Electrolytics question

just add some.

So much for Microsoft's marketing strategy of selling upgrade versions, eh?

Under your theory, what is the point of buying faster hardware to run slower software so you end up where you started?

just add > some.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Pay more for worse.

When the opportunity arises I'd like to convert whatever company I end up as Senior Designer for again (or better) to Linux. Free O/S, free Apps.

Graham

So you can look like you have more disposable income and impress fools ?

Graham

Ever tried 240V AC across a 250V DC electrolytic ? Typically 8-16 uF ?

Graham

cheap, just add > some.

Senior Designer for

That's a viable option but don't expect all your problems to go away. Linux just exchanges one set for another.

On the original complaint, the problem with Vista is it attempts to be too 'user friendly' making it as difficult as possible to manually configure.

The problem with Linux is it's a disjointed hodgepodge that makes it difficult for anyone less than a 'Pro' to configure.

Most of the major 'free' apps (openoffice, gimp, etc) are also available for Windows, or something similar is.

And indeed, Linus (and/or other core kernel developers) has stated that Linux has no roadmap, and is 'evolutionary' rather than 'designed'. OTOH, other *nix flavors, like OpenBSD, have well-documented frameworks and development goals.

Michael

You can try this 'conversion' Graham, but I fear that your endeavours will fail due to many of the staff - particularly the female ones - refusing to grow a beard, wear open-toed sandals, and ride a bike to work ... :-)

Arfa

Hey Graham. I just remembered this little gem

See what he says about Linux towards the end ... !! While you're at it, give yourself a good laugh by having a look at

It's my mate's workshop. He's in the background laughing hysterically. The 'victim' is Mark, who works for him :-) There's a second one of him as well.

Arfa

I've done a trial Ubuntu install. Seemed little different to Windows to use.

Graham

You know Graham, I've never been a Gates / MS / Windoze basher. A lot of the flak that they take seems to come from people not liking the fact that they tied the market up, and make squillions of dollars a day. OK, so maybe there was something better than Windows just waiting to come on the market, and maybe Gates and co did stop it by working to make Windows the dominant OS worldwide, but looking at it the other way, it has got to have done more to 'standardise' the world of home (and business) computing, and to make it practical and affordable to the whole world at large, than any other factor which has had an influence. I actually admire Gates, and really couldn't care less if his house is built from stacks of $100 bills.

As far as Windows itself goes, yes. Of course it has problems crashing and what-have-you from time to time, but in my experience, which goes back to the first releases of 3.1, I have found it in general to be a pretty good OS that for the most part, does what it says on the can. Most of the people that I know who have problems with it, and bleat loudly about what rubbish it is, are 'tinkerers' who are always fiddling with settings that they don't understand, or installing and uninstalling bits of dubious pedigree free software applications that they've found on the 'net. These are the people who always seem to be having to reformat their hard drives, or reinstal Windows. I don't think that I have ever had to RE format an HD in my life, nor re-install Windows on any of the many machines I've owned.

For sure, some of the patches that MS bring out to try to resolve issues, seem to cause others, but I think that it has to be remembered that it is an immensely complex piece of software with a million 'moving parts' - the software equivalent of the Space Shuttle, perhaps. Many of the patches that MS have to produce, are to plug security holes, and they wouldn't need to be having to waste their time on this, if the world wasn't full of tow rags in university who have little better to do with their sad lives than cause mischief to the very people who are sponsoring them to be there, and criminals hell bent on stealing your details and emptying your bank account. It must be soul destroying for the Windows coders to have to keep altering everything they write, just to try to stay one step ahead of these people.

So for all its shortcomings and foibles, I for one am glad that Windows exists. I am glad that I can buy just about any piece of software anywhere in the world, and it will 99.9% run as it was intended. I am glad that I can buy just about any piece of external hardware, plug it into a USB socket, and Windows will find it and install it with little if any intervention from me. I am glad that I can fit just about any piece of internal hardware, and Windows will find it, and install an appropriate driver from its own library, or if there is not one, will happily work with one written by the makers of that hardware.

And if for all this user-friendly functionality, I have to suffer the occasional 'blue screen of death' then I think that's a pretty small price to pay for the general 'always there and ready to roll' service that it gives as an OS, for almost 100% of the time ...

Arfa

It is difficult not to want to respond to this post and I hope that other folks do express their opinions in this thread (yet another o/s religious debate), especially those with expertise and experience in these matters, but I would like to make a few points (briefly);

1. O/S2 should have been the 'standardized' MS o/s; it incorporated the Win3x API but was built on a sane kernel and improved security model and its driver structure IMHO was superior; later versions were poised to outperform Win9x but due to the IBM departure, were relegated to business and mission critical applications. It could have incorporated the Win9x API for compatibility.
2. Windows API emulation on Unix is a superior platform for legacy development and maintenance as MS abandons hardware and o/s versions as a continuous-upgrade business strategy. Virtual machine technology is also permitting retaining older Windows installations deployed on new hardware that can't directly support them; this wouldn't be necessary in a scalable o/s that doesn't force hardware migration at every release.
3. Much objection to MS Windows regards the hiding of critical portions of the API and kernel hooks to thwart third parties; also the forced inclusion of non-o/s functionality at low levels has degraded the o/s (again in an attempt to thwart third parties).
4. Continuous patching would not be necessary if the o/s was secure by design; evidently NT engineering was headed by ex DEC VMS folks imported to MS - they could have preserved the best of NT philosophy in designing the new o/s but must have been pressured by other internal forces to release a product insecure-by-default.
5. Yeah, I like the convenience of expecting hardware and software to 'just work' and Windows (up to XP) provided that experience for most folks, but when push comes to shove, I use versions of linux to identify, test and qualify hardware that Windows doesn't quite grok. Currently I am wrestling with a system timer issue that borks certain multimedia drivers and applications running on a rather significant list of motherboard chipsets under NT/2K/XP; MS considers the behavior a 'feature' whereas the rest of the world knows it is a 'bug'; fixing it will require changes to drivers and applications, whereas it should be fixed in the kernel, and would be done so quickly in most other operating system development and maintenance programs (e.g. opensource).
6. Vista is a truly unfortunate step in the wrong direction - even more bloat forcing ever more powerful hardware to just maintain a performance level of previous generations; forced DMCA and IP protection, impossible driver restrictions, poor quality control in releases not-ready-for-prime time, etc., etc. Folks are desperate enough to be stocking spare machines and software to permit running earlier Windows releases into the indefinite future since new commodity hardware now, if not in the near future, not run them. Vista wont run a large number of apps used by folks like embedded engineers which depend on certain types of peripheral port access, DOS windows, and other services which have always been available in Windows.

With these sorts of issues, many people may decide to use a scalable opensource o/s that has worldwide continuous support and development in order to preserve their investments in software and hardware. And many of these alternatives also 'just work' and support even more hardware than under Windows.

Michael

Hmm... you know, my Linux boxes want to download security updates pretty much weekly these days too...

It was, Dave Cutler.

It's called, "marketing." At the time that the first consumer-target version of NT was released -- either Win2K or WinXP -- the average consumer was not yet ready to be asked for passwords to do anything "potentially" damaging. Microsoft didn't want to risk lost sales due to people objecting to a proper security model....

Well, yes, most people -- even many within Microsoft -- agree on that.

---Joel

version (assuming it exists) of everything I now have, and may want in the future?

Didn't get as far as trying WINE. I needed the PC for something else.

Graham

I've heard it referred to as ' ME II '

Graham

No, that's England. ;-)

--

aioe.org, Goggle Groups, and Web TV users must request to be white listed, or I will not see your messages.

If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in your account:

There are two kinds of people on this earth: The crazy, and the insane. The first sign of insanity is denying that you're crazy.

You'll have to explain that one to me I fear. Unless you were simply referring to the use of ' II '.

Graham

Oh, I remember it crashing and freezing, but it was always because of the app, not the OS. With Windows the component that crashes most, on my PC, is the Explorer shell.

When I used OS/2 it was also the shell (Presentation Manager) that crashed the most. Jerry Pournelle loved OS/2 but commented on how unstable PM was. It crashed a lot less than Windows of the time (either 95 or NT) but it had the unfortunate habit of overwriting the MBR with whatever file I was trying to save when it crashed.

Come to think of it, pre-95 Windows was very unreliable, but it was only a DOS shell.

Close but that's not 'marketing', it's 'usability'.

Well, I suppose you can call anything 'marketing' since the object of any 'feature' is to sell product.

At any rate, a truly 'secure' model would mean the machine is out of the box unusable for the 'average Joe Blow' user. That's bad for 'marketing' but it isn't exactly pleasant for Joe Blow either.

just add some.

That might have some validity if there was anything useful added.

But needing twice the memory to run the same thing as before isn't any 'better' than needing twice the processor for the same performance.

upgrade it a little. Memory is cheap and is the main factor preventing a newer OS from functioning well.

You mean 'features' like having to tell it twice over that, yes, you really do want to run the program you already asked it to run? Or the 'productivity feature' of being able to make a video your background instead of suffering with it in a window?

And of course, the biggie: transparent window borders. That one is so useful I now print documents on special paper with cellophane around the edges.

LOL

How can you tell with half your software gone because it's 'incompatible'?