CNN = No Grasp of technology whatsoever

[Bateluer]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/08/25/cnet.microsoft.windows/index.html?hpt=Sbin

When he refers to Win95 being a quantum leap over its predessceors in technology and stability . . . pretty sure he must have been using a different Windows 95 than everyone else. Also, I believe Windows NT was the quantum leap forward, you know, getting rid of the MSDOS foundation that Windows 1.0 through 3.11, and all Win9x OSes were built off from.

The comments from the users are particularly aggravating. Few of them actually seem to think that Windows 95 was Microsoft's first DOS-less GUI operating system. SMACK!

Some of the comments towards Linux are blatantly false, unless the last distro they used was from 1995-1999 or so. Today, a base install of current version of the major distros can do 99% of what that 100 dollar copy of Windows 7 does out of the box. With about the same level of technical knowledge required to install and set up. Heaven forbid you have do a little more than click Next during the installer. Oh noes!

The article does bring up an interesting question though. With alternatives rivalling all the features of Windows, sometimes for free, and being at the forefront of development for newer platforms, will the Windows desktop OS decline in the face of competition from mobile OSes? There was some talk about MS moving to a subscription model for a future version of Windows a while back, though I haven't heard anything on it in a long time. If that were to ever happen, its pure Linux for me. At the rate PC gaming is turning into a mass of mass produced mush with tits, Windows 7 might actually be the last MS OS I buy. And technically, I only bought it because I got it through the educational promotion they did.

(CNET) -- The company paid to treat people to free newspapers in London, lighted the Empire State Building in Windows' colors and draped Toronto's CN Tower with a 300-foot banner -- all part of a massive $300 million ad campaign that accompanied the product's arrival.

Windows 95, which was separate from the company's business-oriented Windows NT product, added a number of features over its predecessors including better network support, the ability to send faxes (yes, there was a time when that was a big deal) along with basic audio recording, audio playback, and video playback tools.

Features now thought of as core parts of Windows, such as the start menu and taskbar, also made their debut with Windows 95. Plus, it just looked a whole lot better graphically and was far more stable than past consumer versions of Windows.

Internet Explorer debuted around the same time, but was sold separately as part of Microsoft's Plus Pack for Windows 95. It was eventually bundled in directly with the operating system in an update to Windows 95 released the following year.

By the time Windows 95 was finally ushered off the market in 2001, it had become a fixture on computer desktops around the world.

"If you look at Windows 95, it was a quantum leap in difference in technological capability and stability," Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald said at that time.

A decade and a half after Windows 95 hit the market, though, one question looms large for Windows: Are all its best days in the past?

Clearly it was a different time and Microsoft might be hard pressed to capture that kind of consumer attention no matter what it did. But, never mind the long lines, will Microsoft be able to continue to sell Windows at the price and volume it has?

It's one of the most important questions facing Microsoft as a company. While the company has expanded far beyond its Windows roots, Windows and Office remain the engine driving the vast majority of the company's profits even as it looks to cell phones, search, and online services to augment its mainstay businesses.

At the moment, the Windows business is doing quite well, with Windows 7 selling at an impressive clip. Indeed Windows 7 is selling far faster than Windows 95 did in its early days, though that's as much a testament to how large the PC market is as anything else.

The longer-term question is whether Windows can outpace what I call the generic web experience. In the coming years, smartbooks, tablets, cell phones, Netbooks and shapes we probably haven't thought of will all be capable of delivering the web, which is for many people their main use of a PC.

For Windows to be as relevant on Windows 95's 20th anniversary as it is today, the company will have had to manage to evolve the operating system significantly.

I see a few ways this can happen, but none is a sure thing.

First, Microsoft (or a third-party software maker) can develop a new killer app that only runs on Windows. It's been a long time since this happened, but certainly it's not impossible. New user interfaces can also be added. Touch is already there, as is voice control to some degree, but gesture recognition such as that found in Kinect could pave the way for new uses.

Second, it could evolve Windows and Windows Live to offer a dramatically better way of doing the same tasks that most people do on the Web. Sure, we can manage our photos and music on the Web today and that is getting easier. However, tapping local storage and graphics, Microsoft has the potential to offer a better way and, with the latest version of Windows Live, is trying to do so.

Third, Microsoft could enhance the value of Windows by having a browser that is demonstrably superior to non-Windows rivals. This appears to be a tall order, given that Internet Explorer, while still leading in market share, has been well behind rivals when it comes to being seen as the technical leader.

For the record, this challenge is not just the one facing Microsoft. It's also the one facing Apple's Mac business. And while Microsoft must justify the $100 or so premium that it charges for Windows, Apple commands an even higher premium when comparing the Mac to one of these "generic Web" devices.

But Apple also has another entrant in the game -- a viable alternative Web experience delivered in the form of the iPad. Microsoft, at least so far, appears to have only Windows, in its various flavors.

Not politics, not news. Let me know if you want me to move the thread and unlock it.

bamacre (Forum Director)

 

[sandorski]

Wrong Forum, Linux sucks.

 

[Bateluer]

Wrong Forum, Linux sucks.

My apologies, I thought posting an editorial article from a news site would be acceptable in the Politics and News forum, you know, since its done by pretty much everyone else.

I'll like that Linux comment slide as you're obviously misinformed.

 

[guyver01]

"If you look at Windows 95, it was a quantum leap in difference in technological capability and stability," Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald said at that time.

So... Gartner is now CNN? and a CNET article reposted on CNN is now CNN?

Next.. you'll say this article is all Obama's fault somehow.

 

[ShawnD1]

I don't know where you get the idea that Linux can do 99% of what Windows does right out of the box. Every once in a while I like to install Linux just to see if it has improved over the years. When I tried Kubuntu and then Ubuntu, here is a short list of problems I ran into
-Networking with Windows didn't work. The Linux computer can see other computers on the network, but no other computer can see the Linux computer. This makes it worthless as a server.
-Could not get network printing to work
-Mouse wheel doesn't work
-Linux version of eMule (at that time) sucked balls and didn't work
-Even after downloading all the video codecs I could get, some videos simply do not work
-Linux has no alternative to MS Excel; the spreadsheet in Open Office sucks and can't draw trend lines worth shit
-No games


It was an endless battle where nothing every just works. It's always like one of those video games where I'm given a simple objective then I'm sidetracked for hours to find some keycard or get around a door that doesn't work.

 

[sandorski]

I don't know where you get the idea that Linux can do 99% of what Windows does right out of the box. Every once in a while I like to install Linux just to see if it has improved over the years. When I tried Kubuntu and then Ubuntu, here is a short list of problems I ran into
-Networking with Windows didn't work. The Linux computer can see other computers on the network, but no other computer can see the Linux computer. This makes it worthless as a server.
-Could not get network printing to work
-Mouse wheel doesn't work
-Linux version of eMule (at that time) sucked balls and didn't work
-Even after downloading all the video codecs I could get, some videos simply do not work
-Linux has no alternative to MS Excel; the spreadsheet in Open Office sucks and can't draw trend lines worth shit
-No games


It was an endless battle where nothing every just works. It's always like one of those video games where I'm given a simple objective then I'm sidetracked for hours to find some keycard or get around a door that doesn't work.

Yup

Things that just Work

Console/Smartphone>>PC Windows:Apple/OSX>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Dodge>>>>>>>>Linux

 

[Bateluer]

I don't know where you get the idea that Linux can do 99% of what Windows does right out of the box. Every once in a while I like to install Linux just to see if it has improved over the years. When I tried Kubuntu and then Ubuntu, here is a short list of problems I ran into
1)-Networking with Windows didn't work. The Linux computer can see other computers on the network, but no other computer can see the Linux computer. This makes it worthless as a server.
2)-Could not get network printing to work
3)-Mouse wheel doesn't work
4)-Linux version of eMule (at that time) sucked balls and didn't work
5)-Even after downloading all the video codecs I could get, some videos simply do not work
6)-Linux has no alternative to MS Excel; the spreadsheet in Open Office sucks and can't draw trend lines worth shit
7)-No games

It was an endless battle where nothing every just works. It's always like one of those video games where I'm given a simple objective then I'm sidetracked for hours to find some keycard or get around a door that doesn't work.

Appended some numbers to your post so I could more easily comment. My 99% comment was regarding standard, out of the box installs, IE, you picked up a PC from the shelf at Best Buy or bought a standard config from Dell.com/HP.com/where ever.

1 - Current versions of Ubuntu/Mint network fine with Windows 2000 through 7, both directions. The Linux machine will be able to access to the Windows hosts out of the box, but the Windows machines will not see the Linux machines. Still, if you intend to run the Linux machine as a file server, you're not going to be using the Network Neighborhood/My Network Places/Network applet in Windows. You'll have an FTP, an HTTP, or Samba share set up for that purpose. While this functionality does not work 'out of the box', its not exactly in the scope of what I'd stated.

2 - Local printing works nearly immediately for every printer I've tried, but for network printing, it can be a crapshoot for different distros. Since we're focusing on Ubuntu, its pretty easy to connect the printer to the Windows host, share it, and have the Ubuntu host pick it up. Heaven forbid you have to tell it what protocols its looking for. Used to have a lot of trouble getting network printing to work between windows and linux hosts myself, but I have noticed that between linux hosts, its just as easy as setting it up between windows hosts.

3 - What mouse do you have that the mouse wheel doesn't work? Even my fancy Logitech Revolution mouse wheel works with Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Sabayon, and OpenSuSe. My assorted array of mice with wheels also had no problems at all with the mouse wheel in Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora.

4 - I was refering to an out of the box install, eMule is not installed out of the box on Windows or Linux and not within the scope of the discussion. Never used the application myself either, so I cannot comment on whether or not its garbage, as you claim, or if its improved, etc.

5 - Some proprietary standards give Windows trouble as well. To get pretty much every video to play, install VLC. Just as you should be on Windows. Plays everything but the obscure, proprietary stuff out there.

6 - Open Office Calc will do what the average home user uses Excel for. At my previous employer, we used OOo extensively and only ran into some troubles with Excel spreadsheets designed in the Legal department and the Financial departments. Every other department was perfectly fine with Calc. Do not mistake a user's lack of familiarity with a product as the product being incapable of doing whats needed.

7 - The games installed by default in Linux are pretty much the same ones that are installed by default in Windows 7. Playing the latest high end games wasn't within the scope of my original comments.

If you wish, I will take a challenge by you and scrap all my Windows hosts and go pure Linux, all my machines, for a period of time you set.

 

[Bateluer]

Yup

Things that just Work

Console/Smartphone>>PC Windows:Apple/OSX>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Dodge>>>>>>>>Linux

Oddly enough, the highest selling smartphone OSes today are Linux and BSD based. Same with the PS consoles, *nix based. Nice self ownage there. In fact, I think only MS's products aren't *nix based.

 

[Moonbeam]

I can't comment until I find out which OS is supported by Democrats and which Republican swine like.

 

[ShawnD1]

Oddly enough, the highest selling smartphone OSes today are Linux and BSD based. Same with the PS consoles, *nix based. Nice self ownage there. In fact, I think only MS's products aren't *nix based.

Actually phones are an example of one of the biggest problems of having so many different operating systems. Each device is going its own direction with its own standards, so the only way to make software compatible with all of them is to run Java. Java is incredibly slow because it's basically like running an emulator. All of the downloadable applications on my LG Xenon phone use Java, and they are all slow as shit.

Microsoft's strength is that Windows is a very standardized system that works with a specific CPU architecture. I've seen things like Linux software having a special Red Hat version and a special Debian version, and you can't use them on the wrong system because they try to put files in a different location; lots of Linux software is distributed as a source that you need to compile yourself because of this exact problem. Windows is the opposite - every version is basically the same. My dad's computer is a modern Windows 7 machine and he's still using his copy of Quicken designed for Windows 95. Even after more than a decade, it still works. Absolutely no emulation required, no Java, no virtual machine, none of that.

Apple's iPhone system is more like Windows than Linux. It's a very tightly controlled OS. It uses a very specific processor. Things that are designed to run on the iPhone can be natively run; Java or other emulation is not required. Not needing to run bullshit Java is part of the reason the iPhone is so fast and powerful.

Android carries all of Linux's weaknesses to phones, and it really shows. Look on android's wiki page and see how many times the word Java appears (hint: answer is 52). Because there's no standard for what an Android phone is, the only way to make shit work is to run it through Java, which makes it 10x slower and kill the battery 10x faster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Issues_concerning_application_development

Android does not use established Java standards, i.e. Java SE and ME. This prevents compatibility among Java applications written for those platforms and those for the Android platform. Android only reuses the Java language syntax, but does not provide the full-class libraries and APIs bundled with Java SE or ME.[130] However, the Myriad Group claim that their new J2Android tool can convert Java MIDlets into Android applications.[131][132][133]
Developers have reported that it is difficult to maintain applications on multiple versions of Android, owing to compatibility issues between versions 1.5 and 1.6,[134][135] especially the different resolution ratios in use among various Android phones.[136] Such problems were poignantly brought into focus as they were encountered during the ADC2 contest.[137]
The rapid growth in the number of Android-based phone models with differing hardware capabilities also makes it difficult to develop applications that work on all Android-based phones.[138][139][140][141] As of August 2010, 64% of Android phones run the 2.x versions, and 36% still run the 1.5 and 1.6 versions[142]
Older versions of Android do not readily support Bluetooth file exchange,[143] although it may still be achieved with some hacking.[144] Bluetooth is supported by more recent phones.[145]
Android does not support video calls as do other mobile operating systems, such as Symbian OS, iOS, and Windows Mobile, although third-party applications like Qik allow video calling on some models, and video broadcasting on others.[146]

So that's where an open OS leads you. It's easily adapted to one specific device (ie a router), but it's virtually impossible to write software that works with all devices using that OS.

 

[tommo123]

as said before, i try ubuntu every now and then and find it fails on something. not video though. can't remember the names but my matroska (AVC/AAC) files played fine.

it always failed at seeing my windows shares. could see the PC but was blank. was apparently a fault with nautilus (i think that's what it was called) but each time i try it's never fixed.

anyhoo, i find it funny that microsoft is worried about losing some share in the desktop OS market. they're the ones killing off PC gaming. next gen, they could get trounced by sonys next thing, or win big - who knows. but, if they pushed PC gaming as well, then PC gamers would be forced to stick with windows. Now, with steam moving to the mac, and other games basically being console ports - why do we need windows?

if the linux devs ever try and make it usable for the masses then i can move from windows. really, it's upto them at this point.

this whole thread reminds me, it's been a year or so since i last tried ubuntu. might give it a shot again

 

[RSaylors]

I'll like that Linux comment slide as you're obviously misinformed.

Here's a fact:
I can't do what I want on Linux.

not within the scope of the discussion.

HAahaha

you are joking, right? You don't get to ask the question "is windows better than Linux" and then say "but what you can run is off the table". The question is, given the abilities of Linux and the abilities of windows (which includes the ability to run programs), is windows worth $100 more than Linux?

Do not mistake a user's lack of familiarity with a product as the product being incapable of doing whats needed

Do not mistake the ability to work around a problem with the problem not existing, ease of use is defined by what is, not what you wish was.

the highest selling smartphone OSes today are Linux and BSD based

no one is insulting the religion of Linux; we know Linux is embedded in many things but this does not give the user a typical Linux experience; which does nothing to support the idea that Windows 7 isn't worth the $100 because of Linux.

If you wish, I will take a challenge by you and scrap all my Windows hosts and go pure Linux, all my machines, for a period of time you set.

If you can do this and do what I've outlined below then I'll convert.

Sets of things you can't accomplish well in Linux, I've tried:
You can't edit a video that 1.) lets you edit audio to the level that sound-booth does 2.) encode/decode multiple file formats and edit AVCHD 3.) insert a green screen effect and 4.) perform reasonable rotoscoping.

You can't run statistics that graphically and easily 1.) detect pasterns in missing data 2.) perform multiple regression 3.) do exploratory factor analysis 4.) perform structural equation modeling.

You can't write a report that 1.) Has used an intuitive pivot table 2.) Has figured out solutions using goal seek and solver -like functions 3.) has a scatter plot, pie chart and radar plot easily integrated into it 4.) has a data flow diagram and entity relationship diagram integrated into it.

These are things I expect a computer to do. I couldn't care less who makes the OS, just as long as my work can get done.

 

[charrison]

I wont say he is right or wrong, but win3.1 was really bad. Win95 was a huge improvement over 3.1. But I will agree windows NT is what windows 95 should have been. However NT did not get the UI overall till 2000..

 

[dfuze]

I can't comment until I find out which OS is supported by Democrats and which Republican swine like.

:biggrin:

 

[heyheybooboo]

~~snip~~

I hope you don't work in IT.

I'm not the biggest fan of MS, but if you do not comprehend what Win95 brought to the table beyond the 16-bit environment you are seriously mis-informed.




--

 

[WackyDan]

The article is somewhat accurate. I highly respect Gartner, but one has to remember that the analysts are getting younger these days, and may not have the memory/experience of those of us that aren't fresh out of college.

Either way, he was right about 95 to a degree... It was a major step forward compared to 3.1

As for Linux... No... There is not a single distro that is as user friendly as Windows. PERIOD. Yes, the installs have gotten easy, but even with Ubuntu I've run into serious snafu's with ATI cards, and other driver related and network related issues that the common everyday PC user would never have to fight much with on Windows.

 

[Bateluer]

Here's a fact:
I can't do what I want on Linux.

HAahaha

you are joking, right? You don't get to ask the question "is windows better than Linux" and then say "but what you can run is off the table". The question is, given the abilities of Linux and the abilities of windows (which includes the ability to run programs), is windows worth $100 more than Linux?


Do not mistake the ability to work around a problem with the problem not existing, ease of use is defined by what is, not what you wish was.

no one is insulting the religion of Linux; we know Linux is embedded in many things but this does not give the user a typical Linux experience; which does nothing to support the idea that Windows 7 isn't worth the $100 because of Linux.


If you can do this and do what I've outlined below then I'll convert.

Sets of things you can't accomplish well in Linux, I've tried:
You can't edit a video that 1.) lets you edit audio to the level that sound-booth does 2.) encode/decode multiple file formats and edit AVCHD 3.) insert a green screen effect and 4.) perform reasonable rotoscoping.

You can't run statistics that graphically and easily 1.) detect pasterns in missing data 2.) perform multiple regression 3.) do exploratory factor analysis 4.) perform structural equation modeling.

You can't write a report that 1.) Has used an intuitive pivot table 2.) Has figured out solutions using goal seek and solver -like functions 3.) has a scatter plot, pie chart and radar plot easily integrated into it 4.) has a data flow diagram and entity relationship diagram integrated into it.

These are things I expect a computer to do. I couldn't care less who makes the OS, just as long as my work can get done.

Sigh, I'll try again to explain this. I take a brand new PC I just built, with a blank hard drive and install Windows 7 Home Premium. After the install is complete, I install hardware drives only, nothing else. The only applications installed are the ways that installed during the OS install. Then, I remove that drive and install a new blank drive, and install Linux Mint, again, installing only the hardware drivers. Now, what can you do with the Windows 7 hard drive that you cannot do with the Linux hard drive? That is what I meant by scope.

Windows has strengths, but most of those strengths are in people's familiarity with it, they already know how to make it do what they want it to do and don't want to bother to learn how to use an alternative.

ShawnD1, your Xenon runs slow because its a slower phone. Well written Android apps run very fast and don't drain the battery disproportionately.

heyheybooboo, point of order, I do work in IT, have for many years. Including an enlistment in the Armed Forces. I never said Windows 95 wasn't groundbreaking or a bad OS, it was most definitely an improvement over Windows 3.11, for example. But its hardly the revolutionary leap forward that the CNET article claims, that was Windows NT. 9x was still bit on the 16 bit DOS kernel, NT used a entirely 32-bit kernel. Comments below the article mis-state this several times, despite other comments correcting them repeatedly.

The desktop itself is a declining product, this is a fact. Notebooks, netbooks, and smartphones all outsell the desktop or will shortly. These devices, with the exception of the notebook, run much better with more specialized OSes. And Microsoft's own Windows Mobile product line is the industry whipping boy.

 

[JD50]

Yup

Things that just Work

Console/Smartphone>>PC Windows:Apple/OSX>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Dodge>>>>>>>>Linux

Windows doesn't "just work" either unless you're just browsing the web and writing emails. In that case, most modern Linux distros "just work"

 

[drebo]

Linux will never replace Windows as a desktop OS. There's a reason Windows isn't free. The next most popular OS also isn't free (Mac OS), despite being based on the same tree from which Linux sprouted.

Lots and lots of people are willing to pay a hundred bucks over the life of the computer to not have to deal with the flakiness of X Windows or to have the pleasure of not having to recompile the kernel when they install a device driver.

Now, admittedly, the kernel thing isn't as bad anymore, as Linux has gone more toward a hybrid kernel architecture, rather than a monolithic kernel architecture...however, that was one of the core complaints the Linux community has traditionally had against Windows. They've recognized that it is a superior architecture, and I'm glad of that.

X Windows, though, is still a piece of shit, no matter how pretty you make KDE and gnome, and no matter how cool and gimmicky compiz is.

In the business space, Linux is useful only in appliance-type scenarios. Specific, task-oriented servers that exist for one purpose. Linux will never replace Microsoft in the business policy and security arena, because they do not (yet) have a (viable) alternative to Active Directory. There are some efforts in that direction, but nothing useful yet. Also, there are some very useful Microsoft products that just plain don't have an alternative on Linux (sharepoint, for one).

 

[heyheybooboo]

...

heyheybooboo, point of order, I do work in IT, have for many years. Including an enlistment in the Armed Forces. I never said Windows 95 wasn't groundbreaking or a bad OS, it was most definitely an improvement over Windows 3.11, for example. But its hardly the revolutionary leap forward that the CNET article claims, that was Windows NT. 9x was still bit on the 16 bit DOS kernel, NT used a entirely 32-bit kernel. Comments below the article mis-state this several times, despite other comments correcting them repeatedly.

...

The Win32 API(s) introduced with Win95 provided I/O operations completely outside of 16-bit DOS (and hardware BIOS) functions.

Portions of the API, of course, had to emulate/support DOS because we had spent gazillions on apps which functioned in that environment.

The 'true' leap in the NT kernel came with 'Nice Try 5.0' (Win2k) which beget XP on the desktop.




--

 

[werepossum]

Oddly enough, the highest selling smartphone OSes today are Linux and BSD based. Same with the PS consoles, *nix based. Nice self ownage there. In fact, I think only MS's products aren't *nix based.

Not sure that counts as self ownage, as PCs and smart phones do vastly different things and an OS that works great for a smart phone is not necessarily destined for success in PCs.

I can't comment until I find out which OS is supported by Democrats and which Republican swine like.

LOL Democrats like Apple (proud of their trendy stylishness and their computer ignorance), Republicans like Windows (proud symbol of megacorps everywhere), anarchists and Libertarians like Linux (nobody makes any money or has any rules to follow), Green Party likes Etchasketch (no power), and Tea Party likes slabs of slate & chalk. Hope that clears up your hate road map!

 

[piasabird]

DOS had nothing to do with Window 95 being a lousy operating system. It was a lousy operating system because microsoft made it that way.