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I like to hang out at Area 15. Less security and you glimpse an occasional dyslexic alien.

The alien writing system is Right to Left, that is why they get confused:
http://dotancohen.com/howto/rt...

This is also why ancient writing systems such as Hebrew are Right to Left, they learned it from the aliens (who built the pyramids).

The last time that I tried to contact Intuit about Quicken on Linux was a mess:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/quicken_on_linux.html

I certainly hope that they handle their code better than they handle their customers.

So you filled out a crappy web form that makes you log in and got a reply within 2 hours from a large corporation with the correct answer without any lies or bullshit? That seems like perfectly acceptable customer service. That they did not give you the answer you wanted is inconsequential to the quality of customer service. Granted I don't believe for a second they actually ever intend to make a Linux version of their software, but they came right right out and admitted they have no plans.

The last time that I tried to contact Intuit about Quicken on Linux was a mess:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/quicken_on_linux.html

I certainly hope that they handle their code better than they handle their customers.

Of course, now we can expect to hear from all the naysayers who will predictably continue to declare LibreOffice a perpetual failure because they have some weird edge case of an MS Office document that didn't import perfectly...

And if you do have such a document, then please get in contact with me so that we can file a bug and get it fixed:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/message.php

The .docx support is good enough that I am writing a book in collaboration with MS Office users, including change tracking and comments, and they don't know that I'm using LibreOffice 3.4. If you find any bugs in .docx compatibility, you can contact me here and we will file bugs:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/message.php

Thanks.

Great, a major LO upgrade. That means I download it, install it, and see how many minutes it takes me before I hit a large enough Office compatibility snag that makes me delete it and swear off giving it another shot.

Instead of swearing it off, get in touch with me and we will file bugs. Sure, it might take a year or three until they are fixed, but most of them _do_ get fixed in LibreOffice. I would say that the last year in LO has closed more of my bugs than the past five years of OpenOffice.org, including one very critical bug that has been open for almost _ten_years_:
https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=5556

Fixed in LO six months after filing:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37978

You can contact me here, please have a file that demonstrates the issue handy or clear reproduction instructions:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/message.php

Thanks.

The apps were all massively crippled. Pocket Office was inferior to Wordpad. Browsers were all crap, crippled compared to desktop versions, and nobody had figured out how to render full sized web pages on a 240x320 screen.

I go into detail about that here:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/dell_axim.php

I must note that every complaint that I had about that Windows Mobile device is about three times more valid for todays tablets. One step forward, four steps back.

It is not difficult to "rememberize" 10-key layout versus reverse 10-key. This "feat" is well within the capabilities of subhumans who live in flyover territory, much less elite geeks who can get their questions approved on slashdot.org. I had no problem with it myself, back when I worked for a phone company and had to switch back and forth between the IBM-PC 10-key pad and the telephone reverse 10-key. The mouthbreathers I worked with picked it up after a few weeks.

Actually, now that I think about it, what's the big deal? Any uber-geek should be able to adjust to these circumstances quite quickly. And honestly: times aren't like they were years ago when I had to dial 50 phone numbers per day, and enter 50 results into the computer. Who the hell, in this day and age, sits down next to a "push-button" landline telephone and keys in the numbers for his friends? We all use mobile phones these days, it's all in the phone book. In the last...five, ten years? I've had to use my 31337 ten-key skillz exactly...zero times. When you meet a new person, you just punch in their number once: either by soft keyboard (iPhone) or by 1234567890 above qwertyuiop (one of those old-fashioned "blackberry" phones).

Oh, I think I see. On the submitter's web page, we can see the following bit of sublime insight:

Why are the lights in microwave ovens inconsistent with the lights in refrigerators? The light in the refrigerator is on when the door is open, and supposedly off when the door is shut. The light in the microwave is on when the door is shut, and off when the door is open.

Yeah, he's an idiot.

I'm also not using the new KDEPIM, though I really should get in there and file bugs already. Make sure to file them or let me know if you do find any:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/message.php

Enjoy!

> I can't speak for the others, but even when it's setup to mimic KDE 3.5.x, KDE 4.x still feels wrong. It's difficult
> to explain but if it's a problem for you, you know what I mean.

You don't mention an issue that can be fixed. At the exact moment that you feel something is wrong, try to identify what it is. If you do, then post back here or reach me from this form:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/message.php

No, a Thunderstang!

Intuit goes out of their way to make things difficult, here is my experience asking about Quicken for Linux:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/quicken_on_linux.html

After that experience, I'm actually not so sure that I do want to use their software.

Learn geography. Ireland in not in the UK, Northern Ireland is, but the Republic of Ireland isn't.

There is no political entity called the Republic of Ireland. The phrase "the Republic of Ireland" is the official description of the political entity called "Ireland" which makes up 80% of the island called "Ireland"

http://dotancohen.com/eng/britain_england_united_kingdom.html

I file bugs on KDE and have been concentrating on KDE 3 -> KDE 4 issues lately. Please tell me what is preventing you from upgrading to KDE 4, or what is keeping you on KDE 3, and we will file the bugs and get it worked out. Thanks!

You can either reply here, email me at gmail with the same username as here, or use this form:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/message.php

For anyone who seriously uses Excel, there is no comparison. I just gave Calc a serious try, and I gave up after a week.

Please, please document your findings and either file bugs and feature requests at the OOo issue tracker, or contact me and let me help you file the issues. You can email me (my gmail username is the same as my slashdot username), phone me (+972-54-788-1700), or use this contact form:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/message.php

Thanks!

its missing stability. its missing polish. granted there are parts that are very nice and very polished but the whole is not.

Could you be more specific? I would like to file bugs and feature requests on the problems. I don't know about polish, but KDE 4.2.3 is very stable (KDE 4.2.0 less so).

Id would say that gnome lacks the potential of kde4 but it has much more of that completeness, that cohesive environment as of right now.

I really prefered kde3.x over gnome. The switch the kde4 was poorly timed I think. Too many distros switched way before it was ready. I understand that you need to get the code out there to be tested but there was so much that obvoiusly needed/needs cleaned up before it is production ready that it was just a release of some early beta with a tag on it that said it was final.

too me, right now, production linux is one of the 3 (ubuntu, rh/fed/cent, suse) with gnome.

dont get me wrong, I would love to see kde4.x come back with a vengence. I have no hard feelings for the kde team, i just dont see kde4 as anywhere near ready for a production environment.

If you'd like help filing bugs and feature requests, you can contact me here:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/message.php

Or email me. My gmail username is the same as my /. username. Thanks.

What is the difference between Britain, England, and the United Kingdom?

Typo in summary? How about programo in TFA? To watch the ad you need to install Silverlight, which pretty much makes you already a Windows customer now doesn't it?

I saw this on /. once, seems appropriate right about now:
The difference between Silverlight and Moonlight

I guess you missed the article a month ago on Auto-Tune software, or you'd have already had an idea why most music today is bland shit.

That is because the money is not in the music, it is in the music video, accessories, and other bullshit. Just find some beautiful woman to sync to a click track, the alter her voice to actually _sound_good_ and you've got a winner, with no accusations of lip syncing or whatnot.

My Thunderstang is
First
On
Race
Day

Assuming that Moonlight is the Death Star...

It's worse. There is a reason that it's called Moonlight!

I spent 7 years in the Infantry, and 6 in the Artillery. I've been to Iraq. I've heard lots of pouges, REMFs, newbs, and PONTIs talk bullshit over the years. I've heard lots of PAC clerks talking about cutting throats, etc.

You've obviously never SEEN a body armor plate.

Obviously, compared to your amazing service I'm just some idiot who's never even SEEN a body armor plate. I bow to your excellence, and apologize for stepping in your domain. I've proven that I don't know what I'm talking about. Oh, by the way, here's a pic of me _in_ ceramic body armour vest:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/pictures/photo/dotan_his_way_work_equipment.html
I wonder where I dreamed _that_ up. Oh yeah, Jenin, how could I forget?!?

In any case, hot shot, I would expect a bit more disciple and questions than "your equipment is different than mine! lier!" from A) someone with 7 years of infantry behind him and B) a slashdot poster. Unless you are one of those jerks in American movies who likes to make himself feel all big and tough because he thinks that he can attack others. Then again, from what I've heard about your military, maybe that is just the type of soldier that they breed.

(why do I feel a pissing contest about to start? better grab me a beer)

Isn't that the opposite of what Microsoft does?

Exactly. That's why I've written this page explaining the differences between Silverlight and Moonlight:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/silverlight_moonlight.html

Anti-spam measure. There is a contact form on the site, though. Here:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/message.php

How many betas does a service pack need?

If anyone has any doubt that Windows 7 is just Vista rebranded, read here:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/windows_7_vista.html

Mathematical regression is also an example of this: the regression formulas can be made to model almost any continuous curve if you throw enough terms into them. However, that does not mean that the resulting equation in any way matches the mechanism that generated the actual curve.

Taylor is going to be _pissed_!
http://dotancohen.com/eng/taylor-sine.php

And they only pretty much did it because they found out it works easily with Silverlight in Intel based macs only.

Amazing that a company is switching _to_ Silverlight for a cross-platform solution. This is wrong on so many levels.

http://dotancohen.com/heb/wallashops.html

Can you say chicken and egg?

Chicken and leg. That was easy.

http://dotancohen.com/heb/wallashops.html

How many people buy the XP models and subsequently install Ubuntu or some other Linux distro though? For reasons of better RAM or Drive or battery option availability in the XP bundled version of the machine.

Or for that matter, how many buy the Linux version and then return it? Wasn't it something like 4:1 in an earlier story?

http://dotancohen.com/heb/wallashops.html

They still have a near monopoly on the entire Linux desktop market!

Truth is, I don't really care if Chrome runs under Linux or not. What _is_ important is that there is a lot of buzz about a non-IE browser out there, and that will help Linux users no matter which browser they use. Chrome will get the attention of at least some PHBs and Frontpa^w webdevs who code IE-only websites. I have been complaining about this for years but now there finally is a product that they will have a hard time ignoring. Firefox was close, but was only talked about by gearheads. Even my mother-in-law asked me about Chrome. Which is too bad, as she's on Ubuntu and feels left out...

Because it doesn't play YouTube flash videos. The iPhone/iPod touch accesses YouTube's videos files encoded in H.264, without a flash player wrapped around it.

Websites can (and should) detect Safari and use the HTML5 media tags to play their videos (in MPEG-4/H.264), too.

As the maintainer of a small family website that hosts flash videos ( http://dotancohen.com/ ) where can I find info about creating and hosting h264? The site is only intended for the family (though it is public and everyone is invited) and everyone is running Firefox. I understand that Firefox 3.1 will also support h264.

Sigh, 7 replies later and I'm still getting this kind of one-liner replies. Maybe you people don't care about Linux on the desktop after all?

If I didn't, would I bother with this:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/linux_compatibility.php

Don't blame the Engineers. They are just following their orders or they can find a new employer. If they are cool perhaps we can find lithographed etcha sketches for clues.

Good point. In any case, be sure to write to the companies involved in any project that concerns you. This is how I do it:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/linux_compatibility.php
http://dotancohen.com/eng/firefox_compatibility.php

Don't blame the Engineers. They are just following their orders or they can find a new employer. If they are cool perhaps we can find lithographed etcha sketches for clues.

Good point. In any case, be sure to write to the companies involved in any project that concerns you. This is how I do it:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/linux_compatibility.php
http://dotancohen.com/eng/firefox_compatibility.php

I don't use it for gaming at all. Truth is, I don't really use the mouse much. I bought the keyboard originally because it was the lowest-price wireless keyboard available. I suppose they had a hard time selling it with the keypad on the left. It was an A4-brand, not known for quality. Turns out, it was a dream to type on, with the keys registering long before they ran out of throw. I don't know how they did that with a silicon-dome design.

I even cut the silicon domes on the pinky keys to soften them up, like on the Das Keyboard:
http://dotancohen.com/images/examples/silicon-dome.jpg

It was a dream to type on, and quiet too. I miss that keyboard.

Why don't they sell keyboards without these stupid windows-keys?

Do you mean the Tux key?

I've been organizing the bars like that since I started using FF, and I find it makes for much better use of that space than just a gray, blank area.

Notice that the File | Edit menu has been collapsed into a single root menu on the right (My language goes from right to left, sorry). The Google search box is gone (I can google directly from the aweso^W location bar) and the tabs are on the side. Perfect for making use of this widescreen monitor's unusual geometry, which means that half the horizontal space usually goes to waste yet there is never enough vertical space.

And in the home users case it is always those damned cheapy Lexmark/HP/etc "Winprinters" or even worse the ever popular all-in one Winprinter/scanner/fax that is pointless to even try to convert. If there was a Ndiswrapper equivalent for printers there would be a huge amount of home users that I could easily convert to Linux. Most of these simply check email,surf,print their pictures,etc and would be perfect candidates for Linux,but those damned Winprinters get you every time.

IMHO the easier we make it for users to have their "must have" apps and hardware the better it will be for us all. The Linux market will grow larger, we will get more and more machines like the EEE with Linux preinstalled,and most importantly,the hardware and software manufacturers might actually start paying attention and make native solutions so in the future we won't HAVE to have things like Wine and Ndiswrapper. But that is my 02c from down here in consumer land,YMMV

Write to them about how their use of Silverlight makes using the page impossible for you. See this:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/library_of_congress.html

You'll love to read what I thought about my Windows Mobile 2003 SW device:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/dell_axim.php

However, I understand that Linux has been ported to PDAs and it's no better that Windows Mobile. Worse, actually. Here is the project: http://handhelds.org/

I was only kidding, and I thought that I'd be modded troll, not funny. The only time I ever tried installing silverlight was several months ago when I visited the US Library of Congress site on a /. tip. This is what became of that:
http://dotancohen.com/eng/library_of_congress.html

I will take you up on that. My contact info is here: http://dotancohen.com/eng/contact_info.php

At worst, I will have another used drive on my hands. At best, I'll have some new pr0n. Either way, I'll have some fun.

Bonus points for you if you let me try, say, an 8MB cache, 7200 RPM, 500 GB SATA Western Digital drive :)

Yippie, another slashdigg toplist! I fucking hate you!

In other news, last week I hacked a Nokia 6280 and Nokia 6288 to make a phone with the 6280's hardware (better buttons) with the 6288's software. It all went together almost perfectly, with just a bit of filing on one of the case covers. I have a lot of experience hacking shit together.

This is my sixth Ford: I've gone through a '69 Mustang, '72 Mustang, '84 T-bird, '88 Turbocoupe, and an '88 Continental before this Focus. I've also worked as a service tech at a Ford dealer for a few months. Ford is an amazing company, and each time they renew themselves they do it right. Until I work my way up to a BMW, I'll be sticking with Fords. For the interested: the 351W from the '69 Mustang was all I left of the car after wrecking it. When I blew up the 2.3 turbo in the Turbocoupe I replaced it with the 351W. Did all the work myself: it's one of my favorite projects to this day. As the front of the Turbocoupe was smashed, I replaced it with the bumpercover of a '92 Mustang. 375HP, 5-speed '88 Thunderstang.

Yes you have.

security thru obscurity -> let the ssh deamon listen to a different port, most* automated scripts will fail.

even better is to use port knocking. Basically, port 22 is not available until you "knock" on some specified high port.
The nice part is that a simple port scan (even if it brushes past the secret port) won't activate the knock.

many details here