I recently read a very interesting article from a researcher in New Zealand (please don't hold that against him), about the true costs of upgrading to Micro$ofts Windowz Vista. Now I don't personally use Windowz for much, except the odd game. However the implications of the research presented here has effects on all users regardless of your OS of choice. Some of the material is technical, so make sure that you have Wiki close at hand to look up definitions and concepts.
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
My personal hates of Vista, having read this article are to do with Vista not allowing you to have hardware that it doesn't allow, special things called "tilt bits" which, everytime there is a slight fluctuation in the power supply, Vista will think it's being hacked, and "respond appropriately" (most likely rebooting). Finally the reintroduction of polling, a concept that would eat more CPU cycles then that kid from Oliver Twist on the 'roids. There was a reason that polling was gotten rid of. Why, oh why bring it back.
Overall it's all part of Micro$oft's design to limit choice. Yes I am an Open Source advocate. But that's MY choice. I have a friend that calls me a "penguinist commy" and does all his programming in Win32. That's alright as well, it's HIS choice. Sure we argue about which is better, in the end, we have the choice. And business people will tell you, when there is more choice, there is greater competition which lowers prices, and improves upon product quality as every company wants your money. Micro$oft is hiding their attempt to clearly limit the choice of which hardware you buy, to what you can watch/listen to on YOUR PC with their marketing hype. It's not right, and I am appalled at nVidia for one, getting into bed with Microsoft.
At the end of the day I think it has been summed up best by my brother (who is a XP user): "I'll downgrade to Vista when they pry XP from my cold dead hands" For your own benefit, read the above linked article, pass it on, educate the masses, and preserve the choice you have in regards to your PC.
:)
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6 comments:
wow... not even half-way thru that "Cost of Vista" Doc and my god, it's convoluted...
"Bring me your first born sons, and we will let you watch your BR-DVD and HD-DVD uncrippled, and allow you access to your own data"
M$ Gone over board again...
Not only that but sactifice them a few virgins, and you are allowed to have whatever video/audio hardware you want
They will never take my XP away from me!!
Had a really appropriate CAD wallpaper for this too but the link won't fit.
Thanks for linking to that article. It took me an hour or so to read through it all, and while I didn't completely understand some of the technical points, the general gist was pretty clear. While I recognize that Apple isn't completely innocent in its nefarious business practices, methinks I'll be sticking with OS X whenever my current laptop (which I bought before I went to Aus) bites the dust, even though that won't allow me to be free from Micro$oft complications, argh...
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