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Poll

Windows 7 due in 2010 — will you hold out and skip Vista?

YES, I'm happy with XP
235 (77.3%)
NO, I'll use Vista
61 (20.1%)
Still using Win98!
1 (0.3%)
I don't use Windows
3 (1%)
Don't know or don't care
4 (1.3%)

Total Members Voted: 287

Last post Author Topic: XP or Vista user — take the poll!  (Read 80196 times)

f0dder

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #25 on: July 24, 2007, 10:22 AM »
IMHO Vista is a step backwards, not forward, which is why I shun it.

ReactOS is a cute enough project, but it's nowhere near *usable* yet... which is probably the reason it hasn't been nuked to death by Microsoft.

steeladept: isn't the "bare-bones" VMWare ESX/GSX server (I forget which) linux-based, though?

Also, I don't see everything moving to web-based apps... just won't happen for games and that kind of multimedia, even when everybody has 10/10 1ms latency fiber connections (although at that time, streaming HDTV content should be doable). Same goes for a lot of "heavy" tasks.

But sure, trivial things like the office suite and other productivity items can easily be moved.
- carpe noctem
« Last Edit: July 24, 2007, 10:25 AM by f0dder »

Grorgy

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #26 on: July 24, 2007, 10:45 AM »
What a depressing sort of future, if you folk are right.  A lot of the fun of the computer for many is hunting up that little program that does just what you want, or tweaking something, if the above scenarios are anywhere near what we can expect then I won't be surprised to be asked if I want fries with that computer the next time i need one.

steeladept

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #27 on: July 24, 2007, 11:04 AM »
steeladept: isn't the "bare-bones" VMWare ESX/GSX server (I forget which) linux-based, though?

Also, I don't see everything moving to web-based apps... just won't happen for games and that kind of multimedia, even when everybody has 10/10 1ms latency fiber connections (although at that time, streaming HDTV content should be doable). Same goes for a lot of "heavy" tasks.

But sure, trivial things like the office suite and other productivity items can easily be moved.
That I can't be sure of, since I haven't installed it and they don't say so on their site, they only state that it requires no OS and runs all the VM's.  However, that is sort of my point.  Regardless of what the underlying technology is as an OS, it boots the system and the browser/VM software and that becomes your OS - so to speak.  No fiddling with setup and no installation to install useable software.  It is just install and run.  (Well in this case you still need to load your VM's, but you don't need to load the software to run the VM's.)

As for the games and multimedia, I disagree.  My argument is things like World of Warcraft and Everquest.  These games proved online only games are viable, and to many preferable, to local games.  Granted these games came with many files preloaded before you connect to limit the lag, but there is no reason you can't do a server pre-fetch to get that into the system on log-in.  Once that is done, there is really very little, if any, difference between a web app and these games - technically speaking.

f0dder

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #28 on: July 24, 2007, 11:15 AM »
As for the games and multimedia, I disagree.  My argument is things like World of Warcraft and Everquest.  These games proved online only games are viable, and to many preferable, to local games.  Granted these games came with many files preloaded before you connect to limit the lag, but there is no reason you can't do a server pre-fetch to get that into the system on log-in.  Once that is done, there is really very little, if any, difference between a web app and these games - technically speaking.
-steeladept
WOW and Everquest *could* work this way, since they aren't extremely latency sensitive, but it just won't work for first-person shooters and the like.

And even when it becomes possible to have <1ms internet latency and send 1280x1024@85fps full uncompressed video, it's simply an insane waste of bandwidth. Some things work fine as a web app or terminal services, while others simply run better on local hardware.
- carpe noctem

Carol Haynes

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #29 on: July 24, 2007, 11:16 AM »
Also, I don't see everything moving to web-based apps... just won't happen for games and that kind of multimedia, even when everybody has 10/10 1ms latency fiber connections (although at that time, streaming HDTV content should be doable). Same goes for a lot of "heavy" tasks.

Think not? How about a bare metal OS incorporated in the game package - could be licensed from an OS manufacturer. There are lots of advantages for that approach from games manufacturers ... no external OS dependence and so a consistent environment to work in, can use 'effective' (in their terms) DRM/copy protection to protect the discs they distribute from copying and require the disc present to run the app - they could even lock them to one core processor  plus they have a universal system which means Mac/Linux/Doze host OS becomes irrelevant and Doze users can't mock Mac users for not being able to play games.

An alternative approach (with similar vendor advantages) is to simply shift their emphasis to the game platform market rather than a general purpose PC - if users are prepared to pay for Vista Ultimate just to get DX10 they will certainly cough up for a new PlayStation or whatever is coming.

The biggest problem witht he coming webapps approach is that huge numbers of people have no access to high speed internet. It's OK if you live in inner-city Japan or France where high speed access (30-100Gbs broadband) is common enough to be endemic - but in other countries (including the US and UK) high speed connections are not nearly so common or even available. In the UK 8Gbs is just about top speed if you are dependent on the phone system and I can't see BT digging up the entire country to replace copper wires to every premises and lots of rural areas struggle to get above 512Mbs. The US is apparently even worse in rural areas where there are still large communities depending on dial-up (I read a recent article on this but can't remember where I found it).

Lashiec

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #30 on: July 24, 2007, 11:26 AM »
f0dder seems to agree with me in the convergence of desktop and web apps. But I fear that they turn games and multimedia tasks into niche market with dedicated (and expensive) machines (wait, game machines are expensive right now!), just for the sake of the big slice in the market (casual users).

steeladept, last time I checked, WoW and Everquest needed to be installed on a real computer, not a server. So the main system is doing all the number crunching, the server only functions as a "house". Not even SecondLife (if you consider that a game) can work like that, and it has awful graphics for this time. And if MMOs are the gaming future, I'll stick with Diablo II then ;)

Ah, Carol. Yes, that's what I fear, as I said, that they turn all the gaming into console gaming, which will practically shun certain types of games (think independent games, emulators...). 8 Gb?? How many is that in megabytes? 1 Gigabyte? That's impossible!
« Last Edit: July 24, 2007, 11:30 AM by Lashiec »

f0dder

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #31 on: July 24, 2007, 11:27 AM »
Hm, Carol aren't you mixing up line speeds a bit? I certainly wouldn't mind having 512Mbit ADSL :p (current speed limits for ADSL would be 8mbit, 24mbit for adsl2+).

Think not? How about a bare metal OS incorporated in the game package - could be licensed from an OS manufacturer.
-Carol Haynes
Then it's not a "web app" anymore, but runs on the local machine...

last time I checked, WoW and Everquest needed to be installed on a real computer, not a server. So the main system is doing all the number crunching, the server only functions as a "house".
-Lashiec
I'd say there's some very real number crunching going on on the WOW servers, they house a darn lot of people, and there's a lot of stuff going on. The clients "only" shuffle the vertex, texture, sound (etc) data around and give you the visual glimpse of the data the servers are sending you. Okay, so there's a little client-side scripting going on (LUA), but that's it.
- carpe noctem
« Last Edit: July 24, 2007, 11:30 AM by f0dder »

Lashiec

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #32 on: July 24, 2007, 11:33 AM »
Yes, but I was talking about all the graphics acceleration. WoW doesn't run exactly on yesterday hardware, and is not one of the most demanding. That kind of things can't be done on a server, not only for performance but also because I think is technically impossible.

Carol Haynes

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #33 on: July 24, 2007, 11:44 AM »
Hm, Carol aren't you mixing up line speeds a bit? I certainly wouldn't mind having 512Mbit ADSL :p (current speed limits for ADSL would be 8mbit, 24mbit for adsl2+).

Yep I am getting mixed up ... UK is up to 8Mbs (and unlikely to get higher in the near future outside cabled areas or areas where BT are willing to upgrade everything to fibre optic!) whereas I gather Japan has up to 100Mbs as standard. Certainly France is at least 3 times the speed of the UK's fastest (and a hell of a lot cheaper). As usual in a recent survey the UK's offering came out as one of the most expensive broadband countries.
Think not? How about a bare metal OS incorporated in the game package - could be licensed from an OS manufacturer.
-Carol Haynes
Then it's not a "web app" anymore, but runs on the local machine...

That was my point - if you want fast graphics intensive games and computers move ever more to web apps the only solution is to have standalone games that don't require an installed OS. Personally I am amazed that games companies still rely on Windows at all!

steeladept

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #34 on: July 24, 2007, 12:06 PM »
Thank you Carol, you hit on one of the things I forgot about:  Access speeds creating the divide between those who can afford it and those who can not.

steeladept, last time I checked, WoW and Everquest needed to be installed on a real computer, not a server. So the main system is doing all the number crunching, the server only functions as a "house". Not even SecondLife (if you consider that a game) can work like that, and it has awful graphics for this time. And if MMOs are the gaming future, I'll stick with Diablo II then ;)
They need to be installed on both as it stands now.  The client side loads the files into memory while the server provides the interactions that makeup the game.  If you just load those files into memory during a download, then it would be pretty much the same.  Another route would be to essentially turn them into game consoles where you have to load the CD/DVD to have access to the files.  They don't "load" the program into memory until you want to play.  However, I agree with you on the Diablo II :Thmbsup:

fodder - as for first person shooters, if that were the case then HALO would not be a hit like it is.  The latency in HALO and is low enough many people play them now across the internet on severs dedicated to this, just like WoW.  Sure it bothers some, but they just don't play.  Further, most FPS gamers I know hate the AI, and so won't play unless it is multiplayer, which pretty much means across the internet for many or most of them.  I don't see that being any different in an Internet Only computer system.

zridling

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How the OS becomes the WebOS
« Reply #35 on: July 24, 2007, 02:17 PM »
LONG POST AHEAD. MY APOLOGIES, but you three got me thinking. If this goes where I think it will, I'll eventually be replacing my Microsoft rants with Google monopoly rants. But consider how boring your PC would be if it were not connected to the web. It suddenly reverts to being a lot less "fun," for lack of a better word.

Lashiec — I don't know where all this fuss and desire to push web apps comes from. How do you run a browser without an OS? Are they going to transform the OS into a full-blown browser?... The future, I say, will be composed of desktop and web apps.... a synergy between the two models will be better for everyone... Bah, I'm sounding like and old jerk instead of a young guy!
steeladept — Web apps immediately lend themselves to a subscription based model.
Carol — Trouble is, by the time this all shakes out Linux will have been fragmented so far and be so tied up with proprietary stuff as companies try to customise it in non-standard ways (within the GPL system) that Linux will probably die before it ever gets into wide circulation - or remain a geek-haven.... I am going to have to start thinking about Linux as an alternative in the medium term.... Who knows maybe Jobs & Co. will see the light and make MacOS available to PC users - then I might be tempted, but I don't want to get locking into Apple hardware (or prices).... The biggest problem witht he coming webapps approach is that huge numbers of people have no access to high speed internet.

No Lashiec, you're sounding just like a thoughtful guy. Money will play the primary role, and that's a big beef with me, too. I want to choose to buy something, but I don't want it automatically extracted from my microscopic checking account every month before I get a chance to buy macaroni and soup (yes, yes, everything I eat comes from a box or a can). But today, there's not too many of programs left that absolutely need to be standalone desktop applications. Both steeladept and Carol see the writing on the wall: the money is not in the apps, it's in access.

Because they run in the browser, the biggest advantage of web apps is that they're cross-platform. Again, this cedes a natural advantage to GNU/Linux, for why pay Microsoft for their restrictive license, the cost of beefed up hardware, endemic DRM, WGA, etc., if I don't have to? I can use a small Linux distro that runs on any old machine and uses as little as 512K memory if needed. The Microsoft Tax is suddenly gone, and Windows is just another option. Just like office file formats, without locking you into both the OS and the application via the proprietary file format, Microsoft becomes just another choice among many, rather than enjoying an inherently dominant advantage. Seeing users walk to GNU/Linux is the last thing Microsoft wants to happen, so they're going full speed ahead with various Windows Live strategies. With none of Microsoft's apps written for GNU/Linux, they're at a grave disadvantage — unless you buy their OS. Microsoft is going to build a WebOS right into their next operating system, perhaps even within the second Service Pack of Vista. You won't be able to tell when you're using desktop applications or when you're at msn.com. This is already largely true for Office 2007 research services. They'll never develop anything for OS X or for Linux (or for browsers other than IE), so Microsoft's influence will be limited to what people will buy from them via their FlexGo (pay-as-you-go) initiative.

A "WebOS" isn't that complex. Essentially, there are three main parts to the system:
  • The browser (along with other browser-ish applications like Konfabulator) becomes the primary application interface through which the user views content, performs services, and manages data on their local machine and on the Web, often without even knowing the difference. Something like Opera, Firefox, Safari, or IE... ideally browser agnostic.
  • Web apps of the sort we're all familiar with: Zoho Office, Gmail/Google Apps, Flickr, and MySpace, as well as other applications that are making the Web an ever richer environment for getting stuff done. (And ideally all Ajaxed-to-the-max to provide an experience closer to that of traditional desktop apps.)
  • A local web server to handle the data delivery and content display from the local machine to the browser. This local server will likely be highly optimized for its task, but would be capable of running locally installed web apps (e.g. a local copy of Gmail and all its associated data).

That's it. Aside from the browser and the web server, apps would be written for the WebOS and won't be specific to Windows, OS X, or GNU/Linux. This is completely achievable for organizations like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, or the Mozilla Foundation to make happen.

In turn, for application developers, the great advantage is that instead of writing two or more programs for multiple platforms (one for the Web, one for Windows, etc.), they can write one app that will run on any machine (or phone!) with the WebOS using the same code base. We all know the advantages of locally run applications: you can use them when you're not connected; as Carol notes, they're not dependent on connection speed; you can use an icon in the tray to open Gmail in your favorite browser (I use AutoHotkey to trigger that behavior). For applications using larger files like images, video, and audio, those files could be stored and manipulated locally instead of waiting for transfer (as Thinkfree Office does). For users, upgrades and updates will be as easy as hitting the refresh key — say goodbye to 46-digit activation and license codes, and overnight, piracy evaporates. Your desktop system is suddenly cleaner.

There are also disadvantages to WebOS applications, not the least of which (1) is that HTML+JavaScript+XHTML+CSS+Flash does not provide the same functionality and user interaction as true desktop applications written in Cocoa or Visual Basic. You'll sacrifice processing power to bandwidth availability. But web apps may be good enough for most people. As a UI, a web page is lame. (2) Someway, somehow, they're going to cost you, and it's going to keep costing you to use them. Sure email along with a few other apps will remain ad supported, but anything substantial will want your credit card. Finally, as Lashiec suggests, a WebOS is an "all ur data belong to us" situation that is not welcome. Governments already have access to phone and medical records, and with one stroke of the pen, they can gain access to any data I have locally or somewhere on one of Google's data farms.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2007, 02:27 PM by zridling »

f0dder

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #36 on: July 24, 2007, 02:46 PM »
A "WebOS" isn't that complex. Essentially, there are three main parts to the system:
-zridling
Not too complex compared to XP or Vista, but you still need (at least) {storage,video,network,sound,input-device} drivers, a TCP/IP stack, and enough of a standard code library to facilitate writing at least a GUI and a browser. This is a lot of work, and writing a standards-compliant browser that can handle enough javascript, CSS, XHTML etc to run web applications is probably as complex a task as the rest of the system.

* A local web server to handle the data delivery and content display from the local machine to the browser. This local server will likely be highly optimized for its task, but would be capable of running locally installed web apps (e.g. a local copy of Gmail and all its associated data).
-zridling
Ummm, isn't the point of web apps that they generally run server-side, with very little client code? (except of course for some AJAX to not generate TOO much traffic and be too unresponsive)? Running the apps "locally" this way sounds pretty zany to me, and would suddenly require even more code in the "web os", to get perl/python/ruby/whatever running... not to mention that the web server can't be *too* simple (though lighthttpd will probably suffice).

In turn, for application developers, the great advantage is that instead of writing two or more programs for multiple platforms (one for the Web, one for Windows, etc.), they can write one app that will run on any machine (or phone!) with the WebOS using the same code base.
-zridling
We heard this for JAVA, we're hearing it for dotNET... I wouldn't be surprised if somebody even touted this for C/C++ back in the days.

fodder - as for first person shooters, if that were the case then HALO would not be a hit like it is.  The latency in HALO and is low enough many people play them now across the internet on severs dedicated to this, just like WoW.  Sure it bothers some, but they just don't play.  Further, most FPS gamers I know hate the AI, and so won't play unless it is multiplayer, which pretty much means across the internet for many or most of them.  I don't see that being any different in an Internet Only computer system.
-steeladept
Well, imagine the latency if all the rendering has to be done server-side, and sent back to the client... even with ubiqutous bandwidth, it just doesn't make sense moving everything serverside.
- carpe noctem

gjehle

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #37 on: July 24, 2007, 03:02 PM »
guess i'm the first to vote "i don't use windows"
thanks for including this option :D

laughinglizard

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #38 on: July 24, 2007, 03:54 PM »
The biggest problem with the coming webapps approach is that huge numbers of people have no access to high speed internet. It's OK if you live in inner-city Japan or France where high speed access (30-100Gbs broadband) is common enough to be endemic - but in other countries (including the US and UK) high speed connections are not nearly so common or even available. The US is apparently even worse in rural areas where there are still large communities depending on dial-up (I read a recent article on this but can't remember where I found it).

I don't know the numbers either Carol, but I'm one of those people who live in a rural area. Most of the state I live in is rural.
Outside of the larger cities, dial-up is the norm, and 56k is norm for many other areas.

Get a little (and I mean a little) farther out and your access speed drops to around 19kbps.

Up until quite recently (in the last year) there were no alternatives. No cable, no wireless, and the phone company basically said "not in your lifetime" when  asked about 56k dial up.

Satellite internet became available about a year ago for most areas of the state I live in. Most people don't have it because the initial set-up is pretty high and the monthly fee is around $50.00US for the cheapest plan. People are poor and scattered - the population density in the county I live in is 1.3 people per square mile. The county is huge in square miles, and the majority of people live in a few areas, but you can find people living in just about every nook and cranny around.

Its about the same on most of this corner of the continent. There tend to be metropolitan centers surrounded by mostly rural land.

My two issues with web apps are one, you have to be connected to use them, and two, having casual acquaintance with people from all over the planet via a group I belong to, I know that some of these people pay for the connections by the minute. Not the norm, but some do.
Internet access can be very expensive in other parts of the world.

And, call me an old curmudgeon (can women be curmudgeons?) but I don't like my data to live anywhere but on my hard drive.
The more social sites like myspace that pop-up, the more I want anonymity. Internet+anonymity = oxymoron, but I give it my best shot. You won't find me on Facebook.

zridling

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #39 on: July 24, 2007, 04:03 PM »
Sadly, since the Bush administration allowed the digital robber barons to do whatever they liked in the past seven years, there's little competition in US broadband. If you’re lucky, you have a choice between the services offered by the local cable monopoly and the local phone monopoly. The price is high and the service is poor, but there’s nowhere else to go, and compared to bandwidth in France, even cable modem speeds are painfully slow here.

zridling

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #40 on: July 24, 2007, 04:05 PM »
f0dder — Not too complex compared to XP or Vista, but you still need (at least) {storage,video,network,sound,input-device} drivers, a TCP/IP stack, and enough of a standard code library to facilitate writing at least a GUI and a browser. This is a lot of work, and writing a standards-compliant browser that can handle enough javascript, CSS, XHTML etc to run web applications is probably as complex a task as the rest of the system.

Exactly. That's why I said, "Aside from the browser and the web server, apps would be written for the WebOS and won't be specific to Windows, OS X, or GNU/Linux."

Armando

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #41 on: July 25, 2007, 12:19 AM »
Wow, you guys have lots to say on the subject!  :)
I'm sticking to XP. I've thought about going Vista for a while (mainly because of some of it's tagging and new explorer features,etc.), but, like justice, F0dder and others, I find it much slower with the same hardware... for nothing much better. With XP, I can basically do everything Vista does -- and more -- but faster. XP IS faster with "normal" hardware (1.5gb ram,  1.8ghz core duo CPU) for someone who's multitasking a lot. And I don't care too much about eyecandy.

nontroppo

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #42 on: July 25, 2007, 11:50 AM »
After several different people in my department evaluated Vista[1] (all PC users since DOS days), they went and bought Macs  ;) On educational discount you can get a faster workstation-class machine than through Dell (again discounted for University) for the same money. And so we are all slowly moving over to OS X running XP virtualised (Vista is horrible for virtualisation, huge performance issues). XP runs like a frenetic speeddemon virtualised on 4-core Mac Pro's, even faster when booted natively through bootcamp. Geekbench benchmarking shows even virtualised, XP runs faster on Mac Pros than on dual-core Dell Precisions from last year. Vista is about 20% slower on that platform. OS XXP all the way!  8)

----
[1] Reading Peter Gutmann's article was hardly inspiring either: http://www.cs.auckla...pubs/vista_cost.html
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zridling

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #43 on: July 25, 2007, 02:32 PM »
Holy crap, thanks for the incredible Peter Gutmann article link, nontroppo!
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nontroppo — After several different people in my department evaluated Vista,... they went and bought Macs.

Now there's an ad you won't see Microsoft airing anytime soon.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2007, 02:34 PM by zridling »

Armando

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #44 on: July 26, 2007, 12:17 AM »
Yes, holy crap.  But let's keep in mind that Apple is not that inoffensive either.

It's a tough world.  :)

app103

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #45 on: July 26, 2007, 02:18 AM »
If the world is headed web-centric, dust off the old pc, grab some cheap RAM to boost your old 9x machine to the max ...and install K-Meleon.

All you will need is a box that can run a browser.

You won't need whatever M$ releases in 2010.

And how much cheaper can you get than grabbing what your neighbor tossed in the trash last night? Even though Linux is free, free hardware is nicer. :-D

The whole concept of this is bad news for OEMs like HP & Dell. And why are you going to need faster CPU's? Bad news for Intel & AMD.

Great news for companies like Adobe...just wait till you can develop web apps in flash...in your browser.

And instead of paying a flat price for a desktop IDE and keeping it till it is obsolete and getting the most for your money, developers will be paying a monthly, or maybe even an hourly fee, to use the tools they need.

Gone will be the days when you could 'buy' software. You will be renting it.

You might as well save as much money as you can by keeping the old hardware and OS...you'll need it.

Carol Haynes

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #46 on: July 26, 2007, 04:56 AM »
MS/Apple/Linux aren't daft - even if webapps become prevalent for most peoples' use they still want to ship operating systems (no matter how much they may try to slim them down).

I suspect a browser will not be the whole story - just as .NET has become endemic - I'll bet in 5 years time you won't be able to install the necessary versions on Win 9x, 2000, XP, 2003 (or even probably Vista) - and there will be a whole new standards war trying to establish whose is the 'web technology' adpoted.

There are already loads of sites that practically insist on Internet Explorer and either don't render properly or lack functionality in other browsers - and you can bet your life MS will do everything in its power to get as much of the internet community hooked into their technology as possible - including takeovers and bribery if necessary.

Windows (as an OS) will change a lot but MS's need for money will not - and even if Windows becomes a 'front end' for webapps you can bet your life the price will continue to grow (as will the size of the package being shipped!).

justice

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #47 on: July 26, 2007, 05:26 AM »
This is how i feel about it:
It's the whole reason microsoft is pushing .net 3 is their web applications: Silverlight, the expression series of products and WPF. They make good development tools and now try to link that in to web applications. And with the interpretation by the Mono project always being one step behind, they will have the best implementation as well as being able to say it's cross platform, even though it's not supported.

And with the large userbase already on windows, the majority is not bothered. However it does tie them in to the windows platform.
It's clever business strategy, but not for consumer choice.

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #48 on: July 27, 2007, 06:00 PM »
zridling: yes, that article is a mandatory must-read before migration to Vista IMHO. The problems being that MS is forcing all hardware vendors down that road, and so no matter what your OS at some point you are screwed. I've seen defensive return articles from MS and further rebuttals by Gutmann, and he has so far wiped the floor with them. Impressive stuff from Peter but nevertheless a a chilling note for the future...
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Laughing Man

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Re: XP or Vista user — take the poll!
« Reply #49 on: July 31, 2007, 09:56 PM »
I already use Vista on my laptop (it came preinstalled). Though I'm not upgrading my Windows XP on my desktop anytime soon (hell I'll probably just leave it alone since I don't boot into it at all unless I really have time to play some PC games).

In both my laptop and desktop I spend most of my time in Ubuntu now.