Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Looking at Vista

Re: Looking at Vista

Wesley Parish — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:57:49 -0000

Oops - "To suggest that Microsoft can do the same with its Windows Vista is to suggest that Microsoft is incompetent."

should read "To suggest that Microsoft can't do the same with its Windows Vista is to suggest that Microsoft is incompetent."

My bad.

Re: Looking at Vista

Wesley Parish — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:56:23 -0000

One thing I fail to understand about this whole MS Windows Vista/LongHorn saga, and of course the whole MS Windows Legacy albatross-around-the-neck-thereof, is why Microsoft, being world-famous in Redmond for "innovation" (RT[F]M), hasn't done anything with virtual machines and emulation to solve its "can only run as administrator" albatross.

(Of course, that leads on to the deep and meaningful question of why Microsoft's application certification is so stuffed-up that as long as a program runs on MS Windows, it gets the certification, even if it poses a major security risk? But let's leave that to another day, shall we?)

In Linux I can run anything that demands super-administrator rights in a UML - User-Mode Linux. To suggest that Microsoft can do the same with its Windows Vista is to suggest that Microsoft is incompetent.

That could well be the truth. Who knows?

Re: Looking at Vista

redfish — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 23:30:18 -0000

Robert,

even though I've programmed I wasn't too deep into it, to be able to answer this question well---

do you think if Microsoft was able to migrate everyone to managed code, that it would be much easier to introduce radical changes to the foundations of the Windows code, because old applications would function based on an object model, which could be maintained, or compensated for ?

Re: Looking at Vista

OS11 — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 19:39:36 -0000

“I heard howls from Apple users who had software that didn’t work on OSX, and there is relatively little software that runs on OSX.”

A purely laughable comment, there are about 11,000 OS9 or (Classic Apps) and 15,560 OSX Apps, and since OSX runs most every Classic App there are about 26,560 current Apps for Macs today. The software library on OSX is the best in the industry, the quality is stunning!

And no, Quark Inc. messed up with Xpress, not Apple... but it ran fine in Classic so it was never really an issue.

Lastly, Mac OS9 was just a stopgap version to bridge over the user from the failed Copland Project. Vista is "MS's" Copland Project, so they will end up releasing a major XP Update before Vista appears.

MS's tried to do too much, provide too much legacy support in Vista, when they should have copied what Apple / Steve did and "bury" the old DOS/XP code and start over. OSX is now the leanest, meanest OS there is on the planet, and will overwhelm Vista going forward.

OSX Leopard on Intel is the next iPod... just watch!

Monday is going to ROCK the Computing World...

100's of news stories will be here:

http://www.macsurfer.com/

The tape/digital delay will be here:

http://www.apple.com/quickt...

Last year's big announcement is here: fun to watch!

http://www.apple.com/quickt...

Re: Looking at Vista

John C. Welch — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 13:14:20 -0000

Carbon is the old Mac Classic api with a few dangerous calls removed. It takes a minor update to move a Classic app to Carbon. Quicken is an example of an app that did this. Appleworks. Photoshop. All written to old apis supported through the Carbon compatibility layer.

If you believe that, i have oceanfront property in Missouri for you. Nice view of the Eiffel Tower. Getting it to initially compile and build may be *relatively* simple. Getting an OS 9 codebase moved over, built correctly, the UI redesigned correctly, etc., yadda was NOT simple. At all.

New apps are on Cocoa. Many are ports of Next apps.

No, the Next ports are rather small in number. Most new applications are just that, new applications.

Re: Looking at Vista

LayZ — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 02:09:16 -0000

@74. And apparently Sr. V.P. Brian Valentine gets to take the fall for it by getting put on what appears to be the death sentence of "special projects" (if one reads between the lines)

http://www.windowsitpro.com...

Re: Looking at Vista

Michiel — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 01:09:50 -0000

no.76: Even though I think Vista will tank I will use it because the alternative is to associate with sad sacks like you. No, wait, I'm using linux at home. Nevermind. Sap.

Re: Looking at Vista

Diegoz — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 19:08:08 -0000

Sorry people.... Vista is a pathetic imitation (several years in delay) of the best OS around... Mac OS X ... my brother is testing a b. version of vista... all new (and very beta) features are old for mac user... advanced and lightfast search engine, advanced gui, widget etc... look at this video (http://video.google.it/vide... or this one (http://video.google.it/vide... .... poor people with a very poor os system.....

Re: Looking at Vista

Todd Blanchard — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 16:31:04 -0000

"I heard howls from Apple users who had software that didn’t work on OSX, and there is relatively little software that runs on OSX."

New apps are on Cocoa. Many are ports of Next apps.

Plus, we now have the entire unix library available thanks to the X11 layer. Macs run more software than pretty much everything through being API inclusive.

Windows is API exclusive. Surely you get that?

Also, Ballmer admits his error today.
http://www.crn.com/sections...

Nothing new. Most experienced developers know that Big Bang development doesn't work well.

Re: Looking at Vista

LayZ — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:51:59 -0000

70, Robert, so let me see if I have this straight. Are you saying it took 6 months for the issue you are seeing to surface? Are you running the same builds of Vista that you ran when you left MS? Are you running a later build than the one you were speaking so highly of in March? If so, then it seems the builds are getting worse, not better.

I find it a bit incredible to believe you've changed your usage patterns such that these issues would start to surface now and not in April, May, June, or July. Why are they suddenly seeming to surface AFTER you left MS? Inquiring minds want to know.

Re: Looking at Vista

Neal — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 13:51:09 -0000

The biggest and best thing Microsoft can do to make Vista better is make it refuse to run AT ALL on underpowered, underRAMed machines. No more PC makers selling PCs running Windows on 1/4 to 1/8 the amount of memory that's needed for it to be usable.

Re: Looking at Vista

Robert Scoble — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 13:03:25 -0000

Booger: because it takes a while for problems to show up. Modern OS's are so stable now that they don't crash in the first few minutes like Windows 95 betas did.

I'm going to go back to Vista as soon as my new computer arrives. Right now I need to do work and not play with beta OS's that work mostly.

I desperately miss Vista, though, and Office 2007. Can't wait to use them again.

And all those posts I'll stand behind. They are all accurate. But playing with betas isn't for everyone and shouldn't be done on a production machine that you need to rely on. I also said that.

Re: Looking at Vista

LayZ — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 11:47:52 -0000

Booger, why to take Scoble's challenge and go back and look at what Scoble said about Vista. Brilliant!

How do you plan to cover your ass now, Robert? About the only way to get out of it is to either say you were a complete and utter MS shill when you worked for them, or to say later builds of Vista are worse than the older builds you were running. In which case, that says things are getting worse, not better.

Re: Looking at Vista

ChrisMc — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 10:32:23 -0000

Dude these people who are bashing Vista are just afraid of "CHANGE"...reminds me of my 69 year old mom who can't get over using a "credit card" to pay for gas!

Like any software, its new, there will be some kinks to work out, but the progress is something to look forward to. I love the new WMP11, and Vista has lots of promise, so I'm excited for all the changes!

Re: Looking at Vista

Diego Barros — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 07:19:26 -0000

What's all this about Vista's lack of performance. The team has taken care of it! :)

http://channel9.msdn.com/Sh...

Re: Looking at Vista

Booger — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:42:04 -0000

Robert

Wowsa - you say, "I went back to XP on my Lenovo Tablet PC because Vista was sluggish and the drivers weren’t reliable). Application compatibility (I’m hearing that many apps are having problems). Driver compat (my Dell computer at Microsoft never worked completely, and a coworker called me a few days ago to ask 'did you ever get the soundcard working?')"

what's happened? We've had months of the following:

March 16 2006 – why vista is better than XP: “My test? Use Vista for a month then see if you can move back to XP. I am finding it frequently frustrating to move back as I get used to new things in Vista.”

February 20 2006 – Penny Arcade wonders why Halo is on Vista: “On Windows Vista the audio and video continue playing just fine with the same level of stress (on the same hardware). It’s a dramatic example of how much better multimedia will be on Windows Vista.”

January 22, 2006 – Why do I need Windows Vista: “So, today we were arguing out just how good Windows Vista is on an internal mailing list. Someone said “XP is good enough for me.” And I answered back with 15 videos about why I’m moving my life over to Windows Vista.”

January 2 2006 – Hell’s weather Report: “we should get you Windows Vista. I’m running it on a Tablet PC and it’s getting to be pretty interesting. Everyone I’ve shown it to says they are gonna get it.”

December 26 2005 – Hope Your Christmas Went Well: “Me too, after switching half of my life over to Windows Vista and Office 12 it’s really hard to go back to XP and Office 2003.”

If you were concerned about driver support and these other things, why didnt you say it? This is a significant error in omission if you had lingering concerns about something that others had noted about the subject. Should we read comments such as "switching half my life over to Vista" differently than we have in the past? Like you said yourself, "who will listen to an evangelist who tells you something that you already know isn’t true..."

Booger

Re: Looking at Vista

Pradeep — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 00:23:17 -0000

hi,
I know you can't time a software, coz I have friends who work in a software company and they tell me what it's like. This is their suggestion to let them take it easier.
A simultaneous team develops the next generation software while you release. So, when MS is releasing its Vista, another team can be working on the next version of Vista.A team of, say, maybe 10 members working out what the next package should have and put in the basic codes that's the basis of all Windows systems. Then you get the other coders (or atleast most of them) to work on it while you're shipping Vista. After you've finished say 90% of the job. You put a shipping date 6 months away.You meet the targets.

I know it'll not be so easy in implementation. Coz my friends are just talking from the employee point of view and not the overall development. But, can the software industry work like that??

Re: Looking at Vista

John C. Welch — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 23:37:38 -0000

Reality: I think a Toyota or a Ford that costs less than $20,000 is better engineering than a BMW, by the way. It’s easier to build a great $40,000 car cause you can use the best components. It’s a lot harder to engineer a low-cost one that still is great.

Robert, you keep saying that like it's true. You're confusing good engineering with being able to build a decent cheap car. There's a difference. There's a lot of stuff you get standard for that $40K that you pay extra for on the 20K cars. ABS is STILL an extra cost feature, in spite of the clear evidence that it has no drawbacks and is a fantastic way to reduce injuries and death by reducing accidents.

Note also that BMW does make $20K cars. The Mini for one.

Re: Looking at Vista

Ken — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 22:30:39 -0000

Am I the only one who wants this to be an absolute failure, one that brings the company to its knees?

Re: Looking at Vista

Cybereer — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 22:16:59 -0000

>> And the Tablet PC, Speech Recognition, and Media Center stuff that’s in there is WORLDS ahead of Apple.

What the heck are you talking about? Every single Mac can understand voice commands since" 15 years ago, and Apple even shipped a Chinese language kit with impressive voice and handwriting recognition functions in early 1990s, long before Bill Gates started hyping it and the recent Vista "Dear Aunt" fiasco.

I thought you used to be a Mac geek, but obviously that's not the case.

Re: Looking at Vista

Robert Scoble — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 21:13:53 -0000

Cody: it's clear to me.

If it ships in October, wait for the service pack.

I hope not to have to tell you that. I hope it slips and they put out an awesome product that you WON'T need to wait for the service pack for.

Re: Looking at Vista

Cody — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 21:06:02 -0000

Scoble, what the hell? In this post, you wrote:

"I don’t want to see blogs that, when it finally ships, says 'wait for the service pack.'"

And a few posts below this one, you wrote:

"I will recommend not installing it and waiting for the first service pack."

You should be hating your blog right about now then...

Re: Looking at Vista

Christopher Coulter — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:57:05 -0000

it’ll be far worse to be remembered for shipping an OS that isn’t finished

True. But it's already unfinished, no matter what happens, WinFS gone, P2P tech gone, this that, everything halfway cool, that was promised, gone, gone. So even the good (delayed) finished is yet unfinished.

But not your fight anymore, let it be. ;) It's all just wacking the hornets nest now.

Re: Looking at Vista

Jamie — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:56:56 -0000

The most interesting thing about this article are the Apple hints.

And im a Microsoft employee!

Re: Looking at Vista

Robert Scoble — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:45:37 -0000

Reality: I think a Toyota or a Ford that costs less than $20,000 is better engineering than a BMW, by the way. It's easier to build a great $40,000 car cause you can use the best components. It's a lot harder to engineer a low-cost one that still is great.