I don’t like that little round thing where the hourglass ought to be on the mouse pointer. It’s like QuickTime.
Microsoft has a long history of stealing User Interface elements from Apple.
Who in turn steals UI elements from Xerox and others.
I am using Vista, the 64-bit version, almost exclusively now on my home PC.
It’s very stable and does crash much less often than XP.
That said, I still dual-boot XP.
I have run test after test, and every program and every task runs noticeably faster on XP than on Vista on the same hardware, with the one exception that Vista boots faster than XP.
–James
The point is to convey motion, so you know something is happening. Why can’t I have a hula dancer?
The hourglass conveys motion. Now what’s the simplest way of setting it to use the hourglasses, aside from assigning individual graphics?
FUCK THAT VISTA SHIT!!! I am only using it because it came with my computer and I don’t know how to change it. It’s a complete pain in the ass!!! Now that I finally learned all the cool functions of Word, everything changed! And my very cool homerecording hardware doesn’t work with it either. IT’S NOTHING BUT A HUGE LOAD OF CRAP! 
Have they done this anytime since the early Eighties? Just curious.
BSD.
Specifically, their entire OS is derived from FreeBSD.
–James
I’ve been using Vista since March. It’s taken awhile to get used to things but it’s not so bad. The only complaints are the indexing for the new search feature takes a lot of HD space and some games have a hard time running. Otherwise it works great for recording music and doing artwork.
“Steal” was probably a bad word. In Apple’s case, they usually acquire
through takeovers. OS X is essentially Nextstep, which was bought in the
90’s. Though, a lot of the elements I’ve seen in OS X, such as scrolling
through open windows, I saw as CompSci students’ design projects in the
90’s. I wonder if they licensed those ideas or just used them?
According to this page, you can get the hourglass back by going to:
Start->Control Panel->Mouse->Pointers then selecting “Windows default”.
I’ll have to try it when I get home before I can confirm that.
BSD is a UI element? I wasn’t aware.
Yeah, I had the same reaction.
The UI elements are from NextStep’s window manager.
NextStep itself is built on BSD.
Look at the BSD license. It is almost impossible to “steal”.
I agree that “steal” was probably a poor choice of words on my part.
I mean, how many ways are there to convey certain concepts (like waiting)
in a user interface?
You were referring to Apple’s habit of acquiring and exploiting technology which they themselves did not develop.
I just pointed out that the entire code base of their operating system was not developed by Apple.
To me, this seems rather significant.
–James
And “entire” OS? Parts of Darwin are based on FreeBSD.
You don’t say in what way significant. Significant because no one else acquires technology? Significant because the portion of acquired vs. developed technology is higher or lower than for other companies? Significant because, unlike other tech companies, Apple “exploits” technology they acquire, whereas other companies perhaps just use tech they acquire? Significant because it shows that Apple is evil? I just don’t follow.
This whole thing that I have started is an interesting attitude, I think. It’s
similar to the times that Weekenders often jumps the gun in a discussion
about the election because he’s thinks people will not be willing call
Obama on the same stuff that McCain does. (I pick on Weeks, but many
people do this on either side of the discussion.)
In the same way, people often cite Microsoft for behavior that many
companies indulge in, including Apple, so I often find myself qualifying my
Microsoft bashing with a note that Apple does the same thing, lest someone
believe that Apple is free of such shenanigans.
But Bloomie is right, it’s really pretty redundant to point this stuff out. It’s
par for the course in the industry. I’d rather have someone exploit the tech
they acquire than buy a company just to discontinue a cool software line
so there’s no competition for the buying company’s crappy software (I’m
looking at you, Cadence).
Apple was able to buy (and subsequently exploit) NeXT because Jobs made
some unfortunate pricing decisions, so NeXT’s excellent software development
was hampered by poor sales (the price was way too high), and the company
was sold at a reasonable price. This probably saved both the NextStep OS
and Apple from dying.
stealing is the sincerest form of flattery 