Huh -- apparently there's a new S2 Tivo box with dual tuners currently being sold.

Microsoft's own worst enemy... is Microsoft

Windows Is So Slow, but Why?

So what's wrong with Microsoft? There is, after all, no shortage of smart software engineers working at the corporate campus in Redmond, Wash. The problem, it seems, is largely that Microsoft's past success and its bundling strategy have become a weakness.

Windows runs on 330 million personal computers worldwide. Three hundred PC manufacturers around the world install Windows on their machines; thousands of devices like printers, scanners and music players plug into Windows computers; and tens of thousands of third-party software applications run on Windows. And a crucial reason Microsoft holds more than 90 percent of the PC operating system market is that the company strains to make sure software and hardware that ran on previous versions of Windows will also work on the new one — compatibility, in computing terms.

As a result, each new version of Windows carries the baggage of its past. As Windows has grown, the technical challenge has become increasingly daunting. Several thousand engineers have labored to build and test Windows Vista, a sprawling, complex software construction project with 50 million lines of code, or more than 40 percent larger than Windows XP.

"Windows is now so big and onerous because of the size of its code base, the size of its ecosystem and its insistence on compatibility with the legacy hardware and software, that it just slows everything down," observed David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. "That's why a company like Apple has such an easier time of innovation."

It's odd, really. You'd think Microsoft with its planned obsolescence ideals would be comfortable bringing out a one-time-dealio new-machines-only-forward sort of product. Then they could bloatware off that for the future!

Don't get me wrong. I work on crazy old legacy machines. I appreciate the compatability.

You'd think Microsoft with its planned obsolescence ideals would be comfortable bringing out a one-time-dealio new-machines-only-forward sort of product.

Their corporate customers wouldn't buy it, if legacy software wouldn't work. It's hard to make a case to a CEO that the reason you have to upgrade every single piece of software you use is because it would make life easier for Microsoft.

This is funny.

[link]

A city in Oklahoma was threatening the CentOS Linux distribution because the default Apache test page was showing up on their website.

Their corporate customers wouldn't buy it, if legacy software wouldn't work.

Whlie I think Windows has plenty of flaws, I am impressed by the sheer variety of hardware it works on and the backward compatibility. Apple has the luxary of only having to run on a handful of different computer models. Linux and FreeBSD can run on a lot of hardware, but you have to get hardware that works with 'em rather than expecting anything you put together to work.

Myth update.

The full myth-box in the living room hooked up to the TV is working great but the power supply is too loud for my taste.

The computer it replaced (that was running GeeXBox) is in the process of being converted into a Myth frontend computer. (A tip, if installing from binary packages, use the same distribution for the frontend and backend. My backend/frontend box is on Fedora Core 4 and I first used Ubuntu for the Frontend, but the MythTV versions didn't match and the frontend couldn't talk to the backend.) The frontend is working fine, but needs some tweaking to get the remote control working. But still I can watch recorded video and live TV on the frontend.

"That's why a company like Apple has such an easier time of innovation."

But OS X Tiger can run pretty much all OS X software ever created, and most pre-OS X software in Classic. That's a lot of legacy support. Yes, the new Intel macs have dropped Classic support, but they could get away with that because almost nobody is really running Classic software anymore. I guess my point is - Apple provides legacy software support too, at least to a very large extent (and I know for a fact that not all Windows 95 software will actually run on XP)

Couldn't Windows do the same thing? Provide an emulation layer, separate from the new stuff, for legacy software, and thus start from scratch for the new OS? It seems like a smart move, overall.

Anyone here know xsl?

no, but I know xxx.

(sorry)