Darren New wrote:
> It's almost never for me. Are you using XP or Vista?
> 
> IME, XP reboots far less than previous versions (which pretty much 
> rebooted for every update), and Vista reboots "almost never".  I've not 
> had any software install that asked for a reboot except .NET 3.5.
> 
Hmm. XP So, they are improving somethings, and hosing others, like the 
Backup only backing up what "it" wants... lol Typical. Its pretty bad 
when, under an OS that "attempts" to do everything for you, you are 
probably "still" better off writing a fracking script to do it instead. 
;) I mean, if I wasn't so completely lazy that I haven't bothered to 
work out the logic needed to use something like WinRAR and some Lua or 
Python to make my own backup system.. lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> My point was that "update" in their world means, "We maybe patched some 
> bugs, but this is damn unlikely, unless they where security bugs." 

No it doesn't. I get all kinds of UI updates, new file systems, .NET, 
browser updates, media player updates, new codecs, new functionality on 
media center, new (admittedly lame) games in the games list, new examples 
and tutorials and libraries for their compilers, new block lists for junk 
mail, etc.  It's not limited just to upgrades.

> In other words, you may be forced to "wait" for that high price update, 
> if you expect to see some things fixed at all, and that... just sucks, 
> and is yet another reason to be "somewhat" less than impressed by them. 

Well, no. They don't give much software away for free. I think we're all 
aware of that.

> That is, if a list of "patches" that are like 99% security, and don't 
> ever address "any" real problem you are having, isn't enough, by itself. 

Well, I guess you bought the wrong product. That doesn't mean the product is 
wrong, it means it doesn't do everything you want. But that's like 
complaining your VW won't haul concrete.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Hmm. XP So, they are improving somethings, and hosing others, like the 
> Backup only backing up what "it" wants... 

Yep. That was kind of stupid. At least back up everything under your home 
directory even if it looks like an executable, ya know?

> ;) I mean, if I wasn't so completely lazy that I haven't bothered to 
> work out the logic needed to use something like WinRAR and some Lua or 
> Python to make my own backup system.. lol

If you want my scripts, I'm happy to send them. You don't need any 
third-party software to make em work.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:

> Well, I guess you bought the wrong product. That doesn't mean the 
> product is wrong, it means it doesn't do everything you want. But that's 
> like complaining your VW won't haul concrete.
> 

Or Lumber, for that matter:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/automobiles/lumber.asp

-- 
~Mike

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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> My point was that "update" in their world means, "We maybe patched 
>> some bugs, but this is damn unlikely, unless they where security bugs." 
> 
> No it doesn't. I get all kinds of UI updates, new file systems, .NET, 
> browser updates, media player updates, new codecs, new functionality on 
> media center, new (admittedly lame) games in the games list, new 
> examples and tutorials and libraries for their compilers, new block 
> lists for junk mail, etc.  It's not limited just to upgrades.
> 
Seems you definitely have a different experience than me, so we will 
leave it at that.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Hmm. XP So, they are improving somethings, and hosing others, like the 
>> Backup only backing up what "it" wants... 
> 
> Yep. That was kind of stupid. At least back up everything under your 
> home directory even if it looks like an executable, ya know?
> 
>> ;) I mean, if I wasn't so completely lazy that I haven't bothered to 
>> work out the logic needed to use something like WinRAR and some Lua or 
>> Python to make my own backup system.. lol
> 
> If you want my scripts, I'm happy to send them. You don't need any 
> third-party software to make em work.
> 
Hmm. Tempting, but.. And, frankly, I like third party, especially for 
scripts. The stuff supplied with Windows, like VBScript and JScript, 
just aren't as flexible when trying to do some things. And, I happen to 
like WinRAR archiving. ;) But, thanks anyway.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Seems you definitely have a different experience than me, so we will 
> leave it at that.

Could be. You're also using the OS two generations back. They're not really 
releasing a whole lot of new stuff for an OS where two generations later is 
already a RC.   Early on in XP's timeframe (even the first year or two of 
vista wound up releasing a lot of stuff).

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Hmm. Tempting, but.. And, frankly, I like third party, especially for 
> scripts.

These are just DOS BAT files.  But that's fine.  google "vshadow robocopy" 
(without the quotes) to see what I based things on.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Hmm. Tempting, but.. And, frankly, I like third party, especially for 
>> scripts.
> 
> These are just DOS BAT files.  But that's fine.  google "vshadow 
> robocopy" (without the quotes) to see what I based things on.
> 

Hmm. Interesting.. See, my idea was to use a real scripting language to 
get a list of directories, then rar each of those, and hidden, etc. 
files into a file on the other drive, with a name like 
"c_my_documents_level1", then, what you do is ask rar to generate a file 
list, with sizes, etc., check your current files against the archive 
lists, and generate a c_my_documents_level2", which only contains 
"changed" or "new" files, once you have like 3 levels, any changes get 
propogate out of 2 into 1, 3 into 2, and 3 becomes only "new" changes. 
So, you are only doing a backup of new/changed, and you have some 
"archived" copies, in case something mangles the "existing" copy, but 
you catch it before the backup has propagated it to the top level.

Its what the existing backup I have does, I think, but since it only 
backs up stuff it wants to, and doesn't use any compression, its a) a 
storage hog, and b) not terribly useful.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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> Its what the existing backup I have does, I think, but since it only 
> backs up stuff it wants to, and doesn't use any compression, its a) a 
> storage hog, and b) not terribly useful.

Ah. The Microsoft one does that sort of thing, except it uses zip files, and 
it saves in the shadow volume history stuff information about where it is in 
the zip files. So if you want to restore a messed up file, you right-click, 
open up "previous versions", and it lists all the online and offline backups 
of the files.

It would be *great* if you could get it to back up everything.

Mine just makes a second copy onto a compressed directory, so altho the 
compression isn't as good as you could get with bzip or something, it's not 
too bad. You could also use robocopy to compare versions and make yourself 
some hard links, or use VSS then image the differences onto another drive, 
or stuff like that. All kinds of funkiness.

A couple more links for things we've been talking about:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10157210-56.html?tag=nl.e703
http://www.eventid.net/
In case you actually care about it.

Me, drive space is so cheap these days I don't mind keeping both images and 
incrementals-of-local-dirs on disks.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
>> Its what the existing backup I have does, I think, but since it only 
>> backs up stuff it wants to, and doesn't use any compression, its a) a 
>> storage hog, and b) not terribly useful.
> 
> Ah. The Microsoft one does that sort of thing, except it uses zip files, 
> and it saves in the shadow volume history stuff information about where 
> it is in the zip files. So if you want to restore a messed up file, you 
> right-click, open up "previous versions", and it lists all the online 
> and offline backups of the files.
> 
> It would be *great* if you could get it to back up everything.
> 
> Mine just makes a second copy onto a compressed directory, so altho the 
> compression isn't as good as you could get with bzip or something, it's 
> not too bad. You could also use robocopy to compare versions and make 
> yourself some hard links, or use VSS then image the differences onto 
> another drive, or stuff like that. All kinds of funkiness.
> 
> A couple more links for things we've been talking about:
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10157210-56.html?tag=nl.e703
> http://www.eventid.net/
> In case you actually care about it.
> 
> Me, drive space is so cheap these days I don't mind keeping both images 
> and incrementals-of-local-dirs on disks.
> 
Yeah. I bought the one touch specifically to help backups, but ended up 
also using it for installs and downloads, etc... I ran out of room on C 
and D. lol Mind, I have a Fedora partition I am not using, and if I had 
an old copy of partition magic and the guts to try, I would wipe it, 
move D: closer to the end of the drive, then resize "both" so that the 
OS and data/program partitions where bigger. lol

Might, if really lazy, just reinstall stuff, if I upgrade to 7. Which I 
probably will, due to too many things I have needing Windows. :p

Oh, on that note. This is kind of funny:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/video/soa/Ratbags-take-Windows-7-to-the-street/0,2000065477,22470997p,00.htm

Result, as they state: a) no one knows what Windows 7 looks like, and b) 
no one likes Vista. lol

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> an old copy of partition magic and the guts to try, I would wipe it, 
> move D: closer to the end of the drive, then resize "both" so that the 
> OS and data/program partitions where bigger. lol

Vista would make it pretty easy to do that, if you had a place to store D: 
in the meantime. I'm pretty sure you can make a ghost of a drive and restore 
it to a bigger partition, so you could ghost off D:, expand C:, and restore 
D:, potentially having to expand D: again after.

Otherwise, DriveXML is your friend. You don't need Partition Magic - you 
just need enough space somewhere. :-)

>
http://www.zdnet.com.au/video/soa/Ratbags-take-Windows-7-to-the-street/0,2000065477,22470997p,00.htm


Silly.  Just goes to show that most people really don't care about the 
details of the window manager.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> an old copy of partition magic and the guts to try, I would wipe it, 
>> move D: closer to the end of the drive, then resize "both" so that the 
>> OS and data/program partitions where bigger. lol
> 
> Vista would make it pretty easy to do that, if you had a place to store 
> D: in the meantime. I'm pretty sure you can make a ghost of a drive and 
> restore it to a bigger partition, so you could ghost off D:, expand C:, 
> and restore D:, potentially having to expand D: again after.
> 
> Otherwise, DriveXML is your friend. You don't need Partition Magic - you 
> just need enough space somewhere. :-)
> 
Hmm. Will take a look. Biggest issue is making sure it doesn't mess with 
what drive letters are assigned when adjusting things. :p Always fun 
when that happens.

>>
http://www.zdnet.com.au/video/soa/Ratbags-take-Windows-7-to-the-street/0,2000065477,22470997p,00.htm

> 
> 
> Silly.  Just goes to show that most people really don't care about the 
> details of the window manager.
> 
Yeah. To an extent. But, the people where somewhat impressed with some 
of the tricks KDE4 had too, so, that isn't entirely accurate.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Invisible wrote:
> Anyway, somebody asked why people hate M$. And I gave an answer: because
> M$ does not consider performance or reliability to be "important" enough
> to make any attempt to improve them.

You're giving contradictory statements:

> Thinking about it, the load routine probably does just dump a bunch of 
> pointers directly into Word, which probably then trips the rendering 
> engine over or something

They load a data structure from disk right into memory *because* they want
performance. Having the disk format similar to the in-memory structure was
done since back in Word for Windows 2.1 because it was the only way to be
faster than competitors.

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scott wrote:
>> OTOH, M$'s products aren't exactly "cheap", by any stretch of the
>> imagination.
> 
> I don't think paying 2x-3x the price of a game for your OS and Office
> suite is expensive, and I guess most other people don't either.

Where I live, many people have no concept of "price of a game"...

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Invisible wrote:
> This defies belief.
> 
> It has been my experience that as soon as you ask Word to do anything
> remotely nontrivial, it slows to a crawl, produces gigantic files, and
> eventually starts to function eratically (e.g., sections of text being
> duplicated, random formatting changes, deleted text "moving" to other
> parts of the document, etc.)
> 
> Quite how you could produce really *large* documents with it I have no
> idea...

Which is why I prefer a plaintext editor and HTML/LaTeX/DocBook/something.
It can hardly mess up things in an unrecoverable way...

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm guessing the first time she visits a site that demands ActiveX...?

"This site doesn't work." *clicks back button and goes elsewhere*

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Anyone who designs a website and doesn't run it through a W3C checker is
> asking for trouble.

ie. 90% of people.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm drawing a blank on real "websites" that require ActiveX, but I think
> there are a few outside M$.

Flash is an ActiveX control on IE.

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>> Quite how you could produce really *large* documents with it I have no
>> idea...
> 
> Which is why I prefer a plaintext editor and HTML/LaTeX/DocBook/something.
> It can hardly mess up things in an unrecoverable way...

And revision control works. ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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