top 10 tech flops of this decade

trekkie · **Posted:** December 26th, 2009, 6:18 pm

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/ar ... -flops-of-the-decade

i must say though, #6 and #10 were no surprise for me

Adbot · **Posted:** December 26th, 2009, 6:18 pm

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

I don't believe I've heard of 7/10 of those, so flops they are.

Glad to see HD-DVD on there.. So recent, yet so true.

ryan1 · **Posted:** December 27th, 2009, 12:59 am

I seriously doubt that there wasn't a better candidate for the last spot than Vista. It's not that bad! People just overreacted to change after having XP for 6-7 years.

As for the rest, I had heard of a few, especially the $2,000 dog.

Marking22 · **Posted:** December 27th, 2009, 1:26 am

yes the n-gage
lol my friend had one of those earlier in the year

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

Pfkninenines wrote:

I don't believe I've heard of 7/10 of those, so flops they are.

Glad to see HD-DVD on there.. So recent, yet so true.

That's why they are flops. People usually never hear about or think about flops.

I would say I didn't recognize about the same number as you, but I don't pay that much attention to tech stuff like this.

ryan1 wrote:

I seriously doubt that there wasn't a better candidate for the last spot than Vista. It's not that bad! People just overreacted to change after having XP for 6-7 years.

As for the rest, I had heard of a few, especially the $2,000 dog.

I agree on Vista. It isn't as bad as people made it out to be. Sure it's not perfect, but you have to fail before you can succeed. Microsoft did come up with some service packs to fix up a lot of the stuff and now, my Vista works pretty well for the most part. I am changing to Windows 7 Professional, but that's only for a few reasons.

1. It is 64-bit and my Vista was only 32-bit when I can support the former.
2. It was only $44 with a deal for college students (that includes the CDs).
3. Windows 7 is for sure better than Vista.
4. I will probably keep this computer and software all the way through college (3-4 years)

So, for what it's worth, Vista isn't bad. It started off pretty shaky, but I'd say it runs pretty well now. But not that Windows 7 is out, you may as well get it.

crwire · **Posted:** December 29th, 2009, 5:10 am

Duke Juker wrote:

Pfkninenines wrote:

I don't believe I've heard of 7/10 of those, so flops they are.

Glad to see HD-DVD on there.. So recent, yet so true.

That's why they are flops. People usually never hear about or think about flops.

I would say I didn't recognize about the same number as you, but I don't pay that much attention to tech stuff like this.

ryan1 wrote:

I seriously doubt that there wasn't a better candidate for the last spot than Vista. It's not that bad! People just overreacted to change after having XP for 6-7 years.

As for the rest, I had heard of a few, especially the $2,000 dog.

I agree on Vista. It isn't as bad as people made it out to be. Sure it's not perfect, but you have to fail before you can succeed. Microsoft did come up with some service packs to fix up a lot of the stuff and now, my Vista works pretty well for the most part. I am changing to Windows 7 Professional, but that's only for a few reasons.

1. It is 64-bit and my Vista was only 32-bit when I can support the former.
2. It was only $44 with a deal for college students (that includes the CDs).
3. Windows 7 is for sure better than Vista.
4. I will probably keep this computer and software all the way through college (3-4 years)

So, for what it's worth, Vista isn't bad. It started off pretty shaky, but I'd say it runs pretty well now. But not that Windows 7 is out, you may as well get it.

I'd say for reason 3 you should replace it with windows 7 being more lightweight, runs faster, doesn't drain your computer of valuable computing power and has nice customization options. Also be weary as some applications don't work on 64-bit =.=

Adbot · **Posted:** December 29th, 2009, 5:10 am

Aquw VettelS 776 · **Posted:** December 30th, 2009, 5:37 am

I'll agree with all of them, EXCEPT Windows Vista.

If there's one thing that really irritates me is when people lodge ridiculous arguments against Vista, or Windows in general. Take their first point, "Windows had never managed a safe, secure computing environment". There's a reason why there are thousands of Windows viruses and only a handful of Mac viruses out there- it's because of a tiny fraction of computers are Macs. Windows' security issues have come from their own success- if people didn't use Windows PCs, what would be the point in viruses for them?

And you know what, I've used a combination of XP, Vista and 7 for the past 6 years now, and I've never suffered a major virus problem. Why? Because I'm sensible on the Internet- not paranoid- I just use common sense. I really don't have time for people who use, for example, Limewire, and then complain when they get viruses. Or the people who refuse to run a firewall or use even just basic anti-virus software. It's free- there's no excuse!

On to their second point-"was criticized for being bloated, buggy, and unfriendly to old hardware". Vista was a massive leap from XP- that's why it took them so many years to create. But people seem to confuse "feature-rich" with "bloated". Vista wasn't bloated- either you're using it wrong, or your computer isn't up to the job. Which brings me on to their next complaint- the issue of backward compatibility...

When Windows 7 came out I upgraded to the RC version (and then the full version) immediately from Vista. I upgraded because my computer would allow me to. However, when Vista came out, when I was running XP, there was no way in hell I'd even attempt to upgrade. XP back then was running on an old, slow system and simple would be unable to run Vista, so I didn't try. You can not expect a 4 year old XP machine to be able to run Vista, and when people try and find it's c**p, don't start claiming it's "unfriendly to older PCs".

As for claims that it's buggy, well I can only say that I never once found a "bug" in Vista. In the vast majority of cases when people claim Vista has a bug is "it doesn't work in quite the way I'd expect". It was a brand new and totally different operating system- get over it, and if you don't like it, go back to XP.

"Businesses had more choice and avoided Vista". Businesses are famously tight- their motto is 99.9% of cases is, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". And I'd probably agree with them in a lot of cases- a business with a few hundred PCs, or even 20 PCs is not going to want to spend out on upgrading all of them, just to give their employees a few "home comforts". The other obstacle for not upgrading is of course outdated software. Business may often use specialised software programs that will only run on XP, and upgrading to Vista would mean finding different programs to take their place.

Using the argument that "businesses didn't upgrade, so that proves Vista is rubbish" is totally and utterly irrelevant. Businesses didn't upgrade because of practical and financial issues, and whether right or wrong, you simply can't compare business practices to consumer trends.

trekkie · **Posted:** December 30th, 2009, 12:16 pm

and it was also vista which introduced UAV, the most pointless warning system in the world

Evelyn · **Posted:** January 1st, 2010, 8:44 pm

trekkie wrote:

and it was also vista which introduced UAV, the most pointless warning system in the world

UAC was pretty useless, it DOES prevent "user error, problem exists between chair and keyboard", but it's one more annoying thing to get past when configuring and not to mention the unnecessary screen dimming.

ChrisT · **Posted:** January 1st, 2010, 11:32 pm

what is this UAV or UAC? looked them up and found junk that didnt pertain to computers at all

King Kulla · **Posted:** January 2nd, 2010, 1:36 am

ChrisT wrote:

what is this UAV or UAC? looked them up and found junk that didnt pertain to computers at all

UAC is User Account Control - That annoying thing that pops up saying "Are you sure you trust this program" when you click to open it.

I assume Trekkie meant to say UAC, not UAV.

Alex_SE · **Posted:** January 2nd, 2010, 9:33 am

crwire wrote:

Also be weary as some applications don't work on 64-bit =.=

Not at all. I've been using 64-bit architecture for 2 years and I'm yet to find this.
It doesn't run 16-bit applications, but who runs that nowadays any ways?
Also if something does go wrong, you can always use a virtual machine with an older windows.

I can assure you 64-bit is much more stable than 32-bit. It already was on Windows XP 64-bit.

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

crwire wrote:

I'd say for reason 3 you should replace it with windows 7 being more lightweight, runs faster, doesn't drain your computer of valuable computing power and has nice customization options. Also be weary as some applications don't work on 64-bit =.=

Well, I'm getting professional and supposedly I hear professional allows you to run programs in XP mode. I had heard there may be problems with a 64-bit OS trying to run older applications, but I'll probably have to wait and see what those applications are first (if there are any).

Alex_SE · **Posted:** January 2nd, 2010, 2:02 pm

Duke Juker wrote:

Well, I'm getting professional and supposedly I hear professional allows you to run programs in XP mode. I had heard there may be problems with a 64-bit OS trying to run older applications, but I'll probably have to wait and see what those applications are first (if there are any).

Windows XP mode is completely useless. All it does is create a small virtual environment using XP settings. Works like a virtual machine, almost, that you could get for free. I wouldn't waste money on professional just for that.

As for the problems with 64-bit architecture, read my post above. There's no such thing.
Chances you find a problem are 1%.

crwire · **Posted:** January 3rd, 2010, 9:45 am

Alex_SE wrote:

crwire wrote:

Also be weary as some applications don't work on 64-bit =.=

Not at all. I've been using 64-bit architecture for 2 years and I'm yet to find this.
It doesn't run 16-bit applications, but who runs that nowadays any ways?
Also if something does go wrong, you can always use a virtual machine with an older windows.

I can assure you 64-bit is much more stable than 32-bit. It already was on Windows XP 64-bit.

I did only say SOME APPLICATIONS >.>! and I've a friend who's had that 1% of problems occurring. Out of two people I know using 64-bit. Tells you something doesn't it.

As for Vista, it hid EVERY SINGLE **** OPTION somewhere else and as had been said, it says "ARR YEW SHURRR?!" to everything you try to do to it. Other than that and the 1 GB of RAM needed just to run the OS by itself, it was perfect.