Have an account? Log in to leave your comments!
journal:
Oh what a Tangled Web they Weave
It appears that instead of actually working to fix things, like most software vendors, Microsoft is content to simply remove features.
To the almost palpable dismay of some of our readers, it turns out that I am not in fact dead, only experiencing a quarter at University like none ever known. Along with a 60-hour work week, 2 hrs of driving per day, and studying to do, this leaves about 9 minutes, on average, for me to sleep every night. Now I don’t like to whine, but my life is becoming hectic to the point of absolute absurdity. Perturbed as I may be, it’s time for me to direct my attention to the week(s) passed and any tech stories that may be of note. I do have one in particular that shares a close spot in my heart, right next to that dumbass kid from the dell commercials, and it likes to be called Vista.
The rate at which features are being hacked off of the release version of Vista, only to fly off in sheaves and litter the ground like morose confetti, has always had a rather alarming pace. Now it seems, that Microsoft has simply tapped out, and is willing to cut a feature if there is even the most remote possibility that it could be used by the purveyors of malware. An attempt to copy Applescript and Automator has been the latest large feature to meet its end at the hands of Microsoft’s coders. It appears that instead of actually working to fix things, like most software vendors, Microsoft is content to simply remove features.
I must admit that I do take a certain glee in the failings of Microsoft. After all, it is the business practices of the “Redmond Giant,” coupled with brilliant stewardship, by persons such as Gilbert Amelio, that nearly killed Apple Computer about 1996. Now, it seems that even in the face of an onslaught, Apple can do no wrong, while Microsoft writhes in the squalor of uninspired product design. In short, things really never have been better for the Macintosh.
I’m a software developer. I write shareware tools, and I write many of these for the PC; I write just as many for the Mac. It pains me very deeply to say, that while about four times as many of my downloads come from PC users, only about a third of my revenue does. I have found that Wintel users just don’t give a damn. I mean if you do the math, the ratio of legal software purchasers is 12:1 in favor of the Mac. I’m sorry, but that is simply ridiculous. While all of this may seem wildly off base, it leads me to the real meaty part of the argument.
Microsoft is simply barking up the wrong tree. Microsoft makes their real money from business licensing. Home users mean nothing to the bottom line of Microsoft. But the thing with Vista is, that Microsoft is designing it with the foolish masses in mind. They are designing it to appeal to the users of computer who appreciate pretty colors and bubbly interfaces. With the exception of this illusory pretext that Vista is going to be somehow virus-proof, Microsoft is offering businesses no incentive to upgrade, the OS runs slower, and has a higher minimum hardware requirement.
Let’s take my full-time employer for example. Until only a month ago, we had many 5-7 year old IBMs running XP. Vista will not run on these machines. I know, I tried to install my beta. Lots of businesses have older hardware. Businesses are wary of making drastic infrastructure changes already. I can guarantee that no business is going to give Vista a second glance when they see that they will have to upgrade a lot of their hardware to work with it. I guess that this is the point where it all comes to a head.
Vista, from what I have seen, looks like a poorly designed Creative Rio Faceplate. Buttons are all different shapes and sizes, Willy Wonka’s interior decorator had a better sense of style, and so far, this thing is running like a dog. We are about to witness the Clash of the Titans, and it isn’t going to be pretty. The winner will come out, not necessarily ahead of the competition, but in a stronger position all around. I guess that we’ll just have to watch how this one unfolds.
 |
20 | 1201 |
| comments | views |
thinkback
“MSH, Sidebar, WinFS, Avalon, and Indigo are all there.”
Are you referring to the public beta that should be released alongside Vista?
| Nick | Sep. 14, 2005 | |
| 1:54 pm |
Kuaidang = Hypocrite. Listen pal, you can’t bash me for having valid gripes about microsoft’s development strategy while you Bash my platform with ridiculous arguments. I presented some facts, let’s have you put up some real evidence instead of subjective banter, then we’ll chat.
G’day
http://msdn.microsoft.com/winfx/
Clay = Ignorant.
See that? WinFS, Indigo, Avalon and more.
Just the fact that you think Monad (I assume that’s what you’re tlaking about but as usual you give no specifics) is somehow related to Applescript and Automator shows how ridiculousness of your article.
You ask for proof (which the PDC has more than provided) but you give none yourself. For example, what feature did MS cut because it might be used as malware? I assume you’re talking about Monad but you’ve provided no specifics, like usual, so correcft me if I’m wrong.
The problem here is that you’ve done no research about the topic at hand but instead rely on headlines to get your information. If you did even the slightest bit of research you’d see that Microsoft never cut any “copy of Applescript or Automator” and Monad was never even part of Longhorn or Vista until the build handed out yesterday.
I bet you can’t even name two features that have been cut from Vista yet you go on and on about cutting features because it’s fashionable for a Machead to say that about Vista/Longhorn. I posted a huge list of stuff that Microsoft has added and you just ignored it because it’s contrary to your lie you were trying to pass on.
And you still haven’t discussed why Vista Beta 1 not installing on some 5-7 year old machines is such a problem while Tiger not installing on 5-7 year old machines isn’t.
Apple-history.com for a list of machines that Tiger won’t install on.
| Sep. 14, 2005 | ||
| 6:47 pm |
ImacDV@ 400 mhz-->Tiger OS on 6 year old computer
Pmac AGP graphics@500mhz --> Tiger OS on 6 year old computer
Pmac G3 B&W;@300/350/400mhz-->Tiger OS on 6 year old computers.
All running smoothly, although modestly. RAM added, of course.
You must be cherry picking Powerbook or iBook models or specifically going 7 years back just to get a bigger list, Kuaidang.
So, yes, 5 year old Macs as well as 6 year old Macs will run Tiger. 7 years old? No, Apple never promised that any machine that did not come stock with USB would run OS X at any point. Although, using a simple tool called XpostFacto many unsupported older Macintosh will STILL RUN Mac OS X. I have a UMAX clone that has TIGER installed and running on it (with a G3 upgrade card.) So, you were saying......????
Well, first off, that post wasn’t me. But I’m not exactly being represented poorly. Whoever the mystery poster is said a lot of the things I probably would have, albeit with slightly less tact. And furthermore, I started this story round about the first week of August, so all his “yesterday” business, where does that come from? Hmmmm, what else? Oh yeah! For home users, Vista not running on a 6 year old computer is not a problem. For businesses, on the other hand, it is, because business don’t buy one computer at a time, they buy hundreds. Just a small piece of advice. . . Don’t insult the purveyors of a website that you’re posting to, cause your post probably won’t last long.
|
| Sep. 15, 2005 | |
| 2:34 am |
My analysis came to similar conclusions. I will revisit this again as Vista comes out, but my current plan is to short Microsoft stock and make some money in the months after what looks to be disappointing sales.
Started around the first week of April? Vista Beta 1 didn’t come out until July 27th. So what build did you install on those machines? Even the pre-Beta 1 WinHec build wasn’t handed out until April 24th or 25th. Are you telling me you were installing a pre-alpha (build 3xxx) or alpha (build 4xxx) OS on a 5-7 year old machine? AND YOU’RE COMPLAINING ABOUT IT NOT WORKING? LOL.
The Tiger Developer Preview didn’t even install on a 1 year old Powerbook or a couple other fairly new machines I tried.
The Pre-Beta 2 build was handed out yesterday and you come out with an article talking about Longhorn Alpha (it wasn’t even called Vista back then), that’s dumb. Why would you even bother to post an article that was out of date the day it was posted without giving any indication that you were dealing with a previous time-frame?
And no it wouldn’t be a big deal that Vista Ultimate Edition Beta 1 won’t run on 5-7 year old machines because there are specific Vista SKU’S for older machines and Microsoft is bring many Vista technologies down to XP (not fully capable but basic) for those people. In addition, Microsoft will continue to offer full support for XP and Windows Server 2003 for years to come.
Mark--
Did you go to Apple-History.com? It doesn’t look like you did.
http://www.apple-history.com/body.php?page= gallery&model=imac2000&performa=off& sort=date&order=ASC
They were selling that machine up until Feb 2001. That’s 4 1/2 years.
http://www.apple-history.com/body.php?page= gallery&model=ibookse&performa=off&s ort=date&order=ASC
http://www.apple-history.com/body.php?page= gallery&model=imacslot&performa=off& sort=date&order=ASC
http://www.apple-history.com/body.php?page= gallery&model=ibook&performa=off&sor t=date&order=ASC
And I could post more.
And if you want to talk about XPostFacto then it’s only right that you know that XP runs on a 486 without a hack, and Longhorn Alpha ran on my P1 233 without a hack as well. I’m sure Vista B1 will run on even less than that with very little if any modifications.
| Sep. 15, 2005 | ||
| 7:04 am |
Indeed, the fake Clay’s IP was issued by Global Crossing in Arizona, while the real Clay’s IP is from Adelphia. So either we have another guy named Clay (in which case, I suggest picking a slightly more unique screen name), or an impersonation, which will lead to comments being deleted in the future. I’m thinking the 2nd from the tone of the comment.
You have been warned.
| Sep. 15, 2005 | |
| Arden | 7:30 am |
An easy way to distinguish staff or registered members from others: look for the avatar. 
| Nick | Sep. 15, 2005 | |
| 8:28 am |
Did you happen to see the posting time on that post, it was 5:34 AM, so while you were still playing WoW. I was getting ready to go to work. It was a simple typing error, try not to crucify me. Oh, and the actual file resides on my work computer, and the creation date is August 11, 2005.
|
| Sep. 15, 2005 | |
| 2:13 pm |
So what exactly is Kuaidang trying to prove by posting machines that OS X runs perfectly on, hell, post the 1998 Rev. 1 iMac, Tiger runs like a champ on it. Being able to install is one thing. Being able to run, useably, is quite another. XP’s stated minimum system requirements are 133 MHz. I certainly hope that you don’t plan on actually DOING anything if you’re installing it on that. But Tiger will run in a perfectly usable fashion on a Gen, 1 iBook.
|
| Sep. 16, 2005 | |
| 2:52 am |
Why do you say such things Clay?
Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor
Built-in FireWire
DVD drive for installation
256MB of RAM
3GB of available hard disk space (4GB if you install the developer tools)
Look at the min ram and HD space required to run. The first gen ibook would need to be maxed out to handle Tiger and even then it wouldn’t be “perfectly usable”. All that is assuming that you got it installed somehow, which it won’t do on any config that the 1st gen ibook shipped with (without a hack).
I’ve run Tiger on a G3 500 machine with much more space and even it isn’t “perfectly usable”.
XP on the other hand runs on a Pentium 1 (the G3 is in the Pentium 3 generation) and with one-fourth the amount of ram. True enough, it’s unusable by any modern standards but it does install and that’s on a machine from 1995. The official minimum is actually 233mhz which came out in 97 (two years before the ibook).
XP runs much better on a P1 MMX @ 233 with 128mb’s of ram than OS X does on a G3 @ 500mhz with 256mbs of ram.
| Sep. 16, 2005 | ||
| 2:52 pm |
Oh and stop lying so much. You just told me that you started the article in the first week of April then followed that up by saying that you created the file on Aug 11th. Which is it?
There’s no reason for you to write b.s. especially with no proof. At this point I highly question whether or not you actually have OS X86 or any copy of Vista or Longhorn. And for the life of me I can’t understand why you would want to try to install a beta (which I doubt you have) on a 5-7 year old machine.
| Sep. 16, 2005 | ||
| 2:58 pm |
I’ve run Tiger on a G3 500 machine with much more space and even it isn’t “perfectly usable�.
Seems to run fine on my 500 MHz iMac G3. I guess “Perfectly usable” is subjective.
| Nick | Sep. 16, 2005 | |
| 5:03 pm |
Not to mention the 350 iMac that I’ve got it running on and that one doesn’t have a DVD drive. Oh, that’s right, they make Tiger CD’s too, guess we conveniently forgot about that. And yes, not considering Bill Gates the saviour of humanity, I did make an error, it’s Server 2003 who’s minimum proc requirement is a 133, SERVER!? Call me crazy. . .
|
| Sep. 18, 2005 | |
| 7:24 am |
Who cares about the DVD drive. I was talking about the lack of built-in Firewire, and ram requirements. Not to mention that you need 3gb’s of space on the hard drive not including iLife, MS Office/Open Office/iWork, Toast, or anything else useful.
| Sep. 20, 2005 | ||
| 5:57 am |
1.
Tiger doesn’t install on any Mac from 7 years ago according to Apple-History.com. There are some 5 year old Macs it doesn’t install on either.
But if you’re content with 7 year old machines then what do you need a brand new OS for? Especially since you were testing the Beta version of the consumer OS not the Pro OS (which always has lower requirements).
You can do the typical MS-hater thing and talk about features being pulled from Vista but it’s just rhetoric at this point.
MSH, Sidebar, WinFS, Avalon, and Indigo are all there. That’s all the stuff they promised @ PDC 2003 and it’s still shipping but now there’s even more stuff. We have LINQ, Expression Studio, Sparkle, Virtual PC in the box (ultimate edition), Office 12, IIS7, IE7, Avalon/Xaml cross platform, Atlas, Max, WWF, Gadgets, Visualize and Organize, previews everywhere, Slideshow, Tablet, MCE, Natural Language (Speech Recognition, handwriting recognition, natural language searching), DX10, Superfetch (WOW!), 64-bit, PeerNet, Metro, Ribbons, Centralized RSS, DXVA2, a new audio and video subsystem, a new color system and a lot more stuff.
As far as it running slower, maybe you should get some hardware from the last few years. I know it costs a arm and a leg to upgrade a Mac every few years (if you can upgrade it at all because you can’t do much with most Macs) then you’ll see Vista runs faster than XP.
I’m running an A64 3000+ and Vista Beta 1 screams. I can’t wait to get Superfetch and have it run even faster.