How funny would it be if Googles operating system became better than windows, the company that made the pc for google only to be a search engine! TeeHee
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Google Announces Google Chrome Operating System
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Ok that may be true, but the average user cannot install them. It's been awhile, but when I used Ubuntu, you could not simply download a .exe equivalent & launch a install. It was a real pain to do something simple like install the drivers for my HP 1018 printer.
That must be a pain when switching languages. I do miss just plugging in my mouse in Windows and getting back/forward without evey installing any third-party software.
Then you'll get the Linux people that ask us how we live without package management and repositories.
7 is a big improvement in video drivers. I've put them through hell without any issues.
That's probably due more to the fact that Win7 is very close to Vista for video - and Vista drivers are solid now.
One new thing in WDDM 1.1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model) which is very nice is the ability to do higher performance accelerated graphics over a remote desktop connection (as long as both client and server are Win7). This lets RDP sessions use Aero and do most video without glitching.
Jumping on the bandwagon? I'm sick of people saying this. They're not a rapidly expanding company, they were in 2002 but not now. I bet you have a facebook or twitter account with a lot more information in than info they could get from 2 or 3 keywords entered in a serach.
Probably because people said this would hurt Microsoft more than Apple. Then the comparisons between OS X and Windows began.
I was demonstrating how you can easily remember the Mac key combo for the symbol instead of the "cryptic" stuff.
...Possibly because apart from the standard R/L buttons + the scroll wheel, the other buttons are all a mess out there. I'm guessing they are waiting for the situation to clean up before doing anything...
1. You can go into MainMenu.nib to change the key combinations with Interface Builder.
2. It's not directly command+bracket—it's command plus that weird bracket thing that requires you press shift. The reason it probably didn't work is because you didn't press cmd+shift+{ or }.
Point being that Apple's business model is that of a hardware company with product differentiation by adding software compatibility to their own software.... OS X -> Mac, iTunes + well designed software/firmware -> iPod/iPhone
Apparently this model is quite lucrative... Look at Microsoft follow suit with the XBox...
(i.e. proprietary software with hardware restrictions so that they have to buy your hardware...)
A week ago it was, but it's been raining cats, dogs and the occasional elephant over the last couple of days so I wouldn't recommend Sweden at the moment. Part of the whole climate change thing is that we're gradually inheriting the UK's weather with frequent surprise rain showers coming totally out of left field... 20 years ago we barely knew what umbrellas were.
Still, it's not a bad place. It's funny, I've always heard Americans praise Aspen as this amazing place where all the celebrities flock, I wanted to see what it looked like so I googled for some pictures and soon I was having a laughing fit. This? What, a bunch of mountains, some snow, spruce and pine forests, a couple of lakes, birches with yellow leaves in the fall? Are you kidding me? 75% of Scandinavia looks like that. If that's what y'all want you can come here and look out the window. We go on vacation to escape that stuff.
Oh. I was hoping to avoid having to mess around deep within the system... why doesn't it just support back/forward buttons? They've been around for, what, 10 years? I know they're eager to sell you the Mighty Mouse instead, but damn...
Actually I doubt they really care if you use a Mighty Mouse (which has shipped with all Macs for quite a few years now). The problem is that the companies that make the mice are absolutely sucktastic at making drivers.
The drivers may suck, but back/forward buttons are every bit as standardized as left/right buttons and scroll wheels. You don't need drivers for Windows to respond to those, they're not strange voodoo commands. The same goes for basic multimedia buttons on keyboards. Play/Pause, Stop, Next/Previous, launch the default web browser, launch explorer, launch the default email client... there are API hooks for all that stuff and the keyboard manufacturer needn't do more than comply with the standard. In OS X you have to trick the system into believing the mouse is sending key combinations, which is why you need the sucktastic drivers in the first place.
I know they're not keen on adapting to Windows, but see, they have this product called Mac Mini which was advertised with the phrasing "bring your own keyboard and mouse". It was supposedly so wonderful because you could just plug your PC keyboard and mouse in, and it would work. But it only supports the basic alphanumerical keys and left/right/scroll on the mouse, so why not support the extended stuff as well?
It's not all keyboards and mice. I have a Dell USB multimedia keyboard that shipped with my XPS Studio. Mac OS X recognizes all of its function keys and maps them to their corresponding feature. This is without any software or drivers on my part. It even shows the same overlay graphics for sound that you would get with an Apple keyboard.
Most operating systems have the keyboard calls for that fluff already. You can technically remap those special functions since they are just additional key inputs.
It is funny how things circle back around. It is also funny the reasons why both distributed terminals came about. Pretty much for opposite reasons.
I think ultimately in order to have mobile devices it is going to require a high-speed mesh network that allows us to interact with various static places. Be it services, or in our own homes. That being said, I don't think our networks and that technology is ready for that yet.
I still think this could be a useful too for a good number of people. I would be interested in using this on my HE1000.
I think the notion that operating systems do too much now is accurate. Think about all the different things they are designed to do and accomplish. There is really nothing else that tries to be so many different things to so many different people. The reality is there are costs for that. For a lot of people all that a modern operating system can do is overkill.
I suspect google has been chomping at the bit to try and find some way to get into the OS market where they could make an impact and get a stronghold. I think with the relatively fast emergence of netbooks becoming mainstream in the last couple years, they see an opportunity to plant their flag in the OS market and grow it from there.
it will surely be better, no doubt, os x is 10 times better, google can manage to be twice as good as vista or whatever other name they ve come up with to mask their inferior products.
Yeah, was there a year ago lovely, though way, way too cold for me in winter.
Sorry to hear you are turning into uk weather, cause uk weather is undoubtedly on par with their cuisine: The world worst.
I am amazed that 20 years ago you didn't even have rain this time of the year.
So, best wishes for a good turn of the weather.
Because google already has a huge name and huge exposure to people who would be attracted to such an OS. Linux not so much. In fact not at all. After a very long time to make something that is actually user friendly, linux is still a massive failure in terms of delivering a usable experience. I have used computers and OSes long before linux even existed, and it is still nowhere close to a point where normal people would ever want to use it. Heck I only use it when I have to, because it is a pain in the arse.
I am sure I will get some linux geeks who will tell me how I am wrong and how user friendly it is and how you have to use this flavor of this build with these add-ons and none of it matters. It is unfriendly to use down to its core and nothing short of a real overlay done by people who actually make a living developing user interface processes will ever change that. Because a bunch of linux nerds thinks it is now user-friendly means nothing.
I suspect that Chrome OS will be very user-friendly, which leads to fewer support calls for the PC makers. Add that to the fact that google will market it, and be able to reach people who want it, and it will have little to nothing comparable to linux in terms of why a pc maker might want to market it, besides a low-cost.
Excellent post, that said:
I used ubuntu for a while and I found it very useable, vastly better than windows but definately lacking in some usability respects and needing work. Had the case been the reverse, ie. linux with 95% of folk (by some twist of fate) and ms stuggling by virtue of the merits of their os to gain some market share, then I am sure they wouldn't have even the 2% or so that linux has, they d been dead a long while ago.
What i am saying is that it's of course something to do with usability but in order to gain the pie from someone who is an ugly monopoly with 95% you don't just have to be good, you have to be spectacularly good and the other spectucularly bad (ms is that most of the time granted)
Thats how firefox gained so much ground over the well that sad and dead browser.
That's how apple gains share, because they are way way better than can cheap away from ms
poor linux is not all that bad but it's not super great so as to get its fair share. Of course capital comes in there as well or the lack there of.
it would be a wide sucess if google manage to gain 2% of market by the summer of 2012. (a reasonable calculation: )
If you are dreaming of google OS beating windows in any realistic world, just goto bed.
If you are dreaming of google OS beating windows in any realistic world, just goto bed.
New for Google, old for old timers ;-)
In about 1996, Larry Ellison of Oracle proposed the network computer (NC) with a skinny OS (Linux or similar), a local browser, a minimal editor for local stuff, great communications software, and everything else on network servers (now called the "cloud"). Then Salesforce went and built a business of non-local software.
Chrome-OS may add local storage to that mix, as well as local media playing, but it's generally the same thing: you get your software from the web fresh every time. So Larry was right (again).
For many people, especially those who now want to get all of the media from the web as well (audio, video, TV shows, whatever), and with adequate net bandwidth (and good caching), all of this makes total sense. Your computer becomes an appliance like a telephone or a toaster: minimal local software and hardware to break; constant updates; because it's simpler, it is possible to make it secure and self repairing.
The only people who then need complicated computers in their houses are various professionals: developers (maybe ...), audio and video production teams, radical gamers, and probably some I've forgotten.
But other than audio and video editing, I spend about 90% of my time in email or the browser.
In about 1996, Larry Ellison of Oracle proposed the network computer (NC) with a skinny OS (Linux or similar), a local browser, a minimal editor for local stuff, great communications software, and everything else on network servers (now called the "cloud"). Then Salesforce went and built a business of non-local software.
Chrome-OS may add local storage to that mix, as well as local media playing, but it's generally the same thing: you get your software from the web fresh every time. So Larry was right (again).
For many people, especially those who now want to get all of the media from the web as well (audio, video, TV shows, whatever), and with adequate net bandwidth (and good caching), all of this makes total sense. Your computer becomes an appliance like a telephone or a toaster: minimal local software and hardware to break; constant updates; because it's simpler, it is possible to make it secure and self repairing.
The only people who then need complicated computers in their houses are various professionals: developers (maybe ...), audio and video production teams, radical gamers, and probably some I've forgotten.
But other than audio and video editing, I spend about 90% of my time in email or the browser.
Actually google does a ton more things than that and many of them really well.
Learn more about Google because your comments make you sound significantly ignorant.
LOL.
You don't think google makes billions of dollars out of web advertising? I can assure you they do.