Thar Shaddin

Yeah dude, that's not XP. My computer is only slightly faster than yours, and all of my stuff loads in seconds.

Nah, I know that. I think it's just the fact that I had - get this - 6754 processes running at idle.

I work in a cyber cafe with 30 computers all running XP. Most of them are quite old (about 1Ghz). Some of them are insanely fast for gaming. All of them work well, especially considering the stress they're under. It's an excellent way to see everything an operating system can do. It pains me to say it, but XP does the job, and does it better than any other OS once you get past its quirks.

I should stop ranting, but if you ask anyone who follows computers, is a programmer or whatever ( I don't mean a microsoft certified douc... er... individual ) the consensus is the same. Vista is a corporate money grab and a bad OS with many issues under the hood. It is wrapped in nice shiny foil. I can with about 99% certainty say it's not faster, and with about 90% certainty say it's slower than XP.

The argument in favor of Vista is always the same. "It works for me so I don't care." Okay. That becomes insubstantial when it does break, and doesn't address the fact that it is sucking away your RAM and HD space to do nothing at all with it. Vista does not have anything you can't find in XP. Except for those widgets...

Linux still lags behind, but it's at least better in some ways. Specifically networking.

I disagree there. Vista, whilst I take the point the new Aero themes are nice on the eyes, and the graphical upgrades do take a little more out of the RAM and vRAM, ain't all that bad. At least not as bad as ya make out.

From my *many* infuriating years slogging it out with XP, reconfiguring and eventually reverse-engineering it to work the way I needed it to, (I'm sure Aorle/Railtus can attest to how often I was fucking about with it in the hostel), and having some serious problems with it, I can honestly say that the three weeks I've had Vista, I've found it to be reliable, faster, smoother, and much more visually impressive than XP.

Yeah, looks aren't everything, but they do help. Same in all things - guys and girls alike would all love to say things like "looks don't matter, it's all about what's inside"... but we all know it's nonsense. Looks ARE important, and I am actually impressed by something Microsoft have done.

First time for everytihng, I guess.

XP has seriously had it's day now. It was a nice, "foil-wrapped" upgrade to windows 2000, and doesn't DO that much more than 2000 did anyway. Why we are surprised Vista doesn't DO much more than XP I don't know - what exactly should it do that it doesn't?

I've been a programmer, hard-coder, developer, software pirate, cyber hack, hacker, whatever you wanna call it I've been them all. I've seen and done just about everything that can currently be done with the PC's out at the moment, the wonderful advent of Quad-core processors will let you fun three graphically intensive games at once, should you wish to... not too sure why you would...

My point is that Vista, in my opinion, is more than "just" a graphical improvement. It changes completely the way file systems are managed, and content is displayed, amongst many other things, and I've kinda fallen in love with the widgets too (arguably part of the graphical upgrade section).

I think Vista is a matter of personal opinion. I used to prefer Win 98 over XP, because all I saw XP as was a graphical improvement, and I didn't see much point in it. Then I used XP for six (maybe seven?) years and I got used to it. It grows on people the same was I think Vista will.

And I still maintain it IS faster.

I think it is *really* sad how much people "care" about their computers these days. JeeZUS.

Well, for people such as myself, a computer is actually a pretty large and substantial purchase, and therefore you can goddamn well bet that I care quite a lot about it. Anything that makes my baby run faster is awesome.

From what it sounds like, I'll be avoiding Vista like the plague. We'll see how it goes at work, though.

Calico wrote:I think it is *really* sad how much people "care" about their computers these days. JeeZUS.

I think it's quite sad that you don't care about computers, especially since without them you wouldn't be able to post or read Thar Shaddin at all.

Seriously, go without for a while, and then tell me you can live without any computers.

This includes:

Cars, TV's, Fridges, PC's, Consoles (all varieties), Washing machines, Dishwashers, Ovens, Stereos, buses, Mobile phones, landline phones, etc.

All either ARE computers or USE computers.

Do you care about what's on TV? A TV is a computer, in a basic form. Without the computing components in a TV the picture you see would never get decoded and blasted onto your screen in a shower of electrons (or if you have a plasma TV, other methods too complex to be bothered going into in this heat).

Do you care about your car, or your friend's car, or buses, if you don't own a car? All of them use computers for simple things such as lights, and creating the spark necessary to turn the engine over in the first place.

Do you care about your fridge, and all the food preserved within it? Fridges use a basic computer for thermostatting operation, to maintain the internal temp below 5oC and keep the food fresh.

Do you care about your washing machine? The computer in it controls evetything about it, how it actually washes your clothes right down to when the door opens, on newer models. Imagine having to wash all your clothes by hand.

Do you care about your mobile phone (cell phone, to the Americans/Canadians (I think, I'm not sure) among us) ? The phone itself is a computer, and without the computers it connects to you'd never get a mobile network to phone anyone off anyway?

Same with landlines, nowadays the calls are all put through by computer, and controlled by computer. Don't you care about keeping in touch with people over the phone?

Don't you care about being able to play games on the PC, which you must have to be a member here, or a console, to keep you entertained? (Although, without TV's, consoles are useless anyway, I guess.)

It's by no means a comprehensive list. Just acknowledge the fact that at some level, EVERYONE cares about computers.

(That's not to even START on the things CREATED by computers)

Wow, freak out, haha.

He didn't say he hates computers, just that he doesn't care enough about 'em to get into a heated argument over an OS (if I read what he was saying correctly). No need to go all ranty.

Nah, I didn't exactly freak out. I just pointed out that what he said was he didn't care about computers. Which he might actually do without realising it.

Okay. Let me re-phrase. The INTERNET.

Idiot.

Edit: Once more, without feeling....


The reason I said,

I think it is *really* sad how much people "care" about their computers these days. JeeZUS.

was because of reasons that do have rational thought behind them and could be the cause of a different, interesting discussion (says arrogant me haha).

Now if I offended you, I apologise. I truly do.

But I did not mean to do so, otherwise I would not have posted without any elaboration. I'm not used to adding two paragraphs to explain a sentence, you see.

But rather than asking me to elaborate you chose to assume that I am ignorant of how important computers are in modern, everyday life. I did, and still do not appreciate the manner in which you expressed that assumption. It was offensive, and I ask you to not do it again.

It was a nice, "foil-wrapped" upgrade to windows 2000, and doesn't DO that much more than 2000 did anyway.

They're both based on the NT kernel. Which, incidentally, so is Vista.

At its core Vista is a bloated version of XP. They did not go and rewrite the code, as was evidenced by the Cursor hack which they had patched in XP, but which resurfaced in Vista. (oops, we forgot to re-patch it)

It's also evidenced by benchmarks:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/ ... page4.html

The graphs on the this page show framerates in games. Higher is better. They're nearly identical, with XP being slightly faster.
The graphs on the next page show time taken to complete a basic task like encoding videos. Less is better. XP was faster.

In their benchmarking, they: "Tweak the OS: turn off animations and AeroGlass for maximum system performance." So that's not the cause.

This is what would be expected from taking windows XP, tacking on some features, and releasing it again. Your computer was not running slow because of XP. You said yourself why it was running slow earlier.

I think it's just the fact that I had - get this - 6754 processes running at idle.

That has nothing to do with XP. That's a messed up, spyware riddled, virus invested computer. Something that can happen to vista all the same. Reformatting with XP would have achieved better results than upgrading to vista.

Well, for people such as myself, a computer is actually a pretty large and substantial purchase, and therefore you can goddamn well bet that I care quite a lot about it. Anything that makes my baby run faster is awesome.

Oh, I appreciate my own computer, and what it does for me, how it helps...etc... Hell, I even met the love of my life via the internet so I'm not putting computers down.

I just think that far too many people displace emotions and thoughts onto their computers and value them TOO much. Materialism gone too far, as is proven by the amount of neglect suffered by children and the general decline of society.

Hell, its not ALL computers fault. But it has added to it IMO.


See. This IS a discussion for another thread and I just wanted to state my opinion

Well, as a failed computer scientist, I still love to tweak and fiddle and make sure that this $900 chaotic system is juiced for all it's worth, so that when I play games and stuff I'm not driven mad by lag and popups.

Working in a cafe gave me the opposite impression. Too many people who use computers don't have a bloody clue what they're doing!

"how do I load this into Microsoft?"
"What?"
"how do I load this into Microsoft?"
"What do you mean load it into Microsoft? Microsoft is a company. What is that?"
"It's for my job, I have to open it"
"... You mean open it in Word?"
"Yes."

*strangles the air*

Oh, I know enough to be not totally idiotic like in said example.

I also appreciate the value of what I've bought since I am, and always have been, quite poor.

But at the same time, people behave as if their computer needs as much as, if not more attention than other human beings - your own children, or your parents, for example.

It's the whole "internet society" and "net child" thing that bothers me. I never seriously used a computer until after I had turned 19....who knew I could breath for so long without one! :p

I got Vista just a few days after it came out. I love it but I'm easy goiong, the simple things in life amuse me so of course Vista is one of those.
It has been willing to play all the games I've bought except for Diablo II. All the newer games such as fable and morrowind play fine. (I have a problem..I want comp rpg games..I buy them...be amused for a short while then never touch them again.) I had really liked Diablo II. Sure its not as fancy as many games now but...I'm not all that great at games and it was easy enough for me to advance.

However...that is my only frustration with it, and it is a minor one indeed. I however also got it because I had just bought a new computer that came with it already installed. I can't compare speed, graphics or anything since I dont' really remember what was on my older computer except I'm sure it was a lot less.

Either way...I like vista..I love Microsoft 2007...and...I'm an all around happy person.