Give them credit (and I'm going to sound like a total Apple fanboy here, but I don't care), that's a pretty ingenious solution, even if it was their fuckup. With a simple, one step process they saved both the cost of a recall and replacement program to them, and the cost and irritation of having to send a computer back/take it in for repair to their customers.
This could be a pretty good niche product for if you don't want too heavy a DE though, just something simple with little (ok, NO) eye candy. Talking "we need something lighter than WindowMaker" here, of course;)
Good points, valid points, granted, and what exactly do the computer makers think people actually *do* with hundreds of gigabytes of hard drive space, type up school reports and recipes? And look at the freekin ads for the big ISPs, smiling happy people and advertising "blazing download speeds, enjoy movies" and etc. So? Where's the beef when people really try to do that? Why does unlimited really mean limited in the fine print?
They say "enjoy movies", meant in the sense that most people enjoy movies; maybe download one a couple times a week to watch with family.
What the GP was talking about is "enjoying movies" by downloading hundreds of them 24/7 maxing out their bandwidth, movies which they download faster than they watch (and believe me, it happens...) Although the ad is vague, a layman wouldn't interpret it as "cool, I can download everything on Mininova", they'd interpret it as "cool, I can download movies now". It's not the cable company's fault if people want to take things to extremes.
Once again, the real purpose of product activation is to screw over the paying customer who wants to install the OS he paid for on both of his systems.
Despite the fact that consumer versions of Windows are sold quite expressly for the purposes of installing on one computer per license sold. Would be nice if MS sold family packs of 5 licenses each at a discounted price like Apple does with OS X but hey, I'm not going to tell them how to run their business.
I agree with the other guy in this thread; activation can be a pain, but Microsoft are fully within their rights to hold you to the EULA.
Release a game for Linux FIRST, that'll bring 'em in. Then six months later release it for Windows.
Such a move would be commercial suicide (unless of course it's a hugely anticipated game along the lines of GTA4 or Half-Life 2), especially since it is neither the game developer's job nor concern to improve Linux's market share - their goal is to release a game that lots of people buy, and with Linux's market share as relatively low as it is they'd have to face some serious questions from both management and shareholders as to why they didn't go the more profitable route first.
Even ignoring the commercial aspect, people would either think they don't need/want the game anyway or just wait for the Windows version. Or, even if they did switch to Linux because of it, blame the game if Linux screws up somehow or vice versa (which would be bad for either Linux or the game company).
Oh yes, I forgot to mention: OO.o is getting there but needs a lot of work, and Firefox is pretty much there and is better than IE (if only by virtue of IE being a piece of shit), GIMP is alright if you only need basic tools. The basic message of this is that yes, free software tools work, yes, for a large number of people they're appropriate and work well, but there are at the same time a lot of people who for their particular line of work find that these tools compare very unfavourably to the ones they're used to.
And, just out of interest, what would you recommend to a Windows user as a decent FOSS audio player? Compared to iTunes, Winamp or Windows Media Player they're pretty much either very basic or very techie-oriented (Foobar2000 springs to mind, although that said I quite like it).
Only free software gives people the ability to really chose what they want or to make what they need.
Too bad for you, most people who need an image editor have not chosen the free GIMP and use Photoshop instead. They have the choice, and they chose Photoshop. And I speak as someone who actually prefers GIMP, but uses PS simply because trying to get GIMP to work under OS X Leopard was just too much damn effort for me (something about incompatible X11 versions, I don't care, just let me at a virtual paintbrush.)
But your little flame ignores the point - free software like the Firefox, GIMP and Open Office are much better than what most hapless windows users get. This is not a big deal because people are learning to escape.
Like I say, I prefer GIMP for my usage, but you simply cannot for a second pretend that actual professionals doing actual work could use it. The lack of CMYK support is one of the most common complaints, even on here.
People are moving, but a lot slower than you'd like - the OS that's gained the most ground recently is Vista, and from my family's use of it (Home Basic) on their laptop I personally can't see where the problem is. Although, someone I know who's a little slow on the uptake as it were switched to Ubuntu recently, so I suppose that's progress.
It is sometimes required for some operations, usually fixing things or setting a couple things up.
In general though, the command line is very rarely used on Ubuntu, which is a good thing; if you tell a normal Windows user they'd have to use the DOS prompt to accomplish something, their eyes would glaze over.
(In fairness, Apple are no better for hiding options in the command line and requiring the use of the defaults command to set them, but at least these aren't very very basic things...)
When I made the original post, I was using the official MSN for Mac. I have, however, since switched to Adium (basically due to the fact that MS don't seem to give a fuck about Mac users any more).
Personally I quite liked Red Hat's original Bluecurve theme. Shame Fedora don't use it any more, because it was a really pretty, really functional theme for both major desktops (even with GTK1 support!) that was both attractive AND professional at the same time.
Cmd+Shift+4 on newer Macs lets you select a specific area of the screen to take a screenshot of by clicking and dragging. If you don't click+drag but instead press Space, you can hover over a window, click and get a screenshot of it.
After years of Print Screen - Open Paint - Paste - Select region you want - Copy - Make new picture - Paste - Save, I found that pretty damn nifty:)
Dude, I'm a Mac user, not to mention one who has submitted a package to Debian (a trivial, fairly pointless one yes, but a package nonetheless). You obviously didn't look back far enough to tbe one I made a few hours ago where I said that I'd like to not use MSN but have no real choice.
Herm, the idiot whose friends all use MSN? Trust me, I'd love to switch away from MSN - to Skype, or AIM or iChat or something that actually has video support under Mac OS X (to MS apparently OSX's APIs are just things that are there for other people), but everyone I know uses MSN. Everyone. So until I can somehow convince about 20 people to do something which to them is just too much effort, I have to use it. Sadly.
It would be scary, if 1984 wasn't a work of fiction describing a political situation which, even despite the rantings and ravings of people on YRO (and the shitty right wing tabloids that pass for a popular press around here) is quite a long way from implementation, even in the vaguest sense.
Just to remind anyone about to make another goddamn reactionary post on the subject that most CCTVs in the UK are not controlled by the government, and that at any rate it has been long accepted that you have no expectation of privacy in a public place, whether from a passerby, PC Plod or a camera on a stick.
You know... I almost meta-moderated this post to try and get the "Troll" removed. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that he accused the editor, rather than the story. I don't know enough about the editor's history to support calling everything he does a troll.
I do. He's that bad. Any story that can either be published or be reworded to stick the boot into Microsoft or attract any other similar Slashdotter kneejerk reaction is accepted by this guy, and he insists on giving the raving lunatic Twitter airtime.
The man's basically Slashdot's equivalent of the Murdoch press. Yeah, Slashdot in general sensationalises stuff, but kdawson is just so much worse than the rest of the editors.
The phrase "Slippery slope fallacy" springs to mind.
As has been noted elsewhere, the majority of cameras are privately owned and the Police need a warrant to be able to get any footage whatsoever out of them. Short of the Government expropriating everyone's property in a 1984-style revolution (which - and lets be blunt here - has no fucking chance of happening) they'd have a hard time establishing a dystopian police state using their shitty little group of cameras.
Slashdot Mirror
Give them credit (and I'm going to sound like a total Apple fanboy here, but I don't care), that's a pretty ingenious solution, even if it was their fuckup. With a simple, one step process they saved both the cost of a recall and replacement program to them, and the cost and irritation of having to send a computer back/take it in for repair to their customers.
That said, my hands are large enough that I usually can't reach the bottom 20% of the can.
That's by design, as a sort of dosing mechanism. The idea is if you can't fit your hand in the can, you've had enough Pringles.
I also love it, altho to be fair given that I'm using OS X (basically NeXTstep gone pro) it'd be kinda redundant for me to use it. ;)
This could be a pretty good niche product for if you don't want too heavy a DE though, just something simple with little (ok, NO) eye candy. Talking "we need something lighter than WindowMaker" here, of course ;)
Good points, valid points, granted, and what exactly do the computer makers think people actually *do* with hundreds of gigabytes of hard drive space, type up school reports and recipes? And look at the freekin ads for the big ISPs, smiling happy people and advertising "blazing download speeds, enjoy movies" and etc. So? Where's the beef when people really try to do that? Why does unlimited really mean limited in the fine print?
They say "enjoy movies", meant in the sense that most people enjoy movies; maybe download one a couple times a week to watch with family.
What the GP was talking about is "enjoying movies" by downloading hundreds of them 24/7 maxing out their bandwidth, movies which they download faster than they watch (and believe me, it happens...) Although the ad is vague, a layman wouldn't interpret it as "cool, I can download everything on Mininova", they'd interpret it as "cool, I can download movies now". It's not the cable company's fault if people want to take things to extremes.
Only so he can find something else to install GNU/Linux on so he can praise it to high heavens.
;)
What were we talking about again?
Why does a "Matrimony" department at a law firm sound like a really cynical bit of work, a bit like "Ministry of Truth"?
Once again, the real purpose of product activation is to screw over the paying customer who wants to install the OS he paid for on both of his systems.
Despite the fact that consumer versions of Windows are sold quite expressly for the purposes of installing on one computer per license sold. Would be nice if MS sold family packs of 5 licenses each at a discounted price like Apple does with OS X but hey, I'm not going to tell them how to run their business.
I agree with the other guy in this thread; activation can be a pain, but Microsoft are fully within their rights to hold you to the EULA.
Release a game for Linux FIRST, that'll bring 'em in. Then six months later release it for Windows.
Such a move would be commercial suicide (unless of course it's a hugely anticipated game along the lines of GTA4 or Half-Life 2), especially since it is neither the game developer's job nor concern to improve Linux's market share - their goal is to release a game that lots of people buy, and with Linux's market share as relatively low as it is they'd have to face some serious questions from both management and shareholders as to why they didn't go the more profitable route first.
Even ignoring the commercial aspect, people would either think they don't need/want the game anyway or just wait for the Windows version. Or, even if they did switch to Linux because of it, blame the game if Linux screws up somehow or vice versa (which would be bad for either Linux or the game company).
Oh yes, I forgot to mention: OO.o is getting there but needs a lot of work, and Firefox is pretty much there and is better than IE (if only by virtue of IE being a piece of shit), GIMP is alright if you only need basic tools. The basic message of this is that yes, free software tools work, yes, for a large number of people they're appropriate and work well, but there are at the same time a lot of people who for their particular line of work find that these tools compare very unfavourably to the ones they're used to.
And, just out of interest, what would you recommend to a Windows user as a decent FOSS audio player? Compared to iTunes, Winamp or Windows Media Player they're pretty much either very basic or very techie-oriented (Foobar2000 springs to mind, although that said I quite like it).
Only free software gives people the ability to really chose what they want or to make what they need.
Too bad for you, most people who need an image editor have not chosen the free GIMP and use Photoshop instead. They have the choice, and they chose Photoshop. And I speak as someone who actually prefers GIMP, but uses PS simply because trying to get GIMP to work under OS X Leopard was just too much damn effort for me (something about incompatible X11 versions, I don't care, just let me at a virtual paintbrush.)
But your little flame ignores the point - free software like the Firefox, GIMP and Open Office are much better than what most hapless windows users get. This is not a big deal because people are learning to escape.
Like I say, I prefer GIMP for my usage, but you simply cannot for a second pretend that actual professionals doing actual work could use it. The lack of CMYK support is one of the most common complaints, even on here.
People are moving, but a lot slower than you'd like - the OS that's gained the most ground recently is Vista, and from my family's use of it (Home Basic) on their laptop I personally can't see where the problem is. Although, someone I know who's a little slow on the uptake as it were switched to Ubuntu recently, so I suppose that's progress.
It isn't required for any normal operation.
It is sometimes required for some operations, usually fixing things or setting a couple things up.
In general though, the command line is very rarely used on Ubuntu, which is a good thing; if you tell a normal Windows user they'd have to use the DOS prompt to accomplish something, their eyes would glaze over.
(In fairness, Apple are no better for hiding options in the command line and requiring the use of the defaults command to set them, but at least these aren't very very basic things...)
When I made the original post, I was using the official MSN for Mac. I have, however, since switched to Adium (basically due to the fact that MS don't seem to give a fuck about Mac users any more).
The universe implodes.
Personally I quite liked Red Hat's original Bluecurve theme. Shame Fedora don't use it any more, because it was a really pretty, really functional theme for both major desktops (even with GTK1 support!) that was both attractive AND professional at the same time.
Well, I was trying for the camera achievement. How the fsck do you get the ones that are on brick walls?
You don't, the achievement only needs you to knock down the ones you can knock down (with the ASHPD).
Which you then have to paste into Paint/image editor of your choice and save...
Cmd+Shift+4 on newer Macs lets you select a specific area of the screen to take a screenshot of by clicking and dragging. If you don't click+drag but instead press Space, you can hover over a window, click and get a screenshot of it.
:)
After years of Print Screen - Open Paint - Paste - Select region you want - Copy - Make new picture - Paste - Save, I found that pretty damn nifty
Dude, I'm a Mac user, not to mention one who has submitted a package to Debian (a trivial, fairly pointless one yes, but a package nonetheless). You obviously didn't look back far enough to tbe one I made a few hours ago where I said that I'd like to not use MSN but have no real choice.
:/
So yeah, not a shill, or a fanboi.
Herm, the idiot whose friends all use MSN? Trust me, I'd love to switch away from MSN - to Skype, or AIM or iChat or something that actually has video support under Mac OS X (to MS apparently OSX's APIs are just things that are there for other people), but everyone I know uses MSN. Everyone. So until I can somehow convince about 20 people to do something which to them is just too much effort, I have to use it. Sadly.
Well, this is clearly designed to prevent Rickrolls.
In all seriousness, I've been sending YouTube links around (and receiving them) just fine. Dunno where the problem is.
Of course, if bloggers and Twitter users say it, it MUST be true.
Wow, you mean switching from one animation format to another completely different animation format on one of the world's largest websites takes time?!
WTF! SOMEONE ALERT SLASHDOT!
It would be scary, if 1984 wasn't a work of fiction describing a political situation which, even despite the rantings and ravings of people on YRO (and the shitty right wing tabloids that pass for a popular press around here) is quite a long way from implementation, even in the vaguest sense.
Just to remind anyone about to make another goddamn reactionary post on the subject that most CCTVs in the UK are not controlled by the government, and that at any rate it has been long accepted that you have no expectation of privacy in a public place, whether from a passerby, PC Plod or a camera on a stick.
You know... I almost meta-moderated this post to try and get the "Troll" removed. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that he accused the editor, rather than the story. I don't know enough about the editor's history to support calling everything he does a troll.
I do. He's that bad. Any story that can either be published or be reworded to stick the boot into Microsoft or attract any other similar Slashdotter kneejerk reaction is accepted by this guy, and he insists on giving the raving lunatic Twitter airtime.
The man's basically Slashdot's equivalent of the Murdoch press. Yeah, Slashdot in general sensationalises stuff, but kdawson is just so much worse than the rest of the editors.
The phrase "Slippery slope fallacy" springs to mind.
As has been noted elsewhere, the majority of cameras are privately owned and the Police need a warrant to be able to get any footage whatsoever out of them. Short of the Government expropriating everyone's property in a 1984-style revolution (which - and lets be blunt here - has no fucking chance of happening) they'd have a hard time establishing a dystopian police state using their shitty little group of cameras.