[CS-FSLUG] Longhorn Screenshots

[Bradly J. McConnell]

Don Parris wrote:

>On 4/29/05, Bradly J. McConnell <bradly.mcconnell at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Don Parris wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Some folks apparently have put some screenshots of Longhorn.
>>>Apparently, there will be a strong aftermarket for dressing up your
>>>Windows.  Several people have commented that this is just bone ugly.
>>>
>>>http://www.activewin.com/screenshots/longhorn/
>>>
>>>Don
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>Actually, those are pretty much pictures of the default desktop.  There
>>are more floating around that show the translucent window effect and
>>rotations.
>>
>>Brad
>>
>>
>>    
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>I don't know about rotations.  The article suggests that much of
>what's available so far is aimed at developers - not end users. 
>Still, you'd think they would turn on the glitz a little bit for the
>developers.
>
>Don
>  
>
Those pictures that were shown on the page are actually pretty old - 
that is from the original development release that came out a little 
over a year ago.  I went to a conference earlier this week, and they had 
another pre-release, what should be the beta available to trainers, 
testers, and partners about mid-May.  The live demo had the 
transparancy, rotation (similar to Sun's Looking Glass), and a few other 
things.  On the sidebar you can preview video, or run a slide show and 
control media player from the side (just above the clock).  Although I 
personally do not aprove of the business practices, for as long as I'm 
in the Navy, I'll have to keep up with what the government elects for us 
to use, so I've been following the development of Longhorn, and been 
looking at Server 2K3 from an objective viewpoint.  There is a lot there 
that was not capable within 2K, and most of it is built in (incredible 
mobile support).

Trying to be objective, and in a relatively safe environment (isolated 
from the net, on the classified side) 2K3 server does meet the need of 
the Navy in a simpler fashion than a linux distro would.  There are some 
things the community effort behind Linux is just not capable of doing 
without very deep pockets, and with the recent spat about kernel 
development, it looks like we have again taken a few steps backwards.

Microsoft is firmly rooted in the Navy, and I don't see that changing 
for a long time to come - recently there has been a movement to replace 
a good bit of legacy UNIX systems with windows, but in the submarine 
community, they are using Redhat, so it's hard to really tell.  So, on a 
personal basis, I'll run Linux as much as possible, and advocate it as 
much as possible, but I still have need of the Microsoft side of 
things.  Ok, sorry for the rambling :)

Brad