ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Business Related Discussion Vista and Quick Books

Done

You don't want Vista on anything. It's built completely around Digital Rights Management (DRM) and that's why nothing old will run under it. DRM is a total sellout by Microsoft to the movie industry and is a big invasion of our privacy.

See the story here: http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit042.html

-Hal

I've found computer happiness by having a PC with basic business and no internet connection (and no security software). It's a stand-alone and runs great.

Dave

I'm evolving towards multiple platforms that don't network to each other.

Microsoft's code and DRM philosophy guarantee that any linking will spread infections.

I use one -- assumed to be fully compromised machine -- for the internet. No real business is done on it.

I have another that stands isolated at the office with the company accounts and private business matters. It is never connected to anything. I never upgrade it with Microsoft anythings.

I am getting a third platform to handle purely on site matters: extras, purchase orders, contracts. It will not be configured to handle any Hollywood output. I'll likely pull the CD-ROM drive and cripple its ability to get on the internet. A beat up older machine is where I'm headed.

Putting all of your systems on one machine is now too risky.

Certainly, the industry has made purchase so cheap that multiple machines are affordable.

You can just buy one machine and run multiple operating systems on it. And you can isolate one or both from the internet if you so desire, and both are isolated from each other, to the extent that you must boot up from scratch to run either system. That would be using an Apple with the Intel chip set, and having Boot Camp installed onto it. Boot Camp allows starting up in either a windows enviroment or starting up in the mac os enviroment. There is no cross over, as you would get using Parallels or some other type of emulator. Boot camp is a full startup into either system, with no emulation at all, so full speed in either system is achieved. No chance of any spread of infection or peeking into what is on each system from the other one.

For me Vista is in the far off future. My business is based on several programs that have already warned me that they are not vista compatible, Lutron programming software, proposal/business management software, light show programming software, I'm sure the list goes on. And for those of you who are running vista and emulating XP, don't tell the tech support staff when you call or they will tell you that the OS is not supported.

And as for DRM, don't get me started. It'll be years before the consumer benefits from DRM, while the industry rakes it in. Did you know it is against the law for a place of business to use a TV greater than 55” to display protected content? [Protected content is licensed content, ie “The Big Game” the game where you will find a super bowl to play in…] And they can be fined for having more than the allowed by law speaker count? [max speakers…4!] Do any of you play music on hold for your calling customers; hope you’re paying your licensing and royalties…

There was a coffee shop in downtown New Haven that was fined for having live music and had to pay ASCAP, they appealed because all the bands that played there were local all original acts…I’m gonna stop now but you get my point.