So, people have said for years that Apple would eventually lock down OSX and ditch Macs altogether. Microsoft is just trying to beat Apple to the punch?
To me, the last 10 years of computer technology has been like an episode of the Twilight Zone that won't end.
This is very good information, but... isn't it Sony's responsibility to test their products before they ship?
Reminds me of all those 1st-gen SSDs powered by JMicron controllers. They studdered and froze the machine constantly while trying to flush the buffer, rendering the whole PC virtually unusable. When I bought an OCZ Apex and had nothing but problems with it, several people yelled at me and told me that I should expect to have problems with such an early, immature product. For long-term reliability, sure, but for extremely obvious problems at launch? Fuck that. I sold that OCZ drive to a Linux junkie who was willing to tweak it until it worked, and got myself a Corsair P128, which is still working flawlessly.
I didn't blame JMicron. Supplier issues are not my problem. I squarely blamed OCZ for not testing their product properly and deciding to ship such a buggy piece of junk.
Strange how smart phones and tablets are far more closed and proprietary than PCs, and manufacturers are still having the same interoperability issues. No, wait... it isn't.
I'm thinking more in terms of graphic design. Getting rid of gradients and negative space makes all the GUI elements "float" and gives me eye strain. For a color palette and a slider, this is okay, but put a few more things on the screen, and it's going to be difficult to tell what's what.
I can't stand animated effects, but getting rid of gradients and shadows is flat out stupidity.
You guys in the U.S. are getting screwed up the ass.
I believe that's, "we're screwing ourselves up the ass, and enjoying every minute of it."
I can't even justify buying a smart phone in this market. I can afford it, but I don't want to pay. Alas, every blue-collar guy I work with seems thrilled to fork over $1500/yr. for a damn toy so they can check baseball scores every 5 minutes.
I don't see the situation getting better any time soon, unless some genius hacker blacks out the entire cell grid for 6 months and people are actually forced to talk to each other again.
I'm sure his point still stands, as well as for anyone else outside the US. Three and a half times the cost of generic is still three and a half times the cost. If the prices on Apple products are phenomenally out of whack compared to generic parts, that sounds like an Apple pricing issue to me, not the price of all memory in the UK.
But, much like the Slashdot crowd doesn't matter to Apple, I'm sure anyone outside the US doesn't, either. Well, except for all those Chinese people who actually put all the computers together, of course.
And then once they find something interesting, it disappears, never to be seen again.
For some reason, people still tell me I should suck it up and accept the new, dynamic Start menu in Windows 7, because it's awesome. Well, it's awesome if you only use 5 programs and you know exactly what you want so you can type in the name. Of course, if that's all you need, then the dynamic menus are redundant, anyway! If you just got the OS and want to see what's there, or if you do a lot of stuff, menus that automatically re-arrange are a nightmare.
Yeah, I did hear about that and modified "browser.sessionstore.interval" to 5 minutes. Unfortunately, the pauses were still there, so I have a feeling that Firefox just calls a "general cleanup" function every 10 seconds, and Session Store was only a part of the problem. This was in Firefox 3.6, though. Newer versions of Firefox don't allow you to customize the session interval anymore, and after 15 minutes of browsing, the pauses become unbearable.
The length of the pauses is directly proportional to how much memory Firefox is using, and since I browse a lot of image-heavy web sites, memory usage goes up tremendously in a short time. I'm guessing the memory manager and garbage collector are just broken. My impression is that Mozilla is tweaking a number of things, but they aren't fixing the core. Every time I update, performance just gets worse.
I'll give Session Manager a try, but I have a feeling that I'll be going back to my old setup before I updated to Firefox 10. I used to use 3.6 for surfing, and the latest version for web development and testing.
It feels really stupid to limp along like this like an abused wife, but I never got into Opera, and I despise the design of Chromium. It's sad to see that Firefox has become the new IE, but success does tend to do that. It'll be Chrome's turn any day now.
Ah... so that's why newer versions of Firefox will completely freeze for 30 seconds when navigating between pages at DeviantArt, while older versions will freeze for only a second or two. Of course, Chromium and Opera barely freeze at all.
This is on top of the regular freezes every 10 seconds which have plagued FF for, oh, about 6 years now.
Retail game dumps you to the desktop without any error message? Oh, just update your drivers, 'cause... hardware issues and stuff. Never mind the fact that the demo works fine for hours on end.
I work with a lot of poor (read: financially irresponsible) people at a blue collar job. Based on how much garbage they produce, how much and what they eat, how they perform their jobs, and how they treat each other, I wouldn't say that their economic situation had much affect on their feelings about waste, conservation, and gluttony.
Yes, I'm sure they waste company resources more than their own properly and money, but we don't live in the 50's, anymore. Conservation isn't cool anymore. Wall-warts are everywhere. Ford F-150 is the best selling car. You don't need leftovers when a crap pizza is $5. Every bum has a $1500/yr. smart phone even if they couldn't afford to get their oil changed 2,000 miles ago. People these days aren't told to recycle and reuse. If they ever go on a rare guilt trip, they simply buy "green."
At any rate, the study specifically said the popcorn was free. I'm sure that introduces some bias or somethingorother.
Among web developers, Firefox still has the best tools available, and Mozilla still has not yet reached the phase where, "We've completely removed all the options and geeky stuff so you don't get scardy-poo!" Of course, they are moving in that direction, so there's no telling how much longer Firefox will be a viable development platform. *Sigh*
True, but don't underestimate the work ethic of Chinese workers... or the severe lack of such among Americans. I work in the medical supply business, and it shocks me how little effort people are willing to put into their jobs despite $17/hr plus benefits.
The overwhelming majority of tech I encounter is badly designed, badly programmed, and has badly (even laughably so) written documentation. My dad's recent purchase of a HiMedia box is a particularly good reminder. Knowing that Toyotas are built in the USA is another notable example.
I know I'm in the minority, but I'm definitely willing to pay a premium if a product actually works well. Maybe we wouldn't all buy it, but it should certainly be easier than it is for specialty manufacturers to make a decent business.
Either 99.9% of technically inclined people are cheaper than dirt, or the siren song of outsourcing is seriously overblown.
HTML5 is not yet a standard. It's still under development, largely by the various web giants competing with each other and implementing incompatible experiments. By the time HTML5 is standardized, nobody will use it because early prototypes of HTML6 will be the new hotness and the same story will repeat all over again.
If you want standards compliance, you have to build around HTML4.
Precisely why I still refer people to SRWare Iron.
Some people say Iron is a scam, but it does offer something Chromium doesn't: a consistent download link.
If you want a real scam, look at Comodo Dragon. It's also based on Chromium, but it installs extra junk on your PC, including software that affects all networked software, not just the brower itself. No thanks.
- Toolbar for what? Just to take up space and give me more shit to click?
Apparently, you missed the important key word: customized
Is there some kind of brainwashing going on where geeks start witch hunting themselves? Normal people wouldn't like a feature, therefore it MUST be removed at all costs?
It's also worth noting that you can order Sony laptops that way, too. At least, a clean install was an option when I was looking at their web site a couple years ago.
The Start Menu and Taskbar are the central control points of the whole machine. No matter how many billions of dollars go into engineering an OS, if the window manager sucks, then it's useless for any work other than as a server.
I'm still using XP until the tools I need no longer run on it. Thank goodness I'm not a gamer and don't upgrade my hardware often.
Use two explorer windows, one on the right one on the left.
The thing that drives me nuts about Windows7 (and OSX and other "dock" UI styles) is that the new pinned taskbar was designed to allow only 1 instance of any program. Click on the Explorer icon again, and it will only minimize/maximize the window in focus -- not open a new one like the old Quick Launch menu would.
Yeah, you can try to tweak it to look like the XP taskbar, but it doesn't work the same -- unless there's some kind of magic Ctrl-Shift-RightClick trick I'm missing.
I would welcome an app that worked like Total Commander, but putting two Explorer windows next to each other is only becoming more of a hassle as time goes by. Windows8 looks to turn something as simple as window management into a nightmare. Isn't that the problem that the Win95 taskbar solved? Who actually benefits from these idiotic taskbar changes?
Slashdot Mirror
Only if they drop Balmer first.
So, people have said for years that Apple would eventually lock down OSX and ditch Macs altogether. Microsoft is just trying to beat Apple to the punch?
To me, the last 10 years of computer technology has been like an episode of the Twilight Zone that won't end.
There's a reason animators mimic motion blurring with large brushes and "squash and stretch."
Nobody has the advantage.
Yeah, our product is defective, but so is everyone else's, so you might as well buy ours.
Computer marketing in a nutshell. These same people sit around wondering how Apple makes so much money.
This is very good information, but... isn't it Sony's responsibility to test their products before they ship?
Reminds me of all those 1st-gen SSDs powered by JMicron controllers. They studdered and froze the machine constantly while trying to flush the buffer, rendering the whole PC virtually unusable. When I bought an OCZ Apex and had nothing but problems with it, several people yelled at me and told me that I should expect to have problems with such an early, immature product. For long-term reliability, sure, but for extremely obvious problems at launch? Fuck that. I sold that OCZ drive to a Linux junkie who was willing to tweak it until it worked, and got myself a Corsair P128, which is still working flawlessly.
I didn't blame JMicron. Supplier issues are not my problem. I squarely blamed OCZ for not testing their product properly and deciding to ship such a buggy piece of junk.
Strange how smart phones and tablets are far more closed and proprietary than PCs, and manufacturers are still having the same interoperability issues. No, wait... it isn't.
I'm thinking more in terms of graphic design. Getting rid of gradients and negative space makes all the GUI elements "float" and gives me eye strain. For a color palette and a slider, this is okay, but put a few more things on the screen, and it's going to be difficult to tell what's what.
I can't stand animated effects, but getting rid of gradients and shadows is flat out stupidity.
To me, it looks like my graphics drivers are screwed up and I need to reinstall them.
You guys in the U.S. are getting screwed up the ass.
I believe that's, "we're screwing ourselves up the ass, and enjoying every minute of it."
I can't even justify buying a smart phone in this market. I can afford it, but I don't want to pay. Alas, every blue-collar guy I work with seems thrilled to fork over $1500/yr. for a damn toy so they can check baseball scores every 5 minutes.
I don't see the situation getting better any time soon, unless some genius hacker blacks out the entire cell grid for 6 months and people are actually forced to talk to each other again.
I'm sure his point still stands, as well as for anyone else outside the US. Three and a half times the cost of generic is still three and a half times the cost. If the prices on Apple products are phenomenally out of whack compared to generic parts, that sounds like an Apple pricing issue to me, not the price of all memory in the UK.
But, much like the Slashdot crowd doesn't matter to Apple, I'm sure anyone outside the US doesn't, either. Well, except for all those Chinese people who actually put all the computers together, of course.
Hardware management isn't the responsibility of the hardware?
Um... what?
Looks like they need a tried-and-true excuse. Something is not working? It's a bad plug-in! Not our fault!
And then once they find something interesting, it disappears, never to be seen again.
For some reason, people still tell me I should suck it up and accept the new, dynamic Start menu in Windows 7, because it's awesome. Well, it's awesome if you only use 5 programs and you know exactly what you want so you can type in the name. Of course, if that's all you need, then the dynamic menus are redundant, anyway! If you just got the OS and want to see what's there, or if you do a lot of stuff, menus that automatically re-arrange are a nightmare.
Yeah, I did hear about that and modified "browser.sessionstore.interval" to 5 minutes. Unfortunately, the pauses were still there, so I have a feeling that Firefox just calls a "general cleanup" function every 10 seconds, and Session Store was only a part of the problem. This was in Firefox 3.6, though. Newer versions of Firefox don't allow you to customize the session interval anymore, and after 15 minutes of browsing, the pauses become unbearable.
The length of the pauses is directly proportional to how much memory Firefox is using, and since I browse a lot of image-heavy web sites, memory usage goes up tremendously in a short time. I'm guessing the memory manager and garbage collector are just broken. My impression is that Mozilla is tweaking a number of things, but they aren't fixing the core. Every time I update, performance just gets worse.
I'll give Session Manager a try, but I have a feeling that I'll be going back to my old setup before I updated to Firefox 10. I used to use 3.6 for surfing, and the latest version for web development and testing.
It feels really stupid to limp along like this like an abused wife, but I never got into Opera, and I despise the design of Chromium. It's sad to see that Firefox has become the new IE, but success does tend to do that. It'll be Chrome's turn any day now.
Because GUIs are for suckas!
I knew this about:config nonsense was going to get out of control when they removed the GUI to configure the scroll wheel settings.
Ah... so that's why newer versions of Firefox will completely freeze for 30 seconds when navigating between pages at DeviantArt, while older versions will freeze for only a second or two. Of course, Chromium and Opera barely freeze at all.
This is on top of the regular freezes every 10 seconds which have plagued FF for, oh, about 6 years now.
I'm sure it's just a bad plug-in, though.
Sort of like copy protection.
Retail game dumps you to the desktop without any error message? Oh, just update your drivers, 'cause... hardware issues and stuff. Never mind the fact that the demo works fine for hours on end.
I work with a lot of poor (read: financially irresponsible) people at a blue collar job. Based on how much garbage they produce, how much and what they eat, how they perform their jobs, and how they treat each other, I wouldn't say that their economic situation had much affect on their feelings about waste, conservation, and gluttony.
Yes, I'm sure they waste company resources more than their own properly and money, but we don't live in the 50's, anymore. Conservation isn't cool anymore. Wall-warts are everywhere. Ford F-150 is the best selling car. You don't need leftovers when a crap pizza is $5. Every bum has a $1500/yr. smart phone even if they couldn't afford to get their oil changed 2,000 miles ago. People these days aren't told to recycle and reuse. If they ever go on a rare guilt trip, they simply buy "green."
At any rate, the study specifically said the popcorn was free. I'm sure that introduces some bias or somethingorother.
Among normal people, I can't answer that.
Among web developers, Firefox still has the best tools available, and Mozilla still has not yet reached the phase where, "We've completely removed all the options and geeky stuff so you don't get scardy-poo!" Of course, they are moving in that direction, so there's no telling how much longer Firefox will be a viable development platform. *Sigh*
True, but don't underestimate the work ethic of Chinese workers... or the severe lack of such among Americans. I work in the medical supply business, and it shocks me how little effort people are willing to put into their jobs despite $17/hr plus benefits.
The overwhelming majority of tech I encounter is badly designed, badly programmed, and has badly (even laughably so) written documentation. My dad's recent purchase of a HiMedia box is a particularly good reminder. Knowing that Toyotas are built in the USA is another notable example.
I know I'm in the minority, but I'm definitely willing to pay a premium if a product actually works well. Maybe we wouldn't all buy it, but it should certainly be easier than it is for specialty manufacturers to make a decent business.
Either 99.9% of technically inclined people are cheaper than dirt, or the siren song of outsourcing is seriously overblown.
those sites are just HTML5
HTML5 is not yet a standard. It's still under development, largely by the various web giants competing with each other and implementing incompatible experiments. By the time HTML5 is standardized, nobody will use it because early prototypes of HTML6 will be the new hotness and the same story will repeat all over again.
If you want standards compliance, you have to build around HTML4.
Precisely why I still refer people to SRWare Iron.
Some people say Iron is a scam, but it does offer something Chromium doesn't: a consistent download link.
If you want a real scam, look at Comodo Dragon. It's also based on Chromium, but it installs extra junk on your PC, including software that affects all networked software, not just the brower itself. No thanks.
- Toolbar for what? Just to take up space and give me more shit to click?
Apparently, you missed the important key word: customized
Is there some kind of brainwashing going on where geeks start witch hunting themselves? Normal people wouldn't like a feature, therefore it MUST be removed at all costs?
It's also worth noting that you can order Sony laptops that way, too. At least, a clean install was an option when I was looking at their web site a couple years ago.
The Start Menu and Taskbar are the central control points of the whole machine. No matter how many billions of dollars go into engineering an OS, if the window manager sucks, then it's useless for any work other than as a server.
I'm still using XP until the tools I need no longer run on it. Thank goodness I'm not a gamer and don't upgrade my hardware often.
/feedtrolls
Use two explorer windows, one on the right one on the left.
The thing that drives me nuts about Windows7 (and OSX and other "dock" UI styles) is that the new pinned taskbar was designed to allow only 1 instance of any program. Click on the Explorer icon again, and it will only minimize/maximize the window in focus -- not open a new one like the old Quick Launch menu would.
Yeah, you can try to tweak it to look like the XP taskbar, but it doesn't work the same -- unless there's some kind of magic Ctrl-Shift-RightClick trick I'm missing.
I would welcome an app that worked like Total Commander, but putting two Explorer windows next to each other is only becoming more of a hassle as time goes by. Windows8 looks to turn something as simple as window management into a nightmare. Isn't that the problem that the Win95 taskbar solved? Who actually benefits from these idiotic taskbar changes?