's a pony in that steaming pile of Vista somewhere...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:tl,dr (Score:5, Informative)
Therefore, a page in valid HTML who's layout works well in IE is likely to not work well in any browser that actually does what it is supposed to, and vice-versa.
Re:tl,dr (Score:5, Insightful)
IPv6 is a standard. IPv4 is also a standard. In this case, if one standard fails, you can gracefully fall back on another standard and try getting the job done.
The IP6 problem will break your wireless too (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Summary: (Score:3, Insightful)
Point 1
Facebook (not microsoft) screwed up and as a result, any computer configured to use IPv6 wouldn't be able to access it. If you set up your Mac or Linux box to use IPv6, you wouldn't be able to access facebook.
Somehow, this is evidence of Vista's suckiness.
Point 2
I am proud of myself for knowing the word banal and wish to let you know.
Point 3
Three years ago I found an obscure feature that I happen to like, but since it's obscure my linux distro didn't implement it *exactly*
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you set up your Mac or Linux box to use IPv6, you wouldn't be able to access facebook.
Chances are your Mac is set up to use IPv6 "automatically" and doesn't have this problem (because it falls back to IPv4 as required).
Three years ago I found an obscure feature that I happen to like, but since it's obscure my linux distro didn't implement it *exactly* the same way that Microsoft implements it. Mac's don't implement it that way either, but no matter, this is
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)