Discussions

vistawillship wrote:



As I have stated above, this is most EXCELLENT news, and Cider has just confirmed my greatest hope. Perhaps my "Open Letter" has resonated with someone! The evidence has mounted for years that the general public cannot be trusted with their operating system. Does anybody remember the ads a while back asking you to turn in your co-workers if you saw them using illegal copies of Microsoft software? That was brilliant. I would love to be on the dole to patrol for rogue installations.

Oh right, I now remember why I've really grown to dislike Channel 9...

Rossj wrote:


I know I said I wasn't coming back, but this is the only place I think that I might possibly, eventually, maybe get an answer to the question - Is WGA a kill switch? And when will it be activated (so I can sell my stock)?

I'm not exactly coming back to post here.  I'm tired of Channel 9.  But I couldn't help notice this on the feed after reading this:

http://bink.nu/Article7577.bink


Now, Microsoft has had bad publicity in the past.  However, they will know a new realm of Bad Publicity when they see the fall out with this disdainful idea.

The idea that in order to deploy Vista, Microsoft will force you to install their asset management product on your network, and then send a report back to Microsoft once a month with god-only-knows-what information about your enterprise, is frankly so unpalatable, it will make many consider the future of Windows in their enterprise.

I know the counter-argument will be that VLKs are used in piracy a lot, but the entire point of having VLKs for enterprises is their flexibility.  There are so many scenarios I can think of where machines will be in an unsuitable location or have unsuitable connectivity to the point they wont be able to connect to whatever convulted method Microsoft has for people to activate a CAL from this asset management server, and if "active CAL" means that workstations will have to connect to this Asset Management server once every 30 days, then it will be completely and totally unsuitable for scenarios such as academia.  After all, how do you tell someone who is spending a year researching in the depths of the amazon that they will need to connect to the UK once every 30 days or else their laptop will die.

Lame, moronic, idiotic.  Surely Microsoft can do better than this?

brian.shapiro wrote:

i prefered msn messenger and its interface over windows messenger (after removing the tabs -- ugh, tabs were an eyesore). but i doubt many of those 95% you're referring to really cared for winks or dynamic backgrounds or packs.

i have tech knowledge and skill but don't consider myself "elite" in that i am in touch with what people like. my view is that tech people who say that other tech people just are 'out of touch' with the fact that others like winks, sounds a lot like how everyone was saying the 'common person' would love Microsoft BOB. this is very patronizing to non-techies, they aren't babies

I'm in touch with what my users want because, and I know this might sound like a radical idea, I actually get feedback, talk to users, am able to see users using the likes of nudges and winks when I tour labs.

Y'know, as opposed to ridiculously cretinous conspiracy theories about their origin, getting feedback is probably the reason there are nudges and winks and Media Player integration in MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger, and the like.

erm, 27...

W3bbo wrote:



Cyonix wrote: I don’t have a question for them but can you thank them for a great release. I LOVE the new UI!! Also shared folders is a great addition.

I'll agree the new skin is a slight improvement on the older "fruiter" designs and is more restrained, but it's still a massive performance hit.

As for "But it's what the target audience wants" comments by everyone else, you're wrong.

The "target audience" will say they "love" anything you give them. If you give them an option to make MSN Messenger turn your entire Windows shell pink colored, they'll give positive feedback on it; if you let them access their friends' hard-drives (without permission) they'll say they love it; if you make the default skin full of pink bunnies they'll say they love it.

14 yearold teenage girls have no sense of critical thinking or "do we need this?". Nudges and Winks are a prime example, some idiot thought it up, they added it, they got enough positive feedback (no news about any negative feedback) and decided to continue.

I'm sorry, but what you've just wrote is, frankly, backward BULLSH*T.

Your complaints about WLM are the same as someone who uses Lynx and complains about graphics-based web browsers and says that Images have no place on the web.

As you may well know, I work for a major University and last year, I put both MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger into our labs with a Start Menu item for each next to each other.  The amount who ran chose MSN Messenger over Windows Messenger was phenomenal, in the 95% range.  These aren't 14 year old girls, but some of the brightest minds around.

That being said, why the superiority complex about 14 year old girls?  I'd wager that most 14 year old girls have far better ideas for the future direction of software than most people here.  That "I know better than ordinary people" is an attitude still too prevalent in developer circles, and its an attitude that's got to go.

If you woke up, you'd see that the next 5 years are going to see some pretty dramatic change, with a greater increase in social software being at the charge.  These 14 year old girls are going to be the key users of tomorrow in Universities and the workplace, and as it stands you are looking like you are going to be technologically antiquated very very quickly.

Ian2006 wrote:



littleguru wrote: Why is everybody always seeing all changes negative? Sometimes changes are good. We don't know what comes next, but it creates space for new opportunities.

I think people see"everything" sometimes negative, because humans adopt very easy and get used to their habits.!

No, its not really that.  Its just the basics of TV News debating.  You have one pro- and one anti- viewpoint, giving the viewer both sides of the debate.

W3bbo wrote:



Cider wrote: This should be "fun"... EDIT:  Screen marked as "Robert Scoble  Strategist, Microsoft"...

Dupe thread, but I'm saving the stream to disk so I can cut the snippet of Scoble out and shove it on t'internet later on.

Actually, my thread was here a good 7 minutes before the dupe thread!

Anyway, anyone can see it again here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm

Well, OK, well done.  And yet you still leave?  Ungrateful swine!

The whole Bill Gates bit on Newsnight was actually quite poor, but you held your end up well.  Very poor puff piece report, which started off with the typical bold statements like "Bill Gates changed the world" before dropping into a very shallow report on Linux and the like.  Appalling sources too - the best Linux guy they could come up with was a Systems Admin for a building firm who came out with ridiculous statements like "They say geeks are 10 years ahead of normal people, and I started to install Linux 7 years ago, so Microsoft is going to take some damage soon.  Firstly, I've never heard anyone ever say that about geeks being 10 years ahead of everyone else, and for him to suggest that no one was using Linux before 1999 was laughable.  Then they even had bits on his charity work which didn't make sense such as a representative from Oxfam saying "ooh, we have to make sure donations come with no external influences, but I'm not suggesting the Gates Foundation has any".  If she's not suggesting it, why even put it in the report.  Horrible puff piece of journalism considering this is the most intellectual news program in the UK.

I felt you held your end up but couldn't place where the other guy was coming from - didn't seem pro- or anti-Microsoft and the debate really fizzled out completely.  Unfortunately, for those who don't know who you are (99% of the viewers), you came across as a bit of the Gates cheerleader.

This should be "fun"...

EDIT:  Screen marked as "Robert Scoble  Strategist, Microsoft"...

Apparently, Bill Gates is stepping down from his fulltime role at Microsoft.  Ozzie to be new Chief Software Architect.  More soon...