Dump old software !, or, Commercial Programs will go kaput?

Something that I saw today over the web, made me think about people sticking with old programs…

An example, programmers; Common among programmers is the C/C++ programming languages, and their compilers. Some compilers were (Past) popular so much, apparently, that some people use it until this day. Yes, I’m talking about Borland C/C++, or as you may know it, Turbo C++.

Turbo C++ was one of the most popular compilers for Windows/MS-DOS by the year 1990, which it was introduced in. Obviously many other compilers existed, but Turbo C was the most popular, if not the most widely used. I understand that some schools and universities are using it until toady, but isn’t it the time to dump it?

If the world was stuck on old programs, computers were not developed at all; who knows, maybe we were still stuck with 16-Bit systems? Especially, when there are so many better alternatives, why not dump it all?

*Quick stop:* What’s happening with Borland, anyways? I don’t think they have anymore Compilers, and I can’t believe they were stupid enough to sell Delphi to another company… They seem to change their entire subject to Team Management, or some sort of thing… Where is the good old Borland?

Well, I don’t think anyone will be needing Borland to product Compilers, anytime soon; There are so many alternatives, most of the are Free and Open-Source – and with the rise of Linux and Macintoshes – someone will have to deliver some cross-platform programs.

Obviously writing programs for Windows is a fun; the useful WinAPI’s are helping a lot – seems like Microsoft was investing in that kind of thing. But Linux, is a different story; GTK+, GTK# – I’m getting confused what, when and how should use. Linux is not mature enough to be a developer’s pet.

Now, to be fare, I’m not a Linux type of guy. I mean, I love Ubuntu, and I could’ve used it all the time, unless I needed to open up the terminal so much. In modern times, there is no good reason to a program to be updated through a command-line. Obviously a command line interface must be provided, but with a proper GUI.

So, what do you think…?

What made Vista look so bad..?

Running my Windows 7 RTM on Trial basis, I suddenly remembered things that were said about Vista – which many of them, were bad.

But that made me wonder – why is that like that..? What made Vista look like a failure? I came up with the following reasons;

1: “Slowness”
Vista was slow, due to it’s new kernel which took advantage of Higher-End systems, leaving the Lower-End systems behind.

But let’s think about it for a second, there’s nothing wrong with that! Obviously, newer technologies require… newer technologies. Although for 2006 it was pretty much a lot to demand (1GB of RAM is a standard to that time), there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean – many companies do the same, including Game Developers (Wanna run Crysis on yo GeForce 8400GS? Think again, bitch!)… But because it was too much to demand, Vista got critics on this.

I mean, look at the Longhorn Concept Video, which was published back at 2003. I don’t believe that 256MB of RAM and 64MB of Video RAM would be able to produce such lovely effects. Perhaps once in a time task, but not regularly by browsing folders, hence that will be too much.

2: Software Incompatibility
Think like this: you got Windows 2000 API’s widely-used by Software Developers, but you want to take you Operating System one step forward. What do you do?

1. Call them all and tell them to start learning my new API’s ASAP.
2. Call them all and tell them to dump their old programs and start using my new API’s ASAP.
3. Who needs new technology, anyways? If it works, don’t touch it! FAT16 FTW!!!
4. Upgrade your Operating System’s core, without looking back at your developers (My money in my bank account > Developer satisfaction).

Let’s review 1… This will be probably impossible to do. There are so many Software developers, some of them might still use Windows 98 DDK. So, should I call them, like “Hello, `Sup? Dump that good ol’ Win98 DDK and start using my Vista SDK, now. Else, I’ll dump you out of the Windows Logo Program. Kapeesh?”
Not smart, in short.

2 – Telling someone to dump their old things and start making new ones out of scratch is stupid. “Hi, I know you develop your program for 12 years, but it’s time to throw away all of those bug fixes and start from scratch, right..?”

“…Right..?”

Most of program (Including Windows), that are developed a long time, contain code that was written… a long time ago, and uses… a long time ago API’s. No developer will agree to dump everything and start from fresh.

Number 3 is a stupid Idea, which will never be accepted by any company. If any software or hardware company will say this, we would’ve stuck, until today, with a 3” monitor and MS-DOS version 999 or something – because who cares, at least it works!

Number 4 is the approach Microsoft took, and actually, it is the smartest one. Developers are humans, and humans are able to adjust themselves. Instead of using my good ol’ Windows 98 API’s, it’s time to start fresh, develop new technologies, take one step forward.

3: Hardware Incompatibility
Yes, it’s annoying. Yes, it’s a pain in the butt.

No doubt, Hardware Companies made Vista even worse to the critics.

No hardware company believed that Microsoft ever launch a new Operating System. “Not gonna happen.”. When Microsoft finally launched the RTM version of Vista, all the Hardware Companies were “Oh noez, CODING!”.

Obviously not many Hardware manufacturers finished working on the Vista drivers by the time Vista was Retail. That’s why we all thought, “Screw this sh*t, where’s my Win2000 Drivers?!"”. But obviously Microsoft dumped all Old API’s and that’s why our old drivers became unstable on Vista.

What about Windows 7?
I’m sure that Microsoft has learned their lessons from Vista, and are making this release of Windows much better.

In 2006 our machines weren’t strong enough to run Vista good. In 2009, out machines are way stronger then the Minimum requirements, so I guess Windows 7 will know how to take advantage of this fact.

Whew, that was the longest post I ever wrote. Leave comments!

Ubuntu FAIL Fixed

Thank god.

Now there’s the word “feedback” instead “feeback”, as I posted yesterday.

Not that I wish to laugh at Canonical for this, but it was a bit disappointing to see that they are asking for feeback.

Ubuntu 9.10 Coming in 27 days!!!

This day when I browsed inside the Ubuntu web-site, I saw this amazing banner:

And that means only one thing… Ubuntu 9.10 is coming soon! I’m not going to download the beta, though… I’m just going to wait for the final release to come out. Sharp-eyed people can see that I’m downloading something… That’s Ubuntu 9.04 for AMD64 processors.

I saw some screenshots of the new Ubuntu Release and I’m in complete shock: It’s amazing!!!

Wait, Isn’t it just me, or Canonical tells us to give them… “feeback”…? Oh, I think someone mistyped something… This screenshot was shot is 15:35 02/10/2009. Let’s hope it’ll be fixed by the time Ubuntu 9.10 will be released.

Windows 7 Mini-Review Part 4

Whew – what a delay! Anyways, this will be the last part of the Windows 7 Mini-Review. So, what shall we talk about here..? Well, we’ll talk about some extra features of Windows 7 you might never heard about.

Windows PowerShell
A power user..? Windows PowerShell can help you a lot. It also has
a pretty neat scripting language and an ISE. PowerShell is an extensive Command-Line Shell, which is availible for Vista, XP, but as a seperate download, Unlike Windows 7 which includes it automatically on all Editions. I haven’t tried it yet, but from reading, it seems like a nice thing.

The “Getting Started” Window
Wait a second, that’s Vista’s Welcome Center! Yeah, kind of, only more “7-Style” color scheme. Although in Vista it was the first Windows you see when first entering the OS, in Windows 7 Microsoft decided that it shouldn’t be so. Therefore, it is stuck in the Accessories menu.

 The Resource Monitor
Forget about the performence tab under Windows’ Task Manager – Windows 7 (and Vista, too) introduces the Resource Monitor application. It allows a very close look at the resources of your computer. Windows 7’s Version takes the graphs to the side of the windows, so you can browse the different categories without loosing the view of the graphs.

And another feature, that you know about but never wondered how, what and when: The Virtual XP Mode. In Windows 7, Microsoft has decided to give a free-licenced Windows XP Virtual Machine. It allows you to install your old, incompatible application inside the Virtual Machine, but run them on your brand-new Windows 7.

Microsoft Windows – Overpriced..?

This question that my friend asked me not a while ago really bugged me all this weekend. Possibly because I didn’t know what to answer, or, is it really true?

I don’t really know what to say about the price of Microsoft Software – is it really too much? I still don’t know, and you will probably also won’t know, even after reading this blog post.

Anyways, I think that it is “Overpriced”. Look at Windows Vista Ultimate Edition’s price – 319 USDs. To think, that you can buy a pretty decent computer and install Linux on it…

And that brings us to another question: Why the hell can’t Windows Vista price like Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow leopard)?! Huh? I don’t get it.

“Hey, Ronen, that’s why you have other editions like Home Premium or Home Basic, DUH?!”, some of you might say. Still, 219$ are a sum that some of us can’t just afford, when it comes into having two computers in the house. I may sound stupid, but that’s why Microsoft’s software is so pirated. Which brings us to the next matter;

Microsoft software is pirated, and you can’t say it’s not. Pricing? I think so. Why don’t we have pirated versions of Internet Explorer? oh, wait, it’s free. But it wasn’t really so: At the beginning, only Genuine Microsoft Windows owners could download Windows Internet Explorer 7. After a while, Microsoft noticed that it’s no good. Therefore, Microsoft made it available to all (Supported) Windows Operating Systems, genuine or not – the same with IE8.

So, what do you think..?

Windows 7 Mini-Review Part 3

Yeah, I am aware of the delay. My motherboard went kaput so needed to replace it. Also tried to get a normal floppy drive. Got one. Not working one, though.

I won’t really talk about Windows 7 features, but about some things I think I should really talk about.

One thing I would like to talk about is the future of Windows 7; Like every NT-Based Operating Systems, Microsoft is likely to release a couple of Service Packs to fix some various bugs in Windows 7. What I am concerned of, wouldn’t be valid only until at least two Service Packs would be released for Windows 7.

Right now in Windows Vista, slipstreaming Service Packs is a pain in the ass, forgive me for the rude language. SP1 can be slipstreamed with vLite, obviously, but not SP2. Here’s the real pain in the ass – you must install Vista as a second OS, install WAIK on you primary OS, skip the OOBE on Vista, install both SPs, switch back to the primary OS, run imagex, and wait for about two hours. This guide helps, though.

And if someone would’ve posted comments, I think it would be like “so freaking what, you can still install SP2 on RTM, Right?… Right?”, but that’s not the case. Vista’s SP2 requires SP1 to be installed first, so guess what? I found myself installing both service packs, which takes about half an hour on my rig. It’s not really fun, adding to that the Vista Service Pack installation is a bit more… well, “aggressive” – requires two restarts of the computer.

When in XP, I never found the need of slipstreaming SP3 in my RTM XP CD. SP3 requires no SPs installed on the XP machine, and installs in about 15 minutes. Only a while ago I thought that SP3 needed to be slipstreamed, and did it without any problems using nLite, though there is a Slipstream switch in the EXE.

So what are my concerns? I am concerned that the same thing will happen with Windows 7, because, let’s face it – it’s a nice Vista Service Pack. The kernel pretty much remained the same. Vista became my worst nightmare when slipstreaming SPs. Let’s hope that changed in Windows 7.

Windows 7 Mini-Review Part 2

Second part of the Windows 7 Mini-Review. Actually, I don’t think it’s “mini” anymore, since it has two parts and will have possibly two more, but for name’s sake, I’ll leave it as “Mini-Review”.

Also, I won’t talk about Aero a lot. I’ll cover the Aero Peek features shortly, before moving on.

The “Devices and printers” dialog was slightly upgraded, I think. I never saw the one in Vista, which makes me believe that I’m wrong about this upgrade, but I’ll still continue; The new “Devices and printers” dialog now contains all of the Computer’s devices, including monitors, and even CD-Drives, though only the Daemon-Tools one is displayed.

And there she is, my poor HP 920c… I can’t seem to find a driver for it on Windows Update, and trying the Included CD-Drivers are installing well, but not responding when trying to print. Oh well, I’ll explore some more ways… I guess…

Some parts that weren’t improved in Vista finally got improved in Windows 7. Some of them are the Wordpad and MS-Paint applications which got the new Ribbon interface from Office 2007. Another application that was upgraded is the calculator, that got a nice new look and also two modes.

 
(1st photo: WordPad, 2nd: MS-Paint, 3rd: Showing all modes for the calculator, left from the top: Programmer mode, Statistics Mode; Left from bottom: Standard Mode, Scientific Mode)

Another great feature, which is more related to Aero than to Windows 7, is the “Aero Peek”, which is activated when hovering the Icon on the SuperBar, opens a menu for all of the Programs that are open:

While hovering on one of these, all rest of the windows are fading to Glassy-Squers, so only the hovered window remains:

I won’t cover the jump lists, but they are basically a menu that pops out when you right-click an icon, giving selected tasks.

 

End of Part 2. Part three of the review will be published very soon.

To wallpaper, or not to? that’s The Question!

* Can “wallpaper” be a verb? I don’t know. Whatever.

As we all know, wallpapers make computing happier, for some reason. Wallpapers actually play a nice role of making the desktop environment look nice, but of course, depending on the operating system, for several reasons.

Well, actually, whatever wallpaper you throw in Windows 2000, it still won’t look good to view. Try it. I did, and this is what I got: a nice wallpaper sitting on an operating system that doesn’t know how to look nice. Well, there’s a reason for this.

Wallpapers weren’t an important part in the desktop environment. Usually, people would have Windows 2000’s default “None” wallpaper. However something happed during 1999. I’m talking about the WindowBlinds’s second release (or at least, I think so). People suddenly saw that they can make Windows’ interface look more alive. That made everyone so excited. Wallpapers began to be a critical part of every environment, possibly reflecting the user’s personality.

As a result, Microsoft wanted to change the theme for the next release of Windows, XP. Microsoft has developed a similar skinning engine like Stardock had on WindowBlinds, hopefully to give XP a living interface, because let’s face it: Windows 95’s interface was old even when it came out.

Today’s operating systems, such as Windows 7, knows how to deal with wallpapers, comes with a selection of them, and has a more “live” interface, Aero is a good example. Though the wallpaper selection in Windows 7 can be pretty boring, so visiting a site like InterfaceLift should do the trick.

Windows 7 RTM Mini-Review Part 1

I decided to eventually write a some sort of a small review, which I’ll call “Mini-Review”. It’s not a complete review, but it’s very sharp and will stick to the points the average and possibly even the Power Users’ needs to know.

Windows 7 hits RTM, and I think it’s one step further for the NT6 core, which the implementation of it under Windows Vista didn’t go to well, at least for some people, including myself.

Actually, I was looking a reason for getting out of XP for a long, long time. XP is like some sort of a cockroach, in computers: you try to get rid of it (XP) with a chainsaw (Vista). That’ wouldn’t work, right ? but what if you attack that cockroach (XP) with a fly-bat (Windows 7) ? Now that’s called progress.

Now, from the Core’s perspective, it’s just slightly better NT6 core, with a few enhancements, but not something really fancy, major bug fixes only. Well, it said to have more compatibility with old hardware, ‘because Vista had problems in this section (though I didn’t notice anything, at least on my rig), and I think they did it. Though for some reason, my Good ol’ HP Deskjet 920c from 2001 worked well on Vista, but for some odd reason, not on 7.

For the user interface and design perspective, Windows 7 is a major upgrade. The new taskbar is amazing and is really comfortable.

All of the programs are getting all grouped very nicely under their Icon, which I think is again very very nice. If more programs of the same process are opened (i.e. Internet Explorer windows), it will again all group into the icon, with some “buffing” of the icon, indicating that two or more programs are there;

Oh, did I mention that now the Taskbar is called “SuperBar” ? Well, I believe that’s actually Aero on LSD. Sharp-eyed people will be able to notice that the Windows’ titles are a bit “thicker” then Vista’s one; buttons are slightly bigger.

Background management also had a step further, with the brand new upgraded Personalization panel, which now looks slightly better:

Things can be easily set through this panel. Desktop wallpapers can now switched to be changed every 10 seconds, or even up to one day. Speaking wallpapers, the “Beta Fish” wallpaper that many Beta- and RC-Testers saw, is now cut from the RTM. Too bad… but instead, you have a very lovely “Harmony” wallpaper. It reminds the Beta Fish slightly, one it has the Windows logo and a little bit of… Harmony (?).

And before I forget, the Start menu also has a couple of changes. While some similarity to the Vista start menu can be noticed, it actually behaves completely different, as seen in this screenshot:

Since Internet Explorer is already mounted in the SuperBar, there’s absoulutly no need to display it in the Start menu. The arrows that you see around programs, allow you to open recent documents, or, if the program is compatible with Windows 7’s new features, view tasks that can be done with the program.

Alright, this concludes part one. Part two will be published very very soon.