Longhorn, schlonghorn

April 18, 2005 3:30 AM

Blogger Thomas Hawk gets a glimpse of Microsoft's new OS, codenamed Longhorn. Finding those files won't be a problem anymore: Longhorn is going to be fast. It will be as impressive as new operating systems always are claimed to be. Here's Paul Thurrott's review of Windows 98 (”...you must understand that this is the ultimate Windows. It's the best it's ever going to be, and yes, that's quite good”).
posted by Termite (83 comments total)

Finding those files won't be a problem anymore

Yeah, sure. But Longhorn will be out late 2006 and Mac OS X Tiger (with Spotlight) is out in 11 days...
posted by sveskemus at 4:08 AM on April 18, 2005

Hmm, a positive review of vaporware. *yawn*
posted by AlexReynolds at 4:09 AM on April 18, 2005

Jesus Christ does Hawk lay it on thick and meaningless:

Although this is just one blogger’s impression, I’d say to expect to do navigational types of things in Longhorn in one tenth of the time that you presently do them in XP today...


The responsiveness of the operating system could easily quadruple my own personal computing efficiency. This is revolutionary and is more impressive than any previous single step efficiency improvement that I have seen in the past 20 years.

Anyone want to bet on how these 'stats' hold up when LH is finally released? Even taking into account the huge bump in hardware tha's gonna be required?

As for Thurrot, he's the equivalent of a hard-core right wing blogger with MS playing the part of the Bush admin. The man is either a moron or incredibly dishonest. My own take is hefty amounts of both.

Microsoft seems pretty damned desperate in regards to LH with Tiger getting so much attention. I find it funny that after dropping the most radical actual improvements in the architecture, such as WinFS (which may no longer exist as a project period), and detaching major elements such as Indigo and Avalon to add to XP, they're trying so hard now to sell it's radical new nature by playing up features like 'files represented by thumbnails!' and 'now with RSS!' as being some crazy, brave new world technogeeks haven't been able to even dream of until now.

Holy $#!%!!! For real?!! Wow! They must have an army of Martians working on it to get that kind of advanced tech out the door by 2028 or whenever the OS hits (Okay, I exaggerate... at the rate they're jettisoning features, it should appear as a 12-meg update within two years).

And then there's Gartner telling businesses to make plans that don't include Longhorn. Nice. Well, I guess blowing a few bloggers should take care of all Longhorn's problems. Hell, with someone as independant as Robert Scoble backing it (without discussing any particulars whatsoever), we can sleep soundly.
posted by the_savage_mind at 4:17 AM on April 18, 2005

I'm not sure I get the whole obsession with desktop searching lately. I think that I've used Windows search about a dozen times in the last ten years. And it seems to work fine. What would I be searching for that all these new search engines will help me with? Files are always right where I left them.
posted by octothorpe at 4:19 AM on April 18, 2005

octothorpe, the one thing that makes desktop search important to me is email. I have about 13GB of email lying about, and being able to search through all of it quickly is great.

Of course, that functionality should already be in outlook, but it isn't (outlook has search now, but its not even close to being enough).
posted by stupidcomputernickname at 4:27 AM on April 18, 2005

Crap, in my link orgy, I forgot to include the one actual major development Longhorn looks to bring to the table... the return of Palladium, aka Trusted Computing, aka, All Your Desktop Belongs To Us.

Notice this one isn't didn't get added to the blogger junket.
posted by the_savage_mind at 4:29 AM on April 18, 2005

File indexing is an interesting subject, but the thing that made me post this is that I'm amazed that people can keep saying the same thing about every new OS. This time your computer will be fast, folks.
posted by Termite at 4:38 AM on April 18, 2005

The fact that someone of his seniority would take the time to sit down with a bunch of non mainstream media folk is something that still baffles me

Coo, it's baffling that Microsoft would start spinning a new OS to the least criticially minded chump out there just as Tiger is ramping up.


Stupidcomputernickname: Tiger'll index that for ya. And it's out in a fortnight, not two years or so.
posted by bonaldi at 4:49 AM on April 18, 2005

This time your computer will be fast, folks.

If I have to buy a new machine to run Longhorn, I should hope I get a fast machine. I'd be disappointed, otherwise.
posted by AlexReynolds at 4:49 AM on April 18, 2005

Termite, every point release of OS X I've installed has increased the speed of my same old hardware noticeably. And according to these tests, OS X 10.4 (Tiger) is running up 50% faster for processing and terms of the UI. My own Powerbook looks to be getting a leap in both of over 30%. I can live with that.
posted by the_savage_mind at 4:52 AM on April 18, 2005

Bloody OS-X 10.4. It'd be alright if the UK Version wasn't 70% more expensive than the US Version, and they hadn't refused to more cheaply upgrade those people who bought macs in the last couple of months. "ooh - halo effect. Buy a mac-mini. We'll only update it for 2 months and then you'll have to spend another $170 dollars in order to keep it up to date."

The more I get to see of Apple, the more I realise what rip-off merchants they are. Roll on Longhorn. It's obvious that it'll be light years ahead of OS-X.
posted by seanyboy at 4:54 AM on April 18, 2005

Buy a mac-mini. We'll only update it for 2 months and then you'll have to spend another $170 dollars in order to keep it up to date.

There are upgrade coupons in the Mac mini box, so this complaint doesn't fly.
posted by AlexReynolds at 4:58 AM on April 18, 2005

The fact that someone of his seniority would take the time to sit down with a bunch of non mainstream media folk is something that still baffles me. ... I’m honored to have been included.

Hawk's starstruck attitude explains why bloggers are useful for early release PR. It reminds me of film companies flying college journalists to L.A. to see and review a new movie.

As for Paul Thurrott, dismissing him as "either a moron or incredibly dishonest" is ridiculous. His wall-to-wall coverage of each new Windows release is useful information, and it's not like the Mac community isn't filled with similar sites. At least it was until Apple started suing them.
posted by rcade at 5:01 AM on April 18, 2005

Nobody said Apple wasn't going to keep providing you with updates, seanyboy. They have, historically, been quite good at providing security fixes to older versions of OS X for at least a few years. (Security Updates 2005-001, as its name implies, was released for 10.3 and 10.2 earlier this year, and the 10.3.9 update to OS X updated Safari to have a rendering engine that is, according to Dave Hyatt, "virtually identical" to the one in Tiger.)

Also, AlexReynolds, those upgrade coupons don't usually mean much. The only way you can get a reduced price on Tiger is if you have bought a machine after it was announced (4/12/2005)—then Apple's Up-to-Date program will get you Tiger for $9.99.
posted by esd at 5:06 AM on April 18, 2005

Longhorn Blue.
posted by nofundy at 5:10 AM on April 18, 2005

First of all I just have to just say wow.

buttsuck.

The fact that someone of his seniority would take the time to sit down with a bunch of non mainstream media folk is something that still baffles me.

clueless buttsuck.

It also tells me that Microsoft gets it and that they recognize the importance of many of the rapidly emerging social and community aspects of blogging and the internet. I’m honored to have been included.

gullible naive clueless buttsuck douchebag.
posted by quonsar at 5:15 AM on April 18, 2005

Amazing. People still still pay for OSes?
(What's the plural of OS anyway?)
posted by spazzm at 5:18 AM on April 18, 2005

Quonsar:

You have outdone even yourself. My orange juice shoots wildly from my nose in your honour.

*golf clap*
posted by Mikey-San at 5:21 AM on April 18, 2005

i like apple.

because of that, this post and Paul Thurrott's review infuriates me. INFURIATES.
posted by lotsofno at 5:29 AM on April 18, 2005

Meh. And I most likely *still* won't upgrade beyond Win98Se...

/me mutters quietly about the new Amiga...
posted by Chunder at 5:30 AM on April 18, 2005

Still no cure for cancer, If I may and even june
posted by elpapacito at 5:52 AM on April 18, 2005

The important thing about built-in search is that other applications can include its fuctionality really, really easily (like the search box in iTunes, and in Mail. And probably lots of other things I'm not enough of a programmer to think of). And, in fact, the most important new features of Tiger (Core Data and Core Image) are similar: they're as much for developers as users.
posted by Tlogmer at 6:03 AM on April 18, 2005

One of the most impressive aspects about Longhorn is the speed with which it catalogs, organizes and searches your PC

I still don't get it. The only times I have any trouble finding files are the times when I didn't notice that XP was dumping it to somewhere random and obscure, and while things are in holding-bin directories before I put them someplace for real. Is it really so damn hard to just organize your directory structure in a thoughtful way?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:06 AM on April 18, 2005

There's no such thing as a free lunch.
posted by carter at 6:07 AM on April 18, 2005

If you bloody organize your data, you won't need superindexing fast search.

I am still on W2K - and I won't upgrade any time soon.

Can't wait for Longhorn SP2 plus all the extra security fixes.
posted by homodigitalis at 6:10 AM on April 18, 2005

Roll on Longhorn. It's obvious that it'll be light years ahead of OS-X.?

And that's based on exactly what facts, seanyboy?

As for Paul Thurrott, dismissing him as "either a moron or incredibly dishonest" is ridiculous. His wall-to-wall coverage of each new Windows release is useful information, and it's not like the Mac community isn't filled with similar sites.

rcade, first off I want to clarify that I use Win XP Pro as well Mac OS X. I have used every Windows since 3.1. Just want to clarify that I'm not some uncritical, star-struck Apple fanboy.

In regards to Thurrot, I'm not going to get into the hundreds of lame, biased and ifnorant articles he's written, except for his recent review of OS X 10.4 Tiger.

His conclusion? He claims that it is a minor upgrade, less significant than XP SP2. SP2 added nothing to XP except some security patches, a small preference window for security settings and a slight modification to the dreadful firewall. That's not moronic? Or at least reason to question his so-called objectivity?

Even if half of these 'new features' aren't very significant, there are dozens that will make a difference to the end user. He didn't even bother touching on the transformative potential of Automater, both the the end user and the developer at large. He repeats the myth that Dashboard is stolen from Konfabulator, when in fact Apple predated the whole independent widgets layer a couple decades ago.

He doesn't mention anything about the developments in Core Image or Core Audio, which may or may not be eye/ear candy in terms of their current usability in the OS itself, but which spell great things in relation to how easily developers can make use of them. How about the inclusion of Xgrid and what it will mean to all the scientists who use Macs? That's not something worthy of exploration? But yeah, somehow it's less significant an upgrade than SP2 was to Win XP.

He does this kind of stuff consistently. I'm not saying don't be critical... that's his job. Just do a competent job. His selectiveness and lack of research when covering Apple products (let's not even start on his Linux coverage) are so blatant that to me they can only be a product of some point on an axis stretching between incompetence and bias.

As far as anti-MS Mac sites, I don't condone irrational, partisan criticisms from their side either. But we're covering Thurrot here.
posted by the_savage_mind at 6:22 AM on April 18, 2005

Longhorn Blue

Yeah. Inviting bloggers round for dinner is an neat way to get publicity.
posted by nthdegx at 6:23 AM on April 18, 2005

The fact that someone of his seniority would take the time to sit down with a bunch of non mainstream media folk is something that still baffles me. It also tells me that Microsoft gets it and that they recognize the importance of many of the rapidly emerging social and community aspects of blogging and the internet. I’m honored to have been included.

Microsoft is one of the more progressive companies with regards to blogging – they certainly have more bloggers than any company that I am aware of – but for someone of Jim’s rank to take the time and openly discuss Longhorn and Microsoft strategy with us was amazing. Obviously bloggers do not typically have this level of access to company senior management and I thank Jim for taking his time out to meet with us and to Robert for inviting me.

But for this blogger to become a journalist, he will have to become a little less thrilled to be invited to dinner with a bunch of suits who got precisely what they wanted out of him.
posted by digaman at 6:37 AM on April 18, 2005

Metadata indexing and searching isn't about "not organizing your files".

I'm gonna keep out of this, but here's a question for you:

If you want to see things on your drives, plural, that are related to "mountains", for example--say, you're looking for a specific document you wrote a year ago, but becuse human memory is fallible, you can't remember exactly what file it was--how are you supposed to do that without a search technology?

Searching isn't always about being disorganized.
posted by Mikey-San at 6:37 AM on April 18, 2005

The fact that someone of his seniority would take the time to sit down with a bunch of non mainstream media folk is something that still baffles me.

If longhorn doesn't more or less replace all previous versions of Windows it will be proven once and for all that each new version has been, and will continue to be, less significant than the previous and MS as an innovative world-changing business operation will have reached an obvious stage of diminishing returns. The mainstream media knows it, apparently our man doesn't.

From a customers perspective: difference between having no computer and one with DOS, phenonminal, earth shaking. Difference between DOS and 3.0's GUI, revolutionary, brough a whole lot more people to the party. 3.0 to 98, impressive in how it works and looks but not really new in terms of functionality. 98 to XP, prettier but most sales are due to bundling, for many, offers nothing more really than 98. XP to Longhorns improved desktop search.... yawn, you're talking technicalities or process not result or new purpose. Faster, hey 98 running on any machine built in the last five years already runs a lot faster than most folks can surf and read email...
posted by scheptech at 6:52 AM on April 18, 2005

And that's based on exactly what facts, seanyboy?
No facts, just my uncontrollable anger at Apple's refusal to allow me to upgrade my brand new mac mini to Tiger at a reduced price. Oh, and the fact that Apple customer support sucks.

I've never been evangelical about operating systems, and chose the mini because it looked good and because of people trrumpeting its UI advantages. As somebody who like to use a keyboard for as many tasks as possible those UI advantages are a myth.

Longhorn will not have these problems.
posted by seanyboy at 6:55 AM on April 18, 2005

What's the plural of OS anyway?

Osen
posted by bonehead at 6:56 AM on April 18, 2005

He doesn't mention whether the new desktop search will search for all file extensions, or just for a few hand-picked ones, the way XP does now. There's a reason I use Effective File Search.
posted by signal at 7:06 AM on April 18, 2005

I use Agent Ransack for file search and it's great. It's not super-fast, but this is not something I need to do every day either. ::shrug::
posted by Foosnark at 7:22 AM on April 18, 2005

seanyboy: Well, I can understand being pissed at the lack of upgrade, but I'm still not sure how that translates into Longhorn being light-years ahead of OS X.

As for their tech support, Consumer Reports just gave them top honors for 2004. Which is like three years in a row now:

Consumer Reports notes that satisfaction with tech support in the desktop computer market is one of the lowest rated services they measure. Since 2001 consumer satisfaction has continued to dwindle, but the report singles out Apple as providing its customer with above average support.

"In this atmosphere of low expectations, Apple Computer has actually raised its support satisfaction for the desktop computers over the past three years to levels well above all competitors, while offering the most reliable desktop hardware," the report says.

With so many of the other companies falling in tech support satisfaction, Consumer Reports concludes, "companies aren't investing enough in their support operations."

In contrast, for Apple the organizations says, "Apple's superiority in all aspects of support, including waiting on the phone and Web support, suggests that it invests its support resources wisely."

Overall, Apple scored 76/100 in tech support with Dell and Gateway tied for second with 57/100 -- HP and Compaq pulled up the rear with scores of 52/100 and 47/100 respectively.

For repairs and serious problems reported by consumers, Apple again had the best score with just over 10 percent of respondents reporting serious issues. Gateway had the worst record with slightly over 20 percent. Sony, Dell, IBM, HP and Compaq fell in between.

And which keyboard problems are you talking about, btw? Cause I use keyboard shortcuts for all kinds of things. I actually find them to be much more consistent across programs than with XP, but that may just be my own habits. And exactly how will Longhorn not have these problems that you haven't bothered actually describing (keeping in mind that you're not evangelical about these things)?

Me, I wouldn't buy a computer just because it looked good, and I'd definitely try using an OS before I made a decision that its UI was better for my needs.
posted by the_savage_mind at 7:33 AM on April 18, 2005

for example--say, you're looking for a specific document you wrote a year ago, but because human memory is fallible, you can't remember exactly what file it was--how are you supposed to do that without a search technology?

You've missed the point of being organized. If you've structured your directories properly you have to remember almost no detail what so ever. Let's look at your example: a document written a year ago. A properly organized system will segregate text files from other kinds of media; hence, step one in your search is simply opening your text media folder. Now since you want this document presumably you know why you want it (let's say it contains background information for a current project). The first sub-level could be organized by purpose, say school vs. hobby vs. work (I do it by purpose, another good way would be by year). We'll assume this is school work. Now inside that sub-folder you would have separate folders per subject, and perhaps separate folders per class within each subject. Finally you might even have separate sub-sub-sub-sub folders for each assignment (perhaps so that you can have multiple drafts and related third party articles in one place). The point of being organized is to allow you to use even vague descriptions to guide your search toward the final goal. Not convinced? Go to your local library and ask for a book written last year about some thing "x". Bet you they find it.

Under a system like this, you can start out with the vague idea "I want the paper I wrote last year for Modern Philosophy I" (or even the idea that "I want the paper I wrote on Descartes" or even the very vague "I want the paper on mind/body interaction that I wrote for a class a while back") and use what you know about that idea to get to where the document is. At most you may have to look through a handful of class or assignment sub-folders before stumbling onto the document. In other words, if you know enough about the document to do a metadata search about Descartes' Princess Elizabeth problem you know enough to find the document in a well organized system.

Think making all those folders is too much? Do you think MS will just magically append the metadata to your documents?
posted by oddman at 7:36 AM on April 18, 2005

As somebody who like to use a keyboard for as many tasks as possible those UI advantages are a myth.

You talk so much nonsense....

Use the terminal if you love the keyboard.

Like the GUI but still prefer the keyboard?... go to macupdate and download Quicksilver or Launchbar or Butler.

Never need to touch that goddamn mouse again!

Longhorn will not have these problems.
as for this bullshit statement... I need two fucking buttons to use most windows apps!

Or do you mean paid upgrades?
Was XP free or something? Your 10.3.9 will be compatible for quite some time. Want the new features then pay for them!
posted by twistedonion at 7:48 AM on April 18, 2005

Certainly would be nice to see a decent search in Windows.

[grep]
posted by IshmaelGraves at 7:49 AM on April 18, 2005

No facts, just my uncontrollable anger at Apple's refusal to allow me to upgrade my brand new mac mini to Tiger at a reduced price. Oh, and the fact that Apple customer support sucks.

Had you done even a little bit of research you would have known A) Tiger was coming; B) Apple's upgrade policy. If you did the research and bought anyway, I don't see how Apple's to blame. If you didn't do the research I don't see how Apple's to blame.

As somebody who like to use a keyboard for as many tasks as possible those UI advantages are a myth.

Huh?
posted by dobbs at 7:50 AM on April 18, 2005

you want to see things on your drives, plural, that are related to "mountains" .. you're looking for a specific document you wrote a year ago, but becuse human memory is fallible, you can't remember exactly what file it was

You'd remember where it was if your drive were organized. It would be drilled down through some other appropriate layers of directory depending on where and why you wrote it -- say, through /projects/articles/travelogues , or through /diary and letters/vacations/ -- and then be in a final directory for /mountains/ or /appalachian_trip_1998/ or whatever might be appropriate.

If you mean some piece where you tangentially mentioned mountains once and now want to find that paragraph, well, maybe, but then you have to remember to put "mountains" in your metadata which seems unlikely. Otherwise you're just grepping, and grep is older than dirt.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:53 AM on April 18, 2005

What's the plural of OS anyway?

Osen


Here are some alternatives:

Ostopods
Ostostrophes
Ossies
Osphonodes
Osners
Osauges
Oos
posted by chrid at 7:56 AM on April 18, 2005

/me places fingers in ears, stamps feet and insists they're rubbish, rubbish, RUBBISH.
Keyboard things I hate.
Extend-Selection (Shift Up/Dn) drives me crazy. Shift-Dn, Shift-Dn, Shift-Dn, Shift-Dn, Shift-Dn. (oops, too far) Shift-Up (Argghhh). It's also inconsistent between applications.
Home / End equivalants.
Ctrl-Left and Ctrl-Right doesn't skip spaces, so if you're moving backwards a couple of words, it takes you twice as long.
This is all GYOFB stuff and nothing to do with the thread at hand, so I'll ease myself slowly away from the derail (Bastard Apple).

twistedonion: My copy of XP had a card in it. It said - "If your computer is less than 6 months old, send this card in, and we'll give you a $60 discount". And some of us like to use the keyboard in a GUI environment. Despite what you may have gleaned from SlashDot, there is a difference between the mouse and the windowed environment.
Also, you don't need a second mouse button (Shift-F10=Current item context menu). It just makes things easier. Same goes for the scroll wheel.

dobbs: You're right - of course. Except about the UI stuff. Apple sucks at UI.
posted by seanyboy at 8:00 AM on April 18, 2005

As an OSX user, I don't want to enjoy this minute of schadenfreude. Millions of people are depending on Microsoft to pull this one off, and I always allow that people should use the tools that suit them best. If you're a tinkerer and love XP, then more power to you.

But there's no denying there's a desperation to Microsoft these days. With all that money and all those programmers, why aren't they leading instead of following?

And savage mind, I wasn't as offended by that Thurrot review as you were. Despite the minor ignorance and errors you pointed out, he still liked Tiger. And it's a Windows site. I thought he was being honest.
posted by fungible at 8:01 AM on April 18, 2005

I didn't realize that anyone actually had a boner for Microsoft the way that some folks do for Apple. This guy's as deluded as every annoying Apple user who refuses to admit that macs might have ANY shortcomings.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:01 AM on April 18, 2005

seanyboy: So you paid how much for the XP upgrade? Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition retails at $189 (from amazon anyway). Take your upgrade price off that and you have..... $129

Price to upgrade your mac - $129

And comparing OS X to XP home edition is being very generous. X is probably closer to Windows pro edition.

You win the keyboard argument though... never tried the keyboard for selecting, that sucks big time.
posted by twistedonion at 8:24 AM on April 18, 2005

The discount I was talking about was an upgrade to an upgrade.
It's hard to convert between the pounds and the dollars but all large IT companies seem to think that Europeans should pay more, and it probably goes something like this.

XP Full Price : $284 / No mac equivalant (*)
XP Upgrade Price: $150 / Mac Upgrade price $170
XP Upgrade for people who bought earlier version in last 6 months : $90 / no Mac equivalent.

* All purchase of Mac OS's are deemed upgrades.
posted by seanyboy at 8:45 AM on April 18, 2005

First of all I just have to just say wow. Jim Allchin is a very senior person at Microsoft. Allchin, along with Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates is a member of what Microsoft calls their “Senior Leadership Team,” responsible for developing Microsoft’s core direction. He's a big deal.

Did I actually read this? Can someone get this writer a thesaurus, and tell him that meaningless business-speak is not how you write a review.

I'm actually looking forward to Longhorn, but this article does nothing to help that. If anything, I'll be checking out Longhorn myself in spite of this article. That's a big deal.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:51 AM on April 18, 2005

Dark Messiah. Yeah, I though that sounded dodgy as well.
Turns out that it's a simple case of Cut meeting Paste.
posted by seanyboy at 9:02 AM on April 18, 2005

If you want to see things on your drives, plural, that are related to "mountains", for example--say, you're looking for a specific document you wrote a year ago, but becuse human memory is fallible, you can't remember exactly what file it was--how are you supposed to do that without a search technology?

Full file searching is usefull (but a bit tricky to implement.) However, I work with a guy who uses the "dump everything on the desktop" model and watching him find just the right version of just the right file even with the help of Google Desktop Search is frequently painful.

I'm a broken record when it comes to this, I know, but assuming that a full-text index will solve organization woes depends on the rather risky assumption that people who are not organized enough to use file folders, will be organized enough to fill in metadata.

Although where I think WinFS is headed however, is more than just a desktop search. If it was just desktop search, we would have seen the improvements to the existing indexing engine already. Where I think Microsoft is going with this is adding a new layer of functionality to networked file systems. If I mount a shared folder over the network, the buzz is that WinFS will give me access to that folder's metadata and fulltext search index. Expect this to be rigged in such a way that OSX and Linux clients using Samba don't have access to that metadata (which may also include a new permissions scheme) and of course, OSX and Linux Samba servers won't provide this metadata.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:03 AM on April 18, 2005

Dunno about the UK, but in the US you can order a single copy of Tiger from Amazon for $94 (with rebate) and five-user license pack for $180.
posted by the_savage_mind at 9:04 AM on April 18, 2005

the_savage_mind: There's no need to rub it in. :-(
$142 is as cheap as it gets.
But that's quite cheap...
posted by seanyboy at 9:10 AM on April 18, 2005

I'm just glad that Linux went away.
posted by wfrgms at 9:18 AM on April 18, 2005

winFS sounds great. If I'm right, it will replace the operating system with a relational database. Being able to add views, procedures and triggers onto your file system would be fantastic.
posted by seanyboy at 9:24 AM on April 18, 2005

I didn't realize that anyone actually had a boner for Microsoft the way that some folks do for Apple. This guy's as deluded as every annoying Apple user who refuses to admit that macs might have ANY shortcomings.

But Tiger is our Viagra. Tiagera.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 9:24 AM on April 18, 2005

XP Full Price : $284 / No mac equivalant (*)
XP Upgrade Price: $150 / Mac Upgrade price $170

* All purchase of Mac OS's are deemed upgrades.

...or there's no such thing as an OSX Upgrade price. You say tom-mah-to, I say to-may-to.

Agreed it's annoying that there isn't a cheaper upgrade price, though. Regardless, the pricing doesn't make the OS itself any better or worse.

And as for keyboard shortcuts, you can add or modify them as you like in "Keyboard & Mouse" preferences. And if that isn't enough to make your fingers happy, try Quicksilver.
posted by howling fantods at 9:27 AM on April 18, 2005

You know seanyboy, I don't know how recently you picked up your Mini, but if it's within the last month, I'd personally try calling Apple and giving them a combo sob story/anger management session. If you're persistent, it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't swing you some kind of deal. Obviously there's no guarantee, but I think it'd be worth the call to try it.
posted by the_savage_mind at 9:33 AM on April 18, 2005

I wasn't infurated by Thurrott's article, just mildly amused by it. He did say it was good, but I love how anytime he reviews an Apple product, his comments are always hedged and he always manages to write in a way that reminds the reader "Windows is still God's gift to computers." Silly. Needless to say, there are plenty of Apple fanboi's out there who do the same thing, but Thurrott, as a 'professional' sounds more like a Microsoft mouthpiece every day.


I work on both platforms and I find XP to be stable and useful and it does the job. It is the right tool for many people. However, I agree with the sentiment that everything reeks of a slight desperation on MS's behalf - I wonder what they have planned, post-Longhorn?
posted by tgrundke at 9:38 AM on April 18, 2005

Yeah, WinFS sounds good. Pity it won't be part of Longhorn. And as for the rumors swirling, I hope it hasn't been dropped altogether... then there's the buzzing that it may be backported to XP. But if it won't be in Longhorn 2006 or LH Server 2007 (which Alchin has already stated), when would it make it into XP? 2008? I just don't understand. I'm kind of afraid neither does Microsoft.

I am pretty jazzed to give Spotlight a whirl next month, though. It looks like it will be quite easy to get a lot of power and functionality out of it, including in conjunction with Automator.
posted by the_savage_mind at 9:51 AM on April 18, 2005

seanyboy: winFS sounds great. If I'm right, it will replace the operating system with a relational database. Being able to add views, procedures and triggers onto your file system would be fantastic.

Actually, "WinFS" appears to be a misnomer. Pretty much all of the information I can get on it suggests that it's just a relational index added on top of NTFS.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:08 AM on April 18, 2005

Why compare Tiger and Longhorn?

It's not as if you have both options available on the same hardware.

I don't care if Tiger does blah this and blah that if my work environment is Wintel, and likewise for Mac environments and their apathy towards the upcoming Longhorn. So who gives a crap if Tiger beat Longhorn out the gate? They do not compete with each other directly.

And with Apple's market being such a minority, it's not as if a new OS X version is going to make or break it for a PC buyer -- they'll already be convinced with the prior OS X cat compared to Windows XP.

Tiger this Tiger that Tiger yawn.
posted by linux at 10:12 AM on April 18, 2005

millions of people are depending on Microsoft to pull this one off

Pull what off? Windows 2k is working just fine for me. I can watch my movies, edit my photos, listen to music and surf the web--all at the same time! Oh, but no animated task bar. That makes me sad.

You know what I'd like to see them pull off? XP that runs as fast as 98 SE. A complete code-scrubbing, line by line if necessary, to fully optimize the damned bloat and puss-filled wounds. Range tests. Garbage collection. No more integrated activex scripting. A real security and optimization initiative.

I would actually PAY for Windows if they did this.

XP to Longhorns improved desktop search.... yawn, you're talking technicalities or process not result or new purpose.

Don't forget the big clock! You can't forget the big clock!
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:17 AM on April 18, 2005

Just think, if it's fast with a pointless indexing service and a load of animated crap imagine how fast it'll be without them!

These "great new features" are exactly the sort of things I'd immediately switch off.
posted by dodgygeezer at 10:35 AM on April 18, 2005

Twistedonion:"I need two fucking buttons to use most windows apps!"

Is that reallly that hard/confusing for you? I'm a unix/mac/windows user... and the first thing I do when I use a mac is plug in a multi-button mouse.

Why do you have such a strong hatred for efficiency? Twice the number of buttons you can hit without moving your hand off of the mouse can't be anything but a good thing, unless you're of a mental capacity where counting higher that one is a challenge. Left click = main function. Right click = choose less used/meta functions.

There are great logical mac users - and those who seem to think the evolution of computers is to remove everything. Leave the mac as a screen - with a keyboard, but remove all those confusing keys, put one big button in the middle that they can paw at.
posted by re_verse at 11:57 AM on April 18, 2005

Pull what off? Windows 2k is working just fine for me.

Yes, but most people aren't quite as cynical or easily satisfied as you. Given that when Longhorn finally comes out - I'm assuming it will be heralded like the second coming of Christ - millions of people will make the switch, and if the product sucks, then they're just shit out of luck.

And if you prefer out-of-date technology, I've got an Atari I could sell you. It boots instantaneously!
posted by fungible at 12:38 PM on April 18, 2005

Late 2006?!?!?

Blimey, I'll likely be sold on a Mac system by then.
posted by VulcanMike at 1:06 PM on April 18, 2005

: I work on both platforms and I find XP to be stable and useful and it does the job. It is the right tool for many people. However, I agree with the sentiment that everything reeks of a slight desperation on MS's behalf - I wonder what they have planned, post-Longhorn?

Got to agree here. Once you toss IE XP is fairly stable, even on craptasitc hardware. I just hope they don't start taking things away ala FileManger in the name of new and improved. Hopefully they keep up the trend of allow us to turn eye candy off.
posted by Mitheral at 1:18 PM on April 18, 2005

If you bloody organize your data, you won't need superindexing fast search.

If you have superindexing fast search, you won't need to organize your data. It's faster, easier, and cheaper to let the computer do it than to do it yourself.
posted by kindall at 2:31 PM on April 18, 2005

If you are a student, or have a student in your family, you can get OS X Tiger for $69 (and free shipping). Click "Buy Now" and enter your school's name. (There is a small "Education" tab at the top of the www.apple.com site)
And what's Walter Mossberg carrying on about?
posted by indices at 2:49 PM on April 18, 2005

I could never get past the single button mouse issue with macs...i kept trying to right-click, aarrghh! I had no idea macs have multi-button mice...macs are still not my thing, but i can understand why some people swing that way.

As for longhorn, *yawn*. I'll be waiting over here for the 64-bit XP.

re_verse: LOL
posted by schyler523 at 2:54 PM on April 18, 2005

kendall: If you have superindexing fast search, you won't need to organize your data. It's faster, easier, and cheaper to let the computer do it than to do it yourself.

This depends a lot on how much data you have, and how much redundancy you have between data files.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:36 PM on April 18, 2005

This depends a lot on how much data you have, and how much redundancy you have between data files.

Well, Google works pretty well for the entire Web, and indexing a desktop machine has the advantage that the machine's owner is probably not trying to game the search results. Indexing the amount of data typical users have should work very well.

One problem with organizing the data yourself is that you can only organize it according to one facet. For example, oddman suggests: "A properly organized system will segregate text files from other kinds of media; hence, step one in your search is simply opening your text media folder." In reality, of course, you want your documents organized primarily by project, and possibly by client on top of that, so that related files are in the same folder. However, the view by type is also convenient for some purposes, although of course each file already has attached type metadata that can easily be searched, so the folder organization is completely redundant and nobody would ever actually organize their documents that way. In any case, maintaining a multifaceted view of your documents requires creating shortcuts/aliases all over the place each time you create a file, and that's prone to error and, in the end, unmaintainable and thus useless for actually finding anything.
posted by kindall at 5:54 PM on April 18, 2005

Kindall...

Of course, there are many ways to organize your data. I don't work with projects that involve a variety of media types so I can safely segregate everything along that line without having to resort to shortcuts. Certainly deciding to make clients, projects, media type, year, purpose, or any other category the top level of the organizational tree is a matter of personal preference and organizational needs. (Funny that you presume your way is the "reality" for all of us.) The point remains; in a properly organized file system you need only remember the barest detail to find almost anything that you are looking for.

Granted, this is a static system and setting it up so that you can view/arrange by different criteria on a whim wouldn't be easy. Though, frankly, making entries into a relatively simple d-base app like foxpro wouldn't be too difficult or particularly hard to maintain, and it would allow you to manipulate (and filter) the entries pretty easily.
posted by oddman at 6:37 PM on April 18, 2005

Windows 98 was the finest of a breed of Windows, and that is, seriously, a bit more than faint praise. It was a damn site more stable than it's successor, Millenium Edition, and had memory requirements that then-mainstream systems could meet, unlike the NT flavors of the day.
posted by NortonDC at 6:40 PM on April 18, 2005

kindall: Well, Google works pretty well for the entire Web, and indexing a desktop machine has the advantage that the machine's owner is probably not trying to game the search results. Indexing the amount of data typical users have should work very well.

I found that google tends to fall to bits when you are dealing with less-frequently used meanings of a term. For example, searching for the statistical programming language "R" is likely to throw up a huge number of false positives talking about correlation. Google actually is becoming less and less satisfactory to me as time goes on, sometimes throwing up links to fragmentary mailing list archives, source code listings, and other less-than-useful sources of information. In many cases, a person is better off spidering from a set of good sources, or using a domain-specific lit search.

I think I've pointed this out before, but google doesn't rely entirely on content indexing. It uses titles, urls, meta tags and headings as factors in its weighting as well. Therefore, google is a pretty strong argument against the assumption that just indexing unstructured files absent metadata is useful. Search engines also don't do a very good job with image files, which by default may contain information about the device that created them, but probably not enough information to separate photos of your 10th wedding anniversary from your parents' 50th. (Unless your are very thoughtful and label every image file that goes onto your hard drive.)

One problem with organizing the data yourself is that you can only organize it according to one facet.

This seems to be something of an artifical dilemma here. Nobody is arguing that indexing systems are not useful. What I'm arguing is that whenever these indexing schemes come up, a lot of people chime in with a large quantity of hype talking about how indexing will make the "old way" of doing things with file folders and filenames unnecessary.

As a practical example, the name of an important contact entered into my desktop search engine (swish-e, if you wanted to know) turns up 137 different files. Which file is the one I want? Well, for that I can either hunt and peck with my search-engine fu, or I can simply read the file paths.

As another practical example, another colleague of mine likes to use the poor-man's version control of having a dozen files in a folder labeled something like: proposal1.doc, proposal2.doc, proposal3.doc. Watching him try to find something on his hard drive using google desktop search involves about 20 minutes of trying to find just the right combination of search terms to avoid dozens of false positives.

The bottom line is that having a good search engine isn't going to make the problem of organizing your data go away (although it's a trivial step forward). Now a semantic web of data or the ability to build a personalized folksonomy on the fly without large degrees of human input would be great.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:10 PM on April 18, 2005

The biggest, most useful, most fantastic innovation MS could do to Windows would be to create what might loosely be called "total modularity".

Bear with me for a minute. The typical computer user, of whatever stripe, uses only about 10% of what his Windows OS *could* do, almost exclusively, with another 5% on rare occasions. Even Microsoft recognizes that Windows is very under-used, and is planning an ad campaign to tout what it *could* do. But I doubt that it will change many people's habits.

So the key to the future might be a return to the past. That is, MS-DOS was once small, and there were thousands of programs that could run off of it.

In the case of modern Windows, far too much emphasis is put on speed *when you are installing it*. You are given a downright strange selection of default programs to load, and if you choose a custom setup, your choices are few and poorly explained. You end up with *way* to much OS for your needs or wants.

Since Microsoft has spent so much time, effort and energy to assemble third-party drivers and mandate requirements for any number of standards, why not do the following:

Publish a list of a thousand or two "modules" that Windows *could* have, with perhaps 200 "required" as the bare minimum for operation. Then everything else is query based:

"Do you want to have a calculator?"
"Do you want this to be a networked computer?"
"Do you want this to be an Internet capable computer?"
"Do you want this to be a cable modem ICC?"
"Do you want to install minimum security for local use?"
"Do you want automatic maintenance programs to be run at given intervals?"
"Do you intend to play high performance video games on your system?"
"Do you want to have your system optimized for multimedia-audio?"
"Do you want to have your system optimized for complex mathematics?"

It could get downright nit-picky. But unlike Linux, it is a level above having to figure out "dependencies".

And then mandate that any software to be run on this version of Windows must list what modules it *had* to have to operate. The same with plug-and-play hardware. If a program is bloatware, requiring a ton of modules to operate, you'll see it up front, so may choose to use a more streamlined program. (Think Photoshop).

Users would start their Windows install with a real cherry-pick of what they wanted their Windows to have, resulting in lightning-fast operating speeds and a computer optimized for their needs. It would take hours or even days to get Windows "just right" for you, but users could get simple text lists from other users or their business of what they think is the optimal configuration. For novices, Microsoft could include maybe twenty "standard" installs for whatever the users thought they might want.

Then, when users installed some new software, the installer would tell them what new modules needed to be installed from the Windows CD or its cab files stored on the HD--which of the modules were mandatory for that software and which were for "bells and whistles".

Major software packages could be modeled on this, think Word for Windows, crammed with hundreds of functions that most users never use. They could sit on the HD until needed, not be loaded up every time you wanted to run the program. If you wanted it just once, it would load just that new module, which might take a while; then give you the option to make it a standard part of the software on load in the future. The first install of Word would be as fast as Notepad, after customization, it would run as fast as Wordpad, but have all the menus of the full install of Word. At first, most every menu item you selected would have to be installed, either for short or long-term, but soon you would have *exactly* the complexity of Word you wanted--and a lot faster with resultant file size smaller.

Imagine how happy most people would be if 'Palladium' was a choice. If copyright infringement bugs you, or you don't want any of your employees doing it, it's part of your standard install. If not, if it just bogs down your system, to heck with it. The same with hundreds of other gimmicks and garbage that only 1% of users ever use.

Put it all together: a streamlined Windows with streamlined software, maximizing your hardware and even simplifying troubleshooting. If Windows or a program are crashing when using a "bell and whistle" module, just stop them from using that one. Even if you want it, it does no good if it locks up your computer.

Microsoft would also make a ton of money by charging for new and improved modular updates. The OS module would run things well, but the updates would run things better. It would be its bread and butter between new versions of Windows.

It would be well worth it to have a computer that runs 50% faster, locks up less, and is specifically optimized for what you want it to do, not just a blanket solution to "about" what you want to do.
posted by kablam at 9:25 PM on April 18, 2005

Roll on Longhorn. It's obvious that it'll be light years ahead of OS-X.

Without doubt the funniest thing I've ever read on metafilter. For a second I thought I was reading the onion.
posted by justgary at 10:06 PM on April 18, 2005

Christ. Mac fans.

I followed the comments link expecting to see an interesting MeFi discussion of relevant OS news and instead I find nothing but bashing, insults, shout-downs and all other manner of the same bullshit that's the reason I hate Mac fans and their endless hyperbolic diatribe. What the fuck ails you Mac people?

P.S. Your OS is a toy.
posted by DuoJet at 1:16 AM on April 19, 2005

Riiiight DuoJet. ignore the copious links to actual, you know, FACTS, about the two OS's. Ignore the fact that the only flaming going on seemed to come from some anti-Tiger comments. Despite the fact that overall, the conversation actually has been pretty civil and is debating things like user interface, keyboard navigation and the merits of metaindexing. Man, I can really take you seriously.

P.S. Your brain is a toy. And not a very good one... it's one of those crappy ones that when you unwrap it on Christmas as a child, you have to pretend to smile, and everyone can see the disappointment.
posted by the_savage_mind at 5:40 AM on April 19, 2005

fungible, I am perplexed:

"most people aren't quite as cynical or easily satisfied as you"

...and...

"And if you prefer out-of-date technology"

Easily satisfied? Out-of-date? Give me a single reason to switch from Win2k to Longhorn. Keep in mind that I've been making a living off of computers for the past twenty years now. And I've already got a big clock.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:00 AM on April 19, 2005

If you've structured your directories properly you have to remember almost no detail what so ever.

This is French gardens vs English gardens. I can see that there are people who feel happier with the French approach, but I go English; I actually find that the heaped desk and the haystack hard disk are useful to me and to the way I work. I can even justify it if you like, but I don't really feel the need. You have your hd organized the way you want it, and I have mine the way it suits me. I don't think I'm better than you are, and I don't pour scorn on your working habits - (at least, not in public ; in fact me and my friends giggle a lot about people like you).

And yes, a search device is on occasion useful. If OSX or Windows throws one at me, I'll take it and say thank you. And I promise not to sneer at people who are still so far out of the loop as to have structured filing systems.
posted by TimothyMason at 9:23 AM on April 19, 2005

kablam: It could get downright nit-picky. But unlike Linux, it is a level above having to figure out "dependencies"

Actually, it sounds just like linux. It's been a while since I've had to figure out "dependencies" on a linux system.

TimothyMason: The article you link to seems to bear very little relevance to your claims, other than to suggest that "clutter" is rarely "unstructured." My office tends towards high clutter, but I can point to various locations where resources tend to live.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:03 AM on April 19, 2005

civil: I'm not saying you should switch. In fact, if you're happy, you're probably absolutely right not to.

I'm just saying, don't expect others to see it that way. And those are the people I'm talking about, not you.
posted by fungible at 10:53 AM on April 19, 2005

Of course, there are many ways to organize your data. I don't work with projects that involve a variety of media types so I can safely segregate everything along that line without having to resort to shortcuts.

This of course is one of windows problems. Shortcuts are a crappy, barely useful, pale imitation of symbolic links. If MS got actual links instead of shortcuts the OS would be a lot more useable.

Only problem with the "choices of apps at install" kablam is the vast majority of people don't actually install windows. Heck buy a new machine from a big manufacturer and you don't even get an actual windows disk, just a stripped down version that only (and just barely) works on your supplied hardware.

At least the dongle nature of the Mac means you get a complete copy of the OS.
posted by Mitheral at 11:15 AM on April 19, 2005