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Scotty

NP, Friday September 30, 2016

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Just now, The Old Hack said:

No, to save all magic.

Magic isn't in any danger.  The risk is only an interface change.  I'm sure Microsoft excecs said something like this to themselves when they launched Windows 8...

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1 hour ago, WillikaKillika said:

Would you rather give yourself a coke or receive a coke from thyself?

That depends of who's the most likely to pay their debts: It may be alright if it's me, but I don't trust myself.

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2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

No, to save all magic.

Magic isn't in any danger.  The risk is only an interface change.  I'm sure Microsoft excecs said something like this to themselves when they launched Windows 8...

Well, and did Microsoft declared bankruptcy? No.

Another example is all those "Save Earth" initiatives. Earth was NEVER in any danger and won't be another five billion years. Even the live on Earth can survive and already DID survive worse things than those that "Save Earth" initiative wants to prevent.

(However, often there is significant doubt that HUMANS can survive it. It should've been named "Save Humans".)

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3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

"the swallow may fly south for the winter, or the house martin or the flubber, yet these are not strangers to our land..."

Are you suggesting that Pandora is migratory?

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3 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:
33 minutes ago, mlooney said:

Are you suggesting that Pandora is migratory?

Not at all.  She could be carried.

Nah, she totally hibernates. ;)

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31 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Well, and did Microsoft declared bankruptcy? No.

Another example is all those "Save Earth" initiatives. Earth was NEVER in any danger and won't be another five billion years. Even the live on Earth can survive and already DID survive worse things than those that "Save Earth" initiative wants to prevent.

(However, often there is significant doubt that HUMANS can survive it. It should've been named "Save Humans".)

Botching Win8 was not a fatal error, no.  But it made Microsoft a bit player in the mobile (phone and tablet) market which is devouring MS's bread-and-butter desktop and laptop market from beneath.  MS lost out on being a third major player in a future they really need to be a part of to remain profitable.  It's a move that will hurt MS for years if not decades to come.

"Save the Earth" is a lot catchier than just saving dumb ol' humanity which got us in this mess to begin with....

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52 minutes ago, Scotty said:
55 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:
1 hour ago, mlooney said:

Are you suggesting that Pandora is migratory?

Not at all.  She could be carried.

Nah, she totally hibernates. ;)

One week can hardly be called hibernation.

49 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Botching Win8 was not a fatal error, no.  But it made Microsoft a bit player in the mobile (phone and tablet) market which is devouring MS's bread-and-butter desktop and laptop market from beneath.  MS lost out on being a third major player in a future they really need to be a part of to remain profitable.  It's a move that will hurt MS for years if not decades to come.

I think Win 8 hurt desktop more than phone market. Did you see anyone suggesting to use Android on desktop? Yet Microsoft is forcing to use Win 8 on desktop ... (or Windows 8 beta 3, also known as Windows 10).

But it's definitely not fatal error. They could easily get from it. They only need to admit they made a mistake.

Getting hold in mobile market is harder, as they seem to failed multiple tries already.

49 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

"Save the Earth" is a lot catchier than just saving dumb ol' humanity which got us in this mess to begin with....

True. If it's catchiness they want ... who am I kidding it's totally catchiness they want.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I think Win 8 hurt desktop more than phone market. Did you see anyone suggesting to use Android on desktop? Yet Microsoft is forcing to use Win 8 on desktop ... (or Windows 8 beta 3, also known as Windows 10).

But it's definitely not fatal error. They could easily get from it. They only need to admit they made a mistake.

Getting hold in mobile market is harder, as they seem to failed multiple tries already.

Yes Win8 hurt MS' desktop sales.  As did Windows Me and Vista before it.  MS can handle that if that's all it was.

But the size of the Desktop and laptop market is also shrinking.  Just as some people decided they only needed a laptop to do what they want to do, so now some people have decided that their phones and tablets are all they need.  Windows is one of two MS' cash cows, (the other is Office).  The smaller the market the less cash-cow-y Windows is.  MS really needed to jump to the New Thing (Phones and Tablets) in order to insure it would continue to be supported in the manner to which it had become accustomed.  With Win 8, they rolled out an OS which was the same on phones and tablets, laptops and desktops, which would have been great if the OS was one of MS' "good" OSes.  But it wasn't.  Win8 and Win8.1 have market shares on the level of Vista.

None of this is a death blow to Microsoft but it is the start of a long, painful shrinking towards irrelevance.  Apple is on that same trajectory now that Steve Jobs is no more.  In 10 years' time we may be talking about an antitrust suit against Google.

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52 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Yes Win8 hurt MS' desktop sales.  As did Windows Me and Vista before it.  MS can handle that if that's all it was.

They made Win XP after Win Me and Win 7 after Vista. They skipped Win 9.

54 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

With Win 8, they rolled out an OS which was the same on phones and tablets, laptops and desktops, which would have been great if the OS was one of MS' "good" OSes.  But it wasn't.  Win8 and Win8.1 have market shares on the level of Vista.

They rolled out an OS which has same interface on phones and desktops but different API (or, rather, didn't put Win32 API on the phone version). They should've done it the other way around. I completely understand them that they don't want to support Win32 API forever, but it's the biggest advantage they have. Looking at the "success" of Win 8, possibly only one.

57 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

In 10 years' time we may be talking about an antitrust suit against Google.

If someone would dare. Not that the antitrust suits against Microsoft really helped.

Note that according to Oracle, noone is allowed to build an alternative OS comparable to Android. They don't even agree with Google doing the Android. I'm not sure how exactly they are doing it with Java being almost completely open source, but they do ...

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I think Win 8 hurt desktop more than phone market. Did you see anyone suggesting to use Android on desktop? Yet Microsoft is forcing to use Win 8 on desktop ... (or Windows 8 beta 3, also known as Windows 10).

Win8 could be made usable via Classic Shell and turning off virtually all its supposedly-nifty features.

When I got a good look at what people were saying came standard with Win10, and some of it COULDN'T be turned off, I first turned off Windows Update entirely and then installed Linux. I haven't run Windows in a few months now.

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19 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

I haven't run Windows in a few months now.

You're lucky. I was Windows-free for years ... then boss decided we need to meet over gotomeeting and now I have dedicated computer (with Windows 7) just for that.

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11 hours ago, Wildcat said:

How hard is Linux to use? I`m... very much not interested in Windows at this point

It depends on the specific variant of linux. I'm using mint and finding it very easy.

The reason I'm using linux is this computer was a gift from someone who only uses linux and I saw no reason to change the OS. 

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13 hours ago, Wildcat said:

How hard is Linux to use? I`m... very much not interested in Windows at this point

All the functionality you expect of the OS is there - but typically not in the same place, so it takes some getting used to and learning your way around. But then, so did Windows; it's just that you probably learned that a little bit at a time and now know where things are.

Also there's a lot of other software that is only available for Windows. However there are approximate Linux equivalents for most of it other than games, and a substantial share of them are free. So far I'm only missing a few games and Quicken, and I'm not missing Quicken much because the company can't be bothered to fix existing problems as it's too busy adding new ones.

(There's a Windows emulator, called Wine, that can run a lot of Windows software. But not all of it. Graphic-intensive stuff like commercial games, typically not. Wine is free, and included in many Linux distributions.)

MS Office? Most Linux distributions come with LibreOffice, which replaces Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Visio plus has some other features (and can read/write, at least, Word and Excel files). There are also versions of LibreOffice for Windows and OSX, and of it or some other descendant(s) of OpenOffice for BSD Unix, Android, and iOS (and possibly other OSes).

On the other hand, the OS is frequently MORE capable. For example: due to my particular situation I want my computer to run a wifi hotspot and NOT connect to some other wifi hotspot (my cell phone does that - or uses the cell network, and my computer doesn't see any difference). Windows 8 makes it easy (assuming suitable hardware) to configure things so the wifi adapter divides its time between connecting to another hotspot and being a hotspot - dividing the bandwidth in half for that computer and by four for any other device - but apparently can't be persuaded for the wifi adapter to JUST be a hotspot. With Linux I found a document that told me what setting in what configuration file to change and how to find out what values are supported by the hardware... one value supports dividing the wifi adapter in two like Windows insists on, another is for a dedicated hotspot.

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On 9/30/2016 at 10:27 PM, chridd said:

Wait... did Pandora make a bet with herself?

Who else would she make a bet with? She admits she might be an introvert. Also, since losing Blaike, and becoming estranged from Adrian, Pandora seems to be reluctant to get close with anyone. Mortals age and die; Immortals don't like or trust her because she refuses to reset and has become scarily powerful; and she could also be shunned for having a half-immortal child.

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18 hours ago, Wildcat said:

How hard is Linux to use?

Unless you plan to do some system programming, you are unlikely to use Linux much. You are likely to use web browser, which is totally same as under windows, and some GUI like KDE or Gnome (or Unity or Xfce or LXDE or ... I think thats all the popular ones), which are closer to Windows 7 look than Windows 8 Metro. Unless it's closer to Apple Mac OS ... I hear that in some new version some Apple fan between Unity programmers forced close button on upper left corner of window again ...

... and few other applications of course, as Don Edwards already mentioned.

I would add that if you don't count games, the most common complain about applications on Linux is that closest Photoshop equivalent - Gimp - is not really so close. Those complainers usually go quiet if you ask them if they bought the Photoshop.

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On 10/1/2016 at 7:13 PM, hkmaly said:

They made Win XP after Win Me and Win 7 after Vista. They skipped Win 9.

XP was a dressing-up of Windows 2000, MS' NT-based server OS.  Windows Me was the death-song for DOS-based Windows.  I work for Nvidia and we don't differentiate drivers written for XP or 2000.

Win7 was the apology for Vista or what Vista always should have been were MS not quite so arrogant and full of themselves.  Nvidia's Win7 driver is also its vista driver.

On 10/1/2016 at 7:13 PM, hkmaly said:

They rolled out an OS which has same interface on phones and desktops but different API (or, rather, didn't put Win32 API on the phone version). They should've done it the other way around. I completely understand them that they don't want to support Win32 API forever, but it's the biggest advantage they have. Looking at the "success" of Win 8, possibly only one.

Agreed, though Win8.1 can be converted to operate like Win7, which makes it a palatable option.  Basic Win8, which shackled the user to Metro, was the true dog.

On 10/1/2016 at 7:13 PM, hkmaly said:

If someone would dare. Not that the antitrust suits against Microsoft really helped.

It helped a lot of you're a fan of Apple products.  Or smartphones and tablets in general, come to think of it.

MS' anti-trust defense depended on claiming Apple as a valid alternative, which led to MS riding to Apple's financial rescue in Apple's darkest hour after the Second Coming of Steve Jobs. 

There are Apple snobs who heap elitist hate on MS.  While I am a Windows-centric user, I'm not a Windows partisan.  I generally don't care about OS one-upmanship.  There are plenty of valid reasons to dislike the way MS does business.   But I do tend to dislike elitists, so the picture of Bill Gates' face on the gigantic projection screen behind Steve Jobs always brigs a little schadenfreude smile to me.  Or when Apple quietly converted from Power PC-based components to PC-compatible ones for their desktops.

On 10/1/2016 at 7:13 PM, hkmaly said:

Note that according to Oracle, noone is allowed to build an alternative OS comparable to Android. They don't even agree with Google doing the Android. I'm not sure how exactly they are doing it with Java being almost completely open source, but they do ...

"Open Source" does not automatically mean "free to use" even though the two often go together.  IIRC, Android itself is also open-source and free to use but you probably want the Google certification too and that costs money. 

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3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
On 10/01/2016 at 4:13 AM, hkmaly said:

They made Win XP after Win Me and Win 7 after Vista. They skipped Win 9.

XP was a dressing-up of Windows 2000, MS' NT-based server OS.  Windows Me was the death-song for DOS-based Windows.  I work for Nvidia and we don't differentiate drivers written for XP or 2000.

Win7 was the apology for Vista or what Vista always should have been were MS not quite so arrogant and full of themselves.  Nvidia's Win7 driver is also its vista driver.

I have Nvidia card, so I'm not convinced the OS must be same just because Nvidia drivers are same.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
On 10/01/2016 at 4:13 AM, hkmaly said:

They rolled out an OS which has same interface on phones and desktops but different API (or, rather, didn't put Win32 API on the phone version). They should've done it the other way around. I completely understand them that they don't want to support Win32 API forever, but it's the biggest advantage they have. Looking at the "success" of Win 8, possibly only one.

Agreed, though Win8.1 can be converted to operate like Win7, which makes it a palatable option.  Basic Win8, which shackled the user to Metro, was the true dog.

Not on phones. I mean, there is phone version of Win8 which is compatible with desktop Win8 metro but is not possible to convert it to operate like Win7.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
On 10/01/2016 at 4:13 AM, hkmaly said:

If someone would dare. Not that the antitrust suits against Microsoft really helped.

It helped a lot of you're a fan of Apple products.  Or smartphones and tablets in general, come to think of it.

MS' anti-trust defense depended on claiming Apple as a valid alternative, which led to MS riding to Apple's financial rescue in Apple's darkest hour after the Second Coming of Steve Jobs. 

Hmmmm ... ok, wasn't aware of this indirect help.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:
On 10/01/2016 at 4:13 AM, hkmaly said:

Note that according to Oracle, noone is allowed to build an alternative OS comparable to Android. They don't even agree with Google doing the Android. I'm not sure how exactly they are doing it with Java being almost completely open source, but they do ...

"Open Source" does not automatically mean "free to use" even though the two often go together.

True ; But Java is not just ANY Open Source, it's specifically GPL, that's lot of freedom and also viral.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

IIRC, Android itself is also open-source

Linux kernel is obviously GPL, and lot of userland is Apache License.

3 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

but you probably want the Google certification too and that costs money. 

Only to use Google Play. There is nothing similar you would like to use for Java.

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3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I have Nvidia card, so I'm not convinced the OS must be same just because Nvidia drivers are same.

Nvidia presents a unified driver to the public but when you look at the drivers on the internal networks, the XP drivers are found in the "Win2000" folder.  I imagine if you drill down to the really low levels there are differences between Vista and Win7 that the driver programmers have to deal with.  But they've got to be pretty minor.  Speculating: a double handful of caveats and gotchas that one has to remember.

6 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Not on phones. I mean, there is phone version of Win8 which is compatible with desktop Win8 metro but is not possible to convert it to operate like Win7.

I*I wouldn't think you'd want to run a Win7-like interface on a phone, maybe--maybe on a tablet...

7 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Only to use Google Play. There is nothing similar you would like to use for Java.

I am referring to Android the OS not android apps.  Android the OS is, IIRC, open-source though I don't know the details.  And yeah IIRC, you need to to pay money to get google to approve your custom version of Android.

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6 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

I wouldn't think you'd want to run a Win7-like interface on a phone, maybe--maybe on a tablet...

For some reason this gave me a nightmare vision of a phone or tablet running DOS. I am very glad that MS-DOS has been consigned to the technical nightmares of the dwindling past and that it is not likely to ever trouble my sight again.

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