Another Computer Question

[Mike/W8BAC]

AcronIs, Correct!

[flintstone mop]

I have heard that Vista has too many wrinkles and issues with users. And some hardware manufacturers are not making any drivers to fix the Vista problem.
M$ will replace Vista with another O$ system similar to XP but will prbably call it WIN210.
DOS is gone

Fred

[WB2YGF]

I have heard that Vista has too many wrinkles and issues with users. And some hardware manufacturers are not making any drivers to fix the Vista problem.
M$ will replace Vista with another O$ system similar to XP but will prbably call it WIN210.
DOS is gone

Fred

As far as I know, it's going to be called Windows 7.  It appears they are shooting for more scalability than Vista has.  They were demonstrating it running on a low power machine that Vista would not dream of running on:

http://gizmodo.com/5069994/microsoft-shows-windows-7-running-on-asus-eeepc

Some early impressions of the new OS:

http://gizmodo.com/5069661/windows-7-walkthrough-boot-video-and-impressions

[k4kyv]

I have heard that Vista has too many wrinkles and issues with users. And some hardware manufacturers are not making any drivers to fix the Vista problem.
M$ will replace Vista with another O$ system similar to XP but will prbably call it WIN210.
DOS is gone

It is supposed to by called something like System 7.  The question is will it really be any better than Vista.

M$ finally got it right with XP.  They should have left well enough alone, and incrementally upgraded it, rather than continuing to reinvent the wheel every 2 or 3 years with a brand new OS system built from ground up.

I never used DOS.  I had little interest in using computers back then, because remembering and typing in all that command line stuff was too tedious. I was introduced to the GUI with one of  the older Macintosh OS's, and my first home machine was Windows 95.  But Win95, 98 and ME sucked because they were basically DOS with an add-on GUI, and tended to be very unstable.  I recall getting the blue screen at least once every time I used the computer.   The pre-OSX versions of Macintosh weren't much better.  I think I can count on one hand the number of blue screens I have got with XP in the last 5 years.

I think that is what Apple is doing with their Macintosh OSX.  But instead of calling them OSX.1, OSX.2, etc, they give each upgraded version a funny name like the name of an animal or something.  I worked with OSX at work before I retired, and each updated version transitioned flawlessly from the older one.  Usually, I couldn't tell much, if any difference until I used one of the new features that previous versions didn't have.  Every now and again a piece of older software wouldn't work after the updates were installed.

I plan to keep on using XP until I can't make it work any more for what I use a computer for.

[flintstone mop]

ACRONIS here I come. Might be a next month project. Christmas madness is the priority.

I'll give this a try. John, YBF, and Steve, QIX seem to work with these issues every day. I'll be sure to make a good backup of the important stuff.

I hope I don't lose any of my wife's contacts on her Chikka or Yahoo thing.

Fred

[Opcom]

thread re-use..

I just picked up a refurb PC with vista on it. It refuses to run some software I already have, but that;s not too big a deal.
Is there a recoding interpreter out there? (recalling FX!32 for NT on the DEC Alpha)

It is very strange that I played a DVD on it using windows media player and it was not sharp and looked like crap compared to the XP computer.

Then I tried the included H/P player, and voila, looking very sharp. Guess which one is default now?

I have heard rumors that media player of vista downscans DVD playback resolution "for a better windows experience" or some crap like that. I think it is a ploy for rights management or something equally stoopid. Oh sure, like I am going to whip out a 3-channel 3Gs/S realtime A2D recording instrument and record the 32 bit analog output at 1900x1200.

I'll probably set the thing to the classic view, as the "translucent oily plastic GUI" look is just too weird. A reminder that too many things today are made of slick plastic.

It has not seen a network yet and probably won't for a while till I can put a firewall on it to keep it from sticking its toungues into various light sockets. I think wresting control of this computer away from itself is going to be a learning experience.

Overall though it seems to run pretty well even with all kinds of 'things' fading in and out and moving around and appearing unbidden, which also needs to be put a stop to. AMD Athlon X2 dual core 64 bit at 2.7 GHz with 5GB RAM.

[steve_qix]

Or just run Level 1 Raid and no back ups needed.

There was an ISP (Internet Service Provider) who ran RAID level 5, and felt no backups were needed - OOPS!!!!!!!!!!  A hacker penetrated the system and - ZAP - deleted all of the files on the user partition (slice)... of course, the RAID duplicated the situation and they lost everything.

Other possibilities that could also cause a catastrophic loss of data would be a lightning hit which destroyed all the drives in the RAID (have seen this!), water, extreme heat, viruses, worms, and of course the number one problem - OPERATOR ERROR!

  

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Nice necro. We're talking about home back up, not industrial. For that situation, off-site back up is always required.

[steve_qix]

Nice necro. We're talking about home back up, not industrial. For that situation, off-site back up is always required.

Ok, I'll bite - what's a necro?   

[W1UJR]

Things like this never happen on a Mac. 

People are waking up.


Microsoft Sales Decline for First Time Ever

It's been a tough year for the economy, and Microsoft wasn't immune to the effects of the recession.

Microsoft yesterday reported its first ever annual sales drop in company history. For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009 Microsoft reported revenue of $58.44 billion, a 3 percent decline from the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the year were $20.36 billion, $14.57 billion and $1.62, which represented declines of 9 percent, 18 percent and 13 percent respectively.

"Our business continued to be negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and server markets," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft.

In response to the changing economic climate, Microsoft has turned to layoffs for thousands of employees, which has helped the company soften the blows to the bottom line.

"In light of that environment, it was an excellent achievement to deliver over $750 million of operational savings compared to the prior year quarter," Liddell added.

The first-ever decline in sales in Microsoft history isn't surprising given that the just past third quarter saw the first-ever decline in profits.

“While economic conditions presented challenges this year, we maintained our focus on delivering customer satisfaction and providing solutions to our customers to save money,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “I am very excited by the wave of product and services innovations being delivered in this next fiscal year.”

The release of Windows 7 could start a wave of sales for Microsoft as both consumers and businesses figure it's time to upgrade, especially after skipping Windows Vista.

Microsoft, however, isn't so quick to pronounce Windows 7 as the savior of the industry just yet. Microsoft senior vice president Bill Veghte said last month that the new OS might not be able to turn things around single-handedly.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Digging up an old post.

Nice necro. We're talking about home back up, not industrial. For that situation, off-site back up is always required.

Ok, I'll bite - what's a necro?  

[steve_qix]

Things like this never happen on a Mac. 

Ok, ok, now let's get real      TRUST ME - I'm in the business - this sort of thing happens on Macs too   

Macs fail; disks in macs fail; OS'es become corrupted - it just happens.

By the way, as a software engineer, I was overly UNimpressed with Macs.  The O/S was badly engineered, the "extension manager" was the biggest hack I think I've ever seen, and the system was unmanageable (from an MIS point of view) at best.....It was the worst - UNTIL OSx.   Finally, they've really got something going!  OSx, based on Unix is really nice.  Bring up a Unix command window - and you're in Unix, witih all the Unix tools, syntax and other goodies.

I am inclined to believe the decline in Microsoft's sales are due multiple causes:

1) The economy
2) Unix (Linux, FreeBSD and other open source systems) whicih are cutting BADLY into MS's server business (the big ticket software products are here).  I'm a Unix server bigot 
3) Vista (need I say more?  What a MISTAKE).

Now, I have not studied Apple's market share or their numbers.  If Apple were up dramatically at the same time MS went down, I would take that as a strong indication that Apple was eating into MS's nearly complete domination of the desktop market.

But, suffice to say, Mac OSx is a real operating system (finally!), and will certainly help with the company's acceptance into the mainstream MIS community, rather than being the "bastard child" used by that weird guy they hired last month who HAS to have a Mac, and that the MIS people groan over every time they have to touch the system.

 

[Opcom]

I suppose I'll "upgrade" to windows 7 when the time comes. I do not know if Linux is supported by the hardware in the HP Pavilion a6703w I just bought, but I can imagine that it would run smokin on the dual core 64 bit CPR provided I have enough memory.

With Linux and UNIX, does the problem of memory leaks still exist? This use to be a general complaint in the past against UNIX.

all I know about the hardware is that it has the oomph to do some of the things that the old 900MHz 32 bit athlon PC cannot do properly. The old PC will stay for backup and e-mail/browsing duty.

[WB2YGF]

Ok, I'll bite - what's a necro?   

Necro is a prefix meaning death (as in necrophobia - fear of death).  So I guess a necro in this context is a necrothread.

[WB2YGF]

I do not know if Linux is supported by the hardware in the HP Pavilion a6703w I just bought, but I can imagine that it would run smokin on the dual core 64 bit CPR provided I have enough memory.

You could always run linux in a VirtualBox.   http://www.virtualbox.org/

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

The old Mac OS may have been a "hack" but I never had to rebuild the system, never has to wipe the HD and start over, never had to mess with IRQs, all peripherals and added boards in the machine installed in a minute or two, never had a problem getting a printer installed and never had a virus, trojan, or any other malicious SW problem. I never wasted a second recompiling anything, editing text files, messing with registries, or silly config and com files. Did need to because the computer worked.

I used to laugh when I heard my PC using friends beat their chests over spending all weekend getting a new piece of software installed or adding a new peripheral. They spoke as conquerers over coming some great foe. What a waste of time. I hear people now proclaiming the virtues of running two video monitors. Big deal, you could do that on the Mac well over 15 years ago. Plug and play? Mac always had it.

Back in the day a vendor of a Mac web server offered $10k to anyone who could hack their box. In over 10 years, no one claimed the prize.

That said OS X is more stable, but compared to the Windows OSes of the time, the classic Mac OS was light years ahead in the productivity area. Many so called programmers complained it was hard to write software for the OS. Funny, but MS got started with the first GUI versions of Word and Excel on the Mac. Some how, they figured it out.

[WB2YGF]

If you lock down all the features, the software and the hardware, it's understandable why it "just works".  Closed systems are like that.

That said, I tried to upgrade my G3 to Tiger so I installed a DVDRW drive and the OS DVD would not boot.  Turns out you need a "special" $300 DVDRW drive that's compatible with booting on a Mac.  Fortunately, I got the drive on close-out for $40.  Even though Apple adopted the PCI slot, most PCI cards won't work unless it says on the box that they are Mac compatible, and even that is no guarantee (unless you get actual Apple boards). I tried to upgrade to USB 2 and Ethernet 1G.   One of the cards would not play (can't remember which).

Oh...and once I upgraded to Tiger, my MS Office would not work and the only choice was to install a much bigger slower version.  So much for backwards compatability.  No better than a PC.  At least Office 2000 still runs on Vista (except for a bug in Outlook). 

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

No features were locked down. Please explain. The system was not closed. There were and are tons of third-party hardware and software. I just pointed out that MS wrote SW for the Mac and at one time was the largest Mac SW provider.

As far as I know, Apple makes no PCI boards. All video, audio and drives are made by third parties.

[WB2YGF]

As far as I know, Apple makes no PCI boards. All video, audio and drives are made by third parties.

I stand corrected...It's worse than I thought.  You can't even buy Apple boards, and the compatibility of generic boards is dreadful.

[WB2YGF]

The system was not closed.

Try installing the "Intel compatible" OSX on anything but an Apple motherboard.  Hackintosh is possible but difficult, ONLY because Apple purposely made it very difficult to do.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Report July 22, 2009:
 SAN FRANCISCO–"Apple Inc. posted a quarterly profit that blew past Wall Street forecasts thanks to strong sales of Mac computers and improved margins.

The company reported a net profit of $1.23 billion (U.S.), or $1.35 a share, for its fiscal third quarter ended June 27, up from $1.07 billion, or $1.19, in the year-ago period.

Apple's earnings per share beat by far the average forecast of $1.18 by analysts.

Revenue rose 12 per cent to $8.3 billion, versus analysts' average estimate of $8.2 billion. Apple's revenue increased in every region, including the U.S. and Europe. Worldwide retail store revenue increased 4 per cent from a year ago....

...Apple's Mac computers also bolstered results. Apple sold 4 per cent more Mac computers than a year ago. Meanwhile, researchers recently reported a 3 per cent to 5 per cent decline for the overall worldwide PC market in the same period...."

Of course, selling more then the competition doesn't always equate to being a better product. It could just mean that there are better convincing salespeople in the Mac sales arena then there are in the PC sales arena.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Try installing GM parts on a Ford. What's your point? BTW, people have installed OS X on non-Apple hardware. Your info is incorrect.

http://lifehacker.com/348653/install-os-x-on-your-hackintosh-pc-no-hacking-required


I've installed at least a dozen non-Apple boards in my Macs over the last 15 years without a problem. In fact, none of the boards I installed were made by Apple. How many have you tried and on how many machines and over how many decades? The idea the system is closed is a myth.

The system was not closed.

Try installing the "Intel compatible" OSX on anything but an Apple motherboard.  Hackintosh is possible but difficult, ONLY because Apple purposely made it very difficult to do.

[WB2YGF]

BTW, people have installed OS X on non-Apple hardware. Your info is incorrect.

I think the fact that I used the term "Hackintosh", shows that I am aware of that.  I didn't say it it can't be done, just that Apple makes it difficult, same as they make hacking the iPhone difficult, because they want control over hardware and software sales ($$$).  Nothing wrong with that, but if Microsoft decided one day that Windows would only install on Microsoft brand motherboards, compatibility problems with motherboards would probably disappear, but people would be up in arms.

OSx86  is a collaborative "hacking" project to run the Mac OS X computer operating system on non-Apple personal computers with x86 architecture processors.....A computer built to run this type of Mac OS X is also known as a Hackintosh

The Mac OS X end-user license agreement (EULA) forbids installations of Mac OS X on "non Apple-labeled computers".

On January 14, 2009, the Gadget Lab site of Wired Magazine posted a video tutorial for installing Mac OS X on an MSI Wind netbook, but removed it following a complaint from Apple

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSx86

[W4EWH]

I plan to keep on using XP until I can't make it work any more for what I use a computer for.

Why beat a dead OS? Switch to Linux.

It's not a panacea, not perfect, and not without faults. I find it necessary to keep using XP - this post was written using Firefox under XP Pro - for some applications that aren't available for Linux yet.

But, it is a world away from Microsoft and M$'s attitude that users are sheep to be fleeced at regular intervals, just because they can.  I have never had an issue or problem that I couldn't get help for, from a worldwide community of users that charge nothing for the information.

FWIW. YMMV.

73, Bill W1AC

[Opcom]

The lone macintosh someone brought in was one of the first machines to be rooted and have its file system gutted like a fish at Defcon9.  Linuxes and UNIXes fared better, about the same as NT. up and down.. The only machine unscathed for the entire 3 days was running VMS. So macs have been known to be hacked. Especially in a room full of 5000 real live hackers.

I bought the vista machine to use mainly for handling DVDs and video and pictures. virtualbox.org seems viable to add functionality to it.

All O/S have their places.

srsly, I'm running 98 as a webserver with a free firewall and free ftp program, for some sites I don't care about. But it has not been hacked either.

I did not have to spend any time setting up peripherals except loading the o/s and software because the 98 machine has integrated peripherals except the drives. Like a mac of old.

Same goes for the XP clone machine once I built it to my liking, ok so I was "forced" to -horribly- have to select among dozens of graphics cards and other tidbits.. how traumatizing! oh. wait.. it was fun, actually.

Building any of these electronic brains to my liking would be cost prohibitive on a mac (or -insert any non-x86 machine type here-). You can only build mac computers out of garbage if it is mac garbage. X86 on the other hand can be put together from garbage found on any curb. Sometimes even the M$ O/S can be found there. Ironic.

A friend is going to give me his old mac soon. it has a unix-derived o/s so he says. Leopard? that should be very nice. It will probably become my internet browsing and e-mail machine. The X86 clone will then be for standalone backup, storage, documents and CAD and the like. VMS is a bastion unto itself - for the Bunkerofdoom site, because I do care about that.

I cut my teeth on command lines configuration files. It is a matter of knowledge giving one leverage into functionality. I used to not like macs because you could not easily get "behind the window" so to speak.. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" I like the newer macs but I won't shell out $ like that.

A computer is just a tool. It's advantageous to have several kinds, one for each task set for which it is best suited. With the advent of mucho processing power, the days of the holy wars are over.

There is no need to discard a computer only to buy more $oftware because the old software won't run on the new computer. Keep them all in a cabinet or rack and switch to the one wth the required applications. KBM switches are the boon to modern man.

Wish list? a rack full of Itanium. $$$. "Meet your diverse application needs with a multi-OS ecosystem running HP-UX 11i, OpenVMS, Microsoft® Windows® Server, Linux, and NonStop."