One for the techies & gamers. w00t!
Originally, i was going to go on a rant about people who constantly bash Microsoft - well, Windows, to be more exact. These also tend to be the ones who go about glorifying to all and sundry the wonders of Macs, Linux , Solaris etc etc. Well - its the lesser of two evils - it's a lot easier condemning people who take the piss out of Windows rather then DEFENDING Windows hmmn? After reading a little more into it though, even if you have nothing against - or even if you actually LIKE Windows, i'm ready to fire a few shots myself at Microsoft. First of all...
p.s- had some pics to go with this post, but i haven't installed picasa's Hello on neither my new desktop or refurbished laptop, and i'm still looking for a free photo repository i can just display the pictures out of.
Why Windows? or No Mac version? Ohhh what a shame.
Allrighty then - up till last year, i have been using Macs and PCs alongside each other for about 15 years - so first off, i have every right to flame Apple N00bZ. Yeah bitches im from the 'rainbow apple' days - it wasn't fun living off shareware & freeware (and once in a blue moon 'legit' proper software) off Mac mags from system 7 through to 10.3. And i've spent quite some time literally pulling my hair at Linux workstations(Mandrake and SuSe distributions) on my Java, Prolog and Haskell coding assignments during my doomed tenure at IC doing computing. Jeez first it was " My computer's soo much better looking! It's got colours!" and then it was "OS X is soooo stable - it's never crashed on me before!" Trust me, it can. While i ran OS 10.0 through to 10.3 it crashed almost as many times as my Windows machines - and it was all work apps and surfing - not even games. A well kept Windows system can be just as relatively hassle free until you bring in the odd buggy game.
Stability issues aside, all OS-ses are pretty much equal when it comes to normal and work apps - surfing, graphic and design, watching movies, music etc etc. With the right mods, you can skin any OS to look like the other. System vunerabilites? Lets put it this way - most systems worth breaking in for information or other purposes are mostly Windows boxes, hence the constant discovery of holes and bugs. Malicious hackers also code their worms and the like to disrupt Windows systems as they are the most common consumer OS and are predominantly low-level users who dont know very much at all. Unless you wanna do it for bragging rights, to be one of the L33t, not many people bother coming up with malicious code for other OSes.
I guess the main point, the surrendering point, for using Windows is the convenience and compatibility issue which unfortunately comes with massive monopoly on home and business machines. While major appliances like printers and scanners are well supported by most OSes, you'd have a freaking adventure trying to work webcams, MP3 players, PDAs and other gadgets on OS-es other than Macs and Windows. If you have multiple computers, its also SOOO much easier to keep all of them on 1 OS , especially for the sake of sharing files, media and apps and synchronization. Having to use a FAT 32 disk to bridge my Mac HFS and NTFS disks were a nightmare, for one thing. Obviously, industrial strength OSes like Solaris are cold & tight when it comes to security, but i'd hate to be the person who has to make an iPod work on it.
Oh yeah - games too. Since PCs are still the best platform for games - anyone ever played an RTS on a console? Eeeeyurghh! - because of their scaleability and choice of control inputs. The people who MAKE the games obviously want the biggest market possible, hence coding it for the most common OS. Thereee ya go - another big win for Windows
While i'm all up for the Open Source movement, there's also a lot of good free software for windows to be had. Programs that you'd have to [cough] pay for tend to work a lot better anyway than something a bunch of sunlight-averse agoraphobes coded together on their off D&D days.
Micro$oft $uck$ A$$
Over the last coupla years, Microsoft has been screwing over one of its biggest supporters - gamers(not like they have much choice anyway). It all began with the X-Box and its flagship game, Halo. Initially it was supposed to be released for Mac and PC as well, but Microsoft wanted it to be an X-Box exclusive, actually giving people a reason to buy it over the PS 2. They had actually almost finished the PC version when Microsoft threw Bungie a big wad of cash and sealed the deal. Halo for PC wouldn't even have came out if it weren't for the enormous ( well as loud as gamers can be anyway) outcry.
Since then many other good games have been bought out as X-Box exclusives, depriving PC and also PS 2 gamers of some good game franchises. Such a pity especially as many excellent first person shooters never made it ( or were snatched at the last minute) away from PC gamers. I've tried playing Unreal Championship on an X-Box, and i was obviously far less graceful than i would be on the keyboard and mouse. How the hell are you going to circle strafe or do the rocket spam ballet on a gamepad? Seriously - FPS and RTSes should be for PC only. Fighting games, racing games and rail shooters are the shit for consoles.
Recently, the've also announced that Quake 4's going to be the X-Box 360's flagship release, meaning that the PC version will be "greatly delayed". They can delay it only for so long before ID Software offices gets overrun by a horde of die-hard PC gamers. Especially those who are not getting xbox 360s because of their principles ( or not having sold your junk on eBay for as much as you thought you should). Also, even before the PC expansion for Half Life 2 has gone gold, theres already talk of Half Life 3 being ANOTHER xbox 360 exclusive. Bitchery i say. Its seriously the equivalent of Microsoft giving the finger to gamers everywhere.
Just when you think " Fine , i'll get with the fucking program and save up to buy a fucking X-boX. Crap i'll need a TV too. And extra controllers. And memory cards. And a carrying case, and gold plated SCART cables and programmable vibrating gamepads and..." (at which point you go into convulsions and collapse foaming at the mouth) theres a whole new game afoot in the business.
Following some carefully worded press statements which essentially meant the PS3 was going to be fuckin powerful all in one home entertainment solution but also frighteningly expensive, Microsoft has upped the ante with new graphic processors on their X-box 360, among with a slew of new features that will no doubt increase its price. Apparently some executive who probably hasnt played a console game in his life thought that the comparatively cheaper tag of the 360 meant it wouldn't get as much "respect" as the uber PS3. This pissing contest can't have a pretty ending. Probably by the time either of them comes out, not only would the 360 cost as much as a small country, the latest version of the "Super Parallel Nanometric" CELL PS3 processor would have become self aware and enslaved the entire human race a-la Terminator's Skynet.
Therefore, in effect Sony and Microsoft's one-upmanship could very well bring about the end of the world. Or at least produce ludicrously priced overpowered consoles. Snap.
Originally, i was going to go on a rant about people who constantly bash Microsoft - well, Windows, to be more exact. These also tend to be the ones who go about glorifying to all and sundry the wonders of Macs, Linux , Solaris etc etc. Well - its the lesser of two evils - it's a lot easier condemning people who take the piss out of Windows rather then DEFENDING Windows hmmn? After reading a little more into it though, even if you have nothing against - or even if you actually LIKE Windows, i'm ready to fire a few shots myself at Microsoft. First of all...
p.s- had some pics to go with this post, but i haven't installed picasa's Hello on neither my new desktop or refurbished laptop, and i'm still looking for a free photo repository i can just display the pictures out of.
Why Windows? or No Mac version? Ohhh what a shame.
Allrighty then - up till last year, i have been using Macs and PCs alongside each other for about 15 years - so first off, i have every right to flame Apple N00bZ. Yeah bitches im from the 'rainbow apple' days - it wasn't fun living off shareware & freeware (and once in a blue moon 'legit' proper software) off Mac mags from system 7 through to 10.3. And i've spent quite some time literally pulling my hair at Linux workstations(Mandrake and SuSe distributions) on my Java, Prolog and Haskell coding assignments during my doomed tenure at IC doing computing. Jeez first it was " My computer's soo much better looking! It's got colours!" and then it was "OS X is soooo stable - it's never crashed on me before!" Trust me, it can. While i ran OS 10.0 through to 10.3 it crashed almost as many times as my Windows machines - and it was all work apps and surfing - not even games. A well kept Windows system can be just as relatively hassle free until you bring in the odd buggy game.
Stability issues aside, all OS-ses are pretty much equal when it comes to normal and work apps - surfing, graphic and design, watching movies, music etc etc. With the right mods, you can skin any OS to look like the other. System vunerabilites? Lets put it this way - most systems worth breaking in for information or other purposes are mostly Windows boxes, hence the constant discovery of holes and bugs. Malicious hackers also code their worms and the like to disrupt Windows systems as they are the most common consumer OS and are predominantly low-level users who dont know very much at all. Unless you wanna do it for bragging rights, to be one of the L33t, not many people bother coming up with malicious code for other OSes.
I guess the main point, the surrendering point, for using Windows is the convenience and compatibility issue which unfortunately comes with massive monopoly on home and business machines. While major appliances like printers and scanners are well supported by most OSes, you'd have a freaking adventure trying to work webcams, MP3 players, PDAs and other gadgets on OS-es other than Macs and Windows. If you have multiple computers, its also SOOO much easier to keep all of them on 1 OS , especially for the sake of sharing files, media and apps and synchronization. Having to use a FAT 32 disk to bridge my Mac HFS and NTFS disks were a nightmare, for one thing. Obviously, industrial strength OSes like Solaris are cold & tight when it comes to security, but i'd hate to be the person who has to make an iPod work on it.
Oh yeah - games too. Since PCs are still the best platform for games - anyone ever played an RTS on a console? Eeeeyurghh! - because of their scaleability and choice of control inputs. The people who MAKE the games obviously want the biggest market possible, hence coding it for the most common OS. Thereee ya go - another big win for Windows
While i'm all up for the Open Source movement, there's also a lot of good free software for windows to be had. Programs that you'd have to [cough] pay for tend to work a lot better anyway than something a bunch of sunlight-averse agoraphobes coded together on their off D&D days.
Micro$oft $uck$ A$$
Over the last coupla years, Microsoft has been screwing over one of its biggest supporters - gamers(not like they have much choice anyway). It all began with the X-Box and its flagship game, Halo. Initially it was supposed to be released for Mac and PC as well, but Microsoft wanted it to be an X-Box exclusive, actually giving people a reason to buy it over the PS 2. They had actually almost finished the PC version when Microsoft threw Bungie a big wad of cash and sealed the deal. Halo for PC wouldn't even have came out if it weren't for the enormous ( well as loud as gamers can be anyway) outcry.
Since then many other good games have been bought out as X-Box exclusives, depriving PC and also PS 2 gamers of some good game franchises. Such a pity especially as many excellent first person shooters never made it ( or were snatched at the last minute) away from PC gamers. I've tried playing Unreal Championship on an X-Box, and i was obviously far less graceful than i would be on the keyboard and mouse. How the hell are you going to circle strafe or do the rocket spam ballet on a gamepad? Seriously - FPS and RTSes should be for PC only. Fighting games, racing games and rail shooters are the shit for consoles.
Recently, the've also announced that Quake 4's going to be the X-Box 360's flagship release, meaning that the PC version will be "greatly delayed". They can delay it only for so long before ID Software offices gets overrun by a horde of die-hard PC gamers. Especially those who are not getting xbox 360s because of their principles ( or not having sold your junk on eBay for as much as you thought you should). Also, even before the PC expansion for Half Life 2 has gone gold, theres already talk of Half Life 3 being ANOTHER xbox 360 exclusive. Bitchery i say. Its seriously the equivalent of Microsoft giving the finger to gamers everywhere.
Just when you think " Fine , i'll get with the fucking program and save up to buy a fucking X-boX. Crap i'll need a TV too. And extra controllers. And memory cards. And a carrying case, and gold plated SCART cables and programmable vibrating gamepads and..." (at which point you go into convulsions and collapse foaming at the mouth) theres a whole new game afoot in the business.
Following some carefully worded press statements which essentially meant the PS3 was going to be fuckin powerful all in one home entertainment solution but also frighteningly expensive, Microsoft has upped the ante with new graphic processors on their X-box 360, among with a slew of new features that will no doubt increase its price. Apparently some executive who probably hasnt played a console game in his life thought that the comparatively cheaper tag of the 360 meant it wouldn't get as much "respect" as the uber PS3. This pissing contest can't have a pretty ending. Probably by the time either of them comes out, not only would the 360 cost as much as a small country, the latest version of the "Super Parallel Nanometric" CELL PS3 processor would have become self aware and enslaved the entire human race a-la Terminator's Skynet.
Therefore, in effect Sony and Microsoft's one-upmanship could very well bring about the end of the world. Or at least produce ludicrously priced overpowered consoles. Snap.
No comments:
Post a Comment