Interesting point that really hit it home for me on the weekend. Was in sydneys "china town" wondering around, saw a shop that had massive "up to 70% off!" signs in the window.. wandered in (The SO was attracted by a 50cm pooh bear (The only on in the shop mind you, and it had a "sold" sticker on it)). After about 20 seconds my SO whispers "look at the markup on this junk". I checked out a few items and they had marked up everything by about +200% or more.
A few examples included a 30cm plastic ruler, no decorations, just plain clear plastic with markings down one side (to measure with, i.e a 30 cent - 50 cent ruler) - $6.95. They had heaps of plastic garfield, snoopy etc. clocks that are about the size of (well the only thing I can see to compare it with at the moment) a 35 mm SLR body - $49.95. There were heaps more examples like that, just really junky plastic rubbish. Bump the prices up higher than your markdown and sucker people in thinking they're saving the big bucks.
Needless to say this quickly re-comfirm my supicious of "bargin" shops, and if I'm going out to look for something specific, do a 5 minute google/ebay etc to get an idea of the price range. I've found sunday computer markets are great for this, it's easy to compare prices as they're all near each other. Bring a pad to jot prices down on and remember to get a reciept for your purchases.
Oh, another one that's similar are floor rugs, need one for our lounge room, man, every where you look "50% off!!!" etc. If it's continually 50% off, then i'm not saving anything, no matter what your marketing BS is trying to tell me.
My wife did teach me one trick that works pretty well though. If you're like me and can't hagle to save yourself and feel really uncomfortable about doing anything like that, just ask the sales person "Is that the best price you can do?" or "Is that your best price?". Often you will get the price knocked down with that one simple question.
I can't wait until they start making "full" 35mm sensors, that would rock. Unfortunatly it will probably only be on a $5000 pro camera that I'll never be able to afford. I don't think that a sensor that size will make it down into the "cheaper" digitals as consumers don't know what the difference is.
It would be great to have the same bodies for film or digital and just swap the back off if you feel like changing and have it all interface with the body correctly. I know you can sort of do this with medium format, but then you getting into real $$.
I guess customers not really caring is why APS film hasn't disapeared yet (oh look honey, it's such a cute camera), though hopefully digital will kill it off. One thing I'd like to see move up from APS is the magnetic media film. I don't know how badly it affects the image quality, but it would be really great to have the focus distance/lens, zoom, f-stop, shutter speed etc record when I take a picture. I always forget what lense I used by the time i come to develop the film... Of course if you're using a filter this still wouldn't let you know which filter you used.
Most Australians I know hate the taste of fosters, I don't even rember seeing for sale here anywhere recently, maybe only in a bottle shop, certainly never on tap.
Can someone explain what's wrong with gimps interface? Is it because the tool bars aren't tied to the image window? Is it because it behaves different to other windows apps? Is it because it might take a while to learn and people give up?
One thing I would like is to force certain windows to always stay on top (in win32) but it's not something I can't live without.
...to use when a keyboard command, while not intuitive, would make it much easier to do the same thing.
In gimp it's easy to change the keyboard shortcuts, just navigate through the menus, highlight the one you want to change, and the hit the new key combo. The highlighted it will then have the new key combo.
Man, everyone bitching about gimp... I actually like the interface. Am I strange? Once you learn where everything is (took me about 2-3 hrs at most) it's pretty easy to use. I tried gimp2 but it's not 100% stable under win32 yet, and I'm not used to the changes (yet).
I think it's similar to the command line. Not that many geeks i know go "oh, i need a gui to do work, what's this command line stuff?", i don't understand why they say it about gimp. Photoshop costs a lot of money, and gimp costs $0. I think I've got a great piece of software for the money I paid for it, and if I'm not hppy I can always get a full no questions asked refund;-)
So that's my rant. Probably upset some of you GUI design people, but i'm happy with gimp1.x, and I'm sure if I put the time into gimp2 I'd like it as well.
I wasn't saying it was better than note pad (or whatever you choose) even
though I personally think it is. I was just saying that it's worth learning
the defaults when swapping between machines (read the parent of mine). At
work I end up telneting across many machines, a lot of the of the time i'm
using support or tempory logins, and a lot of the time the environment isn't
setup at all or someones messed it up... like hitting backspace produces a ^H and the arrow keys or
number pad refuse to work (hate that one). I wasn't having a go at windows notepad
or any other editing software, I was just saying that when working across
multiple machines, it's handy to learn defaults you can rely on.
Thought about that a bit more... the other great thing about hjkl is that my fingers are on those nearly keys constantly, no need to move my whole hand over to the arrow keys. If only [esc] was a bit closer. Might have to swap the mappings for the [esc] and `/~ keys. I'm not so sure about swaping strl and capslock though. I suspect that would take me a lot longer to get used too.
offtopic: I just wish the ksh i use (93?) when using command line history search (using [esc]/whatever) used p for previous.. n next works, but p pastes. I know it's probably the correct behaviour, but it catches me nearly every single time.
The default vi on HP-UX sounds similar. I'm so used to using hjkl as the arrow keys and x to delete that when i switch into notepad in win32 I often type jjjjj to do down a few lines. Also:wq ends up in there a lot.
Using ksh and having it "set -o vi" helps drill it in even more, especially when scrolling through the history buffer.
I've read (somewhere?) that it's eaiser to get serial going faster than parallel because with serial you don't have to line all the bits up to arrive at the same time like you do with parallel.
This is why a lot of the new high speed buses are serial (USB, firewire etc.)
Australia has a long history of introduced species causing damage. The most obvious to people living in sydney at the moment is the IndianMynah, after humans themselves;-)
Well then, don't go and see it! No one is forcing you too, and by the sounds of things you won't enjoy it. Why not spend that time to re-read some of his books, or read a book you've always meant to, but never had the time? Or even start writing your own robotic sci-fi story?
Failing all that, watch fight club. You are not your "insert product here".;-)
Seriously though, it's not that hard. Get a freind to have a "dummy run" and show you how to do it, then try it yourself. If you get stuck he/she can help you. Remember, dirt washes off:)
Most of the older Pentax cameras are pretty good, as long as the body is in good nick and you have good lenses. I own two KMs and a ME super, and they've all served me well.
There have been a few post on photo.net about old "beaters" that you might be interested in.
It's been mentioned already, but www.photo.net is pretty good.
I also found www.photozone.de a few days ago. A bit basic, but the stuff under teqnique should get you started.
Just remember that the sight on your camera isn't a gun, think of it more as composing a picture in the view finder. Pay attention not only to your subjects but what else you can see behind/around them. Don't be afraid to ask people to move closer in group shots, try crouching down or standing on something to get a different view on things, don't be afraid to move around rather than just standing and clicking.
Although the Shenzhou spacecraft is based on the Soyuz design, it is slightly more advanced and uses more modern computers to manage operations and navigation.
The report quoted a Chinese naval captain, Shen Zhongchang, as writing: "The mastery of outer space will be a requisite for military victory, with outer space becoming the new commanding heights for combat."
I've been doing barcode stuff with Jetform for a while to all sorts of different printers, and I've still have yet to find anything that aproaches what jetform can do, even though design is a sucky program and annoys the heck out of me.
Jetform is great because it has such a huge libary of printers to choose from... Upgraded your printers? No worries, just recompile your forms and presto, they're working again, no need to muck around with printer control codes, no need to recompile programs (good!!) or change the data streams. You can even compile in more than one printer so that you can have half new/half old if it's not a full upgrade.
I've been trying to find an open source replacement like the poster asked, and I don't think it exists yet. LaTeX looked like it might be able to do it, but I really haven't checked it out that much, and besides, that could only replace the Central part (the driver), you'd still have to replace Design.
At the moment where I work we've decided to stick with version 5.4 of central and design, it works fine on hpux 11i(central) and w2k(design) both OSes we'll stick with for a few years... So i guess my advise is to stick with your current version if there is no real pressing need to change.
6) apt-get of course works just fine with a local repository, or from a cd distribution by using apt-cdrom to populate your package information list.
This is a good point. My two debian boxes rarely connect to the net, and I'm on dialup, so it's a PITA to dl the bigger packages. I usually use apt-get from the CDs to test out programs before I decide if I need to dl them or not.
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A few examples included a 30cm plastic ruler, no decorations, just plain clear plastic with markings down one side (to measure with, i.e a 30 cent - 50 cent ruler) - $6.95. They had heaps of plastic garfield, snoopy etc. clocks that are about the size of (well the only thing I can see to compare it with at the moment) a 35 mm SLR body - $49.95. There were heaps more examples like that, just really junky plastic rubbish. Bump the prices up higher than your markdown and sucker people in thinking they're saving the big bucks.
Needless to say this quickly re-comfirm my supicious of "bargin" shops, and if I'm going out to look for something specific, do a 5 minute google/ebay etc to get an idea of the price range. I've found sunday computer markets are great for this, it's easy to compare prices as they're all near each other. Bring a pad to jot prices down on and remember to get a reciept for your purchases.
Oh, another one that's similar are floor rugs, need one for our lounge room, man, every where you look "50% off!!!" etc. If it's continually 50% off, then i'm not saving anything, no matter what your marketing BS is trying to tell me.
My wife did teach me one trick that works pretty well though. If you're like me and can't hagle to save yourself and feel really uncomfortable about doing anything like that, just ask the sales person "Is that the best price you can do?" or "Is that your best price?". Often you will get the price knocked down with that one simple question.
It would be great to have the same bodies for film or digital and just swap the back off if you feel like changing and have it all interface with the body correctly. I know you can sort of do this with medium format, but then you getting into real $$. I guess customers not really caring is why APS film hasn't disapeared yet (oh look honey, it's such a cute camera), though hopefully digital will kill it off. One thing I'd like to see move up from APS is the magnetic media film. I don't know how badly it affects the image quality, but it would be really great to have the focus distance/lens, zoom, f-stop, shutter speed etc record when I take a picture. I always forget what lense I used by the time i come to develop the film... Of course if you're using a filter this still wouldn't let you know which filter you used.
Most Australians I know hate the taste of fosters, I don't even rember seeing for sale here anywhere recently, maybe only in a bottle shop, certainly never on tap.
One thing I would like is to force certain windows to always stay on top (in win32) but it's not something I can't live without.
In gimp it's easy to change the keyboard shortcuts, just navigate through the menus, highlight the one you want to change, and the hit the new key combo. The highlighted it will then have the new key combo.
I think it's similar to the command line. Not that many geeks i know go "oh, i need a gui to do work, what's this command line stuff?", i don't understand why they say it about gimp. Photoshop costs a lot of money, and gimp costs $0. I think I've got a great piece of software for the money I paid for it, and if I'm not hppy I can always get a full no questions asked refund ;-)
So that's my rant. Probably upset some of you GUI design people, but i'm happy with gimp1.x, and I'm sure if I put the time into gimp2 I'd like it as well.
I wasn't saying it was better than note pad (or whatever you choose) even though I personally think it is. I was just saying that it's worth learning the defaults when swapping between machines (read the parent of mine). At work I end up telneting across many machines, a lot of the of the time i'm using support or tempory logins, and a lot of the time the environment isn't setup at all or someones messed it up... like hitting backspace produces a ^H and the arrow keys or number pad refuse to work (hate that one). I wasn't having a go at windows notepad or any other editing software, I was just saying that when working across multiple machines, it's handy to learn defaults you can rely on.
Thought about that a bit more... the other great thing about hjkl is that my fingers are on those nearly keys constantly, no need to move my whole hand over to the arrow keys. If only [esc] was a bit closer. Might have to swap the mappings for the [esc] and `/~ keys. I'm not so sure about swaping strl and capslock though. I suspect that would take me a lot longer to get used too.
offtopic: I just wish the ksh i use (93?) when using command line history search (using [esc]/whatever) used p for previous.. n next works, but p pastes. I know it's probably the correct behaviour, but it catches me nearly every single time.
Using ksh and having it "set -o vi" helps drill it in even more, especially when scrolling through the history buffer.
This is why a lot of the new high speed buses are serial (USB, firewire etc.)
Australia has a long history of introduced species causing damage. The most obvious to people living in sydney at the moment is the Indian Mynah, after humans themselves ;-)
Well then, don't go and see it! No one is forcing you too, and by the sounds of things you won't enjoy it. Why not spend that time to re-read some of his books, or read a book you've always meant to, but never had the time? Or even start writing your own robotic sci-fi story?
Failing all that, watch fight club. You are not your "insert product here". ;-)
Seriously though, it's not that hard. Get a freind to have a "dummy run" and show you how to do it, then try it yourself. If you get stuck he/she can help you. Remember, dirt washes off :)
Add a touch screen and you'd have a winner, no KB/mouse/track ball would make it eaiser and more hack/crack proof.
I like you commodore ute "hack" ;-)
Most of the older Pentax cameras are pretty good, as long as the body is in good nick and you have good lenses. I own two KMs and a ME super, and they've all served me well. There have been a few post on photo.net about old "beaters" that you might be interested in.
I live in Australia and I don't think I've ever seen a dvorak keyboard IRL, I don't even know of anywhere I could by one apart from online stores.
I also found www.photozone.de a few days ago. A bit basic, but the stuff under teqnique should get you started.
Just remember that the sight on your camera isn't a gun, think of it more as composing a picture in the view finder. Pay attention not only to your subjects but what else you can see behind/around them. Don't be afraid to ask people to move closer in group shots, try crouching down or standing on something to get a different view on things, don't be afraid to move around rather than just standing and clicking.
Although the Shenzhou spacecraft is based on the Soyuz design, it is slightly more advanced and uses more modern computers to manage operations and navigation.
The report quoted a Chinese naval captain, Shen Zhongchang, as writing: "The mastery of outer space will be a requisite for military victory, with outer space becoming the new commanding heights for combat."
Jetform is great because it has such a huge libary of printers to choose from... Upgraded your printers? No worries, just recompile your forms and presto, they're working again, no need to muck around with printer control codes, no need to recompile programs (good!!) or change the data streams. You can even compile in more than one printer so that you can have half new/half old if it's not a full upgrade.
I've been trying to find an open source replacement like the poster asked, and I don't think it exists yet. LaTeX looked like it might be able to do it, but I really haven't checked it out that much, and besides, that could only replace the Central part (the driver), you'd still have to replace Design.
At the moment where I work we've decided to stick with version 5.4 of central and design, it works fine on hpux 11i(central) and w2k(design) both OSes we'll stick with for a few years ... So i guess my advise is to stick with your current version if there is no real pressing need to change.
This is a good point. My two debian boxes rarely connect to the net, and I'm on dialup, so it's a PITA to dl the bigger packages. I usually use apt-get from the CDs to test out programs before I decide if I need to dl them or not.
Qba'g gel gb oernx guvf ryvgr rapelcgvba fpurzr rvgure, be bs gb wnvy sbe lbh.
Don't forget pac-man plus' Coke Can, circa 1982.
lol ;-) Thought I recognised the name.