Control taken out of your hands...

http://www.lafkon.net/tc/

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

Food for thought.

I've just bought a Sony Media Centre to integrate with my Hi-Fi / home cinema.

There is supposedly a Vista upgrade disc going to be sent to me in the post.

After reading about content protection, I can't quite see how Vista can work in a media centre scenario.

I don't think I'll bother with the upgrade.

This is crazy:

In July 2006, Cory Doctorow published an analysis of the anti-competitive nature of Apple's iTunes copy-restriction system which looked at the benefits of restrictive DRM for the company that controls the DRM. The only reason I can imagine why Microsoft would put its programmers, device vendors, third-party developers, and ultimately its customers, through this much pain is because once this copy protection is entrenched, Microsoft will completely own the distribution channel. In the same way that Apple has managed to acquire a monopolistic lock-in on their music distribution channel (an example being the Motorola ROKR fiasco, which was so crippled by restrictions that a Fortune magazine senior editor reviewed it as the STNKER), so Microsoft will totally control the premium-content distribution channel. In fact examples of this Windows content lock-in are already becoming apparent as people move to Vista and find that their legally-purchased content won't play any more under Vista (the example given in the link is particularly scary because the content actually includes a self-destruct after which it won't play any more, so not only do you need to re-purchase your content when you switch from XP to Vista, but you also need to re-purchase it periodically when it expires. In addition and since the media rights can't be backed up, if you experience a disk crash you get another opportunity to re- purchase the content then). It's obvious why this type of business model makes the pain of pushing content protection onto consumers so worthwhile for Microsoft since it practically constitutes a license to print money.

Microsoft have been saying for some years now that they'd really like the PC to go away, to turn into a kind of media center and content-distribution center for consumers. Windows MCE has been the tail and of a long line of (unsuccessful) attempts to achieve this (the only reason why MCE seems to sell at all is because it's the cheapest version of Windows that vendors can pre- install on a PC). If “premium content” ever takes off, Microsoft wants to be the central controller of all content distribution and playback — only Windows can secure the content, therefore only Windows can distribute it. Even the term “premium content” is misleading: in a few years' time, most audio and video will be produced in some form of HD format, at which point “premium content” becomes normal, and so everything is subject to content protection.

There are a bunch of other goofy things going on according to that report on Microsoft Vista. Whole lot of crap that MS is trying to shove down our throats.

Is there any news on Linux running Windows applications (MS Office, Adobe Windows Applications, etc.,)? If I could get my Windows apps to run on Linux, I'd consider switching to Linux. I sure wish MS didn't have such a strangle hold on the OS market. We need a competitive Open-sourced OS to Windows that works like windows, but not be windows so we don't get crap like windows vista.

>> MS Office <<


See http://www.openoffice.org/

Question is: do we have a comparable OpenWindows OS to use with OpenOffice that will run existing Windows based adobe products, Windows based anti-virus/anti-spyware/firewall software, Windows based etc. software?

However, I will say that OpenOffice is a start in the right direction. OpenWindows next?

[link]

http://www.freeos.com/articles/4805/

Some applications have been ported over to Linux, other run with a program called WINE (Wine is Not an Emulator). Crossover, commercially available software also lets you use your Windows programs on Linux. VMWare is another program that lets you run Windows under Linux. Now many software companies have started developing high end software for Linux.

Does that mean I would be able to use my Windows Adobe Suite and Windows Macromedia DreamWeaver on a Linux OS? Sounds like it, but confirmation would be good.

Is anyone here already using Windows based programs on their Linux OS? And what do you think if it? Do the various windows based programs work as fast in Linux as they did in Windows (talking about Adobe, MS Office, Dreamweaver)?

Also, is it easy for the average joe to network 2 or more Linux computers? It was fairly easy on WindowsXP--is it just as easy on Linux?

It took me some time to learn the in's and out's of working with Windows OS. What's the learning curve time of Linux?

Now, if I were to switch, I'd first need to find out if ZoneAlarm, AVG anti-virus, and various anti-spyware programs can be gotten with linux. Lots to research on...

-----
BTW, downloaded OpenOffice: IT KICKS BUTT!!! AWESOME . In fact I can't seem to get my smiley to show enough teeth (need super-big smiley).

Curt,

I haven't been brave enough to try it. I'm one of those people who actually like Windows.

Lookie here though:
http://www.winehq.com/
http://www.reallylinux.com/docs/toptip4.shtml
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~pmurphy/Talks/crossover/allparts.shtml

You can also get windows applications to run on a Mac using parallel or similar software.

Windows is OK. Mac OS is OK too. I just don't like what Microsoft is deciding to do with each successive OS with stupid stuff like what is mentioned above. It seems MS wants to increase control and decrease privacy with each OS upgrade. We'll all be forced away from MS and will need to go with Linux if this continues.

I'll look into those links.

The day when everyone has dual OS's (win + linux or mac + linux) is the day when Linux takes over and becomes the OS of choice for software developers. It will probably happen within 10-15 years I suspect.

I encourage everyone reading this thread to read the pages linked presented. Thanks to g1smd and Hampstead for providing links.

I'm a Linux user with a mixed home network of, Fedora6, SUSE linux 10, xandros3 and XP. I have one networked printer and all my machines can see and share everything.

At first I tried using wine and crossover to get MS products to work, and they did. But then after time I found the equivalent linux peorgrams and now I just use them. I can do everything on my linux machines that can be done on windows.

You can figure out the command line quickly, just read the config and install files in any rpm or deb.

The only thing that i can't do in linux is run IE without an emulater, but other than test web sites for browser compatibility, I never use IE anyway.

I also have apache set up for testing and building websites.

After using linux, windows is BORING.

Are you using Windows based Adobe and Dreamweaver products on Linux? How about Windows CuteFTP? AVG anti-virus has a Linux version so that not a problem. ZoneAlarm requires Windows and I'm wondering if ZoneAlarm would protect a linux OS.

That would be a pain, only needing Windows to run MSIE to check web sites. That's one expensive browser. Are you saying you have successfully run MSIE via emulator?

What windows apps are you running on Linux?

each version of linux comes with a PDF program, not adobe

I switched to NVU and Seamonkey and there are others for web dev. I gave up frontpage and dreamweaver. BTW, frontpage has morphed into a CMS system of sorts with expression and dotnetnuke and dreamweaver has components for running with joomla. CMS is taking over anyway.

Avast has a linux virus scanner for free

most distros come with gFTP or a simular program

openSUSE and others come with firewalls, your DSL router would also have a firewall.

MSIE6 runs successfully in crossover, haven't tried 7. You should be able to run it in WINE too!


program installs have been greatly simplified and are nothing to fear. each distro has public forums and members want to help.

Although I had originally thought I would run windows programs in emulators, after awhile I just started using the linux programs that are simular and they work great.

Linux never gives me the windows error, do you want to send a report message to microsoft. because it doesn't crash

also linux is coming anyway
today on slashdot there was an article that when Dell opened its online customer service request site, the number one customer request, by almost 2 to 1, was an option to have Linux pre installed on new computers, number three was for pre installed Open Office.


I am no longer running windows apps on linux but when i started i had
IE6
microsoft office--word, excel, frontpage


dreamweaver should run, didn't try it.

When I say Adobe I mean Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, Acrobat (not the reader, but the PDF maker). Those programs are only created for windows and mac. There is no linux comparable software to those Industry standard packages that I'm aware of. Adobe suite costs around $1,100 to $1,200. Are there products comparable to something of that caliber in Linux flavor?

Despite that slight barrier, perhaps a windows emulator might solve the problem well enough without a noticeable penalty in machine performance at least I'm hoping that is the way it is (don't know though).

Firewalls: I'm sorta stuck on ZoneAlarm because it is the best firewall out there or at least it was the best not long ago. Yes my router has a firewall, but ZoneAlarm provides another layer of protection between me and the net and provides controls that don't come with the firewall built into the router.

Dreamweaver is needed though I personally don't use it much (my significant other uses it). I've gotten away from WYSIWYG editors because none of them construct the HTML the way I like it built (clean). New sites I do get the text editor approach to html, javascript, and perl.

That's interesting that people are requesting Linux alot (and good news too because people are accepting it). Give ole Bill something to think about. We don't want your Wincontrol Vista OS. More freedom, more privacy is what we want. Don't want my OS talking to Bill everyday letting him know what I'm up. That can be dangerous.

I still regret having to switch from Win98 to WinXP.

yes, there are programs that do the same thing as adobe products, for instance, use GIMP instaed of Photoshop, and there are others.

why don't you set up a dual boot machine and try a distro for yourself, ubuntu and xandros are good for novice, the more computer saavy can start wuth Fedora or SUSE.

there are many firewalls to choose from, remember, they have the apache server which you can set up on any machine and there are firewalls for that.

NVU or seamonkey are WYSIWYG and there are plenty of excellent text editors. I also like to use my own code.

the website for the Dell article is dellideastorm.com, its a new community for dell users

http://polishlinux.org/gnu/drm-vista-and-your-rights/

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197006220

So now DRM is trying to control what OS we use and even what hardware we use. And Microsoft with Vista promotes DRM for obvious reasons—to keep their OS market strong and to discourage people from switching to Linux. There is always some hidden agenda with this crapware.

MS Buyers Beware!!

Interesting. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000052.html

If you use WINE, add a few bits here and there that can be "borrowed" from a windows installation, then Linux can run a fair few Windows Apps...

I have DW, Flash and Fireworks running on Linux

Linux is the way for sure, its so stable, its free, most things for it are free, they work like they say and you dont get bugged by limitations and the watchfull eye of M$

There are tools for Linux that are similar to most adobe products, i cant say they are as powerful, but they are good. They can produce the same results, just they might take a little more work/manual work... I find linux stuff often lags behind in terms of user friendly software like wizards and that...

But i suppose most linux developers use not alot more than notepad, hard core...

As for Vista, its better than XP i have found, i was unsure at first. As for DRM, cant see the issues yet, i am downloading p2p and not having issues with Audio, Video or the likes

Here's yet one more reason to switch to Linux:

Dang irritating MS keeps switching my default Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird apps to MSIE and Outlook every time I download/install the latest WinXP updates. Thankfully Mozilla makes it simple to reset the defaults back to Mozilla's apps. Despite the ease of switching back, on principle this is still quite irritating because it seems like MS is attempting to take away control of my puter—not very nice. This has happened for at least the last 6 months or so of each WinXP update (that I can remember). Might have been happening all along with these updates, but I didn't make the connection until now when I really gave it more thought.

I sent Microsoft a notice of my appreciation of them dictating which browser and email software I use

Anyone else notice this?

If anybody is interested, I've done the Vista Upgrade and I like it very much.

I've had to upgrade to 2 Gig of RAM to get it to run as fast as it did before with 1 GIG.

Why do you like it? Any noticeable benefits?

It's just very pretty and very user friendly.

I know that isn't exactly a techy answer, but it's enough for me to decide to upgrade all of my PCs.

Hmmm funny, I picked the classic windows layout over the newer WinXP layout that is set by default.

What is more user friendly about Vista?

At times I find that user friendly sometimes means that it is harder to gain access to other techy settings within the OS.

There is a whole bunch of stuff that I have no idea how to find, and a whole load of things that no longer can be done... and getting Apache and Cerebus to co-operate has been a nightmare, and still isn't resolved.

g1smd said:

There is a whole bunch of stuff that I have no idea how to find, and a whole load of things that no longer can be done...

Yeah, that's what I am afraid of. Going from Win98 to WinXP was a bit of a change though that particular upgrade was fairly smooth. But, just like the new IE7, I'm sorta afraid of the latest Vista. IE7 was too much of a radical layout change and the change wasn't a good thing. I was thinking that Vista might be changed quite a bit like IE7—not liking that idea.

It would be nice if Microsoft would concentrate on cutting out the OS bloated software rather than trying to hide functions and settings from people wishing to tweak the OS. Oh well.

I see that Dell has started to offer XP pre-installed again.

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/04/29/vista_end_dream/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/20/dell_offers_xp_again/

Those links lead to some curious findings with Dell. Good find g1smd

I read a lot more than I write.

I hate Vista and I'm not fond of IE7 either.

Vista is XP dumbed-down to childish. It's an ultimate-skin makeover to disguise all the worthless security measures that prevent anyone, with any knowledge, from doing anything in a timely manner. It's the incarnation of "Microsoft Bob" all over again. It's the reducio ad absurdum of marketing ploys.

So I put it on my wife's machine.

IE7 hasn't even come up to W3C standards. It screws with CSS, javascript, AJAX and about everything else we use on every up-to-date site we host. I'll tell you I'm not impressed.

So I put it on my wife's machine.

She'll probably sue me for cruel and unusual punishment any day now and have legitimate grounds based on Microsoft abuse.

Now tell us how you really feel!!! :-0

Okay. I really like the new bugs (read features) in the new Microsoft products and I'm inviting Bill and Paul over tommorrow for a wine and cheese tete-a-tete so we can all part company feeling better about the issues.