Vista

**abaddonxi** · 22nd February 2007, 09:42 AM

Originally Posted by p38arover

Yes, but....

I went to look at getting a Bigpond wireless broadband modem for my daughter.

All was well until I read on the brochures that it doesn't work with Macintosh.

Scrap that idea, She'll have to get the phone connecxted to her room in Derby and run dial-up. (A heck of a lot cheaper, too. I looked at another brochure which gave the costs for a super fast connection on a 36 month contract at $7500 - Seven and half grand!

)

Ron

Ron

Can't see how any router is incompatible with Mac. Ethernet and wireless are based on the same international standards, no matter what wanky name Apple like to put on it. It probably means that Bigpond won't support the hardware connected to a Mac. I've done several installs using none Mac routers and wireless access points with no more trouble than the usual s**tfight of setting up wireless when you are using hardware from different companies.

Only thing that won't happen with non-Mac hardware is you can flash the bios on the router from a Mac. In my experience the very last thing you want to do is flash the bios.

Had a great experience recently, father's connection kept dropping out, and bios upgrade notes on Netcomm router said bios upgrade should fix problem. So, downloaded new bios, la la la, done it dozens of times before, always a worry but never a problem. Halfway through it stopped. Turned the router into a toaster. Felt like an idiot. Then I looked on the forums. Many problems with their routers dying when flashing the bios. Hardware problem. So I call them up. Oh, that's a superceded model, we won't do a thing. You could send it in and we'll install a new bios chip but it'll cost more than a new router, do you want me to connect you to sales. Told him where he could take the sales department.

So, with the flashing capability disabled on a Mac it should be fine.

How's that for a segue.

Cheers
simon

**incisor** · 22nd February 2007, 09:58 AM

it aint the modems/router it is the telstra automated setup software. once they are configured they are fine...

**Bushie** · 22nd February 2007, 04:57 PM

Talking of programmable calculators I used to have a Texas Ti-59 programmable (1000 step) and magnetic cards, from memory it cost me a few weeks wages back in the late 70's.

Martyn

**Pedro_The_Swift** · 22nd February 2007, 06:38 PM

Originally Posted by Numpty's Missus

Before PC's the only programmable thing we had a school was a calculator...it had those cardboard strips that you punched out the little holes on and "hey presto"...

we thought we were very clever

is that what that was!!

**shorty943** · 26th February 2007, 09:33 PM

Originally Posted by ladas

I had a look at it, ran the compatability patch, and it came up with loads of 'issues' - printer drivers, incompatability with McAffe ...........and loads more

Reminds me of windows ME

I won't touch it till SP2

Exactly what my IT mate has said for a year now. Vista is ME all over XP.

Played with a beta myself. Hungry as a wolf for graphic grunt, needs a handfull of Gig's harddrive space to install, and now you try to find a copy of XP for sale. Bill won't let it be sold anymore.

I am surprised by the stability of Windows XP Corporate, that I use. The occaisional application will crash, even seen the desktop crash and reboot a couple of times last year, but the system as a whole has been bullet proof.

I will stick to XP with SP as many as needed, probably never will use Vista.

The next gen PC's won't be X86 based anyway, so this will be the close to last, of Winslows as we have been so fond of. Get used to the eye candy though, it will be holographic, in 3d, in free air. Multi-stacked multi-core proccessors, that can call over the internet, for extra grunt from any cousins on line, with a big calculation. A german firm already has an Organic Light-emitting Diode monitor functional, when switched off, it is almost transparent and can be stuck to a window. When switched on it runs at a contrast ratio of about 1100\1, compared to about 700\1 for LCD, and can be view clearly from inside or outside. Ain't that a thought.
MS might build an OS capable of driving something like that. Sun Microsystems already have. It is a "Beowulf" clustering OS for the new IBM "cell" proccessor, and it drives a "proccessor farm" of 20,000 cell proccessors in Silicone Valley.
The cell proccessor is an 8 way core, not just 2, and there are 3 of them in the new PS3. Makes you wonder what that little box can do?

Shorty.

**p38arover** · 27th February 2007, 07:06 AM

Originally Posted by incisor

bigpond works fine with mac, bigponds support doesnt know how to support mac.

you dont bother with their modem, and it is fine, you just need the username and password and it is setup in under 5 mins..

So how does one connect to the their Next G wireless network without a modem (and without a Next G phone)?

Ron

**incisor** · 27th February 2007, 07:29 AM

next g is the exception... i have not had time to investigate a solution as yet.

the local telstra shop franchise usually send the hard cases down to me to sort if they cant come up with a solution, but i have not had a next g sent my way yet that was a real hard nut to crack...

my junior tech has done a heap of the pc setups they have had a setup problem with but i have not personally done any recently so am not really up to speed on what they are using yet...

but there is usually a way....

all other services work fine with mac by using alternative hardware in a few instances.

**fclandy** · 27th February 2007, 09:11 AM

There are currently only about 100 applications certified for Vista, and 24 of them are Microsoft - each component of MS Office listed separately, and each variant of the bundle too.
There are about 600 apps listed as 'compatible' ie they don't actually crash, but don't necessarily work any better with Vista than XP
The 'improved security' doesn't seem to be that hot in practice - the defaults are better, but you can sort that anyway. What it can do is stop things working the way you want.

I'll wait at least 6 months, and even then might not bother shelling out for the hardware needed - might just switch to Linux instead.

**shorty943** · 27th February 2007, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by fclandy

There are currently only about 100 applications certified for Vista, and 24 of them are Microsoft - each component of MS Office listed separately, and each variant of the bundle too.
There are about 600 apps listed as 'compatible' ie they don't actually crash, but don't necessarily work any better with Vista than XP
The 'improved security' doesn't seem to be that hot in practice - the defaults are better, but you can sort that anyway. What it can do is stop things working the way you want.

I'll wait at least 6 months, and even then might not bother shelling out for the hardware needed - might just switch to Linux instead.

Point 1 compatability?
That's the new "new improved", it wont do the old stuff any better, it only does the new stuff, just as poorly.

Point 2 security?
The very first thing MS Defender did was report my Gmail as a virus.

Point 3 yeah!

Learn to love penguins. Although, if some Linux-esque planning of a Windows install is used, you can enjoy a pretty stable and secure MS experience, I do.
OS and utilities on 1 small disk, apps on another, and all generated data is saved to a nice big SATA disk. I read this advice in a Widows manual, many years ago, and have set all my machines up with at least 2 hard disks ever since, and always more than 1 partition to disk. If my OS gets fragile, my data on a seperate disk is still safe. If apps get vicious, my OS is still stable. If my data disk gets corrupted, don't want to go there. Hmm, nother SATA and RAID them, you getcha. And Linux is installed to RAIDED disks in my big iron. As many PCI-IDE RAID cards as there are PCI slots = slot X 4 IDE drives, lots of play room for penguins. Happy dancing footed little penguins.

Shorty.

**Bytemrk** · 27th February 2007, 01:59 PM

Originally Posted by fclandy

There are currently only about 100 applications certified for Vista, and 24 of them are Microsoft - each component of MS Office listed separately, and each variant of the bundle too.
There are about 600 apps listed as 'compatible' ie they don't actually crash, but don't necessarily work any better with Vista than XP
The 'improved security' doesn't seem to be that hot in practice - the defaults are better, but you can sort that anyway. What it can do is stop things working the way you want.

I'll wait at least 6 months, and even then might not bother shelling out for the hardware needed - might just switch to Linux instead.

Don't let the compatability crap scare you off... that just lists what has formally been tested by MS on it.

Anyone that says Vista is another ME..either hasn't really looked at it - or doesn't know what they are talking about.

On the right machine it is at least as fast as a clean XP install and rock solid.

I have now been using it for work as my primary OS for 5 or 6 weeks. (I played with a number of previous beta's and RC's part time.)

I have installed dozens of programs - some well known - others a little more obscure..

The only application I can't install that I use regularly is the exchange administration console for exchange 5.5 - after all that was originally designed to install on Windows NT back in 1997.

( I won't whinge about a 10yo app having a compatibility issue!

)

You are right to think twice about spending the money.

I quite like using it ( if you have to use windows - which I do for work) but I get mine through work for nothing..

The other machines here at home will stay XP for some time I think - purely cause the improvement is not worth the cash to upgrade imho.

If you are upgrading a machine - do it then... otherwise.. why change?

Mark

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