tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33187273325969864862011-04-21T22:18:39.415-07:00Fighting computer-related stupidity.Josh the Nerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01146314172837551327noreply@blogger.comBlogger31100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318727332596986486.post-63687960493161220942008-07-10T23:24:00.000-07:002008-07-10T23:29:30.029-07:00Rumor: "It only works with touchscreens."<br />Reality: Windows 7 adds support for multi-touch, but no Microsoft never said it would require any kind of touchscreen. They'd have to be insane to do that.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3318727332596986486-6368796049316122094?l=jtntech.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Josh the Nerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01146314172837551327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318727332596986486.post-47400835660123467512008-06-02T12:12:00.000-07:002008-06-02T13:16:19.409-07:00When I decided to finally start my tech blog today, Blogspot was the first site that came to mind. To make sure I liked the format, I checkout another Blogspot blog I sometimes visit: <a href="http://shippingseven.blogspot.com/">Shipping Seven</a>. One of the comments on <a href="http://shippingseven.blogspot.com/2008/05/windows-7-wont-have-compact-minwin.html">this post</a> was some guy claiming he was a fraud, linking to <a href="http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/shipping-seven-is-a-fraud/">this</a> for explanation. Well, let's go over what wrong with this claim:<br /><br />"Here are some of the more-glaring factual errors in the post that completely strip <em>Shipping Seven</em> of any authenticity or authority it may have on the topic of Windows 7:<br /><br />'How many times has the Ubuntu or Mac OS X kernel been rewritten?'<br /><p>Correction: OS X is powered by <em>a rewrite of</em> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU">the XNU kernel</a> which is a modified version of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_kernel">the Mach kernel</a> which, in turn, <em>is a complete rewrite</em> of the original <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution">BSD kernel</a>."<br /></p><p>Did any of those rewrites happen while it was the "Mac OS X kernel"?<br /></p><p>The accuser goes on to write:</p><p>"And, of course, Ubuntu isn't an OS in and of itself, rather it's just a distribution of Linux."</p><p>That's nonsense. What if I said "Windows isn't an OS in and of itself, rather it's just a distribution of the NT kernel."?</p><p>"While it can be argued that not every developer at Microsoft is expected to have intimate knowledge of the inner-workings of other operating systems, no one in their right mind would believe that the Windows kernel programmers don't even know what kernels their strongest competitors are currently using."</p>When did Shipping Seven ever claim to be a "Windows kernel programmer"?<br /><br />Just because he overlooked XNU's pre-Mac OS X history, and didn't anticipate your nonsense about Ubuntu not being an OS, doesn't mean he doesn't know what kernels those OSs (or distributions) use.<br /><br />" 'We spent a boatload of time during Windows Vista making everything 'componentizable' - So that we could (by creating some xml files that our build process uses) create a boatload of different versions of Vista (and Server 2008).<br /><br />You already have MinWin - It is the core system components that Windows Vista needs to function; everything else on the system depends directly or indirectly on it. It is the last thing you could (theoretically) uninstall.<p>So, if you really really want it, you can get it, I suppose - you probably could (using the command line) uninstall almost every single Windows Vista system component, including the user interface. I don't know what the hell you'd do with just a kernel and a kernel loader on your machine, though.'</p> <p>Assuming you can get past the <em>way</em> that the post was written (with references like "using the command line" which indicate a general lack of knowledge about computers in general; treating the command line as if it were a "god mode" that can be used to do just about anything), there's still the matter of factual inaccuracies - and inconsistencies in the article itself."</p>He didn't say why you would use the command line. What program would <i>you</i> use to delete Explorer?<br /><p><strong>"You can't change/modify/revert pre-build settings by running commands in the command line.</strong> Components that are integrated at compile time simply cannot be removed by running a bunch of commands afterwards - especially not from within the resulting OS itself."</p>It depends on how the pre-build settings are implemented in the binaries. If it's just a matter of whether or not a file is included, then, yes, you can remove a feature by deleting its file at the command line.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3318727332596986486-4740083566012346751?l=jtntech.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Josh the Nerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01146314172837551327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3318727332596986486.post-72353137793170325332008-06-02T11:31:00.000-07:002008-06-02T11:56:11.651-07:00There's been a lot of misinformation about Windows 7 going around. So here's why I think all these rumors are just plain incorrect:<br /><br />Rumor: The next version of Windows is codenamed "7", Windows Seven, Windows "7", or Windows Se7en.<br />Reality: The next version of Windows is codenamed <b>Windows 7.</b><br /><br />Rumor: Microsoft plans to ship Windows 7 three years from now.<br />Reality: Microsoft plans to finish Windows 7 three years after they started working on it.<br /><br />Rumor: Bill Gates said Windows 7 would ship next year.<br />Reality: Bill Gates said "sometime in the next year <b>or so</b>" they "will have a new version."<br /><br />Rumor: Windows 7 is being rewritten from scratch or near scratch,.<br />Reality: Microsoft has made it clear that Windows 7 is an evolution of Windows Vista. Also, they never said they were throwing away any code. They're merely making it possible for them to build a small part of the OS ("MinWin") without the rest of Windows, probably just for testing the kernel.<br /><br />Rumor: Any screenshots claiming to show Windows 7's GUI are fake, as Windows 7 is just MinWin right now.<br />Reality: As I said before, Microsoft never said they were throwing away any code, or that they weren't working on the GUI yet.<br /><br />That's all the major misinformation I can think of right now. I'm gonna add links to my sources if/when I get around to it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3318727332596986486-7235313779317032533?l=jtntech.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Josh the Nerdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01146314172837551327noreply@blogger.com0