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Comment The Systemd Fiasco or Hello FreeBSD (Score -1, Troll) 581

by AddisonW (#48416761) Attached to: Debian Votes Against Mandating Non-systemd Compatibility

Linux has become the laughingstock of the computing world thanks to the Systemd Fiasco.

An entire operating system trashed by a single incompetent clown and his shit pet project rammed down distro throats by his foaming at the mouth fanboys.

A healthy open source community would never have let this fiasco happen.

Hello FreeBSD. A pure Unix operating system run by grownups only interested in technical excellence.

Submission + - Windows 8 killing PC sales

Submitted by yl-roller
yl-roller writes: IDC says Windows 8 is partly to blame for PC sales suffering the largest percentage drop ever.

"As if that news wasn't' troubling enough, it appears that a pivotal makeover of Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows operating system seems to have done more harm than good since the software was released last October."

Another article said IDC originally expected a drop, but only half the size.

I think people going to buy new PCs as often as they do cars — or even refrigerators. They're appliances. Microsoft should have realized it, and innovated in a new field instead of trying to update the old stuff. Maybe it's scroogled.

Submission + - Worldwide PC Sales Fall 14% -- Steepest Decline On Record

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes:

Personal computer sales plunged 14% in the first three months of the year, the biggest decline in two decades of keeping records, as tablets continue to gain in popularity and buyers appear to be avoiding Microsoft Corp's new Windows 8 system, according to a leading tech tracking firm.

From The Toronto Sun: "Users are finding Windows 8 to offer a compromised experience that doesn't excel either as a new mobile interface or in a classic desktop interface. [They] were simply uncomfortable with the new Windows system, which dispensed with the familiar start menu and uses colorful âtiles' to represent applications."

GNOME 3 developers take note.

Submission + - Pwn2Own IE Vulnerabilities Missing from Microsoft Patch Tuesday Updates (threatpost.com)

Submitted by msm1267
msm1267 writes: Microsoft’s monthly Patch Tuesday security updates released today did not include patches for Internet Explorer vulnerabilities used during the Pwn2Own contest one month ago.
The popular hacker contest attracted researchers from all over who were targeting all the major browsers, as well as third-party software such as Flash and Java. Companies such as VUPEN and MWR Labs were able to beat locked-down versions of IE 10 running on Windows 8 and Mozilla’s Firefox browser, as well as Chrome running on Windows. Unlike Mozilla and Google, both of which patched the flaws exploited during the contest within 24 hours, Microsoft had yet to update its browser. This has been compounded after last Thursday’s advanced notification that indicated a cumulative IE update was coming today.
“This puts them quite a bit behind other browsers that already patched their Pwn2Own bugs,” said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle.
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Criticisms Toward Copyright Alert System Mounts (freezenet.ca) 1

Submitted by Dangerous_Minds
Dangerous_Minds writes: This last week, the Copyright Alert System was rolled out. Now that everyone is getting a better idea of what the alert system looks like, criticisms are building against the system. Freezenet says that the mere fact that ISPs are using a browser pop-up window opens the floodgates for fraudsters to hijack the system and scam users out of money. The EFF criticized the system because the educational material contains numerous flaws. Meanwhile, Web Pro News said that this system will also hurt small business and consumers as well.

Submission + - Mega Passes 3 Million Users And 125 Million Files in First Month

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Kim Dotcom on Tuesday revealed that his cloud storage service Mega has surpassed 3 million users and 125 million files after one month of availability, and also reemphasized that mobile apps and a sync client were “coming soon.” The service launched on January 19 at a massive press event in New Zealand.
Google

Submission + - Google's new image search experience harms content producers' revenues (sandraandwoo.com)

Submitted by taikedz
taikedz writes: A couple of days ago, Google released a new version of its image search. This turned out to be a huge slap in the face of content creators [...]. When clicking on a thumbnail, the original image is hotlinked and embedded into Google’s result page [without displaying the original site at all]. This costs bandwidth [to the image host] and the user has less incentive to visit the webpage of the original creator.
Chrome

Submission + - Acer Sees Success in Chrome; Windows Fails to Drive Sales (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by Dupple
Dupple writes: Acer Inc. the Taiwanese computer maker that’s suffered two consecutive annual losses, posted strong sales of notebooks using Google Chrome platform after the release of Microsoft Windows 8 failed to ignite the market.

Chrome-based models accounted for 5 percent to 10 percent of Acer’s U.S. shipments since being released there in November, President Jim Wong said in an interview at the Taipei-based company’s headquarters. That ratio is expected to be sustainable in the long term and the company is considering offering Chrome models in other developed markets, he said.

“Windows 8 itself is still not successful,” said Wong, whose company posted a 28 percent drop in fourth-quarter shipments from a year earlier. “The whole market didn’t come back to growth after the Windows 8 launch, that’s a simple way to judge if it is successful or not.”
Android

Submission + - Microsoft blames PC makers for Windows failure. (theregister.co.uk) 1

Submitted by rtfa-troll
rtfa-troll writes: The Register tells us that Microsoft has begun squabbling with PC manufacturers over the reasons behind the failure of Windows 8. Microsoft is "frustrated with major OEMs who didn't build nearly enough touch systems". PC manufacturers have hit back saying that they "would have been saddled with the costs of a huge piles of unsold units" claiming that customers actually avoided higher end touch products which were available and instead bought lower end cheaper laptops whilst "Microsoft is not blaming itself for" the failure of it's own touch device, surface RT. The PC manufacturer's claims that touch is the problem seem to be backed by reviews, and some educational rants from users and opinion from user interface design experts, however Microsoft sees this differently . Microsoft is planning to strike back at the PC vendors in February with Surface pro; with a shorter battery life and much heavier than a normal tablet, this is being seen as a direct competitor to traditional laptops. By using it's desktop operating system franchise as a lever Microsoft will be able to enter the lower specification end of the Laptop market with a cost advantage which make make life difficult for former partners such as HP and Dell.

We've discussed previously how some PC manufactures such as Dell have failed in generational change whilst others have diversified to survive market chainges; Samsung with Android and the (still) bestselling Chromebook. ASUS with their successful Nexus tablets. We also discussed the ergonomic problems which are claimed to make touch screens unsuitable for PC use.

Comment Re:FreeBSD 9.1 Is Unix Heaven (Score 4, Insightful) 149

by AddisonW (#42428897) Attached to: New Releases From FreeBSD and NetBSD

Why would I pay effectively double for a Mac that:

1. I can't even get a Blu-Ray drive with

2. Apple's crap OpenGL drivers

Having had a tablet now for the past year and finding I spend most of my casual computing done with it and all my development work on my FreeBSD system.

Buying a Mac would be a waste of money. The only reason I would ever get a Mac desktop would be if for some reason I needed to work on a Mac desktop application. That is highly unlikely to ever happen.

Comment FreeBSD 9.1 Is Unix Heaven (Score 5, Insightful) 149

by AddisonW (#42428363) Attached to: New Releases From FreeBSD and NetBSD

I've got FreeBSD 9.1 running on my machine now and it is absolute Unix heaven.

The NVidia drivers work perfectly with my 580 card. The rest of my hardware was recognized and works properly.

All my gaming is done on my PS3 and Wii and a little bit on my Android devices. So my FreeBSD is primarily used for development and some webbrowsing. Working on a system that is stable and free from the crazy and random crap that plagues the various Linux distros is wonderful. The only negative I've found so far is the desktop's ports aren't as fully setup as you get as with something like Ubunut or Mint since the major focus of most of the FreeBSD devs is on server use.

I would like to thank all the lame people who have so diligently been posting their lame 'is dying' posts. I would never have checked out BSD if it wasn't for them. And it looks like the latest attempt at BSD FUD about funding massively backfired and led to a huge surge in project donations.

I usually hate these type of cute little sayings but after having switched from Linux to FreeBSD it really rings true:

Linux is for people who hate Microsoft
BSD is for people who love Unix

Comment Like There Were No Rectangles With Round Corners (Score 0) 90

by AddisonW (#42427165) Attached to: Ban on Certain Samsung Products Appears Likely ITC Ruling

Claims like that are simply bizarre.

The Blackberry 5810 - March 2002:

http://cdn.crackberry.com/files/u3/evo3BlackBerry5810.jpg

Status bar along the top - power,signal strenth,clock
Grid of app icons
Keyboard along the bottom

It really is amazing how Apple came up with the iPhone when there was NOTHING like it out there...

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Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

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