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Comment Re:why is this surprising? (Score 1) 898

by aftk2 (#26250687) Attached to: First Look At Windows 7 Beta 1
There is still more difference between Windows7 and Vista than there is between OS X 10.0 and OS X 10.5

Heh. Please substantiate this claim. Perhaps you meant 10.4 and 10.5 (debatable) or 10.5 and the upcoming 10.6 (more debatable) but I think I would take umbrage with your initial assertion. UMBRAGE!
Programming

Submission + - Getting paid for the same development twice

Submitted by
aftk2
aftk2 writes: "I'm a freelance web programmer, and a little less than a year ago I found myself confronted with a fairly encapsulated but non-trivial problem. Solving this problem involved writing a suite of test scripts that validated data submitted to an external database, and processed the various responses correctly. This was all necessary to be "certified" by the authority controlling the external service. Due to the nature of the API and the fairly rigorous certification process, this took a little bit of time, and a bit of skill (and patience!)

However, now I find myself in a conundrum. Another client with which I am only tangentially affiliated is interacting with the same external service, and I've been asked if I will provide these test scripts to another developer. If I provide these, what's the proper way to obtain compensation for them? An additional line item on my invoice? How would any of you handle this particular situation? This is a great working relationship that I don't really want to damage, but at the same time I would really prefer not being taken advantage of.

(If anyone needs or wants a little more information about the exact nature of the problem, feel free to ask questions — I just wanted to be brief in my question.)"
Software

Submission + - Co-Processors Used for Bloatware

Submitted by
RX8
RX8 writes: "Velocity Micro Director of Product Development, Chris Morley says that system builders are taking advantage of the new Dual-Core processors and "load down their systems with extraneous software that you do not need and only chew up clock cycles. Microsoft has dubbed this bloatware "craplets," and they're worried it's going to ruin Vista's reception by the public. These craplets of course are revenue streams for the Tier 1s." Some of the worst manufacturers to do this include Dell and Hp. Microsoft is worried that this bloatware will lead consumers to blame Vista for the slowdown."
Games

Submission + - Will Vista make it cheaper to be a gamer ?

Submitted by
rathalian
rathalian writes: "After spending many a year wrestling home built PCs and working through the inevitable issues seen with increasing performance including heat and noise reduction, I decided to investigate purchasing a 'gaming' laptop. As the salary sacrificing options I have make it very appealing, particulary as I have an IT business that requires some mobility, it was interesting to see how over the last 4 months the online specifications available for laptops is changing fairly rapidly as we have approached Vista's release. Notably the premium that was charged for a laptop containing a 'decent' GPU to play games has dropped sharply. You can now get laptops with Core 2 Duo's, ATI X1700 GPUs and 1 gig of memory for under $2000 (Australian) as these chips are now more mainstream. And why are they more mainstream ? — see Vista GPU requirements for one... A classic example of this has been Dell's site. Previously their 6400 and 9400 Inspiron series of laptops offered the Intel 950, ATI X1400 and in the case of the 9400, the Nvidia 9700GS. Just over a month ago the Intel line was dropped from both the 6400 and the 9400's catalogue and it is standard on the 6400 to get an X1400 at a much lower price than Dell was offering around the end of October 2006. You can now get Toshiba's laptop that includes an Nvidia 7900GTX for $3400 (Australian) which was previously unheard of in a laptop re bang for buck. Now I know that prices change, however there has been a clear surge in the amount of laptops running higher performance GPU's and for a lower cost. So, does this mean that 2007 will mark the year where there is an across the board drop in GPU prices as the higher performance GPU cards become the standard cards in the 'average' PC or laptop due to Vista requirements? What are your thoughts?"

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