Comment Feed for cain

Re: Windows "Longhorn" Server Beta 3 Ships!!!

cain — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 08:56:00 GMT

Great video. Any chance that we might get to see the final signoffs of the RTM version?

posted by cain

Re: Office UI - New Licensing Story

cain — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 01:50:48 GMT

Paul D. Murphy wrote:

staceyw wrote:

Paul D. Murphy wrote:
What a bunch of BS. Microsoft can no more license the look and feel of thier UI than Ford can license the look and feel of the GT. You can license the icons, you can license the code; you can't simply state this layout belongs to me and anyone who wants this layout needs my license.

For about 10k I can by a 3rd party shell to fit on a car chasis that will make my car look like a Ford GT. I have no love for the Open Office crowd, but I hope to God they release a ribbon just to challenge you guys on this draconian and absurd move.

I'm a big Microsoft fan, but this is nonsense.

Paul

IIRC, yes you can. Apple does it, MS does it, you can do it.

You are just flat wrong dude. You can license code. You can license copy. You can license icons. You can license all kinds of things that are tangible. You can't simply say 'blue tabs belong to me' so sign my license if you want blue tabs.

How is this any worse than Apple patenting the "genie effect"?

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=680

posted by cain

Re: Looking at XNA - Part One

cain — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 07:05:48 GMT

Rory wrote:

tranbonium wrote:How about a game that can be played by multiple people on either XBox360 or Windows PCs together?

That said, the 360 team would need to provide a bridge between XBL and the Rest of the World.

While devs don't have to use XBL to create networked games, it's clearly the preferred method.

Didn't I see something from this years E3 about being able to play multiplayer games across XBox360 and Windows Vista with players not even being able to tell what platform the others were using (except that the people using PC's would be kicking *** over the people using XBox's of course).

Rory wrote:

Just keep in mind that XNA is brand new - it's something that went from idea to product in six months. That's an amazing turnaround, especially given what was accomplished.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant there, but I know I saw a little bit of info on XNA more than a year ago (even back in 2004 if I remember correctly).

Rory wrote:

I'm going to post the second part of this video as soon as possible, so just keep an eye out for it

I can't wait

I'm not so much interested in the console side of things myself, but I've been interested in game development for a long time but never got beyond making a few small games myself. I'm really excited to see how XNA is coming along and I think it's just the thing to help me get started on something a bit bigger.

posted by cain

Re: Brian Beckman: Monads, Monoids, and Mort

cain — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:45:11 GMT

TommyCarlier wrote:

Well, we are talking about binary data, as in zeros and ones. So 2²⁰ is more logical.
1KB = 1024 bytes
1MB = 1024 KB = 1024 * 1024 bytes
1GB = 1024 MB = 1024 * 1024 KB = 1024 * 1024 * 1024 bytes

In binary:
1KB = 100 0000 0000 bytes
1MB = 1 0000 0000 0000 0000 bytes
1 GB = 100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 bytes

How is using the wrong values more logical just because we're talking about binary data? G, M, k, etc. are all decimal prefixes. What is more logical is to use the binary prefixes (Gi, Mi, Ki, etc.) when talking about binary data.

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

posted by cain

Re: Windows Live Messenger - What. How. Why.

cain — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 04:02:12 GMT

Steev wrote:

Man, that already exists for the most part. It's called Windows Messenger

But if that were the case, my list would've been much longer . Live messenger does have some nice stuff that Windows Messenger is missing.

posted by cain

Re: Windows Live Messenger - What. How. Why.

cain — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 22:06:44 GMT

How about making a 'lite' version without

Sharing folders,
All those things down the left side of the main messenger window (alerts, etc.),
Contact Cards,
Backgrounds,
Winks,
Dynamic Display Pictures,
Ads
Any of the other useless 'features' I missed.

Live messenger is great and out of all the messenger clients I've ever used it's definately my favourite. But it could be so much better without all that extra stuff. Simplicity and performance should be your two most important features.

posted by cain

Re: Peter Biddle - Bitlocker, Security in Windows Vista

cain — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 22:16:43 GMT

Shark_M wrote:

What I gather is that maybe you guys will not install or make the backdoors. But you guys will tell governments the vulnerabilities or the weak points that bitLock has, and then governments could then develop their own ways to decrypt a file. It goes back to my question why doesnt bitLocket employ a really good unbreakable encryption algorithm, so no one but the person who owns the pc would be able to read it. THis is similar to TrueCrypt in someway.

Ok, how about you design that 'unbreakable' encryption algorithm, and then they'll use it. The algorithm they use could take billions of years to break on todays hardware - that's good enough for me.

Shark_M wrote:

So for most people, what is the point of having bitLocker to begin with if the system has vulnterabilities that hackers as well as governmental agencies would be able to utilize to break the encryption? Just making their job a little harder?

What vulnerabilities?

Shark_M wrote:

Another question how would this impact Anti-Virus software? Would this hinder scanning process to the point that it might take a whole day to scan your hard drives?

Why would it? If you have the keys decryption doesn't take all that long.

Shark_M wrote:

I mean its nice and all to have all my files encrypted so that if someone steals my pc or labtop my data cannot be read. Its a step in the right direction interms of privacy. But this is a sword with two edges if you will. You can give people false sence of security or privacy when the system used has weak points from which interested parties would be able to break the encryption.

Once again, what weak points are you talking about?

posted by cain

Re: Microsoft Robotics Studio

cain — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:39:01 GMT

Wow, great stuff. This is another video to add to my list of favourites.

Do you guys have anything to do with MS sponsoring the Microsoft Hellhounds Robocup team? I guess probably not since your team is fairly new and the Hellhounds have been around for a while. Did you even know about them? They've been working on getting a .NET system running on the Sony AIBO robots.

Secondly, I was at Robocup last Saturday and Microsoft had a booth there. But all they were showing was the XBox 360 and Windows Vista Beta 2. It would've been nice if there could've been something about your work there too, since being Robocup, most of the people there probably would have been more interested in what you're doing than the XBox or Windows Vista.

piersh wrote:

this is brilliant. i especially like the simulation part.

you should host a virtual robot wars/soccer tournament!

You might be interested in the Robocup Simulation League.

posted by cain

Re: Windows Live Mail Desktop beta

cain — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:53:26 GMT

Duncan, you're videos always seem to have mono audio and it makes it really painful to watch otherwise great videos . Any chance you could do something about that?

posted by cain

Re: Omar Shahine - Windows Live Mail

cain — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 18:22:54 GMT

I mostly use Gmail these days, but I still check my hotmail account occasionally to see if anything important has somehow ended up there, etc. I signed up for the Live Mail beta around January or early February and had a look at it. At the time I thought it was much better than hotmail, but still had nothing on Gmail. After seeing this I decided it was time I took a closer look at it again. I think it's improved quite a lot since I frst looked at it several months ago, but it's still not enough to bring people back from Gmail yet. These are the main problems I found in 5 minutes of use (some have already been mentioned here):

When I sign in to Windows Live 'Mail' it's because I want to see my mail, so why isn't it the first thing I see?

The ad at the top of the page wastes a lot more space than an ad down the right side would do, especially on wide screens like I'm using. I'm glad there's only an ad in one place now instead of two, but they picked the wrong one to keep.

Tags are better than folders, surely they should've figured that out by now?

Why don't contacts appear in the word wheel if I type their nickname? It only seems to work for full name.

If I'm in Calendar and I click on Mail or Contacts, it takes me to Today instead of what I wanted.

Why do I need to control+click (or shift+click) to select multiple emails? I'd prefer to have check boxes for each email to select/deselect them (being able to do it both ways would be best). This was mentioned in the video as well as earlier in this thread, but if something that should be just one click requires me to hold down a key as well - that's bad.

posted by cain

Re: Windows Vista Sideshow

cain — Thu, 25 May 2006 15:34:55 GMT

This is a little off topic, but Robert was asking about the range of the bluetooth devices during the video. I did some research work with bluetooth a couple of years ago, and in our testing we were able to get a range of 200 meters (over 600 feet) in the open, and over 30 meters (about 100 feet) through several fairly solid walls. There's no reason why bluetooth couldn't work at the sort of range you were asking about, however it would depend on the specific device and how it was built.

posted by cain

Re: Mark Zbikowski - From DOS 1.0 to Windows Vista

cain — Wed, 17 May 2006 19:17:28 GMT

"This is Behind the Code’s pilot episode"

I'd been wondering where that was...

posted by cain

Re: “Developers are my life; I love them.” OK, how can you not want to find out more about who said tha

cain — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:28:54 GMT

Hmm, this conversation seems familiar:
http://forums.topcoder.com/?module=Thread&threadID=509135&start=0&mc=14#526582

posted by cain

Re: Sean Alexander (and others) - Windows Vista Sidebar and Gadgets

cain — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 10:24:45 GMT

jsrfc58 wrote:

AndyC wrote:

jsrfc58 wrote:
Don't you mean Konfabulator was a glint in Steve Jobs eye? That "widget" project was released in February 2003. When did the Longhorn pre-beta come out?

Well, Paul Thurrott had screenshots of the sidebar as far back as November 2002. Make of that what you will...

And then, I suppose to add to that, on the Konfabulator site, it said it was an idea he was thinking about five years before February 2003 (and the project was underway in 2002, but it just wasn't released until February 2003).

So, it's the old "who came up with it first" innovation argument. Which is then usually followed closely by the "yeah, but when did it arrive on MY platform?" argument.

Not that any of this productive.

As it says on the www.microsoftgadgets.com page MS Research published a paper on the idea in 2001 and had started work on it even before that. Konfabulator can say they had the idea in the 90's but where's the published proof?

posted by cain