Stop Microsoft
All Things Microsoft => Microsoft as a Company => Topic started by: hm_murdock on 23 August 2006, 04:13
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Yep.
http://winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_ready.asp
I think it's bad for them, great for us. It'll probably suck.
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Oh I hope it will suck so much everyone will wake up and install a real OS ... well, I'm probably being really optimistic ... everyone will buy it like mad and love it too.
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I don't even care anymore. The more I use a different OS the more I come to think of how unlikely that they will just suddenly disappear off the face of the Earth because of Windows. It's even clear now that MSCK actively tried to do this for years, and they haven't succeeded up to now. In fact Linux and other desktop OSes are growing. That's really all I care about -that there will be other OSes that will be sufficient. So who cares when or if Vista pops up. I predict that on the desktop most of what it will be is a platform for all the latest DirectX 10 games.
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The computer industry seems to have hit a wall. Dell is in trouble with lower earnings, exploding batteries, an SEC probe and is being forced to use AMD chips. M$ upped its stock buyback from $16B to $36B by 2011, and Intel has much lower profits than last year and laid off 1000 managers. Sun MSys laid off people, too.
Even Apple agreed today to pay CTI $100M to settle patent infringement issues over iPod music navigation.
If they release Vista in October, maybe there will be enough time to get out a service pack by Christmas.
The Republicans will lose a lot of seats in November, unless there is another 9/11 and they declare martial law, so the upheaval in the economy will probably continue into next year.
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The computer industry seems to have hit a wall. Dell is in trouble with lower earnings, exploding batteries, an SEC probe and is being forced to use AMD chips. M$ upped its stock buyback from $16B to $36B by 2011, and Intel has much lower profits than last year and laid off 1000 managers. Sun MSys laid off people, too.
+5 Insightful :D
Honestly, it's about time the computer industry hit a wall! Only the very cheapest Dell Desktop machines have less than a gig of RAM. Very few people need a gig of ram for christ sake!
The industry is all about perpetual upgrading and has been for a long time.
/smiles down at his Athlon XP 2600+, 256 Mb RAM machine
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The computer industry seems to have hit a wall.
A wall made of what, though? Here's my theory:
Computers have to be bigger and faster to run bigger and faster applications. But the applications are so bloated already that they can't get any bigger. Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop are pretty much at maximum density, and would explode if new features were added. And a decent P4 is more than enough to run them both at the same time.
Somebody probably noticed that a few years ago, and started hyping video and music manipulation. Cd burners, cd rippers, dvd burners, dvd rippers, music library programs, id3 editors, transcoders/converters, media players that play everything, etc. And where are they headed? Dual-layer dvd recorders are dying on the shelves, since the only reasonable use for the damn things is illegal. Ripping and burning dvds and cds is legal, but only for certain applications, and the applications the average person wants them for ("borrowing" movies and music from friends) are very illegal.
So where does this leave us? If you've got a Pentium 4 with 1GB RAM and a dvd/cd burner/player, then you've pretty much got everything you need. There's not a lot out there on the consumer market that will make your system work at full capacity. Now, science people and digital filmmakers need multiple TBs of storage and TBs of RAM and processor clusters for their applications, and those markets are still doing big business. But consumer hardware and consumer software requirements have pretty much peaked together.
In short, Dell isn't selling many computers because not too many people need new computers.
That's my take on it, anyway. And if I'm right, US politics won't make much difference. The American economy lives on hi-dollar consumer purchases. First it was suburban houses, then cars, then refrigerators, then TVs, then home audio systems, and now computers. Somebody is going to have to come up with something to sell pretty fast, or we're going to hit a pretty serious recession.
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The computer industry won't hit a wall. People are still buying new computers because their old ones have spyware...and the average user isn't getting any smarter.
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The computer industry won't hit a wall. People are still buying new computers because their old ones have spyware...and the average user isn't getting any smarter.
Exactly. Malware helps Dell etc in a big way.
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Honestly, it's about time the computer industry hit a wall! Only the very cheapest Dell Desktop machines have less than a gig of RAM. Very few people need a gig of ram for christ sake!
Windows.
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Exactly. Malware helps Dell etc in a big way.
I use 1GB of ram, but yes machines are going overkill
My machine:
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (2.2GHz, 512KB L2)
1GB DDR400 RAM
250GB Seagate barracuda 7200.10, 16MB cache (I bought this for the speed, not the space)
nVidia GeForce 6 6600GT, 256MB memory
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what if it rox?
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Someone once said that what the average man or woman only need is a computer with about 100 MHz. about 3 GBs of storage and 32 MB of RAM.
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Has that person been in my spare room?
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Someone once said that what the average man or woman only need is a computer with about 100 MHz. about 3 GBs of storage and 32 MB of RAM.
Someone once said that nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM. Oh yea that was Bill Gates. Of course that was before MS was very big - before they needed to push perpetual upgrading.
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In short, Dell isn't selling many computers because not too many people need new computers.
Dell is selling many computers. Unfortunatly, the world is so technophobic that Vista would a create a need and MS to get out there again.
Unless they fixed all the problems with the Betas, it'll suck. It uses way too much ram and it's a new kernel, what I was looking forward to; WinFS, was scratched out.
It'll be like WindowsXP over again, cept most people won't be able to run it, and they will most likely buy new computers... lets face it, too many people are ignorant.
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The computer industry seems to have hit a wall.
hit a wall???
dell is getting what deserves for screwing up so many customers.
Hardware is cheaper than ever, more compatible than ever and constantly improving. Intel has just released a superb new processor line, AMD have a strong and very competitive processor line. There is strong healthy competition in every area of hardware : processors, memory, graphics cards, hard drives, cases, motherboards. This has resulted in great prices, quality and compatibility. All the major innovations in processors have gone smoothly, 32->64, dual core, virtualization, etc.
This is mostly thanks to Microsofts lack of progress in the last years since the release of XP, they haven't broken all the hardware compatibilty.
In the software world there is a huge array of quality free applications, Linux/GNU is incredibly powerful, adaptable, and nearing perfection everyday.
I reckon the computer industry is one of the greatest periods of its existance. 5 years ago memory was very expensive, amd and intel had hit a processor frequency barrier.
It hasn't hit a wall at all but it has plateaued in terms of innovation. I really think the biggest problem is the lack of change in input/output devices. We have been using 2d raster displays, speakers, keyboards and mouses for the last 2 decades and they greatly restrict interaction with software.
we need the gloves from minority report and 3d holographic displays ... :) .. that will revolutionise the computing industry again.
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oh and 1 gig of memory is easily used up. Battlefield Vietnam is years old and uses all my 768MB of memory.
Often in computer software you can sacrifice memory for speed and since memory's so cheap why not ?
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It hasn't hit a wall at all but it has plateaued in terms of innovation. I really think the biggest problem is the lack of change in input/output devices. We have been using 2d raster displays, speakers, keyboards and mouses for the last 2 decades and they greatly restrict interaction with software.
Heh yea like we will see anything but 2d displays for a very long time. Possibly not even in our lifetime will anything but that be the common thing. Sure they might get huge and reach tremendous resolutions, but today we barely have touch screens as a luxury. No holograms for us. Besides that, what if they came alive and got loose on the ship?
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...today we barely have touch screens as a luxury.
Wait, WHAT? At the rate we're progressing (http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=514) (pricepoints where LCDs were 2-3 years ago) we'll have multiphasic holograms by the year 2015. ;)
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No holograms for us. Besides that, what if they came alive and got loose on the ship?
It would be pretty hard to do much serious damage to most boats:D
If it makes me an old codger to say that keyboards, mice, and flat panels are just about as far as I'd like to go, as far as user interface goes, then so be it. Some things feel right. I don't think I would like a home touchscreen or a 3d interface.
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Wait, WHAT? At the rate we're progressing (http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=514) (pricepoints where LCDs were 2-3 years ago) we'll have multiphasic holograms by the year 2015. ;)
1024x768 for a dirty screen and probably short life? Is it real tiny? :thumbdwn:
Besides that I never said touch screens were great. I've tried stuff like that (other people's) and it's not highly exciting. In some cases you'd probably prefer a mouse. The really cool stuff is in the $1000s (http://www.wacom.com/lcdtablets/index_21UX.cfm) (Will someone get me one for Christmas?).
And I haven't heard of any noteworthy hologram technology. If someone somewhere is claiming there is, that's the same thing they said about fying cars and advanced robotics by 2000 once upon a time I bet. And imo we're not progressing at that high a rate. And that's just in technology. In other areas it seems like we go backwards sometimes.
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It would be pretty hard to do much serious damage to most boats:D
But they really screwed up the Enterprise, didn't they?
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my brother's a graphic artist in training and he got a large Wacom Intuos and loves it.
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oh and 1 gig of memory is easily used up. Battlefield Vietnam is years old and uses all my 768MB of memory.
Often in computer software you can sacrifice memory for speed and since memory's so cheap why not ?
Cuz it's a piece of shit. It's a highly memory inefficient game. Real game engines don't need that much RAM and offer very nice graphics. Take the Quake 3 engine for example ... needs about what 64 MB RAM and 16 MB VRAM. That's a real fucking game engine. (Well I think 128 MB RAM and 32 MB VRAM is recommended for max performance)
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It's because MS actually employ Jedi. They've mind tricked us into thinking we don't need to see any identification...we may pass...
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my brother's a graphic artist in training and he got a large Wacom Intuos and loves it.
That's what I have but I don't love it. Sure it's ok but I'd trade it for the other thing in a heartbeat.
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That's what I have but I don't love it. Sure it's ok but I'd trade it for the other thing in a heartbeat.
it depends how you use
My brother finds he can naturally draw with it as good as pencil and paper without the drawbacks.
One of the problems today is that although there are great improvements in computational capacity, the software department are finding ways of counter-acting that.
Software people are being taught to be lazy (in some aspects).
Why ? Because in order to be lazy you find the simplest method of implementing the desired functionality ?
Why ? Simplicity means less code, less bugs, less maintainance, less documentation, less time to develop.
Of course there are things you won't get away with but generally this is the case.
Optimisation is dangerous, often algorithims that are a order of magnitude more complex are required. If there is a performance requirement then of course they have to be accomplished but generally only a small amount of code is spent being processed most of the execution time and that code should be the focus for optimisation.
In the long run it saves the company a lot of money, the consumer gets a less buggy functional product and as long as they have hardware for the job everyones happy.
This is reason for Java and .NET, both are very popular for inhouse software because of the savings in an application that will not directly make any money.
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Here we go again...
vnu net (http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2161790/researchers-put-vista-security)
Hacker publicly cracks Windows Vista
Microsoft left red faced after live hacking demonstration
Tom Sanders in California, vnunet.com 07 Aug 2006
ADVERTISEMENT
A security researcher at the Black Hat security conference has demonstrated several ways to circumvent security features that are built into Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Vista operating system.
According to media reports, researcher Joanna Rutkowska with Coseinc demonstrated two ways to attack a Windows Vista system during a session at the conference. The exposed flaws would potentially allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code.
Windows Vista requires that all device drivers are 'signed' to prevent malicious code from posing as a legitimate driver. The researcher however demonstrated a way to load unsigned drivers.
The researcher in the second case used the virtualisation technology in a system's AMD processor to inject code into the Vista kernel. The technology would allow an attacker to create a new hypervisor that could control the operating sytem. It would remain undetected from the user and would be at the attacker's disposal.
Although she only demonstrated the attack on an AMD processor, Rutkowska said that it would also work on PCs running Intel chips.
Both attacks relied on documented features in Windows Vista and should not be considered bugs, she added.
"The fact that this mechanism was bypassed doesn't mean Vista is insecure. It just means it's just not as secure as advertised," said Rutkowska, according to Internet News.
Earlier at the annual Las Vegas security event, Microsoft had challenged hackers to test the operating system's security features. It has distributed copies of the software's latest beta to about 3,000 security researchers.
Rutkowska is not the first security researcher to hack into a Windows Vista system, but is the first do so in a live demonstration at a public event.
As reported last week, security vendor Symantec has demonstrated several ways to circumvent the operating system's user account protections. Although Microsoft has since repaired the bugs Symantec had identified, it illustrates that the software still has weaknesses and that additional bugs are likely in the future.
hmmm...she is woman, hear her roar!
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Both attacks relied on documented features in Windows Vista and should not be considered bugs
WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL SURPRISED BY THIS SHIT? WINDOWS IS A SHITTY OPERATING SYSTEM - GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON!!!!!!!!!!!!
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May I quote the party line?
"It's a feature, not a bug."
What a CROCK.
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But wait, it gets better, this just posted today;
Adobe, Symantec challenge Microsoft
Lobbying European Union regulators against Vista operating system
PrintE-mailDisable live quotesRSSDigg itDel.icio.usBy MarketWatch
Last Update: 1:18 AM ET Sep 21, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Two U.S. software makers are lobbying European Union regulators for action against Microsoft Corp.'s next-generation Windows computer operating system, according to a media report Thursday.
But regulators can't take action against Microsoft until it releases its Vista package, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition, citing an EU spokesman. See Wall Street Journal story (subscription required).
Vista is scheduled for release to corporate customers in November.
The challenges come from Adobe Systems Inc., and Symantec Corp., The Journal said.
Adobe has told regulators that Microsoft should be prohibited from building free competing software for reading and creating electronic documents into Vista, The Journal said, citing unnamed people it said were familiar with the situation.
Officials from antivirus-software maker Symantec plan to travel to EU headquarters in Brussels next week to brief journalists about Vista features that the Cupertino, Calif., company has told EU regulators will undercut rival computer-security-software makers, The Journal said.
The briefings are intended to offset a similar public-relations effort by Microsoft, a Symantec spokesman, Cris Paden, told The Journal.
At a Sept. 12 briefing, Erich Andersen, Microsoft's general counsel for Europe, said any regulatory action requiring changes in Vista's design could "increase security risks for European consumers" by making them more vulnerable to malicious attacks through the Internet, something that Symantec contests, The Journal reported.
EU antitrust chief Neelie Kroes has warned Microsoft not to design the new version of Windows, which runs more than 90% of the world's personal computers, in ways that would put rival software companies at a competitive disadvantage, according to The Journal report.
The EU fined Microsoft 497 million euros, or more than $600 million, for antitrust violations related to its earlier versions of Windows in 2004, The Journal said. In July, Ms. Kroes imposed an additional penalty of 280.5 million euros against Microsoft for defying orders to change its business practices, according to the report. The company is appealing both fines.
"Our goal is to deliver a fully innovative, secure version of Windows Vista that is compliant with EU law," The Journal said it was told by Tom Brookes, a spokesman for Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash.
Symantec is concerned that Vista will direct consumers toward a Microsoft-designed security console, or box that shows what level various security functions, such as an Internet firewall, are set on, The Journal said. Symantec wants to be able automatically to override the Microsoft template with its own design and features, as it has been allowed to do in the past, according to the report.
Microsoft has a new feature, called PatchGuard, designed to protect the core of its operating system from hacking, The Journal said, but Symantec said the design has been changed from previous Windows versions to prevent security-software companies from accessing the crucial part of the system to update computers against security threats.
Adobe objects to Microsoft's inclusion in Vista of its own software for creating and viewing digital snapshots of documents, known as XML Paper Specification, or XPS, The Journal said. XPS competes with Adobe's widely used portable document format, or PDF.(That bit should make worker201 smile...)
While Adobe earns money by selling its Acrobat software to create PDF documents (while giving away the software to read such documents), Microsoft will include both reading and writing software as part of Vista for no extra charge, according to The Journal.
An Adobe spokeswoman declined to comment, The Journal said.
wow...drama...just remember;
Windows Vista Minimum Supported System Requirements
Processor 800 MHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor1
System Memory 512 MB
GPU SVGA (800x600)
Graphics Memory -
HDD 20 GB
HDD Free Space 15 FUCKING GB WHAT!!!
Optical Drive CD-ROM drive2
Audio -
Internet -
1) Processor speed is specified as the nominal operational processor frequency for the device. Some processors have power management which allows the processor to run at a lower rate to save power.
2) The CD-ROM may be external (not integral, not built into the system).
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When I read that stuff about Vistas holes.. after reading OS Xs (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/182207) problems, and with the whole crack-computers-with-certain-wireless-cards-on-any-OS thing, is the problem that nobodys thinking about security or that security is just plain impossible?
Microsoft make software on some pretty important machines, how on earth can they produce something this unsecure?
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when they say "it's a feature, not a bug", do they seriously mean that microsoft have deliberately written resource intensive software with a wealth of undocumented security problems because somehow they believe their products should be based upon this model? that's the only interpretation i can imagine for that phrase.
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When I read that stuff about Vistas holes.. after reading OS Xs (http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/182207) problems, and with the whole crack-computers-with-certain-wireless-cards-on-any-OS thing, is the problem that nobodys thinking about security or that security is just plain impossible?
Microsoft make software on some pretty important machines, how on earth can they produce something this insecure?
OK, I'm no english major and on most days, I do well to spell my own name correctly...but, insecure? Are you saying MS needs a hug or did you mean unsecure?
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OK, I'm no english major and on most days, I do well to spell my own name correctly...but, insecure? Are you saying MS needs a hug or did you mean unsecure?
Not the hug one, but according to answers.com unsecure = insecure. I guess I'll watch out to see what other people generally say..
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Well shit. I hate it when that happens. Maybe it's the military background. We always said insecure as in that guys an insecure little fucking prick. We used unsecure to describe a state of encryption or protection as in...This land-line/radio transmission/perimeter is unsecure, watch what you say/do. Of course the military does that with lots of words...
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I'm not sure where to argue on this one. Vista is going to be the apocalypse, for sure. But any situation that makes Adobe and Symantec whine like little bitches has got to have some value, right? I like PDF, and I'm glad Adobe has made it somewhat open. And Symantec's SARC has proved an invaluable resource. Overall, I think Microsoft's drive to Control Everything(c) is the true villain here.
when they say "it's a feature, not a bug", do they seriously mean that microsoft have deliberately written resource intensive software with a wealth of undocumented security problems because somehow they believe their products should be based upon this model? that's the only interpretation i can imagine for that phrase.
Right. Except you call them "undocumented security problems", while Microsoft probably calls them "private backdoors which we may or may not use to add functionality (spyware) later on, but we're trying to keep somewhat secret right now". Just a difference in vocabulary, really.
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You know I think if we somehow make a collaborative effort to explain to people how incredibly shitty Window$ is and how much shittier Vi$ta will be and then give them Linux or BSD as a good alternative, then I'm thinking M$'s stock is gonna plummet. Since more than 50% of servers run Linux (is this still accurate ?) they have only one major foothold left ... the proles, I mean the public. Really I don't think I can go out there and hand out CDs come October (next month) ... maybe I'll just try to spread the word as much as possible till then. Yeah, how about I add a link to the Linux wiki everywhere I can. I think M$ has a good chance of taking a major blow for fucking up Vi$ta so bad.
Wait, actually instead of a Wiki does anyone know of a site that shows all of Vi$ta's weaknesses and Linux's strengths ? I'll try to look for one, a short, concise, explanation why to choose Linux over Vi$ta.
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Someone once said that what the average man or woman only need is a computer with about 100 MHz. about 3 GBs of storage and 32 MB of RAM.
They might've been me, if not I've said a similar thing before. The above spec PC should be fine for web browsing, Word processing, even some image processing.
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But it's not near enough storage space for downloading and storing your favorite porn videos.
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You know I think if we somehow make a collaborative effort to explain to people how incredibly shitty Window$ is and how much shittier Vi$ta will be and then give them Linux or BSD as a good alternative, then I'm thinking M$'s stock is gonna plummet. Since more than 50% of servers run Linux (is this still accurate ?) they have only one major foothold left ... the proles, I mean the public. Really I don't think I can go out there and hand out CDs come October (next month) ... maybe I'll just try to spread the word as much as possible till then. Yeah, how about I add a link to the Linux wiki everywhere I can. I think M$ has a good chance of taking a major blow for fucking up Vi$ta so bad.
It can take a major blow, but nobody who is computer illiterate is going to be willing to change to anything but Vista. They still probably believe the old Mac myths and they'd think Linux would be so obscure that they wouldn't even use it, and you can't convince them otherwise. They're too closed minded to try anything else. Those are the kind of people MS is relying on to use Vista, and surprisingly it will work until the next generation steps in.
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Unfortunately, I think you're right :( ... I realized that yesterday. But, maybe they can learn ? Can they ? No, they're not motivated enough to. Maybe when Window$ is compromised enough security-wise they may switch.
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They talk about beta testers when they're realy talking about alpa testers. The real beta testers will be the people who'll buy the first milion copies.
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Well, it's October now. I see no Vista.
Maybe later this month?
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Bill was flinging poo with the monkeys at the zoo and forgot.