Category: General Tech
Ars reviews Windows 7
Ars Technica’s Peter Bright, in his 15 page review of Windows 7:
So while Windows 7 may not right all of Vista’s wrongs, it is absolutely superior to its predecessor. It has three years of improvements, so it can’t help but be better. But if you hated Vista’s UI, you’re going to hate Windows 7’s. Worse, in fact, because 7 forces you to use the new Start menu and taskbar, with no possibility of reverting to the old behaviour. If your applications didn’t work in Vista, they almost certainly won’t work in 7. Sure, 7 has some virtualization tools to help, but this was always possible in Vista too. If you felt Vista was too big and too slow, well, 7 isn’t going to provide much joy there, either. Marginal improvements, perhaps, but nothing more. Everything “bad” about Vista—and I use the word in the loosest possible sense, because the things that garnered most complaints have negligible legitimacy—is still “bad” in 7.
Steve Jobs, the LaserWriter and Adobe
It’s a fascinating read:
Jobs says, simply, “I convinced them [Adobe] to drop plans to be a hardware company and be a software company instead.”
Surprise, Surprise
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is the top recipient of campaign contributions from large Internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast over the past two years, according to a new report from the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics. McCain has taken in a total of $894,379 (much of that money going to support his failed 2008 bid for the presidency), more than twice the amount taken by the next-largest beneficiary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. ($341,089).
On the Droid
The Motorola CLIQ was a pretty big disappointment for me personally, but oh man does the Droid make up for it. Sure, there’s a little hype sprinkled in because this is the first Android 2.0 device I’ve had the pleasure of using, but once you move past the initial “wow” factor, the Droid really delivers. Whether it’s Verizon’s ad campaign or Motorola’s that pits the Droid against the iPhone it doesn’t matter. The Droid isn’t an iPhone competitor because nothing at this point in time is an iPhone competitor besides the new iPhone. And things don’t have to be right now. Everyone can eat. So will the Motorola Droid be successful? Absolutely, we think. It will eat in to BlackBerry sales, Windows Mobile sales, and positively murder any lingering Palm Pre sales. It’s that good.
Google Chrome Now in "Developer Preview"
If digging through build trees for a Mac build of Chromium (the open source project behind Chrome) was more trouble than you wanted to go through, here’s some good news for you: Google today announced availability of an official Google Chrome for Mac developer preview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.
The developer preview is based on the upcoming version 4 of Google’s upstart browser, and it’s important to note that although it’s publicly accessible, it’s still not quite a beta. Several versions have already been released for Windows, but none have been released for Linux or Mac OS X. This is the first time an official release—build 4.0.223.8—has been available for Mac OS X outside of nightly development builds.
McCain Introduces Bill to Block Net Neutrality
McCain’s bill, the Internet Freedom Act, seeks to do the opposite of what its name implies by ensuring that broadband and wireless providers can discriminate and throttle certain traffic while giving preferential treatment to other traffic. Basically, those in power or those who pay more will have better access. Apparently we have different definitions of ‘freedom'.
According to the text of the McCain bill, the FCC “shall not propose, promulgate, or issue any regulations regarding the Internet or IP-enabled services.” Isn’t that what the FCC does? Isn’t that sort of like introducing a bill to prohibit the Treasury from printing money, or a bill to prohibit the IRS from collecting taxes?
Apple Kills ZFS Project
The ZFS project has been discontinued. The mailing list and repository will also be removed shortly.
ZFS is an advanced file system developed by Sun that had been ported to Mac OS X and released as an open source project on Apple’s Mac OS Forge collaboration site in 2007. ZFS had been rumored to become the default file system for Mac OS X Leopard, but ultimately appeared with only limited read-only capabilities.
Boot Camp, Windows 7 Not Friends Yet
Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.
This marks the first time not all Intel-based Macs will be included in a Boot Camp update. The following models will not be supported:
iMac (17-inch, Early 2006)
iMac (17-inch, Late 2006)
AT&T Pushing Back Against Net Neutrality
The Consumerist has posted a letter that supposedly made the rounds within AT&T regarding net neutrality and what stance AT&T has on the subject. It’s disgusting and terrifying all at once.
‘This Phone Flies’
Have we mentioned this phone flies? It’s the Android device to beat, and easily the most impressive. From what we’ve been told, Google had a direct hand in the Motorola Droid. Something to the point of almost dictating every move Motorola made when designing and making the phone. Interesting, huh?
Hit the link for photos of the device.