It's fizzy, it's ginger, it's phenomenal
Save the planet by pouring bottles of Barr's Irn Bru into the ocean.
806 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jul 2008
"Yeah, printing is still an issue on linux, but generally linux has better hardware support out of the box than windows."
Seriously, this is NOT an issue; stop using it as an argument. Install the Windows drivers once from the enclosed disk (or the net) and you're good to go.
"And if something doesn't work with linux, at least you have the chance to fix it."
Hahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahaha. Yeah, a typical netbook buyer wants to recompile the source or trawl the ever-so-friendly forums for the answer. Reg readers are geeks, consumers are not. On that topic, will the Chrome OS even give users access to the command line and dev tools or will you be presented with a browser, control panel and not much else ?
"Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware"
How on Earth are they going to address people's hardware configuration woes when every other alternative OS offers less compatibility than Windows ? "Every new piece of hardware" already works with Windows and seldom takes "hours of configuration".
You can find all you need to know here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/pages/TOC.aspx
Summary: Running as Limited Users most of the time and only using an Admin account to install software/drivers will make your XP-and-onwards system very secure. I've been happily running XP for over 2 years this way without infection. It takes about 20 minutes to set up and is a helluva lot easier than installing and getting used to a Linux distro.
"There are 120000+ Windows viruses"
...and how many represent any kind of threat against a fully-patched Windows computer running XP-onwards ?
"(Go look up Trojan. It is NOT a virus numbnuts)"
I know that, you know that, and 99.9% of we Reg commentards know that. The important thing is that it's a nice scary word to use when advertising your AV product to mainstream computer users.
I don't run AV software on any of my net-connected machines at home (Windows XP SP3 x 2, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and an Elonex OneT). The Windows machines rely on Limited User Accounts for safety and this configuration has served me well for over 2 years.
I was having a look through an Elonex forum and a question that pops up quite regularly is whether you can download or purchase AV software for the OneT. It runs a weird flavour of Linux on a non-x86 CPU ! So if people think that AV software is required for a fringe machine such as this, and you combine this with the fact that trojans DO already exist for the Mac, I reckon there's a ready market which can be exploited with judicious paranoid advertising.
A few factors:
1. Old films I had on VHS or never had, you can pick up at Asda for £2-3. Bargain !
2. Many films are merely 'pretty good' and can only stand to be watched once or twice. Renting rather than purchasing makes more sense in these cases.
3. In the case of certain TV series box sets, the unskippable between-episode interruptions are unforgiveable. Don't even talk to me about unskippable anti-piracy adverts on legit purchased media !
4. Sky+ (and other PVR solutions) allows me to (conveniently - one button push !) keep hold of a series or movie long enough to know whether it'd justify a permanent purchase on DVD. More often than not, it doesn't.
5. The only DVDs I've found to be worth the purchase price have been music DVDs, kids movies (particularly Disney and Pixar), documentaries and real classics with immersive stories that you can watch time and again.
6. iPlayer et al (and the extra freeview channels) let you rewatch episodes of a new series if you hear about it at work after it's been aired.
No, you don't NEED to install Mono, just as you don't NEED to install GNOME. Unfortunately, the default form of Ubuntu (i.e. the one with the name "Ubuntu") which most Linux newbies will be drawn towards, features GNOME and Tomboy and hence Mono. I'm pretty sure it's the same situation for Linux Mint.
Not that I'm particularly worried about including Mono but it's disingenuous to say that it's an option for most Debian-based distros.
What this woman did was morally repugnant. (Ab)using the law relating to TOC violations to 'get her' would not have been a good precedent to set, however.
P.S. My given name is not really "Toastan". For that matter, my family name might not be "Buttar", either.
Beer, cos it's a hot and sticky Friday.
"People who are sure they're right are actually more likely to listen to the other side of an argument."
Hehehe. So true. You should read the incredibly polite responses the people at talkorigins.org give to the loonies who write in to their feedback pages.
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/
Wade Burchette:
"We landed on the moon using feet and inches! How many times have we landed on the moon using meters? Case closed.
The pound is a more accurate measurement of weight than grams because pounds is a measurement of force whereas grams is a measurement of mass."
So how many pounds did the Apollo Lunar Module weigh in space? How many on the surface of the Moon ? How many on the surface of the Earth ? Try calculating its momentum using weight rather than mass and see how far you get.
"In this case, when they say "Internet Explorer 8 is more compatible with more sites on the Internet than any other browser." they are including all of the non W3C compliant, IE only, sites as well."
Of course they are ! After all, they are 'websites' on the 'Internet'. Like it or not, there are a huge number of tuned-for-IE sites making up the WWW and you're more likely to have it rendered as intended by using IE. You also have the option with IE8 to toggle between compatibility and legacy modes to see which works best.
MS's statement is fact, whatever the reasons for the situation existing.
I'm intrigued to know what sort of projects require such extreme number-crunching. What did researchers in these fields do previously ? Does increased computational capacity increase the resolution and/or accuracy of predictions ?
And most importantly, will we ever get a decent weather forecast ?
Anyone can see that Blu-Ray looks crisper than DVD. The question is - how much does that increase in visual quality improve the experience of watching a movie ? After 5 minutes of a good film, you're involved with the plot and the characters and you ignore the minor details . I'm on the edge of my seat any time I watch 'Apollo 13', regardless of the medium (I currently only have it on VHS and don't feel the need to change any time soon).
Does it really matter to any of us here whether Google or Bing (or A.N.Other search engine) will be the most used in 5 years' time ? Will we get extra kudos for having predicted the winner in these early days ? Might be time to re-read the late Mr Crichton's words of wisdom:
http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-whyspeculate.html
Mine's the one with Old Moore's Almanack in the pocket.
AC said; "The hardware compatibiltiy argument is looking pretty weak these days, particularly with distros like Ubuntu. My last three computers I've had to download Windows XP drivers for 3D graphics, printers, wireless cards..."
The thing is that people buying a new computer don't generally have to install Windows itself or the drivers for the components - that's pre-configured by the OEM. Also, if you're shopping and pick up some kind of peripheral (webcam, printer, etc.) you're pretty much guaranteed that the drivers will be on an included disk and that it'll work with Windows. If something doesn't work immediately with Linux then you've got...<ahem>...an 'interesting' time ahead of you. Whereas some people look upon that as a geeky puzzle challenge, the vast majority of people just want to get it working so they can start to do stuff.
"The only card Microsoft has left in this game is application and hardware compatibility. "
And they've always been the stumbling blocks for widespread adoption of a Linux-based netbook amongst the general public. People have been willing to pay extra for Windows in the past - why should it be any different this time round ?
"They hope to technically fulfil their commitment to the law, but this is hardly in the spirit of the law!"
How does this differ from the spirit of this particular case ? The EC wanted MS to stop bundling IE because they deemed it anti-competitive to other browser creators and stop bundling Windows Media Player because it was anti-competitive towards other media player creators. At least MS are allowed to provide their own kernel, GUI and TCP/IP stack (so far !).
Or maybe they should be forced to offer a choice of Linux distros on the same disk as Windows ? This gets more surreal by the day.