People say that Microsoft spends millions on UI but I don't believe that.
Perhaps I'm wrong and they do spend millions on UI but certainly none of that ever reaches their products.
Take the "open file" applet for example.
No one knows what all the little buttons do. People are constantly confused by where to find their files. From looking at the file applet you have no idea where in the filesystem a file is. The file applet hides most of the files in the directory anyways so that people always wonder, "HEY! WHO DELETED MY FILE!?!." Then you show them the little pull down menu and select to show "*.*" and they feel pretty stupid. But they're not stupid it's the monkeys at Microsoft who are on crack! And for experienced users it's just as bad. Openning any file seems to take an average of 8 different clicks and pull down menus to get to the @#$%@#%@# stupid directory where the file is.
Perhaps that's your idea of user friendly but it's certainly not mine.
(To be fair part of the problem is also the badly organized filesystem. Microsoft, for some reason, is completely opposed to planning and organization. I think they feel that planning things hurts their creativity).
If you want to see a half decent user interface try OSX.
Re:Only people like us appreciate that.
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
·
· Score: 2
>>Then again, since it is aimed mainly at geeks, there should be little problems.
What gave you that impression?
I can assure you that Mozilla takes non-geeks very seriously. Most of the work on Mozilla until recently has been done by AOL which specializes in creating easy to use software.
"Professional audio processing requires an extremely special form of real-time processing that is pretty much only good for handling audio, and which actually can cause problems with any other types of software."
Special in what way? I'm not really familiar with audio software but I have a hard time picturing what you mean by "special" real-time.
You say that in Windows software handles it's own scheduling and bypasses the kernel. What exactly does that buy you that you couldn't get more elegantly in Linux by creating a kernel patch (A premptable kernel patch for example). The windows way strikes me as not very stable, flexible or good.
Linux let's your program hog the cpu already by setting nice levels. With preemption even if it gives the cpu to a different process it can take it back right away.
The Linux way seems better exactly because it's not a special purpose hack. Why is hogging the cpu for audio processing any different than hogging the cpu for video processing?
I've actually seen Solaris desktops so I know people do that, but I still don't know why...
Linux is far better than Solaris for a desktop.
Re:Let the proxy cache be distributed
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
·
· Score: 1
I bet that caching all the links on a squid server would not help overall bandwidth usage. It might make things a little bit faster but I doubt it...
But it would be interesting to see.
Of course, isps don't do any caching at all right now. So they'd be even less likely to start caching stuff like that.
Re:Only people like us appreciate that.
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
·
· Score: 2
IE is themeable???
I think you'll find it is impossible to create a theme that is even close being as cool as skypilot in IE.
Bad programmers get really excited about features. It's true that Mozilla has many features that IE does not have but this is really secondary to design.
Comparing IE to Mozilla is like comparing McDonalds to fine cuisine. Both are food but one is crap and one is fine cuisine. Microsoft does a pretty good job making adequate software. But they seldom get the details (especially user interface details) right. They say that the devil himself is often found hiding in the details.
(And by the way, if you don't care about code/technology you are reading the wrong web page)
Re:When will Mozilla Innovate?
on
Mozilla 0.9.5
·
· Score: 2
You are positively on crack.
Mozilla has been inovating out the ying yang. Your question makes me wonder if you have even used mozilla???
XUL is one thing that comes to mind as a fairly significant invotation. But visit mozdev.org any time you want to see more.
There is a "show me the code" attitude that is refreshing. After all, all the best theories in the world don't do a thing unless some code is written.
For the present, there is enough work to do merely doing practicle things that make the kernel better now without worrying about what things will be possible in 10 years.
And isn't that exactly what we are talking about? The way I used the term obviously has nothing to do with intellect - only difficulty.
What is so great about difficult software that you would not software to be pleasant to use?
"Dumbed down" has negative conotations.
Instead of calling it a "dumbed down version of debian" you should say, "can you imagine a debian with a well designed user interface for installing and updating it." (btw I hear that the next version of debian is going to have a new installer and hardware detection).
People use the term "dumbed down" to say that what the program is doing is so hard that the interface has to be hard to use also. That's a falacy. Difficult and uncomfortable user interfaces are rarely there because the function that the software does is difficult. They are almost always there because the programmers did not design them correctly. Ie they are difficult because they are buggy.
For example, take your "dumbed down" debian installer. There is nothing about the process of installing an operating system that is inherently difficult.
If the user knows exactly that they want a "desktop" and they are able to tell the installer what harddrive to install on then the rest could be automated. That's two things for the user to do niether of which are hard.
Or perhaps the user may want to choose the packages individually. That's three steps but none of them are hard.
Maybe the user has some specific partitioning scheme that she wants. That would be complicated if the user didn't know a little about unix already but she clearly does so it's not complicated for her.
No matter what the user wants to do, installing the operating system should not be hard. There is no reason why a well designed installer can not allow for all these different types of users to install exactly what they want.
The tricky thing for me when I first installed debian years ago was setting up the ethernet, sound and X. But this is something that a powerful installer does automatically. The fact that the debian installer at the time did not do so is a bug. The fact that I had to be determined and experienced to install debian was not a positive thing in any respect. (Difficult != good.)
You are wrong to say that debian would have to hide.deb information to be easy for newbies to use. Newbies want more feedback and information not less. What they do want, though, is for the information to be organized in a coherent way.
Microsoft doesn't give enough information and that's one reason people don't use windows update. That's also one reason why people hate computers...
(Microsoft has a horrible interface in general. They spend millions on research but they seem opposed to the idea of using that research in actual products. It's amazing how they manage to violate every single user interface rule with the start menu alone. And once you start using their application it only gets worse.)
First of all, apt kicks windows update any day of the week.
Secondly, "dumbed down" is a word only l337 kids use. They think that because something is easy it is less powerful. This is simply untrue. Good software is both powerful and a delight to use.
If your software has user interface bugs that inexperienced or less determined users are not willing to put up with, that's not something to be proud of.
Please don't use the word "dumbed down" again. To put it in a phrase you might understand: Blaming users for software bugs is l4m3.
That is a good point, except he didn't say that Linux wasn't designed properly. Or even mention design at all.
He's talking about stuff like using cvs and not having a massive fork in the stable kernel. A lot of developers are a tad upset about that right now...
(Not that I take one side or another in this issue. And besides if I took a side on something who would care?)
Buffer overflows are one thing... I can't really blame Microsoft for Code Red, for example.
But Microsoft's scripting bugs are a different story. As a general rule, computers should not execute foreign code without asking. That's just common sense to anyone except Microsoft.:(
Ah well... At least no one has written a really harmful virus so far.
Actually, the only proplem I have with the Gnome file dialogue is that there is no way to display hidden files except typing '.' and 'tab.' New users don't know how to do this and experienced users don't want to have to move their hand from the mouse button to the keyboard and back.
In KDE it takes three mouse clicks to show hidden files and three mouse clicks to hide them again. That's as annoying as gnome.
Personally, I think Gnome's way of showing all files regardless of type is better than KDE's and microsofts way of only displaying certain types of files. This may seem usefull at first but it confuses newbies who wonder, "Hey! Who deleted all my files?!?" It is better to allow users to organize their own files into sub directories.
In general, the only hidden files should be hidden files but you should be able to display or hide them again at the click of a button.
(KDE file menu has some other nice features... I think the home button and bookmarks are nice.)
Re:Shower Curtain Prior Art
on
IgNobel Awards
·
· Score: 2
Well, first of all as far as I could see he didn't patent it but was merely studying it...
But also, if we used your suggestion then we would get water all over the floor. The whole point of the shower curtain is to keep water from getting on the floor. Moisture hurts the furniture and perhaps the floor. And wettness increases the your risk of falling when you get out.
What I do is use a blow drier to negate the inward forces. With my method there is far less risk of getting the floor wet but the noise may bother some people.
The thing that interested me about this one was that the focus was clearly on Linux and Microsoft. The tone was that Linux was something that was just an ordinary part of life.
For example this quote:
"One significant site to switch away from Microsoft recently is infoseek, though it is not known whether this is related to security concerns."
The article didn't say what operating system infoseek had switched to. But everyone reading the article would just assume (correctly) that they had switched to Linux. A year ago, a website this large switching to Linux would have been big news but now it's something that is just taken for granted.
As always however, it is frightening to see how many people use apache. Apache is a great web server but the worst security problem facing the internet today is not poor software but mono culture.
Please support alternative open source web servers.
I recognized that you were upset about something... The thing I couldn't see is what you were talking about. It wasn't altogether clear because you replied to the story instead of the comment.
As always, I must commend you for being a noble and upright citizen. That's one of the things that I like about you: how much you really believe in America and what I call "the system".:) Your optomism is a refreshing contrast to slashdots pervading pessimism.
Too many slashdotters, have the silly attitude that "the man" is trying to put them down. How utterly crazy, considerring that most of these guys make more money than ordinary Americans like you and I could ever think about.
I find the idea that patents give corporations power over "the masses" as laughable as you do. If you look on the patent data bases you will find that about 4 out of 5 patents (85%) are owned by individuals and small "garage" companies. Only 10% of the patents are owned by companies with over 100 employees.
Thanks for going against the flow of slashdot and being honest. Even though it might hurt your karma, it is far better to speak up for truth!
But I've been enough of a Debian bigot already and so I'll stop.
It does seem like you have ended up investing more time into the Linux server than the Microsoft server. It could be that you do this because Linux is harder. Or it could be that you actually like tinkering around with the stuff more.
I'd almost swear that there are Microsoft email lists where you can read pretty much the same stuff as the Mandrake list does. Or if you wanted, you could update the Microsoft server more often.
My guess is that you'll move everything to Linux eventually. Not because it's cost effective but because you just get a kick out of compiling source code yourself and having high uptimes...
Slashdot Mirror
People say that Microsoft spends millions on UI but I don't believe that.
Perhaps I'm wrong and they do spend millions on UI but certainly none of that ever reaches their products.
Take the "open file" applet for example.
No one knows what all the little buttons do. People are constantly confused by where to find their files. From looking at the file applet you have no idea where in the filesystem a file is. The file applet hides most of the files in the directory anyways so that people always wonder, "HEY! WHO DELETED MY FILE!?!." Then you show them the little pull down menu and select to show "*.*" and they feel pretty stupid. But they're not stupid it's the monkeys at Microsoft who are on crack! And for experienced users it's just as bad. Openning any file seems to take an average of 8 different clicks and pull down menus to get to the @#$%@#%@# stupid directory where the file is.
Perhaps that's your idea of user friendly but it's certainly not mine.
(To be fair part of the problem is also the badly organized filesystem. Microsoft, for some reason, is completely opposed to planning and organization. I think they feel that planning things hurts their creativity).
If you want to see a half decent user interface try OSX.
>>Then again, since it is aimed mainly at geeks, there should be little problems.
What gave you that impression?
I can assure you that Mozilla takes non-geeks very seriously. Most of the work on Mozilla until recently has been done by AOL which specializes in creating easy to use software.
My feeling is that Maurene O'Gara is sometimes deliberately dishonest.
Nah. Go ahead and mirror public emails. Or slashdot posts...
It's an email so it's legal to mirror it.
Their site is slashdotted to all heck and back.
"Professional audio processing requires an extremely special form of real-time processing that is pretty much only good for handling audio, and which actually can cause problems with any other types of software."
Special in what way? I'm not really familiar with audio software but I have a hard time picturing what you mean by "special" real-time.
You say that in Windows software handles it's own scheduling and bypasses the kernel. What exactly does that buy you that you couldn't get more elegantly in Linux by creating a kernel patch (A premptable kernel patch for example). The windows way strikes me as not very stable, flexible or good.
Linux let's your program hog the cpu already by setting nice levels. With preemption even if it gives the cpu to a different process it can take it back right away.
The Linux way seems better exactly because it's not a special purpose hack. Why is hogging the cpu for audio processing any different than hogging the cpu for video processing?
Heh heh.
:P
Yes... I assume he meant to be funny.
It's sort of disturbing to see a funny post get modded as insightful.
Sort of a recursive joke or something...
I've actually seen Solaris desktops so I know people do that, but I still don't know why...
Linux is far better than Solaris for a desktop.
I bet that caching all the links on a squid server would not help overall bandwidth usage. It might make things a little bit faster but I doubt it...
But it would be interesting to see.
Of course, isps don't do any caching at all right now. So they'd be even less likely to start caching stuff like that.
IE is themeable???
I think you'll find it is impossible to create a theme that is even close being as cool as skypilot in IE.
Bad programmers get really excited about features. It's true that Mozilla has many features that IE does not have but this is really secondary to design.
Comparing IE to Mozilla is like comparing McDonalds to fine cuisine. Both are food but one is crap and one is fine cuisine. Microsoft does a pretty good job making adequate software. But they seldom get the details (especially user interface details) right. They say that the devil himself is often found hiding in the details.
(And by the way, if you don't care about code/technology you are reading the wrong web page)
You are positively on crack.
Mozilla has been inovating out the ying yang. Your question makes me wonder if you have even used mozilla???
XUL is one thing that comes to mind as a fairly significant invotation. But visit mozdev.org any time you want to see more.
sheesh!
When I think about big thinkers I think of HURD.
Linux developement seems much more practicle.
There is a "show me the code" attitude that is refreshing. After all, all the best theories in the world don't do a thing unless some code is written.
For the present, there is enough work to do merely doing practicle things that make the kernel better now without worrying about what things will be possible in 10 years.
I like this attitude.
And isn't that exactly what we are talking about? The way I used the term obviously has nothing to do with intellect - only difficulty.
.deb information to be easy for newbies to use. Newbies want more feedback and information not less. What they do want, though, is for the information to be organized in a coherent way.
What is so great about difficult software that you would not software to be pleasant to use?
"Dumbed down" has negative conotations.
Instead of calling it a "dumbed down version of debian" you should say, "can you imagine a debian with a well designed user interface for installing and updating it." (btw I hear that the next version of debian is going to have a new installer and hardware detection).
People use the term "dumbed down" to say that what the program is doing is so hard that the interface has to be hard to use also. That's a falacy. Difficult and uncomfortable user interfaces are rarely there because the function that the software does is difficult. They are almost always there because the programmers did not design them correctly. Ie they are difficult because they are buggy.
For example, take your "dumbed down" debian installer. There is nothing about the process of installing an operating system that is inherently difficult.
If the user knows exactly that they want a "desktop" and they are able to tell the installer what harddrive to install on then the rest could be automated. That's two things for the user to do niether of which are hard.
Or perhaps the user may want to choose the packages individually. That's three steps but none of them are hard.
Maybe the user has some specific partitioning scheme that she wants. That would be complicated if the user didn't know a little about unix already but she clearly does so it's not complicated for her.
No matter what the user wants to do, installing the operating system should not be hard. There is no reason why a well designed installer can not allow for all these different types of users to install exactly what they want.
The tricky thing for me when I first installed debian years ago was setting up the ethernet, sound and X. But this is something that a powerful installer does automatically. The fact that the debian installer at the time did not do so is a bug. The fact that I had to be determined and experienced to install debian was not a positive thing in any respect. (Difficult != good.)
You are wrong to say that debian would have to hide
Microsoft doesn't give enough information and that's one reason people don't use windows update. That's also one reason why people hate computers...
(Microsoft has a horrible interface in general. They spend millions on research but they seem opposed to the idea of using that research in actual products. It's amazing how they manage to violate every single user interface rule with the start menu alone. And once you start using their application it only gets worse.)
First of all, apt kicks windows update any day of the week.
Secondly, "dumbed down" is a word only l337 kids use. They think that because something is easy it is less powerful. This is simply untrue. Good software is both powerful and a delight to use.
If your software has user interface bugs that inexperienced or less determined users are not willing to put up with, that's not something to be proud of.
Please don't use the word "dumbed down" again. To put it in a phrase you might understand: Blaming users for software bugs is l4m3.
That is a good point, except he didn't say that Linux wasn't designed properly. Or even mention design at all.
He's talking about stuff like using cvs and not having a massive fork in the stable kernel. A lot of developers are a tad upset about that right now...
(Not that I take one side or another in this issue. And besides if I took a side on something who would care?)
Buffer overflows are one thing... I can't really blame Microsoft for Code Red, for example.
:(
But Microsoft's scripting bugs are a different story. As a general rule, computers should not execute foreign code without asking. That's just common sense to anyone except Microsoft.
Ah well... At least no one has written a really harmful virus so far.
Actually, the only proplem I have with the Gnome file dialogue is that there is no way to display hidden files except typing '.' and 'tab.' New users don't know how to do this and experienced users don't want to have to move their hand from the mouse button to the keyboard and back.
In KDE it takes three mouse clicks to show hidden files and three mouse clicks to hide them again. That's as annoying as gnome.
Personally, I think Gnome's way of showing all files regardless of type is better than KDE's and microsofts way of only displaying certain types of files. This may seem usefull at first but it confuses newbies who wonder, "Hey! Who deleted all my files?!?" It is better to allow users to organize their own files into sub directories.
In general, the only hidden files should be hidden files but you should be able to display or hide them again at the click of a button.
(KDE file menu has some other nice features... I think the home button and bookmarks are nice.)
Well, first of all as far as I could see he didn't patent it but was merely studying it...
But also, if we used your suggestion then we would get water all over the floor. The whole point of the shower curtain is to keep water from getting on the floor. Moisture hurts the furniture and perhaps the floor. And wettness increases the your risk of falling when you get out.
What I do is use a blow drier to negate the inward forces. With my method there is far less risk of getting the floor wet but the noise may bother some people.
The thing that interested me about this one was that the focus was clearly on Linux and Microsoft. The tone was that Linux was something that was just an ordinary part of life.
For example this quote: "One significant site to switch away from Microsoft recently is infoseek, though it is not known whether this is related to security concerns."
The article didn't say what operating system infoseek had switched to. But everyone reading the article would just assume (correctly) that they had switched to Linux. A year ago, a website this large switching to Linux would have been big news but now it's something that is just taken for granted.
As always however, it is frightening to see how many people use apache. Apache is a great web server but the worst security problem facing the internet today is not poor software but mono culture.
Please support alternative open source web servers.
No. The netcraft guys are fairly smart. They are aware of this already.
Probably their figures are the most accurate out of anything you'll find.
I recognized that you were upset about something... The thing I couldn't see is what you were talking about. It wasn't altogether clear because you replied to the story instead of the comment.
Thanks for clarification.
As always, I must commend you for being a noble and upright citizen. That's one of the things that I like about you: how much you really believe in America and what I call "the system". :) Your optomism is a refreshing contrast to slashdots pervading pessimism.
Too many slashdotters, have the silly attitude that "the man" is trying to put them down. How utterly crazy, considerring that most of these guys make more money than ordinary Americans like you and I could ever think about.
I find the idea that patents give corporations power over "the masses" as laughable as you do. If you look on the patent data bases you will find that about 4 out of 5 patents (85%) are owned by individuals and small "garage" companies. Only 10% of the patents are owned by companies with over 100 employees.
Thanks for going against the flow of slashdot and being honest. Even though it might hurt your karma, it is far better to speak up for truth!
I don't know why oog would make it on your list.
Oog the caveman is not a troll and has many valuable things to say.
I would imagine microsoft tests their software thouroughly. Who told you that they didn't?
Apache-ssl is another great reason to use Debian.
But I've been enough of a Debian bigot already and so I'll stop.
It does seem like you have ended up investing more time into the Linux server than the Microsoft server. It could be that you do this because Linux is harder. Or it could be that you actually like tinkering around with the stuff more.
I'd almost swear that there are Microsoft email lists where you can read pretty much the same stuff as the Mandrake list does. Or if you wanted, you could update the Microsoft server more often.
My guess is that you'll move everything to Linux eventually. Not because it's cost effective but because you just get a kick out of compiling source code yourself and having high uptimes...