Ford: Quality equal to Toyota

[F250]

Total thread hijack.

 

I didn't know Ford or Toyota built computers.

[NickF1011]

If I had a 19" monitor......

 

What really burns me up about THAT is how I could run 1280x1024 in Windows 98, but can't in XP.

 

Odd. I have at least 3 XP PC's running at 1280x1024. Sounds like you might have a ID10-T error.

[swenson88]

Total thread hijack.

 

I didn't know Ford or Toyota built computers.

 

 

Seriously. anyways, I'm glad to see that Ford's initial quality is improving, but the real proof will be with the long-term reliability studies. I want to see Ford equalling some of the Japanese competition in 3yr and 5yr studies, then I'll truly be a believer. And stop talking about computers, we all know Mac's are better anyways.

[NickF1011]

Seriously. anyways, I'm glad to see that Ford's initial quality is improving, but the real proof will be with the long-term reliability studies. I want to see Ford equalling some of the Japanese competition in 3yr and 5yr studies, then I'll truly be a believer. And stop talking about computers, we all know Mac's are better anyways.

 

I hope they don't match Mitsubishi or Nissan. That would be a step DOWN.

[RichardJensen]

Odd. I have at least 3 XP PC's running at 1280x1024. Sounds like you might have a ID10-T error.

Trust me. I CAN run 1280x1024. However, the fonts are less legible than they were in 98! I ran 1280x1024 in 98 all the time and had no problems reading what was on the screen--but the dialog boxes, etc., in XP are hopelessly fuzzy, and YES I have resized the fonts using the display settings panel--which (thank you Microsoft!) doesn't change the size of ALL the fonts on ALL the dialog boxes.

[NickF1011]

Trust me. I CAN run 1280x1024. However, the fonts are less legible than they were in 98! I ran 1280x1024 in 98 all the time and had no problems reading what was on the screen--but the dialog boxes, etc., in XP are hopelessly fuzzy, and YES I have resized the fonts using the display settings panel--which (thank you Microsoft!) doesn't change the size of ALL the fonts on ALL the dialog boxes.

 

Hmmm...I've found quite the opposite to be the case. With my limited exposure to Vista thus far, it looks like they've taken everything even further as far as font clarity.

 

Can't wait to hook my PC up to the 42" LCD in my room.

[Edstock]

Sounds like a video driver problem. The video card manufacturer needs an up-date. As well the display manufacturer should be able to provide a .inf file that tells Windows what the display will do.

[Noah Harbinger]

Charging $9.99 for about a minute's worth of data transfer, with a nearly non-existent cost of delivery is a RIP-OFF, and Steve Jobs can blame the RIAA all he wants, I'm not buying it.

 

You could probably give the artist 10x the royalties they get off a CD sale, charge a quarter of the price for a download, and still make a fortune.

 

An analyst recently estimated that Apple only makes a profit of about 10 cents off a song sale, which would translate to about a buck for an album.

 

The rest goes to the label (69 cents), operating expenses (5 cents), network fees (5 cents), and credit card transaction fees (10 cents).

 

Link

 

Make of that what you will; 10% seems like a fair profit margin to me.

 

(When they started the service, it was basically a loss-leader for iPods, just barely breaking even).

Edited April 27, 2007 by Noah Harbinger

[pcsario]

Trust me. I CAN run 1280x1024. However, the fonts are less legible than they were in 98! I ran 1280x1024 in 98 all the time and had no problems reading what was on the screen--but the dialog boxes, etc., in XP are hopelessly fuzzy, and YES I have resized the fonts using the display settings panel--which (thank you Microsoft!) doesn't change the size of ALL the fonts on ALL the dialog boxes.

Sound like an antialiasing issue.

 

Do you have ClearType on or something?

 

Try the other setting, or just turn it off.

[RichardJensen]

Sound like an antialiasing issue.

 

Do you have ClearType on or something?

 

Try the other setting, or just turn it off.

It was lousy with the Clear Type on and off. And that's ANOTHER beef. Why does Clear Type not make the type clearer?

[one2gamble]

If I had a 19" monitor......

 

What really burns me up about THAT is how I could run 1280x1024 in Windows 98, but can't in XP.

 

Maybe with Vista, which apparently has better font rendering, I can go back to 1280x1024, but it's just so typical of the low priority that Microsoft places on the actual USEFULNESS of a product. Like how in Windows Media Player & IE they've eliminated drop down menus. I mean that is a huge step BACKWARD. Do you know how long it took me to find file options in WMP? Used to be "Edit > Options" or "Tools > Options".... Not anymore! I mean MS came up with an interface that looks better and functions worse than its predecessors. This is the exact opposite of good design, and as a designer it grates on me no end (can you tell?)

 

there is something wrong with your settings Im running that res on both win2000 at work and at home on XP and 1400 on my laptop with vista

[01FOCI]

Two words regularly heard in the halls of the IT department "User Error"...

[NickF1011]

Two words regularly heard in the halls of the IT department "User Error"...

 

That's that ID10-T error I referred to earlier.

[Edstock]

Video Card?

 

If the type looks crappy, there's something wrong. The card manufacturer's drivers are not right, somewhere. It's not uncommon for manufacturers to release serial de-bugs and refinements to the driver software.

 

Also, the "Plug and Play" device ID that Windows uses may not have all the device capabilities listed. That's why the .inf file from the display manufacturer.

 

One nice thing about the advent of solid-state displays is the absence of flicker. Windows 60Hz default re-fresh sold a lot of Excedrin to those who didn't know that they could get rid of the flicker by selecting a higher re-fresh rate. Incidentally, that's why .inf files were so important, so that the video card would not bet set to a re-fresh rate the CRT monitor couldn't support, to keep from damaging input circuitry.

[RichardJensen]

That's that ID10-T error I referred to earlier.

Yeah. So I fiddled with it for about 5-10 minutes last night while watching TV (I can multi-task pointless activities!!)

 

No soap. Dialog box text seems to be permanently set to 8 pixel 'Tahoma' (Windows font rendering at that size is largely theoretical). Yes, I tried the 'advanced' options in display settings, no it didn't work. I got context menus more legible, drop-down menus more legible, etc., but most dialog boxes persisted in this sort of quasi-intelligible 8 pixel high (and Tahoma is NOT a good font) state.

 

So I gave it up and figured it shouldn't be this hard (something which my Mac has taught me), and went back to 1024x768.

[wvujeb]

Yeah. So I fiddled with it for about 5-10 minutes last night while watching TV (I can multi-task pointless activities!!)

 

No soap. Dialog box text seems to be permanently set to 8 pixel 'Tahoma' (Windows font rendering at that size is largely theoretical). Yes, I tried the 'advanced' options in display settings, no it didn't work. I got context menus more legible, drop-down menus more legible, etc., but most dialog boxes persisted in this sort of quasi-intelligible 8 pixel high (and Tahoma is NOT a good font) state.

 

So I gave it up and figured it shouldn't be this hard (something which my Mac has taught me), and went back to 1024x768.

 

Go into Display Properties -> Appearance -> Advanced and change the settings for Message Box. I found in like 5 sec.

 

It's not that difficult.

 

If Apple had the market share that MS has, they would have security problems too. Even though the security is tighter, problems would still arise. Why would someone take the time to find holes in Apple's security to affect only 5% of the market when they could attack 90% of the market share? It may be more difficult to do on a Mac but its not worth the time.

 

I love how MS adds user controls to Vista to fix the administrative user problem that everyone has complained about for some time and as soon as they do, everyone screams that its annoying, including Apple. Part of the problem before was that everyone always logged into Windows as an administrator. Log into Mac or Unix as root all the time and see if you have security problems. It all goes back to user error, like your complaints above. If you have 90% of the market, you have a lot more people who don't know what they are doing. This results in a lot of problems that can easily be avoided and a lot of bad PR.

 

Anyhow, let's get back on topic.

 

As was stated earlier about the conversation that was overheard with the people with no loyalty to their brand after good experiences. This goes back to what I have thought about many times while reading this board: You think way too highly of the average car buyer. They are going to buy the car that they think looks good, they can afford, meets their needs. They aren't going to look at the specs or the details (engine, transmission, etc.) or reviews or ratings. Most people don't research before they buy a car.

[Noah Harbinger]

If Apple had the market share that MS has, they would have security problems too. Even though the security is tighter, problems would still arise. Why would someone take the time to find holes in Apple's security to affect only 5% of the market when they could attack 90% of the market share? It may be more difficult to do on a Mac but its not worth the time.

 

Actually, if there were any legitimate security vulnerabilities on Macs, they would be low hanging fruit, because right now very few Mac users even bother with anti-virus software (lets face it, after a couple years of it only catching harmless Windows viruses that are emailed to you, you stop caring) or turning on the firewall -- and there's no such thing as anti-spyware software.

[RichardJensen]

Go into Display Properties -> Appearance -> Advanced and change the settings for Message Box. I found in like 5 sec.

 

It's not that difficult.

 

If Apple had the market share that MS has, they would have security problems too. Even though the security is tighter, problems would still arise.

You can also right click on the background, go to properties--I did tech support for Gateway for 2 years. I KNOW how to change settings in Windows, and EVEN AFTER setting message box to 10 pt Verdana, it continued to use 8pt Tahoma for some message boxes (including Display Settings!). Don't assume that I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

Furthermore, Apple's underpinnings are BSD. BSD is a variety of Unix. The basic Unix kernel has been running mission-critical servers for over three decades now.

 

The argument that security problems would be widespread if OS X was more widespread is fallacious. In fact, Unix has been far more widespread than Windows NT, and has been around longer and has proved itself in general to be secure to the extreme.

 

As far as everyone being an 'administrator' in XP is concerned, why bother with 'users' and 'permissions', when the files themselves aren't owned. Someone gets access to your system through a trojan horse, it doesn't matter what YOU'RE logged in as. They can do what they want with your system files anyway.

 

chown root

chmod 700

 

solves all your problems.

 

Unless your root password is 'password', or something equally naive.

 

buddy........

[Gnostic]

You can also right click on the background, go to properties--I did tech support for Gateway for 2 years. I KNOW how to change settings in Windows, and EVEN AFTER setting message box to 10 pt Verdana, it continued to use 8pt Tahoma for some message boxes (including Display Settings!). Don't assume that I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

Furthermore, Apple's underpinnings are BSD. BSD is a variety of Unix. The basic Unix kernel has been running mission-critical servers for over three decades now.

 

The argument that security problems would be widespread if OS X was more widespread is fallacious. In fact, Unix has been far more widespread than Windows NT, and has been around longer and has proved itself in general to be secure to the extreme.

 

As far as everyone being an 'administrator' in XP is concerned, why bother with 'users' and 'permissions', when the files themselves aren't owned. Someone gets access to your system through a trojan horse, it doesn't matter what YOU'RE logged in as. They can do what they want with your system files anyway.

 

chown root

chmod 700

 

solves all your problems.

 

Unless your root password is 'password', or something equally naive.

 

buddy........

 

 

 

It would be nice if a moderator would put this thread back on topic or shut it down.

[TomServo92]

It would be nice if a moderator would put this thread back on topic or shut it down.

 

Richard Jensen IS a moderator!

[RichardJensen]

That's straight out of Catch-22......

 

 

Actually, I don't mind threads that wander off topic, unless they are also degenerating into name-calling and bear-baiting.

[RichardJensen]

{on topic, somewhat--seeing that the ORIGINAL topic was Ford's initial quality}

 

I do agree with wvujeb that people on this board think that the average car buyer invests more time and mental effort into his car purchase than he/she actually does.