I just gotta say, i've never seen a Dutch name "anglisised" by removing the spaces. My surname is Van Der Vliet and always has been. Not sure why the family capitalises the V & the D though, which is technically incorrect.
Still, most people I meet have a hard enough time spelling it, let alone gettting the punctuation and capitlisation right as well.
Oh, and the poster just above is correct about van & von simply meaning "by" or "near". Van Der Vliet literally translated means "near the Vliet" (Vliet is a river)
It depends on how far you stretch the definition of a market in this sense. Do you mean all imbeded devices? If so, then you have to include WinCE in that list, where Microsoft have been fairly succesful.
If you just define the market as embeded satilite systems, then the market there is so small to not even be a sneeze stain on the radar of almost any company, least of all Microsoft.
I wouldn't have thought Microsoft give two hoots what kernel NASA chooses for it's satilites, nor their reasons for choosing it.
Well O.K, lets extend to the concept of "information managers", which is a phrase prime to become the next buzzword of 2001...
Assume we have a user, named Bob. Bob wants to do three things today:
Download some images from his digital camera and save them
View his favourite web page
Make a copy of the document he was working on yesterday and put it on a floppy for his neo-ludite boss
These are fairly common tasks, I would have thought. Now, Bob is in Gnome, so he launches his wizz bang integrated "information managment" application, where he spends half an hour and completes all three tasks. He closes the program, and then logs out of Gnome, and switches the computer off. That was easy wasn't it Bob?
If you were paying attention though, there was a peice of software that Bob never used when doing these three tasks. Gnome. That is, his desktop software. All he did was launch his wizz bang integrated application.
The point of this ramble? Well i'm all for ease of use, but i have always been led to believe that "information management" was the roll of the desktop interface. Why do you need to layer an integrated do-it-all application over your desktop?
I know someone is going to say that Gnome will integrate their "information manager" into Gnome 2.0, but it will still be a seperate application as far as the user is concerned. Not only that, but it's a single, large application; that's a lot of memory to use just to copy a file, and the user interface is going to be confused with all the extra buttons and menus that are not needed to copy that file.
I'm calling for developers to step back and slow down from their headlong rush into integrating everything, and ask themselves and their users a few things;
Is this easy to use?
Does this user interface make sense conceptually?
How much duplication is there?
Is there a better way to do this?
At the end of it, they may find it makes more sense to encapsulate common components into libraries, and to make use of Bonobo or other COM style systems. They may reduce the number of layers of software on my computer, and hopefully gain some speed in the process. They may realise that users do not neccesarily want to use their web browser as a file manager.
In the end, I just want developers to stop copying everyone else, and try some of their own ideas for once.
As hard as you are finding it to believe, I am running (For the second time now) Mozilla 0.8 on an Athlon 750 w/ 128Mb. It is a Redhat 7 box with 2.4.1, XFree86 3.x and KDE 1.
I moved to 0.8 from Netscape 6.0 after the 6.01 "upgrade" disgusted me so much that I felt like setting fire to Netscape project managers.
The User Interface is slow (I frequently see 1 second delays between clicking the mouse and the menu appearing). Yes the HTML engine is fast, and it doesn't reload on window resizing, but the interface is slow and clunky.
When I get the time, I intend to attempt building Galeon (again), however I have no idea how much luck i'll have given that I run KDE and not Gnome.
To me, that seems like one hell of a leap of logic to come to the conclusion that a set of web pages are conceptually the same as a bunch of files on my computer?
If they are conceptually the same, why do these integrated file manager / web browsers not use the same user interface to display files to the user as it does to display a web page to the user?
They don't; files still appear as files, directories as directories, and they all have icons. Web pages are not displayed in a hierachical view in the file manager with a little icon you double click to open it.
They are not the same thing, and there doesn't seem to be any good reason to combine the two.
One last note. As much as integrated file managers / web browsers annoy me, that is not my only problem with modern software. It's the whole loss of direction and re-inventing of the wheel that gets me too.
You've missed my point though. Why does the file manager have to be a web browser? Why can't the file manager concentrate on managing my files, and the web browser worry about browsing the web?
A web browser can be just as ubiquitous to the desktop system you use without it having to be the same thing as my file manager, and vice versa.
I run Mozilla 0.8 on an Athlon 750 w/ 128Mb, it doesn't make the user interface any less slow.
Just because it's currently the best, doesn't mean it's any good. In fact, Mozilla is a good example of the failings of current software. The current GUI toolkits wern't good enough for them or something? Oh look, skins YAWN, oh look, more layers to slow my computer down.
If you like Mozilla, fine, great, whoopy. I still think it's slow and unresponsive. Hey, maybe they'll get it right for 1.0, who knows?
Someone care to explain to me what is so pant wetingly good about a file manager? Hasn't Gnome and KDE both had file managers since the day they started?
As someone else has already pointed out, why can't you manage your files with a file manager any more? They run around adding all these fancy options (Oh look, skins. YAWN) and trying to turn file managers into web browsers. Why? I want to manage files, not browse the web. My web browser does that.
Doesn't anyone else feel it's time for a back to basics aproach with computers? There are so many layers and stupid features in products today that computers are just slower and harder to use then they were only five years ago. Less eye-candy, more functionality, please.
1) If you are willing to let the cops film you, you are giving up your civil rights to walk around freely without someone monitoring you. This is possibly the very definition of freedom. If you give that up, you don't have a lot left...
So what? I'm in a public area arn't I? Are you saying now that to truly have freedom, nobody should be allowed to even look at another person when in public?
I'd really love to see how your logic on this one works. Being in Public means the right to privacy? Nice twist...
6) If the cops monitor you, who monitors the cops? Abuse is inevitable.
It is? Then why, in all the years we have had cameras, has there been no significant abuse? Evidence? List of complaints against the police? Got anything at all in the way of evidence of abuse?
As for points 2-5, they're nonsensical arguments and nothing at all to do with Police cameras. Could you honestly not think of more than two points against camera's that where worth argiuing?
Wold you like one in every room of your house? Watched by the police.
My house is not a public area. Diferent thing.
Or how about instead of mounting them on poles in the street they were carried by a policeman on foot and as you walked down the street there he was pointing it in your face.
Sure, why not? It's exactly the same thing. It would be good to see more Police on the streets too.
Or there were some in your car, one pointing at the speedo, one at the road, and one at your face - with sound so they could monitor what you say too.
See "House" above. My car is not a Public area. Although Buses are, and guess what? Thats right, they have cameras on them! Guess what? Violent crime (GBH, ABH, Assualt) on buses, especially at night on the way back from the nightclub, has droped.
1. Swearing in public.
You what? This is not illegal. I'd love to see you backup that one.
2. Illegal gathering : more than 2 poeple stood together (I kid you not - Public Order Act 1985 - enacted in 24hours to strengthen the police during the miners strike).
You do kid us. Go back and check on that law, I dare ya! As far as I know, no one has ever been prosecuted for gathering more than two people together. (Hey, I saw three police officers walking the beat together the other day. Sack them!)
3. Public consumption of alcohol (geographically dependent)
Wow, you've found one! Yup, it can be a bylaw in some cities (Bath for example). So what? It's a fair law, drink in the pub.
4. Playing soccer (Scotland only).
Oh dear, I don't think so. Anyone from Scotland know more on this? I'd love to hear of someone being prosecuted for playing football you know.
So, basically, remind us what your argument was again?
He used the plot devices as an example, i.e "Method by which an Elf fights a Troll and wins using a sword" If you could get a patent on that, then no book could use the idea of an Elf fighting a Troll using a sword, and winning.
Copyright is a diferent matter. It does protect the author from someone copying their work verbatim and passing it off as their own, but it certainly doesn't protect them from another author having a Troll/Elf fight with swords were the Elf is victorious, in their own book.
For a troll, I have to agree with you. Open Source software very rarely seems to go through a proper build, test, fix stage. They just throw the software out to the users and let them find, and in a lot of cases fix, the bugs. This isn't good.
I'm a software tester by trade, and I code in my spare time. There are some cardinal sins that any peice of software can commit. They tend to be:
Not having a clear set of features that you want in your code for at least version 1.0
Not writing proper specs before any code is written
Not having testers, or having testers and not listening to them
Not having a defined roadmap or plan. At a minimum, this should cover the planing, and upto the second build of your software
Now on smaller projects, it's usually fine to sit down and start coding. With larger projects, you're going to be royally screwed about 50% ofthe way through your project, when you find you'll have to re-design part of your project to add functionality you didn't know you needed.
If you don't have testers (And no, outside of unit testing, the coder cannot teste their own code properly!) your software will be full of bugs you just don't know are there, until your users start using the software under normal conditions. You'll then find you need to recode large parts of your software to fix even small bugs.
Release early, release often, is good provided you have proper controls in place before your first release!
No, you misundstand. AtheOS has the kernel & appserver seperate. However, AtheOS does not have any way of running the system at a pure command line (Other than Telnet or SSH). When you boot AtheOS, the appserver is loaded and started for you, and you use the GUI. You can open a terminal though, and use bash, so you do have a command line.
The kernel & GUI components are not integrated into a big ball of mud as you seem to think, but are fully seperate. My best advice is to try AtheOS (Now on VMWare, so you have little excuse;)
When I give up and go for a smoke (Not going to be everyones cup of tea, natch)
When I get really stuck, I goto the loal pub and read a newspaper or something. The solution usually comes to me on the walk back after a couple of pints;)
Everyone has their own ways of walking away and re-examining a problem though.:)
Those conditions all sounds perfectly normal. But then i'm (currently) a Union worker in the UK.
I don't know what sort of weird idea the US Unions seem to have, but they sound like a bunch of idiots with no idea where they are going, or what they're supposed to be doing. If the Unions in the US really are as bad as people are making out, then I a can understand the hostility the Americans show towards them.
In the UK, if you want to join a Union, you can. If you don't want to join, thats fine too. No one will force you, or bully you, or think any less of you. If the Union workers go out on strike, non Union workers are (usually) able to cross any picket lines without hassle. I know for a fact that during the industrial action that was taken by my Union last year (One day strikes), that non Unions members, and even essential Union members, were able to cross the picket lines and go to work. Hell, they even came out and had a chat on their break times with the Union reps. I guess we know how to be civilised about it.
Unions are there to support you in your job. They are there to handle pay negotiations, secure fair deals for workers, and to handle grevencies for employees who are unable to talk to managment for whatever reason (Bullying or uninterested managers for example). They are not there to think for you, or to tell you what to do.
I pity all these people in the US who don't know what a proper Union is all about. They really do make life a lot easier, and the monthly sub for (my Union) is less than i'd spend on beer on a single night out. Good value for money, i'd say.
You problem is, you do not know what his target audience is. If it is going to be OSS people say, then Microsoft Media formats are no good, most people would probably be using a BSD, Linux etc. OS, and not have WMP.
Real Player is very crossplatform, but yes, expensive. I'm sure there is a way to stream MPEG streams, but thats probably expensive && || poor quality.
Is it? If it was common sense, why is it that so little OSS software goes through any sort of structured testing phase?
Most testing of OSS seems to be:
Developer can compile & run code. Unit testing
Developer releases code as an "Alpha". Component testing
Fixes bugs, releases "Beta". System testing
Fixes bugs, releases final build. Testing over!
Sorry, that isn't a proper structured testing scheme. Beta & Alpha releases are no good other than for limited releases. If you don't know what uses your users are putting to software too, some features may never get tested until it is too late.
Developers seem to view testing as a neccesary evil, but are happy to release fix, after fix, after fix for eternity, rather than writing & following a test plan. Honestly people, it saves time in the long run!
Tannenbaums "Operating Systems Design And Implentation" pretty much covers all you need to know for the practical aspects of kernel implementation. It does not cover the aspects of operating systems such as dealing with libc, the POSIX standard etc, but it does show you how to implement a schedular, memory managment aspects, IPC, device drivers etc.
Yes, it does refer to an "Older" Unix (MINIX, natch), but then that means things can be kept as simple as they need to be. The information in the book should be transferable to almost any operating system though.
I should imagine that if you combined this book along with OS Design & Implentation, then yes, you would have plenty of relevent information that can be applied to Linux.
Actually, the ASF format that Windows Media Player introduced is fully documented and available. aviplay has redumentry support for it, but it needs to be better. I have no idea if Xine supports it yet, but I suspect it will soon. The same goes for the MOV format, you probably know that it is possible to read Quicktime files on Linux, the only drawback is the lack of a Sorenson CODEC. That's exactly why aviplay (And Xine) now use Win32 DLL's, so that they can support proprietry formats through closed binary CODECS. Expect to be able to view almost any media format in Linux just as easily as you do in Windows before the year is out.
Notice how "Organises my files" is not one of the things that people are excited about when it comes to (almost any) file manager. No, they get excited about the themes, or the HTML engine, or the integrated AIM client with full support for teledildonics.
Personally i am getting just a little fed up with all of these do-it-all applications. I want a file manager that manages my files, a web browser that browses the web, and an ftp client that sends and recieves files over FTP. I do not want them all in the same damn application!
Have software developers gone nuts? What happened to the Unix pholosophy of lots of small tools that can be pluged together? Why is it that as soon as the developers get hold of a GUI they go mental and start layering IPC protocols on top of each other, integrating everything into one huge application that does it all, and basically forget that these tools are supposed to be there to do a job, and do it well? I don't need and HTML engine in my file manager, I use a web browser for that. All the HTML component does is add bloat (Even if it's not loaded, the application still needs code to support it), and uses my memory. This seems to apply more to Open Source software than it does to commercial, although Microsoft is also guilty of this in many ways too.
Please, for Jebus' sake, can we get back to small, lightweight tools, and stop integrating everything?
That true. You can request directly to the Mailers & Callers to be removed from their lists under the Data Protection Act.
An important point of the MPS, FPS & TPS schemes are that it can take upto three months for your name/address/telephone number to be removed from their lists, and the companies are only obliged to keep your name off of their lists for a maximum of one year, after which you have to re-register.
Slashdot Mirror
I just gotta say, i've never seen a Dutch name "anglisised" by removing the spaces. My surname is Van Der Vliet and always has been. Not sure why the family capitalises the V & the D though, which is technically incorrect.
Still, most people I meet have a hard enough time spelling it, let alone gettting the punctuation and capitlisation right as well.
Oh, and the poster just above is correct about van & von simply meaning "by" or "near". Van Der Vliet literally translated means "near the Vliet" (Vliet is a river)
Right, i'll stop now...
So I wasn't the only one to think of this as soon as I saw the story. Well, it would certainly make a far more interesting video.....
"Highly visable"? Hardly.
It depends on how far you stretch the definition of a market in this sense. Do you mean all imbeded devices? If so, then you have to include WinCE in that list, where Microsoft have been fairly succesful.
If you just define the market as embeded satilite systems, then the market there is so small to not even be a sneeze stain on the radar of almost any company, least of all Microsoft.
I wouldn't have thought Microsoft give two hoots what kernel NASA chooses for it's satilites, nor their reasons for choosing it.
Assume we have a user, named Bob. Bob wants to do three things today:
- Download some images from his digital camera and save them
- View his favourite web page
- Make a copy of the document he was working on yesterday and put it on a floppy for his neo-ludite boss
These are fairly common tasks, I would have thought. Now, Bob is in Gnome, so he launches his wizz bang integrated "information managment" application, where he spends half an hour and completes all three tasks. He closes the program, and then logs out of Gnome, and switches the computer off. That was easy wasn't it Bob?If you were paying attention though, there was a peice of software that Bob never used when doing these three tasks. Gnome. That is, his desktop software. All he did was launch his wizz bang integrated application.
The point of this ramble? Well i'm all for ease of use, but i have always been led to believe that "information management" was the roll of the desktop interface. Why do you need to layer an integrated do-it-all application over your desktop?
I know someone is going to say that Gnome will integrate their "information manager" into Gnome 2.0, but it will still be a seperate application as far as the user is concerned. Not only that, but it's a single, large application; that's a lot of memory to use just to copy a file, and the user interface is going to be confused with all the extra buttons and menus that are not needed to copy that file.
I'm calling for developers to step back and slow down from their headlong rush into integrating everything, and ask themselves and their users a few things;
- Is this easy to use?
- Does this user interface make sense conceptually?
- How much duplication is there?
- Is there a better way to do this?
At the end of it, they may find it makes more sense to encapsulate common components into libraries, and to make use of Bonobo or other COM style systems. They may reduce the number of layers of software on my computer, and hopefully gain some speed in the process. They may realise that users do not neccesarily want to use their web browser as a file manager.In the end, I just want developers to stop copying everyone else, and try some of their own ideas for once.
As hard as you are finding it to believe, I am running (For the second time now) Mozilla 0.8 on an Athlon 750 w/ 128Mb. It is a Redhat 7 box with 2.4.1, XFree86 3.x and KDE 1.
I moved to 0.8 from Netscape 6.0 after the 6.01 "upgrade" disgusted me so much that I felt like setting fire to Netscape project managers.
The User Interface is slow (I frequently see 1 second delays between clicking the mouse and the menu appearing). Yes the HTML engine is fast, and it doesn't reload on window resizing, but the interface is slow and clunky.
When I get the time, I intend to attempt building Galeon (again), however I have no idea how much luck i'll have given that I run KDE and not Gnome.
To me, that seems like one hell of a leap of logic to come to the conclusion that a set of web pages are conceptually the same as a bunch of files on my computer?
If they are conceptually the same, why do these integrated file manager / web browsers not use the same user interface to display files to the user as it does to display a web page to the user?
They don't; files still appear as files, directories as directories, and they all have icons. Web pages are not displayed in a hierachical view in the file manager with a little icon you double click to open it.
They are not the same thing, and there doesn't seem to be any good reason to combine the two.
One last note. As much as integrated file managers / web browsers annoy me, that is not my only problem with modern software. It's the whole loss of direction and re-inventing of the wheel that gets me too.
You've missed my point though. Why does the file manager have to be a web browser? Why can't the file manager concentrate on managing my files, and the web browser worry about browsing the web?
A web browser can be just as ubiquitous to the desktop system you use without it having to be the same thing as my file manager, and vice versa.
I run Mozilla 0.8 on an Athlon 750 w/ 128Mb, it doesn't make the user interface any less slow.
Just because it's currently the best, doesn't mean it's any good. In fact, Mozilla is a good example of the failings of current software. The current GUI toolkits wern't good enough for them or something? Oh look, skins YAWN, oh look, more layers to slow my computer down.
If you like Mozilla, fine, great, whoopy. I still think it's slow and unresponsive. Hey, maybe they'll get it right for 1.0, who knows?
It's a file manager! Oh, wait....
Someone care to explain to me what is so pant wetingly good about a file manager? Hasn't Gnome and KDE both had file managers since the day they started?
As someone else has already pointed out, why can't you manage your files with a file manager any more? They run around adding all these fancy options (Oh look, skins. YAWN) and trying to turn file managers into web browsers. Why? I want to manage files, not browse the web. My web browser does that.
Doesn't anyone else feel it's time for a back to basics aproach with computers? There are so many layers and stupid features in products today that computers are just slower and harder to use then they were only five years ago. Less eye-candy, more functionality, please.
1) If you are willing to let the cops film you, you are giving up your civil rights to walk around freely without someone monitoring you. This is possibly the very definition of freedom. If you give that up, you don't have a lot left...
So what? I'm in a public area arn't I? Are you saying now that to truly have freedom, nobody should be allowed to even look at another person when in public?
I'd really love to see how your logic on this one works. Being in Public means the right to privacy? Nice twist...
6) If the cops monitor you, who monitors the cops? Abuse is inevitable.
It is? Then why, in all the years we have had cameras, has there been no significant abuse? Evidence? List of complaints against the police? Got anything at all in the way of evidence of abuse?
As for points 2-5, they're nonsensical arguments and nothing at all to do with Police cameras. Could you honestly not think of more than two points against camera's that where worth argiuing?
Wold you like one in every room of your house?
Watched by the police.
My house is not a public area. Diferent thing.
Or how about instead of mounting them on poles in the street they were carried by a policeman on foot and as you walked down the street there he was pointing it in your face.
Sure, why not? It's exactly the same thing. It would be good to see more Police on the streets too.
Or there were some in your car, one pointing at the speedo, one at the road, and one at your face - with sound so they could monitor what you say too.
See "House" above. My car is not a Public area. Although Buses are, and guess what? Thats right, they have cameras on them! Guess what? Violent crime (GBH, ABH, Assualt) on buses, especially at night on the way back from the nightclub, has droped.
1. Swearing in public.
You what? This is not illegal. I'd love to see you backup that one.
2. Illegal gathering : more than 2 poeple stood together (I kid you not - Public Order Act 1985 - enacted in 24hours to strengthen the police during the miners strike).
You do kid us. Go back and check on that law, I dare ya! As far as I know, no one has ever been prosecuted for gathering more than two people together. (Hey, I saw three police officers walking the beat together the other day. Sack them!)
3. Public consumption of alcohol (geographically dependent)
Wow, you've found one! Yup, it can be a bylaw in some cities (Bath for example). So what? It's a fair law, drink in the pub.
4. Playing soccer (Scotland only).
Oh dear, I don't think so. Anyone from Scotland know more on this? I'd love to hear of someone being prosecuted for playing football you know.
So, basically, remind us what your argument was again?
Copyright is not a Patent.
He used the plot devices as an example, i.e "Method by which an Elf fights a Troll and wins using a sword" If you could get a patent on that, then no book could use the idea of an Elf fighting a Troll using a sword, and winning.
Copyright is a diferent matter. It does protect the author from someone copying their work verbatim and passing it off as their own, but it certainly doesn't protect them from another author having a Troll/Elf fight with swords were the Elf is victorious, in their own book.
Get it now?
It's called Cygwin, in case you didn't know already.
If your users need to be your testers, you could at least supply some form of test plan and ask them to try and follow it and report back. That way:
- You can be sure that the testing being done at least covers all the functionality of the software
- You can track what has and hasn't been tested in your software, and if need be, carry out the remaining tests yourself
Maybe it's just a pipe-dream, but its something that is sorely needed in a lot of Open Source projets.I'm a software tester by trade, and I code in my spare time. There are some cardinal sins that any peice of software can commit. They tend to be:
- Not having a clear set of features that you want in your code for at least version 1.0
- Not writing proper specs before any code is written
- Not having testers, or having testers and not listening to them
- Not having a defined roadmap or plan. At a minimum, this should cover the planing, and upto the second build of your software
Now on smaller projects, it's usually fine to sit down and start coding. With larger projects, you're going to be royally screwed about 50% ofthe way through your project, when you find you'll have to re-design part of your project to add functionality you didn't know you needed.If you don't have testers (And no, outside of unit testing, the coder cannot teste their own code properly!) your software will be full of bugs you just don't know are there, until your users start using the software under normal conditions. You'll then find you need to recode large parts of your software to fix even small bugs.
Release early, release often, is good provided you have proper controls in place before your first release!
No, you misundstand. AtheOS has the kernel & appserver seperate. However, AtheOS does not have any way of running the system at a pure command line (Other than Telnet or SSH). When you boot AtheOS, the appserver is loaded and started for you, and you use the GUI. You can open a terminal though, and use bash, so you do have a command line.
;)
The kernel & GUI components are not integrated into a big ball of mud as you seem to think, but are fully seperate. My best advice is to try AtheOS (Now on VMWare, so you have little excuse
Damn, you beat me too it ;)
;)
The Appserver is pretty seperate from the kernel though, but for all intents and purposes yes, AtheOS has a fully integrated GUI. Oh, and it rocks.
- When I goto bed, but just before I get to sleep
- When I give up and go for a smoke (Not going to be everyones cup of tea, natch)
- When I get really stuck, I goto the loal pub and read a newspaper or something. The solution usually comes to me on the walk back after a couple of pints
;)
Everyone has their own ways of walking away and re-examining a problem though.Those conditions all sounds perfectly normal. But then i'm (currently) a Union worker in the UK.
I don't know what sort of weird idea the US Unions seem to have, but they sound like a bunch of idiots with no idea where they are going, or what they're supposed to be doing. If the Unions in the US really are as bad as people are making out, then I a can understand the hostility the Americans show towards them.
In the UK, if you want to join a Union, you can. If you don't want to join, thats fine too. No one will force you, or bully you, or think any less of you. If the Union workers go out on strike, non Union workers are (usually) able to cross any picket lines without hassle. I know for a fact that during the industrial action that was taken by my Union last year (One day strikes), that non Unions members, and even essential Union members, were able to cross the picket lines and go to work. Hell, they even came out and had a chat on their break times with the Union reps. I guess we know how to be civilised about it.
Unions are there to support you in your job. They are there to handle pay negotiations, secure fair deals for workers, and to handle grevencies for employees who are unable to talk to managment for whatever reason (Bullying or uninterested managers for example). They are not there to think for you, or to tell you what to do.
I pity all these people in the US who don't know what a proper Union is all about. They really do make life a lot easier, and the monthly sub for (my Union) is less than i'd spend on beer on a single night out. Good value for money, i'd say.
You problem is, you do not know what his target audience is. If it is going to be OSS people say, then Microsoft Media formats are no good, most people would probably be using a BSD, Linux etc. OS, and not have WMP.
Real Player is very crossplatform, but yes, expensive. I'm sure there is a way to stream MPEG streams, but thats probably expensive && || poor quality.
Does the OSS community even have an option here?
Most testing of OSS seems to be:
- Developer can compile & run code. Unit testing
- Developer releases code as an "Alpha". Component testing
- Fixes bugs, releases "Beta". System testing
- Fixes bugs, releases final build. Testing over!
Sorry, that isn't a proper structured testing scheme. Beta & Alpha releases are no good other than for limited releases. If you don't know what uses your users are putting to software too, some features may never get tested until it is too late.Developers seem to view testing as a neccesary evil, but are happy to release fix, after fix, after fix for eternity, rather than writing & following a test plan. Honestly people, it saves time in the long run!
Tannenbaums "Operating Systems Design And Implentation" pretty much covers all you need to know for the practical aspects of kernel implementation. It does not cover the aspects of operating systems such as dealing with libc, the POSIX standard etc, but it does show you how to implement a schedular, memory managment aspects, IPC, device drivers etc.
Yes, it does refer to an "Older" Unix (MINIX, natch), but then that means things can be kept as simple as they need to be. The information in the book should be transferable to almost any operating system though.
I should imagine that if you combined this book along with OS Design & Implentation, then yes, you would have plenty of relevent information that can be applied to Linux.
Actually, the ASF format that Windows Media Player introduced is fully documented and available. aviplay has redumentry support for it, but it needs to be better. I have no idea if Xine supports it yet, but I suspect it will soon. The same goes for the MOV format, you probably know that it is possible to read Quicktime files on Linux, the only drawback is the lack of a Sorenson CODEC. That's exactly why aviplay (And Xine) now use Win32 DLL's, so that they can support proprietry formats through closed binary CODECS. Expect to be able to view almost any media format in Linux just as easily as you do in Windows before the year is out.
Notice how "Organises my files" is not one of the things that people are excited about when it comes to (almost any) file manager. No, they get excited about the themes, or the HTML engine, or the integrated AIM client with full support for teledildonics.
Personally i am getting just a little fed up with all of these do-it-all applications. I want a file manager that manages my files, a web browser that browses the web, and an ftp client that sends and recieves files over FTP. I do not want them all in the same damn application!
Have software developers gone nuts? What happened to the Unix pholosophy of lots of small tools that can be pluged together? Why is it that as soon as the developers get hold of a GUI they go mental and start layering IPC protocols on top of each other, integrating everything into one huge application that does it all, and basically forget that these tools are supposed to be there to do a job, and do it well? I don't need and HTML engine in my file manager, I use a web browser for that. All the HTML component does is add bloat (Even if it's not loaded, the application still needs code to support it), and uses my memory. This seems to apply more to Open Source software than it does to commercial, although Microsoft is also guilty of this in many ways too.
Please, for Jebus' sake, can we get back to small, lightweight tools, and stop integrating everything?
That true. You can request directly to the Mailers & Callers to be removed from their lists under the Data Protection Act.
An important point of the MPS, FPS & TPS schemes are that it can take upto three months for your name/address/telephone number to be removed from their lists, and the companies are only obliged to keep your name off of their lists for a maximum of one year, after which you have to re-register.