Welshman living in Melbourne

and missing decent beer. Oh yes, they'll tell you about Coopers Vintage and Boags' Wizard Smith's, but they'll serve you supercooled Carlton Draught and Toohey's. I miss Brains' SA...

it's the old dichotomy, innit

Do you want to be happy? Or do you want to be knowledgeable? Ignorance is very comfortable, a bit like a bubble bath, and philosophers (and Dylan Moran) aren't exactly the most cheery bunch. When I look at iphone owners, they look happy with their purchase. I'm not sure the same quite holds true for a set of Nokia N-series owners, the Nexus One owners, or the Droid owners.

If you're happy with your iPhone, keep smiling. those people may know something you don't - they also may not, mind - but they don't look so happy when they're slagging you off.

Flames welcome, especially if they're along the lines of "bugger off you fking hippy" - i work in technology architecture and would very much appreciate a good laugh

meanie

It's quite funny looking back at the criticism for XP:

http://www.actsofvolition.com/archive/2001/december/windowsxprough says "it looks weird"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1321953.stm says "little is new"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/104954/windows_xp_slow_to_gain_ground.html says "why bother?"

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. For those who wish to change, go ahead and change. For those who don't or can't, in this case, you're really not missing out.

and to anyone who tries to signoff with a one-liner put-down: if you're not Charlie Brooker, P.J O'Rourke or Sir Alan Sugar, your one-liners won't be very good

too much hating going on here

it's fairly clear to all that in the World of IT, people tend to be rather resistant to change

The main advantage to upgrading to IE9 is the additional support for GPU hardware acceleration in images and video, that will be particularly useful in displaying video for HTML5.

Thing is, I'm not sure this is particularly relevant to most people:

- HTML5 isn't going to be widespread for some time - some say as far away as 2022

- date for EOL of IE7 on XP SP3 is July 2012 (if I can read the ms eol pages correctly)

- date for EOL of IE8 hasn't been set yet but is years away

- the people running Windows XP with competent GPUs are very much in a minority - most graphics-intensive applications tend to run faster in Windows 7

You really don't have to upgrade to IE9. There's no penalty for staying with IE7 or 8. If IE's not your cup of tea, there's plenty of other browsers - and a change is as good as an upgrade.

Does this warrant the amount of hate going on in this thread?

why are all the posts showing people having success with Windows 7 on Bootcamp downvoted?

anyway, the article seems fair enough apart from the VM red herring at the end - Unity is good for MS apps but most of the Macbooks now have half-decent graphics hardware so the opportunity to run a few games on them is being taken by most owners

anyway, it's not as if there's a huge pressing need to upgrade to Windows 7 quite yet, is there?

i'm sort of expecting a downvote and i don't know why

I had a dell xps m1730

superb, if bulky, luggable, until the graphics subsystem burnt a hole into the motherboard, then back it went to the particular dell reseller for a refund. laptops are rather fragile beasts, and no manufacturer really shines all that much in this regard

didn't Apple have problems with its latest iMacs too?

anyway, tablet pcs are exciting, as no-one's really succeeded with them before. microsoft have their codex thing out, which also looks cool, and a mate of mine has glued two oqos to a large piece of leather for homade dual screen joy. whatever apple produce, it may not do an awful lot (just like the netbook), but it'll look fine and within six months you'll find it on more than a few coffeetables

not mine though, I've got a dell xps studio now and it's wonderful

the amount of anti-ms fanboyism on this comment board is a bit of a turnoff

the amount of anti-ms posts that got modded up is rather tragic

the success of the linux and open source movement is great for the IT industry, and there's a lot of truth in stories around how MS have rather publically dropped a few balls. software and hardware platforms are a lot more heterogenous, and now corporate and enterprise customers are getting some good stuff out of open source software

but a lot of posters are expressing views and opinions that aren't really reflective of the industry at present, and ms's position in it. you can try to ignore the giant squid in the kitchen, but pretending it isn't there isn't exactly going to increase the credibility of your, uh, 'movement'

first time the coffee has made it all the way past the screen

"It was a difficult task to choose a winner, chiefly because days frequently pass without a single authentic witticism occurring across the entire site, and because I am so wearied by my Sisyphean endeavours that most days Dylan Moran himself could cavort across my desk reading from History's Most Laughingest Hilarities and I would not be able to summon a smile."

Nicola from Migration, who sits opposite, is sending you a dry cleaning bill

Windows 7 isn't delivering what people want

but from these comment boards, people* want a faster version of Windows XP** and nothing else

What were people expecting? And why isn't MS supporting this? And why isn't anyone else?

* namely, the sort of people who read El Reg, which is a very specific type of people

** replace with your choice of favourite Windows version

+1 on Stabilsing Debain sid

if indeed this is correct

Another thing - how many FOSS developers want to work to the sort of cycle Mark Shuttleworth is proposing? I can't help thinking that half the fun of FOSS is that you can work on things you enjoy and know about, without having to faff with the whole timely deliverables or bigger picture thing.

Some want Linux to compete with Windows. How many others like Linux to potter along genially?

some decent ale please, if you can find some in Australia

Re: Cardiff

If I remember correctly, that was part of a replacement of nearly all of Cardiff, where everything south of the Gabalfa Interchange was ripped out, dumped in Stormy Down tip, and replaced with something nice, shiny and attractive in order to catch the eye of the Money (wot we call those east of the border) passing through on their way to take up residence in ALL the nice picturesque cottages in the Swansea Valleys, gently chugging along in their BMW X5 or Porsche Cayenne with one wing mirror helpfully angled to allow the Lady to check her makeup for the speed cameras petulantly carpeted west of J30 and the Child strapped into the back looking sullen, sour and depressed as the battery's gone on BOTH his PSP and his DS, but really because it's slowly dawning on him that the only things he's going to be doing in Nice Picturesque Cottageland (until his parents finally lose him to uni) are drugs, alcohol and other bored English expat teenagers

I'm with you, Bill 31

my first morning working here in Oz was greeted with someone using an oral sex allegory as a vehicle for selling nutrient-rich, uhm, breakfast cereal. most fun my girlfriend's had on a weekday morning for a while

surely marketing agencies are now factoring in the ASA Effect

for my part, I was brought up in a Goon Show loving household, and as a preteen had to work out exactly what sort of a relationship Hercules Grytpipe-Thynne and Moriarty shared, as well as getting a cuff across the back of the head when I asked about Seagoon's Pink Oboe...

@AC 13:51

"..but I can get a laptop from xxxx for £yyyy, with the same hardware.."

Rising to this one. Dell Studio 15, HP Pavilion dv3t and Toshiba Satellite U500 can all be bought cheaper than this, with similar or greater specs. There's even an option to specify a better battery.

In fact, it's hard to find a MacBook or MacBook Pro that competes solely on price and performance. I know, I've been looking.

But that's not the only selling points of the Mac, is it?

And why on earth can't other laptop makers respond?

i'm not from your world

the song he chose seems rather apt...

/away to go buy more To-Ka Project

the world has been screaming out for a direct between Apple and major PC brands

for example, comparing Apple lappies to similar models from Dell, Tosh, HP/Compaq, Asus, Acer

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10442_7-6511774-1.html is a good start, with lots of benchmarks, but not very recent

http://www.macworld.com/article/139901/2009/04/mac_windows_1000.html is newer, but about the MacBook, and doesn't list any bookmarks

worth spending a bit of time on it yourself, really, isn't it?

people really don't want new software at the mo

they want their existing software to respond to new standards, new technological innovations and new ways of working

Problem is though, there isn't really a cost model that will make that profitable to do. I would guess that buying a Windows release would pay for a few years of support for that release, but would not pay for support for this release in perpetuity. That would be silly.

Mac OS ask you to pay for updates (rather than new releases), yet provides a seamless experience between releases. Linux isn't quite there yet for the majority of people.

Google OS, however, is already making all its money elsewhere, and probably doesn't see this as a business that is going to make it an enormous amount of profit. So it might well provide the sort of service users want, at a price people will find easy to pay. Not guaranteed though, and if we look at the small amount of form it's shown, it hasn't blown the competition away with Chrome and Android.

It won't kill Windows until the office and gaming experience is as good as Windows, and people's leases run out on their office PCs. But then it might. Unless people get distracted again.

might well be the netbook OS of choice

A browser-based OS might offer the ease and familiarity of use netbook owners have been begging for, without the Windows millstone. Other kiosk-style consoles, such as EPOS, SCADA, industrial and medical applications, as well as consumer electronics, would also benefit from a browser-based UI framework, as it seems to me that that's all you're really getting, albeit the promise of a very polished one.

I'm not sure how much it would take market share away from Linux or Windows in the desktop, office, gamer or enthusiast's space, as it's not really adding much that these OSes already provide. And the margins in these spaces are a lot smaller, too. Enterprise might benefit from Google's datacenter expertise, but I'm not sure Chrome is pitched at this market.

The more competition the better, I say. Apple's iPhone has kickstarted innovation in the mobile space and made it better for everyone. And Apple had to make money out of its platform, Google doesn't have quite the same concerns :)

(would someone please stop me commenting? it's been four comments in two days now)

I like Chris C's comment

The jury did find her guilty of sharing those 24 songs. They probably weren't entirely happy with her arguments either. I don't have any problem with that - I'm very much from the "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" school. Fair cop guv etc.

However, I do feel there are two instances where we've lost a bit of perspective:

1) everybody does it and it's extremely easy to do

It's a bit glib, even puerile. But I guess, as a liberal (bordering on freetard), I believe the law should be shaped by social behaviour as well as social values. It must be frustrating for record companies to see their profit being undercut by what they perceive as people stealing from them, but I believe that they have not done enough to anticipate this, they've massively missed the boat on DRM, and have then not provided an adequate incentive for moving away from piracy. Even notwithstanding evidence both for and against piracy having a measurable impact on profits. Society as a whole doesn't believe distributing mp3s is as bad as the record companies think - the RIAA certainly hasn't helped here - and I believe it is the duty of the state to recognise this fact.

How would a parent feel if they found their child happily scoffing cookies from the jar they had left open? Or if they found that their eldest son had found daddy's magazines he had hidden under the mat in the toilet?

2) existing copyright law is inappropriate for the crime that Jamie has been convicted of

Although existing copyright law may be applicable, I don't believe that it is appropriate when it comes to mp3s. People have hundreds or thousands of mp3s, not just one or two. The scale of the projected damages is now so enormous as to lose significance against the crime, especially given the accessibility of the crime. How can a jury of Jamie's peers understand the sort of amounts they've been asked to award, even if it is only for 24 mp3s?

Perhaps we should have some sort of amnesty or honesty scheme, where people can pay a certain amount a month they feel represents what they're taking from the music industry. At least something that is more progressive than trying to shoot the cat they've let out of the bag.

Flame because people are going to flame me

it's scary

that your ability to give your very considered opinion on everything you are passionate about could well be taken away by the people who go onto fmylife.com and automatically click on "you deserved that one"

wups, third post on el reg today, should really get some work done

taking umbrage at Michael 2

I don't think Cade Metz here is trying to IE-Versus-Mozilla on us, it seems more to do with the old corporate line of "better the devil you know". FWIW, we went up to IE7, and there was the usual bleatings of "internal apps don't work" but that only lasted a few months whilst bugs were shot.

I imagine here Orange may not have properly tested/certified their CSS app with IE7 (or indeed with Firefox) so are a bit worried about the unknown dangers in other browsers (rather than the known dangers in IE6?). Perhaps their CSS vendor should be more proactive in certifying more recent and more secure browsers?

Let's all go back to writing apps in Visual Basic 4 on NT4 and SQL Server and having the software update itself from a central server every morning :D Who needs workflow management, BPM solutions and realtime data availability when you've got the Step-By-Step Wizard, a bloody huge batch/ETL service and the standard "you'll see the updates tomorrow" rubrick?

@Martin Lyne

I'm not sure how many people are bothered by cameras in phones. The sort of upgrade you might hope for is from a 3MP to a 5MP, or upgraded optics, either of which won't really produce a step change in picture quality (as well as size and cost). People who want to take decent pictures aren't going to look towards a smartphone to do so. Especially when cheap but capable compacts (and DSLR, nearly) are now affordable and very much superior for the sorts of people who would buy this sort of phone

Exceptions are for fieldforce operations where a picture can be taken of a job for audit purposes, and uploaded to a central server as part of a form submission on a mobile device. How detailed a picture would you then need for this purpose?

What graphics are behind the Touch Pro 2? Would like to see more of a media review of the phone. Also, can we have an upgraded Windows experience behind the TouchFLO? Although Mobile 6.1 is useable, it's starting to look rather tatty behind the iPhone and Blackberry mail, SMS and contact apps.

it's like he's the antifanboy

you know you're famous when dziuba takes a swipe

For a troll though, his arguments are better phrased than the typical Get A Linux Live CD Brigade. I do feel though that he'd missed the focus of Opera publishing APIs to Unite - I thought they were there for novices to kick up a bit of clever functionality, rather than people to take particularly seriously.

I'm not sure itself that Opera Unite is particularly innovative though - the having to leave it on thing would annoy the hell out of me as well as anyone else wanting to access it - I'm not sure there's really a critical mass of people who leaves a Windows PC on 24/7 who want this sort of behaviour who hasn't already implemented something to do this. I put photos on Flickr and Facebook, and I've got my mp3 player for music. The fridge thing is quite cool though, it'll save me a 20c text to tell my housemate to buy noodles.

And Opera's market share is miniscule. Most people who aren't using IE are using Firefox, and a lot of them are just as clever as you. Good for you if you like Opera, but I think you're essentially outliers who have to be happy using it for your own purposes rather than thinking you're part of some sort of enlightened elite. It's good on mobiles though.

normally an MS fanboi

but I can't help thinking that MS have got themselves into an enormous mess here

With the amount of anti-MS sledging going on, I'm happy to have a pro-MS guy pip up, took some balls to do that.

But what would have happened if MS did plumb in and document API calls into Windows for web browsers? Perhaps we would have had a richer internet experience, and even tighter internet integration into the OS, given a bit of competition.

Paris because she ensured documented, unrestricted access to her routines to all

heh, nice one Mark 108

Also, can't help thinking that this is very useful as a marketing report - it's highlighting how much profit there is in developing applications and services for the iPhone by highlighting how much more homogenous iPhone users are than other platforms.

Does it tell you how much actual people these percentages represent? Without these, you'd be hard put to put a business case together to tell your apps lead to focus more on iPhones,

For my part, I've got a tweaked HTC Touch Pro. It does more than an iPhone, it's just a bit fiddlier and slower to do it. My personal view on the debate is whether you want to buy a brand new Mazda MX-7 or a second hand Toyota Hiace. I've gone for the Hiace and it's bloody useful, paid for itself tons over, but I still think the Mazda looks nicer.

perhaps this is an area of risk that linux can help out with

Can't help thinking that this might be the stick that might consider some sysadmins to break the Windows deployment camel's back. Damage due to virus activity (which now has to include problems caused by antivirus activity) has to be added to a Windows deployment TCO and weighed against the Linux TCO.

Not running antivirus on servers means that you can guarantee that not only cannot malicious payloads be moved to these servers, but also that malicious activity cannot originate on these servers. The enhanced security modes on IE can reduce the risk of the latter, however the former is still a problem. How do you audit against these things? Is there an accepted diligence process?

I wouldn't be surprised if a significant proportion of malware activity happens as a result of (if not deliberately caused by) a user with administrative privileges. Back in the days of NT4, I was handed domain user control of a sizeable industrial network as a young pimply eighteen year old to do some admin tasks. I turned auditing on my user in order to cover my own arse if things went poop :)

seems to me like SOA is a bit like going to the gym

you're sold by the pictures of attractive, happy, sculpted men and women, and agree to sign a few dollars a month away

then you start realising it's not just about lifting weights and going on the treadmill, they're asking you to change your diet too

after a few months or so, you may not look quite like the pictures you were sold, but you are more awake inna mornings and your partner likes the way you're a bit more toned and you're eating a bit better

is that good enough? sometimes

Surely this should have been done ages ago

1) Remove Jacqui

2) Obtain a Linux Live CD

3) Put in drive

4) Install Linux

I can't believe the government has waited this long before finally bending to the will of the people

i don't use linux because...

...I can't turn up to work at 11am in a black teeshirt and jeans my mum bought for me

surely "this is why you should use Linux" type comments must now be regarded as trolling?

saying this mind, I can't get the fix working either

your business plan is useless without one of those Gartner's quadrant chart

and it's been challenging to build a suitable one for digital music

I believe there needs to be a VIP Customer service for people who are happy to buy digital music, in the similar way to your loyalty schemes for frequent fliers trying to squeeze value out of business flying. Perhaps included in subscriptions should be free merchandise, higher quality downloads, exclusive entry/preferred entry to gigs etc.

I especially like the live music scene - I think there's huge amount of scope in that. Why not have a Spotify Subscriber's bar at your next music festival? Or your own entry queues?

What's IMDB Pro's business model?

Mine's the coat with Qantas Frequent Flyer on the lapel

Computing patterns - and people - aren't so good at change

It's always fascinated me how the IT world is so rocked by change. From when Facebook redesigned its interface, when a service pack or operating system upgrade rolls around, it's always accompanied by the wailings and angst from those affected by the change

Everyone knows how you can remove an icon from a middle manager's toolbar and cripple his productivity until someone else can restore it. Perhaps the icon has been put somewhere more sensible? Rubbish - it's because it has CHANGED that's causing the ill.

It takes a lot of training to get up to speed on any software application. Some are of course more complex than others. When a new version is released, some retraining is needed. It's painful but necessary, and it is always appreciated when application developers take actions to mitigate this pain.

But people in IT know this to be the case. This will always happen. IT is constantly evolving in all spheres.

Why aren't we good at accepting this?

el reg needs a percentage score at the top of every story about MS software

to give an idea of the quality of the comments section. A higher percentage means that you'll be spending quite a lot of your lunch hour pgdning through comments from people you tend to avoid at school reunions and office parties.

Personally quite like Windows 7, although I'd be interested to see how corporate IT guys deal with it when it's in the corporate mainstream. I run Ubuntu in a VMware setup on Windows 7 and it's still doing my web, FTP and ssh stuff whilst I'm playing Fallout 3.

It's a bit like the article also published recently in El Reg about Apple's latest line of products - it's rather a yin release, which is probably a good thing. Of course, Windows 7, with its history, is going to draw some attention by missing out a beta step, and I think it's justifiable to ponder why MS has gone down this route. No matter how good it looks in beta, it's going to get pulled apart once it hits retail, and questions are going to be asked as to whether the time it decided not to use was well spent?

Re: Tards are out in force again

I'm with AC on this one. Windows 7 seems quite nice actually, apart from the confusing HomeShare thing.

Was it Eddie Izzard that advocated radical moderacy? Can we regain a sense of perspective for things like this? The spitting rage people get at things like this is dismaying. Perhaps it's the same mechanisms in place as road rage - there's the same abstraction of control there.

i want one

All I've had from Dell is laptops that overheat and die.

This is based solely from owning an XPS M1710 which almost survived being kicked around in a campervan going around NZ for two weeks before its notably flawed graphics cooling failing back in Oz. I probably broke some horrific quarantine laws importing the two pounds of filth that are probably clogging it up back into the country.

I'm personally bored of netbooks - they're simple commodities that ably do the limited job they were designed for. More innovation in the laptop front is to be credited.

Still bored of Vistabashing though. Vista's fine now, leave the poor thing alone. Bashing Vista still isn't getting you laid, you know.

Re: Sarky comments as usual

Couldn't help bridling at this one.

Wot DaPho, the point the reviewer was making was that the UI itself seems inconsistent in the app - some of the UI looks rather dated, whilst the newer features use more modern lines.

You must have given up hope by this point, as the next line makes it a bit more obvious

"For example, Faces and Places, the stars of iPhoto '09 (more on them in a minute), have a distinctly more modern look-and-feel than do older features such as keyword tagging."

Re: title needed apparently

I moved to Oz a few months ago, from Wales. Around Melbourne, everyone, from the overly modded gleaming white Asian imports to the idiotically engined and spoilered Holden Commodores and the frankly stupid dayglo lycra-coloured Ford XR6 utes (which still make me laugh) do exactly 103kmh on the freeways, otherwise a sniper from the Victoria aerial traffic cops shoots off a tiny portion of bodywork, bringing the car to a screeching halt and causing it to empty its load of bogans onto the Nepean Highway to fuss over the fascia in the midst of oncoming, if slow, traffic.

On a more serious note, surely tuning a five-litre Falcon with enormous wheels to get to 60kmh far quicker than any pedestrian would notice in a traffic system that allows you to turn left into an active green man crossing is just simply wrong.

Perhaps this was in response to the outrageously complicated city limits traffic system? Sometimes you'll need to cut across seven lanes of rush hour traffic in order to make the poorly signposted turning into Barkly Street, and how better to do that than in a car more powerful than around three hundred charging wildebeest?

bugger, where on earth did i put my keys

rural living vs. urban living when it comes to service provision

It's so easy to say "you shoudn't expect to get the high quality of service citydwellers get if you live in the sticks". I'm trying to think of counter-arguments. Service provision is run by private enterprise, so, to me, the only benefit they get from running services into rural areas is if they can offset the loss against any value added in PR, brand value, goodwill etc. In fact, I bet lot of people factor high-quality services as a reason to move to an urban area.

Back on-topic now. I like mobile broadband as they're cute little devices, they're easy to use, and, most of all, they're Teh Internets Inna Box that you can buy from the high street. As a concept, they're brill. Flatmate of mine wanted one because she couldn't be arsed setting up internet in her house. Wifi access may bring higher speeds, but as the article says, the setup and billing is complicated and it brings no real benefits - you can (barely) watch iPlayer over mobile broadband.

/me leaving my coat behind - it's 44C here in Melbourne...

got to say I like the article

I'm of the opinion that when reading articles on el reg, the actual article counts for around 30-50% of the information gained, and the comments the remainder. Especially when it comes to the more IT-related articles.

I have to agree with the thrust of Ted's article (although there are valid arguments to be made against the tone and some of the content). My interpretation of it is that it's trying to say that the Linux desktop won't be ready for the mainstream until it becomes as ubiquitous as Windows. Bit chicken-and-egg, that. I believe that it relates usability directly to this point, and makes a strong link between usability and prevalence. Disagree with that as you will.

I have to agree also with the majority of comments too - there are well-documented instances of Linux success, especially in the server market, but also notably in the netbook and 'commodity' desktop, and sometimes in more specialist fields.

But most of all, I have to agree with those who talk about people not using Linux because it's 'different'. It's great if you overcome the difference, out of necessity or choice. It's even better if you find yourself more productive using a different OS.

What's interesting to me are the questions these pose. Is Windows really stagnating? Why doesn't Linux be more like Windows? Why aren't we teaching Linux to our kids as well as Windows? Why haven't firms tried Linux in the office?

I guess, to me, it's not 'which OS is better?' but 'what can we gain from either?'. But then again, I'm an Aquarius, so count being capricious and mercurial as a personality trait :)

it's getting harder to read el reg comment sections

without expressing angst towards fanboys. Surely they can be moderated out?

I guess a linux-based office solution COULD be made more secure, but this may well be more expensive, and sacrifices ease of use and integration.

Security can be measured in pounds and pence, even in the MoD. Do TCOs of Windows vs. Linux include cost of downtime due to Windows viruses, cost of data loss/theft/recovery, and any other impact due to viruses? Surely this is the bottom line?

bored to tears of vista bashing

an upshot of windows seven being released to optimistic reviews is the slow decline of the fashion of vista bashing.

plenty has been said on this topic by people more reasoned, more amusing, and more sexually attractive than you.

am convinced that the people continuing to wheel out these old tired jokes are people who, as a kid, used to try to hang around with the bullies at school. we all saw you wait until that poor kid was on the floor facing the other way before you put the boot in.