Windows Vista - Innovation or *another* /expensive/ Knock-Off?
Nathaniel L. Walker
Hardware-rendered desktops popping up all over the place in the Linux
world (they use OpenGL).
Machines running the Window Managers smoothly have been boasting
excellent hardware capabilities including sub 1GHz processors and
onboard Video cards with 32MB RAM, many of them using Shared
Video memory. One has to wonder what Microsoft has done to
increase the Windows system requirements exponentially in comparison
to these efforts.
Screenshots:
http://hibbert.univ-lille3.fr/~cbellegarde/compiz_kde.png
http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/de/b/bf/Compiz-kde-sl10.1-scale.jpg
http://www.goldmann.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/compiz.jpg
http://amar.glugzdk.ba/Screenshot.png
http://amar.glugzdk.ba/ludoo.png
http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?image=xglkde29bf.jpg
http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?image=xglkde29bf.jpg
http://dzeni.linux.org.ba/screenshots/xgl-compiz4.png
http://rootshell.be/~arthurv/Screenshot.jpg
Quick Demos:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HNRbF60Pa6M&mode=related&search=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QcCU70d-pfc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=icm7GGCPOt8
Thoughts? Yes, I know it cannot run Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop,
Dreamweaver, Visual Studio, or Borland Developer Studio 2006. Just
talking about the desktop environment in general :)
- Nate.
William Egge
Nathaniel L. Walker
It's already integrated into Fedora Core 6, Mandriva, Ubuntu, and
SuSE Enterprise Linux Desktop 10.
There are LiveCDs around that allow you to test its functionality.
- Nate.
"William Egge" <be...@eggcentric.com> wrote in message
news:45551add$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Martin Harvey
Ahh, I'm using vista on a daily basis, and it's *fine*
MH.
Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho
> Was that around before Vista?
Considering that Vista hasn't being released yet, all of those things
are already present before Vista.
Plus, I first saw Open GL accelerated 3D desktop running on Solaris 1
year ago. And I think it probably was working even before that.
If you download Mandriva 2007 it already comes with Open GL accelerated
desktop, X Composite extension and 3D desktop.
Nathaniel L. Walker
700 MHz P3, 256 MB RAM, Intel i810 Integrated Graphics
Chipset with 32/64 MB Shared Video RAM?
KDE/GNOME + Xgl-Compiz is *fine* on that.
You're answering an unasked question :) Thanks for the response
though; makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside as I run to the store
to buy a new graphics card :)
Off-Topic: I heard the new security updates for Vista were out :)
(It's true.)
- Nate.
"Martin Harvey" <mar...@pergolesi1.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4555...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Shawn B.
> ago. And I think it probably was working even before that.
Could be so... but were things things in existance before Vista/Longhorn
featureset was announced? I seem to remember Microsoft announcing their
intentions for hardware accelerated "windowing" and OS-level vector graphics
and 3D displays as a feature for Longhorn Vista and *then* hearing about all
the other OS's that put it in after/before the fact.
I have faint memories of hearing that it wasn't originally MS's idea, but
they certainly got the market to take notice. Kind of like how AJAX wasn't
anything new but Google's use of it got the market to notice...
So, I don't peronally think that Vista hardware acceleration is a knock-off,
I think they did what needed to be done to meet the next generation of
presentation. But what ideas are truly original these days, anyway?
Thanks,
Shawn
Paul Nichols [TeamB]
>> Plus, I first saw Open GL accelerated 3D desktop running on Solaris 1 year
>> ago. And I think it probably was working even before that.
>
> Could be so... but were things things in existance before Vista/Longhorn
> featureset was announced? I seem to remember Microsoft announcing their
> intentions for hardware accelerated "windowing" and OS-level vector graphics
> and 3D displays as a feature for Longhorn Vista and *then* hearing about all
> the other OS's that put it in after/before the fact.
>
originally called Looking Glass.
Nathaniel L. Walker
Erm... Vista looks like it, rather...
http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/details.xml
- Nate.
"Paul Nichols [TeamB]" <pa...@comp.net> wrote in message
news:45553659$3...@newsgroups.borland.com...
biscui...@googlemail.com
32MB video card. Not sure whether you can do this on Panther, but
Tiger's been out for 1 1/2 years. Its actually built into the UNIX
layer of OS X, they just don't have a built-in way of activating it.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/76553758@N00/294347880/"
title="Photo Sharing"><img
src="http://static.flickr.com/110/294347880_8ba8858e4f.jpg" width="500"
height="375" alt="Picture 1" /></a>
Ingvar Nilsen
> Screenshots:
How does this make the PC more useful?
--
Ingvar Nilsen
http://www.ingvarius.com
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah
"Nathaniel L. Walker" <NatLW...@NoEmail.Hah> wrote:
>XGL, Compiz, AIXGL (sp?).
<snip>
My dugg of this thread backfires; see the very first comment <http://digg.com/software/Windows_Vista_Innovation_or_another_expensive_Knock_Off>
--
<?php echo 'Just another PHP saint'; ?>
Email: rrjanbiah-at-Y!com Blog: http://rajeshanbiah.blogspot.com/
Abdullah Kauchali
"Ingvar Nilsen"
> How does this make the PC more useful?
More /likeable/?
Piotr Szturmaj
> increase the Windows system requirements exponentially in comparison
> to these efforts.
>
> Screenshots:
>
> http://hibbert.univ-lille3.fr/~cbellegarde/compiz_kde.png
I don't see any blur here. In Vista transparent window captions are also
blurred.
Ingvar Nilsen
>
> "Ingvar Nilsen"
> > How does this make the PC more useful?
>
> More likeable?
Fore some perhaps. And it depends on whether your PC is a multi media
centre or a workstation used for production.
Myself I switch to the so called classic theme in XP, I think blinking
colourful lamps are counter productive.
I am sort of disappointed with Microsoft. Up till now, it has been
major, and mostly amazing improvements. Seems the Windows desktop has
reached maturity. I haven't studied Vista too much, but the giant leaps
we have become used to seem to have slowed down to small stumbling
steps. See-through applications, 3D desktop, well, does it help me?
One very very nice thing with Vista is files metadata. You can add your
salt and 2 cents to any file and then these data are searchable. That
is an improvement!
ns
"Nathaniel L. Walker" <NatLW...@NoEmail.Hah> wrote:
SuSE Linux Desktop 10 does not have XGL enabled by default! The README basically says that you have to find the right drivers and configure the stuff yourself - it's in the early stages.....
(found out after wasting several hours downloading dvd-images and installing - and no - I had no luck finding the drivers for my not-so-new ATI 9600 gfx-card)
It's definitely not ready for the masses (not even SuSE makes that claim).
Vista's aero OTOH seems more mature (than XGL).
I.P. Nichols
>> > How does this make the PC more useful?
>>
>> More likeable?
>
> Fore some perhaps. And it depends on whether your PC is a multi media
> centre or a workstation used for production.
> Myself I switch to the so called classic theme in XP, I think blinking
> colourful lamps are counter productive.
If eye candy puts you off, you can revert back to the classic theme, menu
system, etc...
> I am sort of disappointed with Microsoft. Up till now, it has been
> major, and mostly amazing improvements. Seems the Windows desktop has
> reached maturity. I haven't studied Vista too much, but the giant leaps
> we have become used to seem to have slowed down to small stumbling
> steps.
One big improvement that should appeal to everyone is that with the new WDM,
everything is scaleable and flashing is a thing of the past.
See-through applications, 3D desktop, well, does it help me?
Different strokes for different folks. for the less computer literate users,
these features may have great appeal.
As a developer, Vista and WPF offer a new paradigm should you choose to go
that route, otherwise you can just ignore it and continue on with what you
are doing now.
Here is a 10 minute propaganda video showing WPF features:
http://wm.microsoft.com/ms/expression/wpf/WPFMKT_FINAL.wmv
> One very very nice thing with Vista is files metadata. You can add your
> salt and 2 cents to any file and then these data are searchable. That
> is an improvement!
There are a gob of new/improved features, take a look here and
see if you can't expand your list by one or two items. ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista
Nathaniel L. Walker
proprietary
and incompatible with Linux Kernel.
If you have a Novell subscription, you can enable XGL by just getting it
from
the download center, which will pull the correct drivers for you and set it
up
for you.
- Nate.
"ns" <n...@no-spam.ns> wrote in message
news:4555d98b$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Nathaniel L. Walker
You sure he didn't mean Windows 98. Even then, Compiz and XGL can
be used with GNOME and other desktop managers, so I don't see what
merit that comment has.
But you should see compiz/xgl with vista theme, it's nice.
- Nate.
"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrj...@rediffmail.com> wrote in message
news:4555b41c$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Q Correll
| I think blinking colourful lamps are counter productive.
Ditto! They're distracting and highly annoying to me.
--
Q
11/11/2006 10:39:33
XanaNews Version 1.17.5.7 [Q's salutation mod]
Q Correll
| Thoughts?
Those are certainly NOT my "cup of tea!" Impressive technically, but
suck as far as simplicity, clarity and usability as far as I can see.
--
Q
11/11/2006 10:49:48
Ingvar Nilsen
> "Ingvar Nilsen" wrote:
> >>> How does this make the PC more useful?
> > >
> > > More likeable?
> >
> > Fore some perhaps. And it depends on whether your PC is a multi
> > media centre or a workstation used for production.
> > Myself I switch to the so called classic theme in XP, I think
> > blinking colourful lamps are counter productive.
>
> If eye candy puts you off
Not necessarily
> you can revert back to the classic theme,
> menu system, etc...
Good!
> One big improvement that should appeal to everyone is that with the
> new WDM, everything is scaleable and flashing is a thing of the past.
Great, I need to study this
> Here is a 10 minute propaganda video showing WPF features:
Thanks a lot for the links!
Geoff Ingram
Ingvar Nilsen
> There are a gob of new/improved features, take a look here and
> see if you can't expand your list by one or two items. ;-)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista
" Minesweeper, Solitaire, Hearts, FreeCell and Spider
Solitaire have been updated"
WOW! <g>
I.P. Nichols
> I.P. Nichols wrote:
>
>> There are a gob of new/improved features, take a look here and
>> see if you can't expand your list by one or two items. ;-)
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista
>
> " Minesweeper, Solitaire, Hearts, FreeCell and Spider
> Solitaire have been updated"
>
> WOW! <g>
Quoting Popeye, "I yam what I yam" :)
Chris
> How does this make the PC more useful?
Multitasking is enhanced for greater productivity. Microsoft's variant
appears as a beta toy written in P-code.
This video demos Linux capabilities. 50MB/DivX 5
http://backoffice.ajb.com.au/video/xgl-low.avi
Martin Harvey
news:4555288e$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
> What kind of system are you running it on.
Er... 32 boxes, each with Dual Hyperthreaded Xeons + 2 gig of Ram.
MH.
Abdullah Kauchali
"Geoff Ingram"
> More like a Mac ;)
For sure. My next machine has to be a Mac!
Ingvar Nilsen
I am having problems connecting here - nothing happens
Chris
>
> I am having problems connecting here - nothing happens
>
The video link is at the end of article. The last half of the video
really demonstrates the capabilities.
somebody
> Those are certainly NOT my "cup of tea!" Impressive technically, but
> suck as far as simplicity, clarity and usability as far as I can see.
Indeed. Such a waste of programmer effort.
Nathaniel L. Walker
P4 2.8GHz HT
512 MB RAM
128 MB ATI Radeon 9200SE (DX8.1 card)
Smooth as butter :)
- Nate.
"Martin Harvey" <mar...@pergolesi1.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4556...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Nathaniel L. Walker
Do you think the same of Microsoft's effort?
- Nate.
"somebody" <A...@A.com> wrote in message
news:45568438$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Andre Kaufmann
> Ingvar Nilsen wrote:
> The video link is at the end of article. The last half of the video
> really demonstrates the capabilities.
>
> http://www.pcauthority.com.au/feature.aspx?CIaFID=1334
It shows me some nice desktop effects, but I rather would see how the
applications can use this functionality inside their windows and how
this is supported by a development environment ?
Andre
Robert Giesecke
> I just ran a Live disk with XGL Compiz enabled.
>
> P4 2.8GHz HT
> 512 MB RAM
> 128 MB ATI Radeon 9200SE (DX8.1 card)
>
9700 or 9800)
R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah
"Nathaniel L. Walker" <NatLW...@NoEmail.Hah> wrote:
>"R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah" <ng4rrj...@rediffmail.com> wrote in message
>news:4555b41c$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
>> "Nathaniel L. Walker" <NatLW...@NoEmail.Hah> wrote:
>>>XGL, Compiz, AIXGL (sp?).
>> <snip>
>>
>> My dugg of this thread backfires; see the very first comment
>> <http://digg.com/software/Windows_Vista_Innovation_or_another_expensive_Knock_Off>
>>
>
>You sure he didn't mean Windows 98. Even then, Compiz and XGL can
>be used with GNOME and other desktop managers, so I don't see what
>merit that comment has.
Now, one more comment; I'm pasting all the comments here as that might help anyone who isn't knowledgeable enough to comment about Linux/Vista innovation:
#by kennyidaho
I don't think that's a fair title. Really the KDE theme is a knock off of the Vista theme.
#by klawz
Take a look at the Microsoft 2003 longhorn promot video and tell me who "knocked off" whom. This article is lame, and FUD. Get some facts before writing this garbage. Search for it even here on Digg.
Frans van Daalen
"Ingvar Nilsen" <no....@ingvarius.com> wrote in message
news:45562020$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
> I.P. Nichols wrote:
>
>> There are a gob of new/improved features, take a look here and
>> see if you can't expand your list by one or two items. ;-)
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista
>
> " Minesweeper, Solitaire, Hearts, FreeCell and Spider
> Solitaire have been updated"
>
> WOW! <g>
>
" Also, e-mail messages are now stored as individual files rather than in a
binary database to reduce frequent corruption and make messages searchable
in real-time"
Craig
>
> Fore some perhaps. And it depends on whether your PC is a multi media
> centre or a workstation used for production.
> Myself I switch to the so called classic theme in XP, I think blinking
> colourful lamps are counter productive.
>
> I am sort of disappointed with Microsoft. Up till now, it has been
> major, and mostly amazing improvements. Seems the Windows desktop has
> reached maturity. I haven't studied Vista too much, but the giant leaps
> we have become used to seem to have slowed down to small stumbling
> steps. See-through applications, 3D desktop, well, does it help me?
>
> One very very nice thing with Vista is files metadata. You can add your
> salt and 2 cents to any file and then these data are searchable. That
> is an improvement!
>
Quite possible you are in the minority of users. Technical people (ie
Software Developers) are not typical PC users. You only have to look at
your kids pc or glance at the desktop of the receptionist to realise
this. How can they work with all that disorganised rubbish everywhere
you wonder.
Ingvar Nilsen
This is interesting. The trend is to move everything to file based
systems. I like it a lot. Things have been made too complicated before,
way too complicated.
Ingvar Nilsen
>
> >
> > Fore some perhaps. And it depends on whether your PC is a multi
> > media centre or a workstation used for production.
> > Myself I switch to the so called classic theme in XP, I think
> > blinking colourful lamps are counter productive.
> >
> > I am sort of disappointed with Microsoft. Up till now, it has been
> > major, and mostly amazing improvements. Seems the Windows desktop
> > has reached maturity. I haven't studied Vista too much, but the
> > giant leaps we have become used to seem to have slowed down to
> > small stumbling steps. See-through applications, 3D desktop, well,
> > does it help me?
> >
> > One very very nice thing with Vista is files metadata. You can add
> > your salt and 2 cents to any file and then these data are
> > searchable. That is an improvement!
> >
>
> Quite possible you are in the minority of users. Technical people (ie
> Software Developers) are not typical PC users.
I am a typical technical user!
And - in high tech countries, there is a PC in almost every office, if
not in all. So the number of professional users would be close to, if
not over 50% I guess. And that is not a minority..
Ingvar Nilsen
> Chris wrote:
> > Ingvar Nilsen wrote:
>
> > The video link is at the end of article. The last half of the video
> > really demonstrates the capabilities.
> >
> > http://www.pcauthority.com.au/feature.aspx?CIaFID=1334
>
> It shows me some nice desktop effects
I am getting a Deja Vu versus IBM's marketing of OS2 11 years ago..
Frans van Daalen
"Craig" <cra...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4556...@newsgroups.borland.com...
>
>>
They can't but have no clue how to change that so they stick with what they
know.
I once knew a secretary who after creating a document just pressed "save"
without looking where to save it/where it was saved. If the document needed
adjustment she could not find it anymore if the directory was changed. She
then retyped the whole document again....and again...and again...This came
public only after she left and someone tried to cleanup the PC for the new
secretary.
Richard Bayarri Bartual
>
> This is interesting. The trend is to move everything to file based
> systems. I like it a lot. Things have been made too complicated before,
> way too complicated.
>
new technologies Microsoft will wow us with in the successor to Vista.
Maybe they'll introduce the novel concept of storing data on paper tape,
or even card punches and deck readers. Of course, this all seems like
science fiction now, but with the amount of money Microsoft spend on
research, I'm pretty sure that innovative technologies such as putting
text in a text file will seem very tame indeed compared with what
they'll be unveiling in the next decade or two.
Thack
> not in all. So the number of professional users would be close to, if
> not over 50% I guess. And that is not a minority..
But there is a BIG difference between professional users and technical
users. Technical users (nerds) are in the minority. As mentioned elsewhere
in this thread, people who use a computer for their job (professional users)
are often incredibly incompetent, especially when it comes to managing their
file storage.
Thack
Ingvar Nilsen
> Ingvar Nilsen wrote:
> >
> > This is interesting. The trend is to move everything to file based
> > systems. I like it a lot. Things have been made too complicated
> > before, way too complicated.
> >
> If storing text in text files is a "trend"
It is as far as I have observed. Go long enough back, and every company
had their own proprietary binary format where data was stored.
Then some standards came. See how difficult there is to just take an
application and move it on you machine, it won't find anything because
data is scattered all over in the registry etc.
Take a web project in Visual Studio 2003, it had to be hooked up with
IIS, web applications defined, in the project file there were hard
coded paths and urls and so on.
Take a web project in Visual Studio 2005, it only relates to the folder
it is in and its sub folders, you can move it around as much as you
wish. Why store anything at all in the registry, that is proprietary to
one application and that never is needed by other applications?
Ingvar Nilsen
> As
> mentioned elsewhere in this thread, people who use a computer for
> their job (professional users) are often incredibly incompetent,
> especially when it comes to managing their file storage.
This is not far from the truth :-)
Chris
>
> It shows me some nice desktop effects, but I rather would see how the
> applications can use this functionality inside their windows and how
> this is supported by a development environment ?
That is an exercise for you, the developer.
http://webcvs.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/xorg/hw/xgl/?pathrev=xgl-0-0-1
Nathaniel L. Walker
It has Pixel Shader 1.4, and does not support per-pixel
antialiasing (WindowBlinds told me the latter, Everest
the former). The card is only 1.5 years old. It was bought
after DX9, however, but doesn't seem to work :(
- Nate.
"Robert Giesecke" <Sp...@Spam.Spam> wrote in message
news:4556c590$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Andre Kaufmann
Thanx, but I didn't want to study the sources of the XGL server, though
they are nicely formatted, to get an impression how an application can
create a 3D Gui.
Andre
eduard
> I just ran a Live disk with XGL Compiz enabled.
>
> P4 2.8GHz HT
> 512 MB RAM
> 128 MB ATI Radeon 9200SE (DX8.1 card)
>
> Smooth as butter :)
>
may I ask what distro?
--
Nathaniel L. Walker
"eduard" <nos...@no.org> wrote in message
news:xn0etn8b...@newsgroups.borland.com...
ns
"Nathaniel L. Walker" <NatLW...@NoEmail.Hah> wrote:
>Incorrect, the drivers aren't included in teh distro because they are
>proprietary
>and incompatible with Linux Kernel.
So - that makes my statement correct: XGL is NOT enabled by default.
>If you have a Novell subscription, you can enable XGL by just getting it
>from
>the download center, which will pull the correct drivers for you and set it
>up
>for you.
Thanks for pointing that out - but most people in the world DO NOT have a novel subscription. How should "they" get it to work?
The guide here http://en.opensuse.org/Using_Xgl_on_SUSE_Linux didnt solve anything in my case.
>
>- Nate.
>
Is there any live-distros around with XGL enabled "out of the box"? (links please)
/CJensen
Nathaniel L. Walker
that
way also. Fedora Core 6 will come with it enabled by default.
What's your point?
- Nate.
"ns" <n...@spam.ns> wrote in message news:455818fe$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Nathaniel L. Walker
> please)
Kororaa.
Use Google please.
- Nate.
Richard Bayarri Bartual
>> Ingvar Nilsen wrote:
> Go long enough back, and every company
> had their own proprietary binary format where data was stored.
> Then some standards came.
Considering that the first such standard was EBCDIC in 1963,
followed by ASCII in 1967, one has to go back a very long way
indeed to find a computer system which does not have a text file
format.
> See how difficult there is to just take an
> application and move it on you machine, it won't find anything because
> data is scattered all over in the registry etc.
>
This is because Microsoft decided to abandon text-based configuration
files while everybody else continued to use them. Lest we forget, DOS
had config.sys and autoexec.bat, while older versions of Windows used
system.ini and win.ini, and applications stored their configuration
information either in win.ini or frequently local files, just like DOS apps
did, and those for CP/M, Unix, VMS, OS/360, OASYS, and various other
venerable operating systems. Then Microsoft decided that the Registry
was the bee's knees for everything, and told programmers they had to use
it to obtain Windows-95 logo compliance, hence the dog's breakfast of a
system that we have today.
> Take a web project in Visual Studio 2003, it had to be hooked up with
> IIS, web applications defined, in the project file there were hard
> coded paths and urls and so on.
>
Which says a whole lot about bad decisions by Microsoft, because
free tools such as NetBeans and Eclipse did not impose such restrictions.
> Take a web project in Visual Studio 2005, it only relates to the folder
> it is in and its sub folders, you can move it around as much as you
> wish.
The only remarkable thing about this is that they didn't allow it
before now, not that they finally relented and gave users of their
tools the same options that everybody else had.
> Why store anything at all in the registry, that is proprietary to
> one application and that never is needed by other applications?
>
Ask Microsoft. The Registry in Windows 3.11 was solely a repository
of global information, usually GUIDs etc. for use with OLE, but that
changed with Windows-95, when MS started telling us that we had
to use it for application-specific settings if we wanted "Designed for
Windows-95" status. This ended up causing no end of problems due
to the fact that the Win9X registry was 16-bit, and therefore filled
up very quickly (especially if you installed Visual Studio!), yet MS
continued to insist that it be used for everything, eventually resulting
in a situation where the only applications that avoided it were those
written for multiple platforms, none of which have "modern innovations"
like the registry besides Windows.
So rather than being a trend, this hopefully marks the end of a rather
stupid one that saw MS abandon a time-proven system of
distributed human-readable files that have no single point of failure
with huge binary messes which at best can cause massive unrecoverable
data loss (.PST Email files etc.), and at worst render an entire system
inoperable (registry corruption).
Prediction based on prior MS behaviour: the text files for Email messages
will not use any existing standard formats such as the Unix one, but a new
MS version which has binary data in it encoded as text. Furthermore,
"to protect our privacy", these files will be encrypted in a way that
prevents
system administrators from recovering corrupted ones without logging into
the specific user's account, thus making automated data recovery either
painful or impossible.
Ingvar Nilsen
> Ingvar Nilsen wrote:
> > > Ingvar Nilsen wrote:
> > Go long enough back, and every company
> > had their own proprietary binary format where data was stored.
> > Then some standards came.
>
> Considering that the first such standard was EBCDIC in 1963,
> followed by ASCII in 1967, one has to go back a very long way
> indeed to find a computer system which does not have a text file
> format.
This is not what I meant. Just the presence of the "File" object in
Delphi indicates that it is not that long ago.
> Then Microsoft decided
> that the Registry was the bee's knees for everything, and told
> programmers they had to use it to obtain Windows-95 logo compliance,
> hence the dog's breakfast of a system that we have today.
AFAIK they turned around 180 degrees a couple of year ago.
> The Registry in Windows 3.11
I did not even know there was one..?
> Prediction based on prior MS behaviour: the text files for Email
> messages will not use any existing standard formats such as the Unix
> one, but a new MS version which has binary data in it encoded as
> text. Furthermore, "to protect our privacy", these files will be
> encrypted in a way that prevents system administrators from
> recovering corrupted ones without logging into the specific user's
> account, thus making automated data recovery either painful or
> impossible.
If they have done it like this, it probably already is known..?
Rick Carter
>" Minesweeper, Solitaire, Hearts, FreeCell and Spider
> Solitaire have been updated"
>
>WOW! <g>
Yeah, but Pinball has been dropped. :(
That's it; I'm not upgrading!
Rick Carter
cart...@despammed.com
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG, Cincinnati PC Users Group
--- posted by geoForum on http://delphi.newswhat.com
Richard Bayarri Bartual
> Richard Bayarri Bartual wrote:
>
>> Ingvar Nilsen wrote:
>>>> Ingvar Nilsen wrote:
> This is not what I meant. Just the presence of the "File" object in
> Delphi indicates that it is not that long ago.
>
things. Note though that deliberately obfuscated, undocumented
binary file formats were pretty rare until quite recently -- the only
major one I can think of off the top of my head was WordPerfect,
and it ended up costing them dearly. Until a decade ago, even MS
used to include a book with their dev. environments documenting
the file formats for Word, Excel, etc. so that people could write
importers for them, while most other early systems such as WordStar,
dBase-II, and VisiCalc used plain text files with some control
codes embedded in them (the exception being dBase indices,
which were binary but documented).
>
> AFAIK they turned around 180 degrees a couple of year ago.
>
Did they? I must have missed that (I'm not being sarcastic here,
but was really not aware of the fact that they'd changed the
guidelines).
>
>> The Registry in Windows 3.11
>
> I did not even know there was one..?
>
It was stored in a file called reg.dat in \WINDOWS. I don't
remember much more about it beyond the fact that it was used
to store some global information mostly concerned with OLE,
and could be read by other machines on a network to support
both RPC and an early precursor to DCOM. Those who didn't
write OLE-enabled or RPC stuff would not therefore have been
likely to encounter it.
Ingvar Nilsen
> Ingvar Nilsen wrote:
> > " Minesweeper, Solitaire, Hearts, FreeCell and Spider
> > Solitaire have been updated"
> >
> > WOW! <g>
>
> Yeah, but Pinball has been dropped. :(
> That's it; I'm not upgrading!
Shoot, that was the drop.. I agree, no upgrade!
As a matter of fact, it is the first time I am not eager to upgrade
Windows. I will run it though, in a VMware machine, provided there is
no hazzle with registering it. I need it because I must test my
software there
Ingvar Nilsen
> > AFAIK they turned around 180 degrees a couple of year ago.
> >
> Did they? I must have missed that (I'm not being sarcastic here,
> but was really not aware of the fact that they'd changed the
> guidelines).
I cannot find it now using Google, but I am absolutely sure they
advised against using it for application data, and that this happened
2-4 years ago. I am not sure about the actual wording, but it was about
the registry growing so big it threatened to become unmanageable.
Some applications even stored larger binary data in registry.
.Net follows this advice, app settings are now stored in APP.CONFIG and
WEB.CONFIG.
> > > The Registry in Windows 3.11
> >
> > I did not even know there was one..?
> >
> It was stored in a file called reg.dat
Aha! I remember that one. Those days everything was so clear and open!
Now I hardly take a look at all in the Windows folder or the
Windows\System folder.
Richard Bayarri Bartual
> I am absolutely sure they
> advised against using it for application data, and that this happened
> 2-4 years ago. I am not sure about the actual wording, but it was about
> the registry growing so big it threatened to become unmanageable.
It had already reached that point on Win9X years ago. Visual Studio 6 used
to have a note about the default installation paths causing registry
overflows due to the 16-bit limitations of the Win9X registry, which could
usually be overcome by installing everything into a "C:VS6" directory
instead of its usual "C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Visual Studio 6".
> Some applications even stored larger binary data in registry.
>
To be fair to MS, I don't remember anything in the logo guidelines about
storing big lumps of data in the registry, only the sort of things
applications
had previously put in WIN.INI or local application initialisation files.
> .Net follows this advice, app settings are now stored in APP.CONFIG and
> WEB.CONFIG.
>
This is IMO a good move. Note though that I've been using local application
initialisation files since the beginning because they make it much
easier for
users to manage an application. These used to be mostly Windows-style INI
file formats (with custom readers for platforms where this wasn't directly
supported), but I switched to XML four years or so ago because virtually
every language on every platform has facilities for reading and writing
it.
>> It was stored in a file called reg.dat
>
> Aha! I remember that one. Those days everything was so clear and open!
That's because MS still had some notable commercial competition, so they
had to woo programmers. I still remember their C++ 6 package which came
in a huge box full of books that documented all sorts of things they now
guard
very closely, and made it well worth the purchase price ($199 if I remember
correctly) even if one was going to use a different development environment.
> Now I hardly take a look at all in the Windows folder or the
> Windows\System folder.
>
Me neither. The days when MS wanted us to really understand what was
going on "under the hood" have sadly long gone, leaving us in a strange
position where IBM and Apple, once the very antithesis of openness, are
now much more open than Microsoft.
ns
"Nathaniel L. Walker" <NatLW...@NoEmail.Hah> wrote:
Thanks for pointing in the right direction (and not for the harsh tone).
Tried it on several PC's in the office - none of them worked (they never passed the "splash-screen").
I'm going to try a few more - but so far it doesn't work.
/CJensen
ns
"Nathaniel L. Walker" <NatLW...@NoEmail.Hah> wrote:
>Ubuntu comes with it enabled by default, Mandriva 2007 will come with it
>that
>way also. Fedora Core 6 will come with it enabled by default.
>
>What's your point?
>
>- Nate.
>
That it's not ready for the masses. That I'm sick-and-tired of the ranting against Microsoft with stuff like "Linux does it already".
Well - the Microsoft beta's all worked better than what I have experienced so far with XGL on Linux.
Vista works well on those PC's I have tried it on. Most of them are having 2+ years old cheap passive cooled gfx cards.
What is your point in ranting about this in a Borland/Delphi newsgroup?
/CJensen
Nathaniel L. Walker
It's suppose to be "the obvious direction".
Thank you.
- Nate.
Nathaniel L. Walker
the definition of "rant" is. As for saying that the Karoraa live distro
doesn't work on your machine, I fine that hard to believe unless you
have a very exotic video card and/or other hardware.
It runs on a Voodoo3 16MB video card, it should run on pretty much
anything you throw at it. That is hardware that Vista will not even touch
due to the system requirements. (Though I'd rather XP SP3 since SPs
don't cost a fortune :D ).
There are already MASSES of people using XGL/Compiz/Beryl/AIXGL.
What is your definition of a "mass of users". Would you say masses of
people use Borland developer tools? Yes. More people use Ubuntu
Linux, with XGL on their desktops and enabled.
Of course, XGL isn't the kind of thing to compare to Vista. It wasn't
an attempt to rant against Microsoft, it was just showing that what
Microsoft brands as "pushing the envelope" is nothing more than doing
what has already been done.
BTW, Vista will not allow you to run Aero on a 2+ year old cheap passive
cooled graphics card, so I'm trying to figure out how you could compare it
to XGL when you can't even run Vista's Aero. Aero require a DX9 video
card, and there weren't any of those 2+ years ago (best cards were DX8.1
up until about mid 2005 or later).
Bye.
- Nate.