I worry a little about the way the Unix desktops are becoming increasingly interdependent, with lots of libraries and lots of integration... are we going to end up in the same place, eventually?
This is what keeps linux off my desktop. I don't like dozens of dependencies to install an application that I'm just evaluating.
I like simple self-contained applications which come with good defaults, or figure things out for themselves. If they need a lot of dependencies, then the documentation should come in PLAIN TEXT with very clean and detailed instructions on what dependencies it needs, where they are expected to be installed, and what is the normal way to get everything in place for new users who may not be aware of the "standard procedure".
I still think the Amiga had/has everything else beat in this regard. Everything had a place where it was expected to be, programs were mostly self-contained, and things just worked together without a lot of hassle.
I primarily program Java for JSP/Servlets thank you very much =)
These widget types that are missing are not easy to replicate using plain HTML.
A calendar can be replaced by a MM/DD/YY select lists, but those are much more cumbersome to use, and allow the user to select impossible combinations (February 31 for example), which then require error handling. It's always best to create a situation where it's impossible for the user to input erroneous information to begin with.
A clock can also be replaced with existing elements (two select boxes or two text boxes), but it would be nice to have a standard and easy-to-use input widget which would only allow valid values.
Palettes can be simulated with a DHTML panel, but again, this is a cumbersome and limiting form of input.
I'll admit sliders are probably a bit frivolous, but it would save some time and frustration with error checking range values.
I can jump into DHTML to replicate all of these, but with DHTML, things get difficult for compatibility and accessibility.
That's what I don't understand about using fireplaces in the winter for heat. Don't they encourage cold air to sneak in through the cracks of the house?
These people need to learn that many consumers have geeks like us as friends who can recognized a truly terrible product and tell them about it.
This is what I don't get. Why can't companies like this take a hint when people in their customer base raise the red flag early on?
All they'd have to do is seek out a hundred geeks, invite them to evaluate a product description, and they'd have their answer and would have saved themselves a few million dollars.
Constant rejection can adversely affect the body as it can lead to poor mental health, depression, anxiety and feelings of loneliness, said assistant psychology professor Shelly Gable.
"Not feeling socially integrated can have a higher risk of mortality than smoking," she said.
According to the 2002 Annual Review of Psychology, individuals who suffer from major depression are at higher risk of having heart attacks compared with those with no history of depression.
"Being socially integrated is extremely important for health and well-being," Gable said.
This is called empathy. Some people are born without the empathy gene. After a while, you learn to ignore these people, becuase they will exploit any opportunity possible to cause you grief for their own enjoyment.
If they really wanted to do something useful, they could have worked on designing standards for some new HTML form types to gather data that is currently complicated to gather with the form elements that we currently have available, such as:
Select a date: <input type="date"...> (displays a calendar widget)
Select a time: <input type="time"...> (displays a clock widget)
Select a color: <input type="color"...> (displays a color selection palette widget)
Select a coordinate: <input type="map" src="/mymap.png"...> (displays an image map, with a visual mark where you clicked on the map, with an option to allow the user to select multiple)
Select a number from a range: <input type="slider" minval=1 maxval=10...> (displays a slider widget)
I think implementing new form inputs like these would be a lot more useful than reinventing the wheel.
XML is good for many things. It's even perfect for some. But it's not a "universal format". Too many people are making every problem out to be nail, and think that XML is the hammer. Not every problem is a nail.
I'm becoming more and more disenfranchised with the W3C as time goes on. They are becoming another example of design-by-committee. They are continuing to abandon the KISS principle in favor of "make everything fit, no matter the complexity".
I'll admit some of the stuff in these specifications looks interesting, but it doesn't really add anything to the capabilities we have already, and probably has about as much chance of being implemented as IPv6.
A company that would manufacture a Model M quality keyboard these days would probably have to charge at least $50 to make any profit.
The other problem is the existing Model M's don't die, and they're easy to find -- They're usually sold for less than 10 dollars at a local computer show, hamfest, or public auction.
Many of the less enlightened consider these keyboards "inferior" and replace them with the cheap crappy "silent" keyboards, so if you're lucky maybe you can save one/some from being thrown away. This was how I came across a few...
It's quite saddening to know that probably somewhere, a whole boxful of Model M's slipped past the radar of the local geeks and made it to the landfill... =(
You can't always use the newest theoretical protocol or technology--especially if your clients are not technically adept and tend to stick with older computers that are rarely upgraded, such as is often the case with lawyers for example.
The problem is, you can code for "standards compliant" all you want, but until that standard is used by > 2/3 of your visitors, then you're wasting your energy.
When it comes to real-world business, ideology is about as useful as a money shredder. You don't tell your customers to upgrade or change browsers. You adapt to your customers, or your competition will.
Outlook Express is a great example of this too. OE is still my favorite mail program on Windows, but it really hasn't changed much since the circa-IE4 days.
I like OE mostly becuase it has a clean and intuitive User Interface, but I'm disappointed that they stopped putting any effort into it right about the time when that stupid greeting card company sued MS to remove the (at the time very effective) Junk Mail filter becuase it was filtering out their "junk"...
Yeah it's much easier to figure out the math these days, compared to the old days when we exchanged currency which represented negative, irrational, and imaginary dollar amounts. =)
This should seem rather obvious. I have three screens at work (since several rounds of layoffs over the past two years has left the company with an abundance of equipment).
I have a [17"LCD] [21"CRT] [17"LCD] setup.
My CRT is where I run my primary applications, which is usually Eclipse (which unfortunately does not seem to have multi-screen support for breaking off panels to other screens).
My left LCD is where I run web browsers for running, testing code, or surfing slashdot =P
My right LCD is for my telnet/ssh terminals and system monitoring applications.
I very rarely need to juggle windows, but for when I do, I've found that a vertical task bar works best (I keep it left-most on my left LCD, at about 120 pixels wide).
The only problem I have is sometimes I forget to shift my input context to a window on another screen when I begin typing. I think it'd be cool if there were something which could sense which screen I'm looking at, and switch my input context to the window most recently used on that screen.
At home, I have one 21" monitor. What's strange is that I don't really miss the extra screens at home. I guess if I wrote code while at home I probably would, but since I'm usually just playing a game or browsing the web, I don't need the extra screen(s).
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand how so many people can not see the situation we are falling into.
1. Our government controls the flow of a large amount of money by means of taxes and spending programs.
2. Corporations like money, so they want to do whatever possible to a) reduce taxes, and b) get contracts with some of those spending programs.
3. The best way to get a foot ahead of the competition is to make friends with people who are inside the government
4. These "friends" give special consideration to the companies that help them get elected or stay elected.
5. In return, these companies compensate their elected "friends" for their efforts and to encourage further consideration in the future.
6. The process continues for a long time, as the government slowly grows more and more corrupt.
7. Now the government (the only entity who can legally forcefully take money from you), is investing a majority of it's taxes into private companies.
8. In the end, the private companies practically own the government, and have become our feudal overlords.
Is this what we want?
I just happen to live in Boca Raton...
This town is a cesspool of human conscience. Words can't explain just how contemptible people are here...
It's the perfect place for scum like spammers. they fit right in with the social atmosphere here.
I feel out of place and quite alone here. This is not a suitable terroritory for the humble geek. =(
I worry a little about the way the Unix desktops are becoming increasingly interdependent, with lots of libraries and lots of integration... are we going to end up in the same place, eventually?
This is what keeps linux off my desktop. I don't like dozens of dependencies to install an application that I'm just evaluating.
I like simple self-contained applications which come with good defaults, or figure things out for themselves. If they need a lot of dependencies, then the documentation should come in PLAIN TEXT with very clean and detailed instructions on what dependencies it needs, where they are expected to be installed, and what is the normal way to get everything in place for new users who may not be aware of the "standard procedure".
I still think the Amiga had/has everything else beat in this regard. Everything had a place where it was expected to be, programs were mostly self-contained, and things just worked together without a lot of hassle.
I primarily program Java for JSP/Servlets thank you very much =)
These widget types that are missing are not easy to replicate using plain HTML.
A calendar can be replaced by a MM/DD/YY select lists, but those are much more cumbersome to use, and allow the user to select impossible combinations (February 31 for example), which then require error handling. It's always best to create a situation where it's impossible for the user to input erroneous information to begin with.
A clock can also be replaced with existing elements (two select boxes or two text boxes), but it would be nice to have a standard and easy-to-use input widget which would only allow valid values.
Palettes can be simulated with a DHTML panel, but again, this is a cumbersome and limiting form of input.
I'll admit sliders are probably a bit frivolous, but it would save some time and frustration with error checking range values.
I can jump into DHTML to replicate all of these, but with DHTML, things get difficult for compatibility and accessibility.
That's what I don't understand about using fireplaces in the winter for heat. Don't they encourage cold air to sneak in through the cracks of the house?
Their website does practically the same thing. It keeps asking me what region I'm in. After the second time it asked me I decided to give up...
These people need to learn that many consumers have geeks like us as friends who can recognized a truly terrible product and tell them about it.
This is what I don't get. Why can't companies like this take a hint when people in their customer base raise the red flag early on?
All they'd have to do is seek out a hundred geeks, invite them to evaluate a product description, and they'd have their answer and would have saved themselves a few million dollars.
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.as
This is called empathy. Some people are born without the empathy gene. After a while, you learn to ignore these people, becuase they will exploit any opportunity possible to cause you grief for their own enjoyment.
I prefer RFC 1149 over the outdated technology referred to as "telegrams".
If they really wanted to do something useful, they could have worked on designing standards for some new HTML form types to gather data that is currently complicated to gather with the form elements that we currently have available, such as:
...>
...>
...>
...>
...>
Select a date:
<input type="date"
(displays a calendar widget)
Select a time:
<input type="time"
(displays a clock widget)
Select a color:
<input type="color"
(displays a color selection palette widget)
Select a coordinate:
<input type="map" src="/mymap.png"
(displays an image map, with a visual mark where you clicked on the map, with an option to allow the user to select multiple)
Select a number from a range:
<input type="slider" minval=1 maxval=10
(displays a slider widget)
I think implementing new form inputs like these would be a lot more useful than reinventing the wheel.
Don't give them any ideas.
I imagine if they had their way, it'd take 4000 bytes of XML to do the W3C-approved equivalent of:
<font color="red">
XML is good for many things. It's even perfect for some. But it's not a "universal format". Too many people are making every problem out to be nail, and think that XML is the hammer. Not every problem is a nail.
I'm becoming more and more disenfranchised with the W3C as time goes on. They are becoming another example of design-by-committee. They are continuing to abandon the KISS principle in favor of "make everything fit, no matter the complexity".
I'll admit some of the stuff in these specifications looks interesting, but it doesn't really add anything to the capabilities we have already, and probably has about as much chance of being implemented as IPv6.
Does anyone else stare at this picture for >1 minute while readjusting their perspective?
This would be an amazing picture even if it were only fictional artwork. The fact that it's real makes it all the more amazing...
If you only glanced, then go back and pause for a moment. Make sure you view the 435kiB version so you can see the details...
OMG.... so many jumps all around...
How did we ever debug the code?
Yet, I strangely miss this somehow...
Does anyone else remember connecting to BBS services with the C-64
CCGMS was my best friend back then...
A company that would manufacture a Model M quality keyboard these days would probably have to charge at least $50 to make any profit.
The other problem is the existing Model M's don't die, and they're easy to find -- They're usually sold for less than 10 dollars at a local computer show, hamfest, or public auction.
Many of the less enlightened consider these keyboards "inferior" and replace them with the cheap crappy "silent" keyboards, so if you're lucky maybe you can save one/some from being thrown away. This was how I came across a few...
It's quite saddening to know that probably somewhere, a whole boxful of Model M's slipped past the radar of the local geeks and made it to the landfill... =(
The more bases of operation your corporation has, the more tax writeoffs you can get when you use the private jet.
Don't automatically blame his employer.
You can't always use the newest theoretical protocol or technology--especially if your clients are not technically adept and tend to stick with older computers that are rarely upgraded, such as is often the case with lawyers for example.
The problem is, you can code for "standards compliant" all you want, but until that standard is used by > 2/3 of your visitors, then you're wasting your energy.
When it comes to real-world business, ideology is about as useful as a money shredder. You don't tell your customers to upgrade or change browsers. You adapt to your customers, or your competition will.
Outlook Express is a great example of this too. OE is still my favorite mail program on Windows, but it really hasn't changed much since the circa-IE4 days.
I like OE mostly becuase it has a clean and intuitive User Interface, but I'm disappointed that they stopped putting any effort into it right about the time when that stupid greeting card company sued MS to remove the (at the time very effective) Junk Mail filter becuase it was filtering out their "junk"...
Millimeters? What kind of crazy measurement scale is that?
Wouldn't it be much more fun to express 160 mm as 5.19 attoparsecs or 533 light picoseconds?
US currency is designated with positive integers
Yeah it's much easier to figure out the math these days, compared to the old days when we exchanged currency which represented negative, irrational, and imaginary dollar amounts. =)
Just let me know when they plan to add Elle Macpherson =)
This should seem rather obvious. I have three screens at work (since several rounds of layoffs over the past two years has left the company with an abundance of equipment).
I have a [17"LCD] [21"CRT] [17"LCD] setup.
My CRT is where I run my primary applications, which is usually Eclipse (which unfortunately does not seem to have multi-screen support for breaking off panels to other screens).
My left LCD is where I run web browsers for running, testing code, or surfing slashdot =P
My right LCD is for my telnet/ssh terminals and system monitoring applications.
I very rarely need to juggle windows, but for when I do, I've found that a vertical task bar works best (I keep it left-most on my left LCD, at about 120 pixels wide).
The only problem I have is sometimes I forget to shift my input context to a window on another screen when I begin typing. I think it'd be cool if there were something which could sense which screen I'm looking at, and switch my input context to the window most recently used on that screen.
At home, I have one 21" monitor. What's strange is that I don't really miss the extra screens at home. I guess if I wrote code while at home I probably would, but since I'm usually just playing a game or browsing the web, I don't need the extra screen(s).