To avoid having 8573 stories related to Vista atop one another, this item groups some of them. Fortune: “After five years in development, Microsoft’s new operating system is finally about to hit the street. Is it a keeper? Fortune’s Peter Lewis takes it for a test drive.” eWeek: “Some have taken exception with Vista’s permission-asking proclivity, but it may be that we’ve just become too cavalier about making fundamental changes to our systems.” eWeek: “We check out the first systems bundling Microsoft’s newest OS and tell you what you will, and will not, be getting with Vista.” Click read more for, well, more items. This item will probably be updated regularly.Microsoft Watch: “At one time, it seemed like it would be a cold day in hell before Microsoft would release Windows Vista. A cold day is right. Tomorrow, Microsoft will give the real Windows Vista kick-off – much splashier than November’s business launch – in New York City. The forecast is minus 1 degrees Celsius, with gusty winds. Brrrr.”
CNet: “New year, new software: Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista, has finally hit consumer desks. Do you need to upgrade, and if so, to which version? Should you get a new desktop or laptop with Vista preinstalled? CNET has your complete guide to Windows Vista: software and system reviews, videos, the latest news, downloads, tips, and a test to check whether your system’s ready for the upgrade.”
CNet: “Before spending the money for Windows Vista, set to debut this week, is there any guarantee that the software you buy will run as advertised on your PC? Not exactly, analysts say.”
ZDNet UK: “Microsoft is looking to supplant the ubiquitous JPEG with an image format of its own – and it’s hoping the debut of Windows Vista will help do the job.”
ActiveWin: “ATI/AMD have just released the first official WHQL certified Catalyst Windows Vista release on ati.amd.com.”
Windows Vista Blog: “Now that the coding of Windows Vista has been completed, the product has been handed off to our partners for them to ready drivers and applications that work with it, and the Marketing department is tasked with finding new and clever ways to sell it, you must be wondering: what exactly is our development team up to?”
Slashdot: “Security researcher Alex Ionescu claims to have successfully bypassed the much discussed DRM protection in Windows Vista, called ‘Protected Media Path’, which is designed to seriously degrade the playback quality of any video and audio running on systems with hardware components not explicitly approved by Microsoft.”
the final article seems to be interesting and amusing. Exciting news.
I am tired now from this Vista news…
Just hearing and reading and using betas for about 5 years.
Thank God its out now.
“At one time, it seemed like it would be a cold day in hell before Microsoft would release Windows Vista… Tomorrow, Microsoft will give the real Windows Vista kick-off – much splashier than November’s business launch – in New York City. The forecast is minus 1 degrees Celsius, with gusty winds.”
New York City is Hell?
“Microsoft is looking to supplant the ubiquitous JPEG with an image format of its own”
I’d much rather see JPEG2000 than a Microsoft format. And I’m not sure the article’s comparison to PNG is really fair- JPEG replaced GIF for everything but, well, animated advertisements (and images with transparency, thank you Microsoft for that one); and PNG does not emulate GIF’s animation format. That’s MNG, which even Linux distros don’t seem to support. Besides, animated GIFs are being replaced with Flash banners… I dunno, I use PNG extensively for digital picture editing.
As for JPEG2000, it sounds like (as with MP3) with the proper tuning and better compression software, the JPEG format can produce far better images… so JPEG2000’s lead is not quite as big. I think it is used in high-end video capture like the movie studios use, though.
I suspect “HD photo” will run into the same problems any attempted replacement of PDF will run into.
“Security researcher Alex Ionescu claims to have successfully bypassed the much discussed DRM protection in Windows Vista, called ‘Protected Media Path’ (PMP), which is designed to seriously degrade the playback quality of any video and audio running on systems with hardware components not explicitly approved by Microsoft.”
I have to wonder, with all the strange restrictions on buying and installing Vista (with the carrot that they’re all on the same DVD), and all the Digital Media restrictions (though they can play the discs)… Is Microsoft intentionally enticing people to pirate Windows Vista (or hack its features)? To gain vast marketshare very quickly? Or to justify further, even more Draconian measures in the future?
EDIT: Just noticed this: HD Photos can be easily rotated in 90° increments. JPEG images must be decoded and re-encoded, degrading quality slightly with each change.
I’m pretty sure this has been overcome for JPEG images by now.
The rest of the statements seem to be valid, though; I’m not sure even PNG supports 32 bits-per-color. I know PNG has a 64-bit RRGGBBAA mode, but this sounds far more… uh, deep?
On a side note, are there any digital cameras that output PNG?
Edited 2007-01-29 21:58
GIFs are better for images with large areas with few colors (things like logos) because they can be made insanely small with no distortion.
JPGs are better for pictures and images with gradients and shading.
PNGs can be very small to when compressing pictures with small amount of colours. I’ve just checked that 1024×768 picture with 5 random colours compressed to 100KB GIF and 150KB PNG. It’s probably the best format for application screenshots, preserves detail and compresses big single-colour areas perfectly. It gets pretty big with photos though but that’s to be exepected with loseless compression.
And PNG is better (smaller) than GIF for those same images.
The thing is, PNG transparency wasn’t supported by IE until IE7, making it non-viable for most.
The only thing GIF can do that PNG can’t is animation, and those GIFs usually appear as animated ads.
//GIFs are better for images with large areas with few colors (things like logos) because they can be made insanely small with no distortion. //
I take it you mean small as in file size, as oppsed to small as in area.
For most purposes that suit GIF eg: “images with large areas with few colors (things like logos)”, a better option is perhaps SVG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svg
SVG graphics can be scaled, and they can be animated. They can even be interactive.
“SVG allows three types of graphic objects:
* Vector graphic shapes (e.g. paths consisting of straight lines and curves, and areas bounded by them)
* Raster graphics images / digital images
* Text ”
“Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML markup language for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and animated, and either declarative or scripted. Images can contain hyperlinks using outbound simple XLinks.”
“SVG drawings can be dynamic and interactive.”
The best bit about SVG is that “It is an open standard created by the World Wide Web Consortium.”
The disappointing thing is, Vista does not support SVG rendering.
Edited 2007-01-30 01:14
1) I wouldn’t mind the new format if Microsoft turned around and said, “this is a great new format, and we’ll allow anyone to implement it” – encourage freeware/opensource to implement it, for commercial vendors, they can pay a token amount if they bundle it with their application.
It would be great all around; and hey, Microsoft do want to become an IBM, a ‘old grandfather’ of the IT industry – its about time they started to act like one and see their innovation as more than just a money spinning tool but also a contribution to the IT world; an act of chariety if one wishes to be cynical.
2) I don’t blame Microsoft for the DRM fiasco; lets remember, its the media, more correctly, the comanies who are members of RIAA/MPAA, put pressure on Microsoft; Microsoft want to offer all these things and the MPAA/RIAA turn around and say, “we’ll only back you if you do….” and a list of conditions.
If you want to barate someone for that, barate the relevant organisations – with that being said, DRM can be used for more than just music and video; you can use it for protecting documents and a whole raft of other things; its best to define what you have problems with.
Remember, DRM is made up of two parts; the policy and the enforcement; if you have a problem, its the policy you have a problem with, not the DRM enforcement side; it is the policy of the distrbuted file which is defined by the author; they’re the ones you should be grinding your axe over, not Microsoft, they’re merely providing the platform for its customers to take advantage of.
Its like a person who rent out cars; some have very strict policies, whilst others have very few rules; you choose the vendor who chooses not to have overly draconian DRM policies in their files which they distribute.
1) I wouldn’t mind the new format if Microsoft turned around and said, “this is a great new format, and we’ll allow anyone to implement it” – encourage freeware/opensource to implement it, for commercial vendors, they can pay a token amount if they bundle it with their application.
Indeed this is what they are doing by adding it to OSP. It was previously only going to be free if implemented as part of an XPS reader, but that restriction will no longer apply. A device porting kit (DPK) is available for implementing HDP on other platforms.
Links and other details here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/billcrow/
http://news.com.com/Vista+to+give+HD+Photo+format+more+exposure/210…
Interesting; as long as Microsoft don’t do something stupid in the future, it will be a good bit of competition to Adobe – and quite frankly, the day I see Adobe crushed the better.
Adobe screams on the side lines about ‘lack of choice’ and yet, like I’ve said in the past, they’ve complained about Microsoft and yet they provide their products only for Windows – thus by proxy boosting Microsofts monopoly; like I keep saying, if people want to blame someone for Microsofts monopoly, they can blame the likes of Adobe who don’t port their software to non-Microsoft operating systems like Linux or FreeBSD or OpenSolaris.
“I don’t blame Microsoft for the DRM fiasco; lets remember, its the media, more correctly, the comanies who are members of RIAA/MPAA, put pressure on Microsoft”
The big media concerns ‘asked’ MS, MS caved in, for whatever reasons.
I say let’s blame them both.
Edited 2007-01-30 10:04
So Microsoft should screw the end user by saying, “no HD Content for you!” – pulease, and their shareholders would then ask for a lynching of management because they lost the opportunity to become the platform of choice.
And you think that Apple won’t turn over for the media companies? Apple is the best example of being the biggest whore for the media companies – yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir is what Steve Jobs chants.
“So Microsoft should screw the end user by saying, “no HD Content for you!”
No, they should say to the end user:
“no DRM for you, instead we invested our time and money into X, Y and Z, things that will actually directly *benefit* you”
Allow me to use this video in order to illustrate my position: http://www.lafkon.net/tc/
Edited 2007-01-30 10:20
“And you think that Apple won’t turn over for the media companies?”
No I don’t. Where money flows, shit happens.
Edited 2007-01-30 10:24
To avoid having 8573 stories related to Vista atop one another, this item groups some of them
To thumbs up for consolidation of topics. I like the idea. It groups related topics I may or may not want to read together. In addition, all the “Vista sux” and “Windoze Rulz, Linux Drools” comments can now be grouped together also!
The second article was interesting. People do find Vista’s permission popups, but that is probably a sign of poor habits. People are used to installing any old crap without a second thought, and that should change. Hopefully instead of everyone turning off Vista’s access protection, some people think instead about how to trigger it less often (ie installing less junk).
Also from the second article:
Microsoft can make things easier for its users by taking a page out of the software management playbooks of Linux distributions, which typically offer a framework of network-accessible repositories of cryptographically signed packages. These packages can be self-hosted, hosted by the Linux provider or hosted by trusted vendors, yet they are accessible with the same set of software management tools. In OpenSUSE, for example, it’s possible to grant a regular user the right to install packages from preset repositories, which can help strike a balance between self-service and IT department vetting.
But they can’t do that! It would be nowhere near as easy as hunting for an installer.exe on the web! If they do this, Windows will become too hard to use (until Linspire ports Click n Run to Windows). Please Microsoft, look at how hard it is to install software on Linux before considering this insane suggestion. [/sarcasm]
After the long discussion about CNR and the need of an easier way to install things on Linux (klik, autopackage, whatever), it’s interesting to see this proposed by eweek. I’m sure if Microsoft were ever to do something like this, they’d make it easy to search packages and would give you an idea what the package would look like. It might end up looking like CNR. In fact, it’d most certainly look more like that than a command line tool like apt-get
I guess CNR isn’t all that bad in theory: it’s still a central repo, and built on top of apt-get. I guess my point is CNR, bare apt-get (or synaptic) and this proposal by eweek all involve centralized repositories, which I do feel are easier to use than the vaunted Windows method of hunting for exe installers on the web and CDs. It’s something to point to next time someone complains about installing software on Linux anyway.
Everytime MS launches anything it getz pwn3d before release. They could not come up with anything that not got hacked for a week, up to now, ever. Their presentations crash. Their protected media path freak show of technology got unprotected before the sh1t even hit the fan… ehh shelves. AGAIN-…?!!!1! they just lack them 1337 zkills, to me it seems…..
at least the marketing department isn’t short on $€.. and other players on the consumer market are picking up the trend. but this time, it’s the year of the desktop wars, kids. by midyear, around this merry little planet, battles will be raging at IT markets far beyond imagination… it’ll be a fine bloodshed.
watch this one. it’ll become even more phunnier. there’ll be lots of phun… *prelol*
Good luck in rehab.
The new “HD photo” image format is covered by a lot of Microsoft patents.
Even if this “Open Specification Promise” is true, I just don’t trust them. Anybody is familiar with this recent “its-parented-but-you-can-code-it” iniciative, from a legal point of view?
In my opinion, JPEG,PNG are better than any patented image format.
Edited 2007-01-30 00:27
Interestingly, I just read (on Wikipedia) that JPEG (and the JPEG2000 I had been espousing earlier) are both patented. Also according to Wikipedia there aren’t any unpatented lossy algorithms, except possibly ILBM in HAM6/HAM8 modes
That said, given what happened with JPEG, I might believe the Joint Picture Experts Group’s promise to not sue or use patents against anyone. Unfortunately, another company claims they have patents infringed by JPEG2000, specifically wavelet-based encoders.
Hmm, I didn’t know that. You can take JPEG from my phrase then.
Whatever, the JPEG group has more reputation than Microsoft in patent stuff. So I trust them much more.
The disappointing thing is, Vista does not support SVG rendering.
I doubt they will ever. It’s against their goal of controlling and proprietizing anything that is useful to computing. I have no doubt they will make an (embraced,) extended version of SVG at some point and then shout from mountaintop that it is far superior.
I don’t understand why people are upset about UAC being annoying. In linux you have to enter your password every time you install or change something. I have no problem with that. You can’t complain that windows is annoying and then complain afterwards when it’s not secure.
UAC will be annoying to any Windows user that is not familiarized with permission handling and elevation of privilege.
I think that the UAC implementation itself is way worse than the Unix simple approach. Users reported that some software installations in Vista required the admin password thrice. I don’t have to put my root password three times just to install some frigging package on FreeBSD. I don’t have references though.
In linux you have to enter your password every time you install or change something
That is not entirely correct. I can for instance su inside a terminal to gain root privileges and stay root within this shell until my admin tasks are finished. I can also start a nested X session (or a second X server instance for that matter) and change on the fly between this two.
While UAC shares some similarities with the sudo approach made popular by the *buntu distros, there should always be the posiibility to use alternative concepts for the seperation between unprivileged and privileged users. And most linux distros support these
That is not entirely correct. I can for instance su inside a terminal to gain root privileges and stay root within this shell until my admin tasks are finished. I can also start a nested X session (or a second X server instance for that matter) and change on the fly between this two.
This is also possible in Windows, either by elevating on launch of the console or via runas. Anything launched from the elevated console will also automatically be elevated.
i got mine today…
http://myvistaexperience.com/?p=17
a whole day early!!! dunno if NewEgg or UPS messed up, but im not complainin..
“Each individual software license inside this package may ONLY be distributed with a fully assembled computer system”
Interesting that NewEgg are selling these as retail…
Is that an Apple logo on the window in the background?
You’re not installing it on that old iMac in front of you, are you?
And why do you have that stupid grin on your face, like you just got laid? <jk>.
I visited my local Harvey Norman store today. They are the biggest computer retailer in Australia. The store is in an affluent area and neighbours one of Australia’s biggest universities. They appear to have sold around 20 copies in 18 hours. Australian can’t download Vista either so that isn’t affecting sales.
Out of interest, I went into the local JB-HIFI to go have a look at the price of Vista on the shelf. What I found is that they only stock Home Basic. It seems, that they have clicked that the mass-market of Mums and Dads aren’t going to fork out the “Premium” Cash…
I was at Harvey Norman for around 20 minutes. Only one guy picked up a Vista box – had a quick look and put it down. Even the much cheaper upgrades weren’t selling.
Vista (32 bit ) with countdown crack is already available on bittorrent. I’m happy with Ubuntu so i won’t be bothering but others almost certainly will.
/*To avoid having 8573 stories related to Vista atop one another, this item groups some of them
/*
I wonder if ubuntu 7.04 will cause this much of excitement when released
Just my 2 cents, but I’d like to see some “news” asking what Vista is giving people and more specifically what Vista is giving back to people. As a legal monopoly, Microsoft is making absolutely huge profits. It is sucking money out of the whole industry when in most other industries the loot would be a lot more spread around. So, what are we all getting in return for having every last cent carved out of us?
What I am getting:
Vista in the UK appears to cost in pounds sterling the US price in dollars plus about another 70-80 per cent. I wonder why?
My mailserver is groaning under a spam tsunami at the moment, thanks to hundreds of thousands or millions of Windows zombie machines. I haven’t seen any article yet which claims, convincingly, that Vista will end what’s been called the “Windows Security Crisis”. Most folks seem to have resigned themselves to more of the same, before long anway.
An end to monopoly price-gouging (at least in the UK) and the reform of email would news to me. Vista is not news. In many ways, it is just a shiny new face on a corporation that intends to take from us much, much more than we will ever get back. Let’s not even get started on DRM.