Posts by Lorin Thwaits 44 publicly visible posts • joined 30 May 2013
If you'd like for us to use your database then having Oracle Instant Client is critical. Two and a half years into the Apple Silicon refresh, essentially all tools and libraries have been ported. Except for OCI!
SpaceX is now working with Guice Offshore to prepare a second boat with a big net. (GO now owns and operates the boat formerly known as Mr Steven, and was very lucky to have success catching the fairing during Tuesday's mission. They had recently bought the vessel and renamed it to a GO name, similar to their other boats, also used for SpaceX work such as towing drone ships around and pulling fairings out of the water.)
MS SQL is great, perhaps their best product. The excellent rewrite ages ago that brought about SQL 7 has facilitated two decades of awesome.
But don't think that big bunch of wonderful stands alone -- Postgres is also the bee's knees, man. Remarkably solid, perfectly reliable, very flexible.
This fallout stems directly from the bigger fish just up the food chain; the folks in Redmond. Four tiresome years of tiles, with the hope that the world would somehow think Microsoft's tablet was useful. Total wreck of an operating system. The latest atrocity was to limit Windows 7 to run only on older hardware. Of course Intel can't sell new Skylake chips if Microsoft's only useful OS is cripped to only run on Broadwell and older.
Purely ridiculous if Intel isn't actually up-in-arms about Microsoft's strong-arm tactics. They would see Skylake sales skyrocket if Windows 7 was more easily available. Imagine a business model where you get the garbage Windows 10 for free, but for an extra £100 there's an upgrade to Windows 7. It would sell well.
The upside of all this madness is that Linux and Apple users can benefit from the faster chips, even if Microsoft doesn't want to allow their best OS to be able to play along.
So you got an extra 40 minutes of run time. But that's 40 more minutes you have to deal with a tiled OS as compared with one that's easier to use.
Some would argue that there's extensive profiling being performed by Microsoft as well. Not sure about that myself, but the conspiracy theories abound.
Perhaps Windows 10 users don't complain, but instead just defect back to Windows 7. Or make plans to transition to OSX or perhaps Linux.
Plenty of people I know who gave Windows 10 a shot and then went back to the safe haven of Windows 7, vowing to never get mixed up in that mess of an ecosystem.
"Windows in various versions runs on 92.x percent of the desktops (blocking flash) would quickly result in lawsuits from users AND Adobe. Lawsuits that MS would LOOSE!"
Microsoft is going to let loose lawsuits against itself??? That would be wonderful because it would save valuable time as we all wait patiently for this completely antiquated organization to systematically self-destruct. So far this process has been agonizingly slow, and we could all benefit by expediting things, and getting the world switched over to an OS that actually cares about the best interest of its users.
I suppose Redmond's remaining hope to get more tileware followers lies in sales of new machines. Today's announcement of the Surface 4 is thus particularly important. Incredibly thin bezel, so they say. Edge-to-edge sea of pixels that will leave you aghast.
We'll see if today's hoopla is enough to convince folks to give up a usable OS for more portability.
And I'm curious to see how long it takes for Apple to fire a return shot across the bow ...
Good summary. The more complete article is from August 2012:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2012/08/microsoft-lost-mojo-steve-ballmer
In the nearly 3 years that have followed since that publication, Ballmer remained consistently unwilling to listen to reason. His incessant need to continually steer Microsoft down the worst possible path is nothing short of astonishing. After bailing at the apex of this nightmare, Nadella came in, being dealt the worst possible hand. Hats off to Nadella for quickly making lots of great choices under dire circumstances. Still he is saddled with the many ridiculous design decisions that emerged with Windows 8. Definitely the Windows 10 team did the best they could to cobble together something that no longer makes the average end-user freak out. But it's full of compromise compared to iOS / OSX.
I do wish them luck.
Gosh, when is this tablet circus going to end? Somehow I think Nadella has a pulse on what's up, and wants to go the right direction. He got dealt a pathetic hand by his predecessor.
At least the Longhorn code base has been leaned up quite a bit ... no more sidebar or aero. Completely at the expense of usability. Powershell was a great addition. Let's not discount that. C# plus CLI = good stuff all around.
But god damn, let Ballmer's ideas die already. He is gone ... he might as well be off in some corner painting like George W is. Bush dealt a horrible hand to the current incumbent, and while Obama has not been the sterling decision-maker that liberals have longed for, he's still doing at least an OK job. Fewer wars I guess.
Anyway, can we finally get back to a usable OS??? I will NOT ever install a touch screen in order to administer a rack of servers. EVER. I transitioned to a bash shell on OSX because charms should only be found on bracelets worn by washed-up 90s kids.
Been 30+ years using the MS platform (ever since Altar BASIC 4K) and the last 3 years have been completely wasted.
Actually no ... screw it. Let's all just buy Macs. Swift is pretty awesome.
Of course just speculation here, but I think Ballmer might have forced Sinofsky to make Windows 8 a tablet-only environment with heavy focus on an AppStore. With Windows 7 Sinofsky had been left to his own devices, and there was success. It doesn't seem plausible that he would jump off the deep end and create such a freakish environment for the next iteration of the product.
I'm starting to think that Ballmer had forced all of this on him, and he pulled a Pontas Pilate and washed his hands of the whole thing after the project was done. $14M later he won't utter a peep about it.
Who knows for sure though.
God I wish Microsoft still had a usable interface. It could spell their demise.
Let's not side-step the reality that Microsoft dealt a bad hand to both OEMs and users alike.
The lack behind Windows 8 does NOT rest with the OEMs. The lack rests with the origin -- which is the executives in Redmond.
Will the corporate brass accept reality or remain numb?
That is the next bit of fate.
Heck, I've gone to a command-line interface for Windows 8. The pile of tiles is so convoluted that the easiest way to navigate everything is open PowerShell and then CD "\Program Files" and go from there. I teach professionals on a daily basis how to get things done, and the only cross-version way I've found to operate is with Win+R and then cut to the chase. Nobody wants to deal with a random interface designed by the marketing department.
Everything about this article is spot-on. (Obviously gunslingor's tome is much more than just a comment!!!)
Here's the core axiom: "(Microsoft) took a highly flexible OS -- used in every notch of our society -- and turned it into a god damned smart phone."
Well said. When can we have a real OS back, please?
Microsoft, must you DIE instead of being relevant?
When an OS has this much disdain in the community -- for over a year now -- it is nearly certain to be destined for failure.
A smaller-scale case study could be taken from the failed Unity interface. Perhaps some in Redmond don't consider this a valid comparison... But the similarities are striking, and this time the fail is on a much grander scale.
If Microsoft is no longer hoping for their operating system to be used by professionals, then I guess they could coddle along this sorry excuse of an interface. Otherwise they had better get busy teaching people PowerShell or something so that the entirety of the feature set is exposed.
Metro is a complete waste of time for anyone wishing to get real work done.
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