Idiots at M$ (xboxDead)

[jiaco]

So I picked up an xbox (the old kind) today at a used junk store for 8 bucks. I needed something to put on top of a bunch of papers I have that keep blowing away so it serves its purpose fine, but, as a curious person, I thought I would check out its intended function before putting it to use.

So I let it dhcp with my router and it goes through some 4 step process where 1,2+3 pass and step 4 fails (unable to connect to xbox live). The "help" message details unplugging and rebooting things but thats it. So I enter it in static, open a bunch of ports I find on the net for xboxlive and, yes I feel stupid, I actually unplug, reboot, and replug everything. Still no dice on step 4.

Now, m$ is quite funny as by releasing the "xbox 360" they completely killed the google-ability of the term xbox, but finally I found info that m$ killed xboxlive for the original xbox in april 2010.

You would think that they could actually relay THAT information to the end user as opposed to the "reboot the modem" message. Like wtf, it will not work no matter what you do...so reboot.

[eisprinzessin]

This sounds so typical ...
On February 5, 2010, Marc Whitten posted on gamerscoreblog that Xbox Live support for the original Xbox games would be discontinued as of April 15, 2010. Services were discontinued on schedule, but a group of 20 gamers continued to play for almost a month afterwards by simply leaving their consoles on connected to Halo 2. APACHE N4SIR was the final user to play on the original Xbox's Live Service and was finally disconnected on May 11, 2010 at 01:58 EDT (UTC-4).
Anyway, here is the official mumbo-jumbo: An Open Letter from Xbox LIVE General Manager Marc Whitten (http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Press/archive/2010/0205-whittenletter)

[SHODANFreeman]

And this is the reason I stopped buying games for Xbox 360 and refuse to buy their next console, whenever that may be. They have proven continually that they just do not care about me.

[eisprinzessin]

But they do! :rolleyes:
We view you as a partner in this process.

[Malpheas]

Well I love rhetoric as much as the next person. Especially inclusive rhetoric.

[gdansk]

Just search for "Xbox -360" and it works fine, as Google will exclude any page containing 360... :)

PS: I only like portable consoles. But my Android phone is slowly usurping that as well.

[jiaco]

Just search for "Xbox -360" and it works fine, as Google will exclude any page containing 360... :)


I knew that, in the back of my mind. Somehow it totally eluded me yesterday. Thanks!

[yerkyerk]

I thought the proper search term was
"Xbox"-"360"
?

[SHODANFreeman]

I thought the proper search term was
"Xbox"-"360"
?

Xbox -360 is sufficient.

[gdansk]

I thought the proper search term was
"Xbox"-"360"
?

The quotes were to indicate the literal search query. Passed to Google as such: http://www.google.com/search?q=xbox+-360 The results still are not very good...

[hooby]

Heh, I have another funny story for you.

Back in the days when the internet still was young, there was only one browser: Netscape, which was born from Mosaic, which in turn was like the inventor of the first versions of HTML. Microsoft did not believe that the Internet would prevail and ignored it.

As it became apparent that the internet would become big, the Netscape browser was already at version 5. Within one single year Microsoft rushed out 4 versions of Internet Explorer, trying desperately to gain market share and thereby starting the browser wars, but the technical inferiority of their rushed products was not able to compete with Netscape - at first. Until version 5 which was undeletably chained to Windows - causing a flood of law suits that cost Microsoft millions.

During the browser wars both parties tried to out-innovate each other by introducing new technology, new features and new possibilities for web-developers to make the web more dynamic and more exciting. Especially one invention of Netscape - called "Javascript" - gained enourmous amounts of popularity. Forced to adopt Javascript as a standard Microsoft tried desperately to come up with something bigger, better and more exciting than that. They called it ActiveX - and claimed it would change the web forever. Of course ActiveX had a very strict licence and no other browser would be allowed to support it ever.

But ActiveX - while it had an amazing set of features - was a security desaster. Combined with IE's inclusion into the operating system (which made it impossible to hide files or deny access from IE) it was the mother of all security holes and made Windows extremely vulnerable to viruses and attacks from crackers. Microsoft denied that fact, claimed it's new IE6 was the safest browser ever, and finally won the first browser war. Well, Netscape lost it rather, since they made some bad decisions, and released some versions of their browser that were extremely slow and buggy too.

By the time IE7 was released, Microsoft had finally noticed that some of the core concepts of ActiveX were flawed in a way that made it impossible to make it really secure and they abandoned the project.
IE7 featured a warning message that was shown whenever a website used any ActiveX components - requiring the user to confirm the use of ActiveX. The text of this warning message stated that the website was trying to access personal data of the user in an _insecure_ way, and that this most likely was a hack attempt, und should only be allowed if the page was fully trusted. These backstabbing bastards laid the blame onto the webpages which actually used the technology they themselves had introduced to be the holy grail of webdevelopment.

After that the topic ActiveX got very silent, and Microsoft evaded it completely.

And now, now IE9 is here, and it boasts terrifying new features! It's most loudly marketed new security feature is:

Guess!


-> Better ActiveX protection!

And the text describing this new feature imply that IE is safer than other browser because of that, and that it is more safe to use IE with it's advanced ActiveX protection instead of one that does not protect it's users from ActiveX!

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :eek:


Does that mean that Microsoft themselves believes that only idiots are using their products? Or what am I supposed to make of this?

[yerkyerk]

Does that mean that Microsoft themselves believes that only idiots are using their products? Or what am I supposed to make of this?
It probably means that less than 1% of web users knows even a small part of that entire history - or even what the specifics of ActiveX are.
Interesting story though.

Also, who really believes anything a company says when they're boasting about their own products?

[Harlequin]

Well there we have it again. Interesting story.

We learn: if Microsoft can't steal it from Macintosh/Apple (or any other company) it will most likely be broken. If they steal something from Apple (or any other company) it will still be a crappy rip-off that is inferior to the original. :)

[jamesL]

..
Interesting story though.

and totally incorrect

MS has never abandoned ActiveX or evaded its discussion

ADO (ActiveX Data Objects) are used by windows programmers everywhere and have been for years. Its how you connect excel to Oracle and how you connect visual basic programs to MySQL

your windows computer right now is filled with 100s of activeX components and dlls: word, excel, power point, adobe

granted, trying to have proprietary objects on the web was a bad move, a dumb move, but ActiveX on the desktop is a HUGE timesaver

[jiaco]

My biggest problem with IE and with WP7 (and the upcoming Nokia move) is that people who have to use windows for any reason (games, work, whatever) are paying for these people (m$ workforce) to flounder about in a domain that they have no business working in. Due to the windows quasi-stranglehold on OS/office market, m$ can overcharge and then waste their money to try to compete with viable products and then, when they continually fail, they just bail on the whole scene (zune).

Loving my xbox1s right now. ZERO profit for m$ and there are lots of cool things they can do. Learning a lot with this little box.

[hooby]

and totally incorrect

MS has never abandoned ActiveX or evaded its discussion

I meant that "ActiveX will redefine the internet" project.
They did push ActiveX on the web as hard as they could, and now they seem to try to kill/suppress ActiveX on the web as hard as they can. That's what I called "dropping it".

We can settle on a partially incorrect - if that "partial" is confined to the ActiveX being dropped part of the story. But I really fail to understand how this would make the story totally incorrect.

Totally does mean completely? Or do my skills in my second language fail me?

[jiaco]

Since you asked:


By the time IE7 was released, Microsoft had finally noticed that some of the core concepts of ActiveX were flawed in a way that made it impossible to make it really secure and they abandoned the project.
...
And now, now IE9 is here, and it boasts terrifying new features! It's most loudly marketed new security feature is: -> Better ActiveX protection!


Read it yourself, it is quite contradictory... abandoned and then improved? Which is it?

[hooby]

Since you asked:
Read it yourself, it is quite contradictory... abandoned and then improved? Which is it?

IE boasts better protection of the user/surfer FROM ActiveX (which equals hack attack according to them).

They abandoned their idea of pushing ActiveX onto the web, and improved their browsers ability to block and disable ActiveX on the web.

Where do you see a contradiction in that?



They cannot completely remove ActiveX support from the browser, since they need it for backward compatibility. In Asia - where IE dominates the browser market - many web applications, especially online banking and webshops, rely heavily on ActiveX components.

The only thing they can do to get rid of it, is trying to stop people from using it. (Once usage drops below a certain margin, they can completely remove it from the browser).
So they labeled any use of ActiveX as possible hack attempt and label webpages using it as possible fraud sites.*
They made IE allow ActiveX only on "trusted sites" and completely disabled ActiveX by default.

And they claim IE is a better browser now since it does everything to protect you from ActiveX and ActiveX-using websites.


*) In fact you didn't even need to use ActiveX to be labeled a hacker by IE. Back when IE7 first came out, in it's first versions, it was possible to trigger that "This is website is trying to hack you" message, just by using certain CSS filter properties, like the AlphaImageLoader for example.

[Darkenmal]

just switch broswers.. problem solved.

[hooby]

just switch broswers.. problem solved.

Funny thing to tell a web-developer who works on Ubuntu... ;)