What alternative is there? You can't stay on XP forever - eventually support will go away, patches will stop, fire and blood will rain from the skies, etc. Eventually, IT will have to move to a new OS, and the odds are that OS will be Win 7 or whatever chunk of crap MS is peddling that year. It's still more compelling for business users than any alternative.
You could move to the Mac, but then you need all new software and you need to completely retrain your staff. Same thing for Linux. So you can move to Win 7 - where you can at least expect some of your software to continue working. Developers can keep cranking out crap in VisualStudio (which is a shitty fucking IDE, whatever it's cadre of loyal adherents say about it), executives can continue using Outlook and schedule meetings with each other, your shitty ActiveX control laden intranet will work without changes (MS is never, ever, ever, gonna give that shit up if they can help it).
You will still have to retrain your staff to use the windows 7 interface and the new office interface
Our DNA database contains thousands of people who have never been criminally convicted
Then vote the fucking assholes in the Surveillance^WLabour Party out of office. In my home state the police have to destroy your fingerprints/DNA if you are arrested for a crime and later cleared (via dismissal or acquittal) of having committed that crime. I'm growing weary of hearing Britons whine about your surveillance soceity while you keep electing the same assholes who are busy setting it up. Contrast this to the outage in the US over the Real-ID scheme. We've actually had quite a few states come out and say they won't take part in it. Where's that spirit in the mother country?
I find it ironic that your unelected upper house is the voice of sanity in the UK. Perhaps you made a mistake when you stripped them of all their power?
its because they have little power is why they are the voice of sanity. Absolute power corrupts absolutely
Good point! Why should I pay for schools? I have no children.
But you did to school at one time correct?
You wouldn't pay for telephone service if you did not own a telephone, right? I think it is perfectly fair for someone to opt-out of a government "service" they do not use. It is fair to pay for what you use. It is not fair to pay for something you will never use.
I guess you will never use emergency services either then so there is no point in you paying for it.
Somehow I think you disagree.. now before you start spouting off about "society" and other collectivist terms like the last guy, ask yourself this:
If garbage service *was* optional in your area and provided by the city, but also by a private contractor that you preferred and used, would you voluntarily help your well off neighbor pay for his city garbage collection service? If you would, how much would you voluntarily pay him, what level of burden would you take on? If you wouldn't voluntarily do it, then why do you think it is it ok to make it law and force someone to?
I think I would rather spend money on the public transportation then some war that was only started for oil and is draining more tax dollars then the public transportation system would in 100 years
i agree, i use WEP on an ad-hoc to share internet to my girlfriend in the flat, and i can monitor the traffic from the computer to make sure nothing is awry, i use it over WPA for the same reason you list, and my parents use WEP with their router, again because some computers still seem unable to play nicely with WEP.
and to be honest, its not like WPA is uncrackable, and if someone knows how to get through WEP they can probably figure how to get through WPA in the end. I think that for most people, security on the home network its just to keep curious neighbours from stumbleing in, rather that over concern that some terrorist is going to be sitting in a van outside using their network to help execute their plans to destroy the world
it might not be uncrackable, but if a guy on a laptop can't crack it in 5 minutes, then he is probably going to move on to a different target thats easier
[quote]Put the damn money into comprehensive public transportation!![/quote]
First off.. its my money, I should be able to do with it what I want. Secondly.. why does government even take care of roads at all? Thirdly.. I don't even take the bus, why should I pay for it?
Thats like saying, I don't go to school any more, so why should I pay for it?, just because you don't, doesn't mean that nobdy else does
But having our media and our politicians say, "forall x. x can be used by the terrorists (watch out|let's get rid of it)" is doing way more damage to our lives.
Let's say the traveler cancels at the last minute, and the plane blows up. They go check it out, because maybe he/she was tipped off by a friend not to get on the plane.
I knew a guy who was supposed to be on flight 800 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800) but that morning he fell down carrying his metal trash down the stairs and injured himself. He went to the hospital and was OK but he had missed the flight. The next day the FBI came over and wanted to know why he had not been on the plane. He had to convince them that he had gone to the hospital. They went and checked out his story.
yes but how would an IP address help?, an IP address barely corresponds to a nearby town, much less a person. I think their address/phone number would be alot more useful
You can't really get mad at corporations for doing what they have to do to survive. I can see getting mad at them when they delibertly do something that is ilegal, eg. when ms bribed ISO. If no corporations did anything "evil" then most of us would be out of a job because all corps do something that is slightly evil sometime. But I can see your point though
3. That people will still buy (or not buy) Mac's based on a fashion over function idea (despite the fact the actual Mac offering isn't too bad functionally).
So they wont buy macs because of blind faith/fanboyism?
4. That people will make a bunch of random predictions, and several of these will pan out as predicted, and the people will say "Oh Wow!!!", (and then post the original predictions to Slashdot).
My predictions aren't random. They're calculated based on Level III Multiverse theory. I predict every possible outcome for every possible event. In one of those universes, all my predictions are correct.
A few of my own predictions...
5. Richard Stallman will get hairier.
6. Google will become more evil.
7. Someone on slashdot will come up with a meme that covers Soviet Russia, car analogies & Profit lists.
I really don't understand why everyone thinks google is evil when they are just doing what every company would do
That's the thing, in Intrepid you can't chose KDE 3.5
I could grab a PPA, or I could grab Hardy. Or I could use Intrepid and KDE4, but fall back to KDE3 for half the packages -- Amarok2 isn't done, so Amarok will be using the KDE3 libs, as will networkmanager (thus breaking kwallet integration)...
it isn't that far behind and it has some added interesting features.
And yet, the fact that it is behind is a big slap in the face. I've told people not to upgrade to KDE4, and I'm about to start telling them to go back to Windows. It's that bad.
You do realize there is more then one desktop environment right? if kde doesn't work for you, you are free to use gnome or xfce
OS X is certainly more useful than either, if you can put up with its UI quirks (I personally can't).
And a large part of the usability of Windows comes from having non-crippled software. I use Photoshop, and Krita and the GIMP don't cut it (Krita, I think, has a chance to be awesome; the GIMP, not so much, though I'm hoping the new graphics engine can be used by people who actually know what a decent UI is) and I'm not going to waste time fighting with WINE.
I assumed we were talking about UIs not applications, because thats a completely different story
4) It's marketing-driven. It was given a ridiculous name, and seemingly was at the top of a 'new 3.0 feature' bullet list that Mozilla wanted to 'push'... Then they removed options (which existed in the betas) to switch between the new and old configuration. That's skirting close to BIG BAD COMPANY behavior.
I wasn't aware that mozilla was a big company to begin with.
That's the best counter argument you can come up with? And you've had to take what Toonol said out of context to come up with that counter point.
He said that forcing the awful bar on the users is big bad company behaviour, and I am very inclined to agree. One of the reasons I am trying to get away from proprietary software is because they will make seemingly arbitrary changes to a product just to support their business model, and the user just has to suffer those changes.
But Mozilla is a non-profit entity, so there is no clear reason why they would behave like a big bad company.
If so many people hate, why don't you guys just fork it and then you don't have to deal with "Big Bad Company" behavior
I can see OSX being more usable then windows or kde 3.5, but saying that windows is more useable then kde 3.5 is stretching it a bit far. I use both windows and kde 3.5 alot and I find kde 3.5 to be just as useable if not more so then windows xp
No, simply that it's new isn't a problem. A few reasons:
1) It's big, ugly, and distracting, mixing a variety of font sizes, italics, etc. (That's my subjective opinion).
I don't notice the fonts at all, they look pretty standardised to me
2) It is unpredictable, hence less useful. It used to bring up URLs that were previously typed in the field, that began with the letters typed. Now it searches other places and other fields, in a way that is not obvious, and can change unpredictably. My son was complaining about how the webcomic he reads keeps on turning up multiple times in the "awesomebar", because every strip has a different title.
I can kind of see your point here but, I find that its pretty predictable myself
3) It can pull up results that were never typed into the bar. That's non-intuitive; it should use the same 'type-ahead' system of selecting from previous entries that would work for other fields, such as html input fields. Don't make a crazy new interface for one field; make a interface that works sensibly for all fields.
4) It's marketing-driven. It was given a ridiculous name, and seemingly was at the top of a 'new 3.0 feature' bullet list that Mozilla wanted to 'push'... Then they removed options (which existed in the betas) to switch between the new and old configuration. That's skirting close to BIG BAD COMPANY behavior.
I wasn't aware that mozilla was a big company to begin with.
Doesn't it remind you of how the search feature in every MS OS has been getting worse and worse every version, despite the added features?
The search feature in windows hasn't really changed much between windows 98 and windows xp that I know of, I haven't used vista so I can't comment on it, but if they got rid of that dog I would say that is a plus;)
Slashdot Mirror
What alternative is there? You can't stay on XP forever - eventually support will go away, patches will stop, fire and blood will rain from the skies, etc. Eventually, IT will have to move to a new OS, and the odds are that OS will be Win 7 or whatever chunk of crap MS is peddling that year. It's still more compelling for business users than any alternative.
You could move to the Mac, but then you need all new software and you need to completely retrain your staff. Same thing for Linux. So you can move to Win 7 - where you can at least expect some of your software to continue working. Developers can keep cranking out crap in VisualStudio (which is a shitty fucking IDE, whatever it's cadre of loyal adherents say about it), executives can continue using Outlook and schedule meetings with each other, your shitty ActiveX control laden intranet will work without changes (MS is never, ever, ever, gonna give that shit up if they can help it).
You will still have to retrain your staff to use the windows 7 interface and the new office interface
Our DNA database contains thousands of people who have never been criminally convicted
Then vote the fucking assholes in the Surveillance^WLabour Party out of office. In my home state the police have to destroy your fingerprints/DNA if you are arrested for a crime and later cleared (via dismissal or acquittal) of having committed that crime. I'm growing weary of hearing Britons whine about your surveillance soceity while you keep electing the same assholes who are busy setting it up. Contrast this to the outage in the US over the Real-ID scheme. We've actually had quite a few states come out and say they won't take part in it. Where's that spirit in the mother country?
I find it ironic that your unelected upper house is the voice of sanity in the UK. Perhaps you made a mistake when you stripped them of all their power?
its because they have little power is why they are the voice of sanity. Absolute power corrupts absolutely
Good point! Why should I pay for schools? I have no children.
But you did to school at one time correct?
You wouldn't pay for telephone service if you did not own a telephone, right? I think it is perfectly fair for someone to opt-out of a government "service" they do not use. It is fair to pay for what you use. It is not fair to pay for something you will never use.
I guess you will never use emergency services either then so there is no point in you paying for it.
Somehow I think you disagree.. now before you start spouting off about "society" and other collectivist terms like the last guy, ask yourself this:
If garbage service *was* optional in your area and provided by the city, but also by a private contractor that you preferred and used, would you voluntarily help your well off neighbor pay for his city garbage collection service? If you would, how much would you voluntarily pay him, what level of burden would you take on? If you wouldn't voluntarily do it, then why do you think it is it ok to make it law and force someone to?
I think I would rather spend money on the public transportation then some war that was only started for oil and is draining more tax dollars then the public transportation system would in 100 years
I was referring to WPA....
i agree, i use WEP on an ad-hoc to share internet to my girlfriend in the flat, and i can monitor the traffic from the computer to make sure nothing is awry, i use it over WPA for the same reason you list, and my parents use WEP with their router, again because some computers still seem unable to play nicely with WEP. and to be honest, its not like WPA is uncrackable, and if someone knows how to get through WEP they can probably figure how to get through WPA in the end. I think that for most people, security on the home network its just to keep curious neighbours from stumbleing in, rather that over concern that some terrorist is going to be sitting in a van outside using their network to help execute their plans to destroy the world
it might not be uncrackable, but if a guy on a laptop can't crack it in 5 minutes, then he is probably going to move on to a different target thats easier
You mean there is another user?
[quote]Put the damn money into comprehensive public transportation!![/quote]
First off.. its my money, I should be able to do with it what I want. Secondly.. why does government even take care of roads at all? Thirdly.. I don't even take the bus, why should I pay for it?
Thats like saying, I don't go to school any more, so why should I pay for it?, just because you don't, doesn't mean that nobdy else does
How about The Mist, it will certainly keep the population down
In case you haven't noticed, one of the points to using linux is choice, why would you use linux if it was just like windows?
But having our media and our politicians say, "forall x. x can be used by the terrorists (watch out|let's get rid of it)" is doing way more damage to our lives.
They use bitwise ORs?
it may lead to a real world location, but that may be thousands of miles away from the actual person
Not nessecarily, how do they know the person wasn't using tor or a proxy?
Let's say the traveler cancels at the last minute, and the plane blows up. They go check it out, because maybe he/she was tipped off by a friend not to get on the plane.
I knew a guy who was supposed to be on flight 800 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_800) but that morning he fell down carrying his metal trash down the stairs and injured himself. He went to the hospital and was OK but he had missed the flight. The next day the FBI came over and wanted to know why he had not been on the plane. He had to convince them that he had gone to the hospital. They went and checked out his story.
yes but how would an IP address help?, an IP address barely corresponds to a nearby town, much less a person. I think their address/phone number would be alot more useful
You can't really get mad at corporations for doing what they have to do to survive. I can see getting mad at them when they delibertly do something that is ilegal, eg. when ms bribed ISO. If no corporations did anything "evil" then most of us would be out of a job because all corps do something that is slightly evil sometime. But I can see your point though
3. That people will still buy (or not buy) Mac's based on a fashion over function idea (despite the fact the actual Mac offering isn't too bad functionally).
So they wont buy macs because of blind faith/fanboyism?
4. That people will make a bunch of random predictions, and several of these will pan out as predicted, and the people will say "Oh Wow!!!", (and then post the original predictions to Slashdot).
My predictions aren't random. They're calculated based on Level III Multiverse theory. I predict every possible outcome for every possible event. In one of those universes, all my predictions are correct.
A few of my own predictions...
5. Richard Stallman will get hairier.
6. Google will become more evil.
7. Someone on slashdot will come up with a meme that covers Soviet Russia, car analogies & Profit lists.
I really don't understand why everyone thinks google is evil when they are just doing what every company would do
Do I take the red pill, or the blue pill?
I have seen borders in red, and I don't believe I'm a subscriber
You mean the stuff they write in Visual Basic?
on a sparc processer too :D
That's the thing, in Intrepid you can't chose KDE 3.5
I could grab a PPA, or I could grab Hardy. Or I could use Intrepid and KDE4, but fall back to KDE3 for half the packages -- Amarok2 isn't done, so Amarok will be using the KDE3 libs, as will networkmanager (thus breaking kwallet integration)...
it isn't that far behind and it has some added interesting features.
And yet, the fact that it is behind is a big slap in the face. I've told people not to upgrade to KDE4, and I'm about to start telling them to go back to Windows. It's that bad.
You do realize there is more then one desktop environment right? if kde doesn't work for you, you are free to use gnome or xfce
OS X is certainly more useful than either, if you can put up with its UI quirks (I personally can't).
And a large part of the usability of Windows comes from having non-crippled software. I use Photoshop, and Krita and the GIMP don't cut it (Krita, I think, has a chance to be awesome; the GIMP, not so much, though I'm hoping the new graphics engine can be used by people who actually know what a decent UI is) and I'm not going to waste time fighting with WINE.
I assumed we were talking about UIs not applications, because thats a completely different story
4) It's marketing-driven. It was given a ridiculous name, and seemingly was at the top of a 'new 3.0 feature' bullet list that Mozilla wanted to 'push'... Then they removed options (which existed in the betas) to switch between the new and old configuration. That's skirting close to BIG BAD COMPANY behavior.
I wasn't aware that mozilla was a big company to begin with.
That's the best counter argument you can come up with? And you've had to take what Toonol said out of context to come up with that counter point.
He said that forcing the awful bar on the users is big bad company behaviour, and I am very inclined to agree. One of the reasons I am trying to get away from proprietary software is because they will make seemingly arbitrary changes to a product just to support their business model, and the user just has to suffer those changes.
But Mozilla is a non-profit entity, so there is no clear reason why they would behave like a big bad company.
If so many people hate, why don't you guys just fork it and then you don't have to deal with "Big Bad Company" behavior
I can see OSX being more usable then windows or kde 3.5, but saying that windows is more useable then kde 3.5 is stretching it a bit far. I use both windows and kde 3.5 alot and I find kde 3.5 to be just as useable if not more so then windows xp
but I'm pretty sure kde 3.5 mostly works, unless the definition of mostly has changed in recent years
No, simply that it's new isn't a problem. A few reasons: 1) It's big, ugly, and distracting, mixing a variety of font sizes, italics, etc. (That's my subjective opinion).
I don't notice the fonts at all, they look pretty standardised to me
2) It is unpredictable, hence less useful. It used to bring up URLs that were previously typed in the field, that began with the letters typed. Now it searches other places and other fields, in a way that is not obvious, and can change unpredictably. My son was complaining about how the webcomic he reads keeps on turning up multiple times in the "awesomebar", because every strip has a different title.
I can kind of see your point here but, I find that its pretty predictable myself
3) It can pull up results that were never typed into the bar. That's non-intuitive; it should use the same 'type-ahead' system of selecting from previous entries that would work for other fields, such as html input fields. Don't make a crazy new interface for one field; make a interface that works sensibly for all fields. 4) It's marketing-driven. It was given a ridiculous name, and seemingly was at the top of a 'new 3.0 feature' bullet list that Mozilla wanted to 'push'... Then they removed options (which existed in the betas) to switch between the new and old configuration. That's skirting close to BIG BAD COMPANY behavior.
I wasn't aware that mozilla was a big company to begin with.
Doesn't it remind you of how the search feature in every MS OS has been getting worse and worse every version, despite the added features?
The search feature in windows hasn't really changed much between windows 98 and windows xp that I know of, I haven't used vista so I can't comment on it, but if they got rid of that dog I would say that is a plus ;)