Well I for one think The GIMP's UI is fine just how it is. Then again, I learned its UI when I was 13 or so, around the time I got addicted to sloppy/strict mouseover focus. Being able to point at a window and save its document by just striking Control-S is very efficient.
I thought GIMP was weird at first (I was a Photoshop 2.x user) but I rapidly came to appreciate its advantages. Basically, I love it because it's efficient and lightweight. If I want to do something to an image, I right-click the image. Simple, right? In Photoshop I have to hunt under some menu and I have to care about which image is in the foreground. And of course, in both, I can just use key accelerators -- in GIMP, even assign my own -- to speed things up.
You can't master GIMP in a day, and you sure as hell can't master Photoshop in a day either. Most of the complaining I hear is Photoshop users pissy about having to think a little differently to use GIMP. Maybe you should write a "tricks of the UI" tutorial for the unadventurous...?
Now if I were directing the GIMP project, I'd say:
Never adopt MDI. Well, okay, you can, just make it optional. There are a lot of Windows users who would love it, but a lot of current users who would dump GIMP in a second if it were mandatory.
Please rip off Photoshop's styles palette. It's one of the main reasons I use Photoshop primarily these days.
Please add serious ICC profile support wherever you can in the image workflow. Even if you don't support CMYK, good color support would rock, and it would make professionals take GIMP more seriously. Bonus points: add a calibrator like Adobe Gamma/Colorsync/Supercal.
Yeah... I think that's about all for now. Watch everyone disagree:)
If you love X10 gear, but hate X10's sales division, you should look at some of the X10 licensees. They produce X10 compatible gear, but either cheaper clone versions or extravagently expensive $100 wall switches.
You should check out SmartHome, an enormous home automation site I am not affilited with in any way, or X10 Pro, X10's slightly more serious professional division.
Every Ethernet card has a hardware MAC address that is unique to every network interface in the world (supposedly). Many serious copy protection schemes are based partially on MAC address. While this can be changed on some cards, it won't work to have your machine and another machine with the same MAC address on the network. Microsoft can check your MAC address against a database of users' MAC addresses, too, to ensure you aren't faking it.
In MacOS 9, extra language packs can be installed using the cusom install option in the installer on the MacOS CDROM. With the Japanese language pack, you can display and enter Japanese text in various applications. SimpleText localized in Japanese is included in the extras folder on the CD, also. Previous version of the MacOS (to 8.0, I think) included 'Multilingual Internet Access' - basically, Japanese fonts, but no Japanese input method.
Microsoft Windows
In Windows 2000 (only, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong), the Japanese language pack can be installed in the initial operating system install. The Microsoft IME has various useful features, including the ability to draw a Kanji character on the screen and have it converted the appropriate actual character. Japanese language support can be installed in older versions of Windows, but I'm not familiar with them.
UNIX
Using a combination of tools like kterm, kinput2, and various dictionary servers, you can happily input Japanse in UNIX too. A good resource to look at is the Debian GNU/Linux task-japanese package. In that link is a list of sub-packages, which you download for various other UNIXes too, other than Debian GNU/Linux (from seperate websites, of course).
I don't think that buying a small-release DVD like this is going to affect the MPAA or Disney in any way.
Disney didn't even manage to break even on the theatrical release. They spent about four million dollars on the English version, and only made about 1.2 million (at last check) on the release. They're already around 2.8 million in the hole already. Buying the DVD won't stop the millions they lost on the production of the English soundtrack to this movie.
Besides, this one time the fan community actually got Disney to do what it wanted. The Japanese track was requested, along with better translated Japanese subtitles, and here it is. If you don't buy it, you're telling Disney to flat-out-ignore us.
Some slightly-more-sophisticated script kiddies brought Open Root down this time. Next time, Kaworu's really going to try to tighten the security even more than it was. We'll see how Kaworu's next revision does against the onslaught of script kiddies...
Telnet to sekt7.org port 30, login as openroot with password Gotroot. Su to root with password Ihatelamers.
Make sure you visit the OpenRoot homepage and the discussion board to post any changes you've made on the system.
The official IRC channel is irc.openprojects.net #openroot. Enjoy. We haven't had any script kiddies yet after switching to OpenBSD. Please keep it that way. Maybe it's OpenBSD's aura?
The presentation, by representatives of Gateway, AOL, Transmeta, and Broadcom, talks about Gateway's vision - the 'Wired Home' - HPNA and 802.11-based home device integration. Play MP3s from your PC, stream DVDs to your TV, get AIM in your kitchen, etc... It has a general introduction to the webpad, too, but it's targeted more at the stockholders and press.
Gateway points out that their Select and Performance series PCs already have HPNA cards integrated.
Of course, being Gateway, they have stated that the whole thing won't work with anything but Gateway PCs. They will have cards and software for other PCs 'sometime in the future'. Personally, I find it hard to believe that their stuff will only work on Gateway PCs. I bet that doesn't leave much oppertunity for open-source clients and servers either.
Slashdot Mirror
Well I for one think The GIMP's UI is fine just how it is. Then again, I learned its UI when I was 13 or so, around the time I got addicted to sloppy/strict mouseover focus. Being able to point at a window and save its document by just striking Control-S is very efficient.
:)
I thought GIMP was weird at first (I was a Photoshop 2.x user) but I rapidly came to appreciate its advantages. Basically, I love it because it's efficient and lightweight. If I want to do something to an image, I right-click the image. Simple, right? In Photoshop I have to hunt under some menu and I have to care about which image is in the foreground. And of course, in both, I can just use key accelerators -- in GIMP, even assign my own -- to speed things up.
You can't master GIMP in a day, and you sure as hell can't master Photoshop in a day either. Most of the complaining I hear is Photoshop users pissy about having to think a little differently to use GIMP. Maybe you should write a "tricks of the UI" tutorial for the unadventurous...?
Now if I were directing the GIMP project, I'd say:
Never adopt MDI. Well, okay, you can, just make it optional. There are a lot of Windows users who would love it, but a lot of current users who would dump GIMP in a second if it were mandatory.
Please rip off Photoshop's styles palette. It's one of the main reasons I use Photoshop primarily these days.
Please add serious ICC profile support wherever you can in the image workflow. Even if you don't support CMYK, good color support would rock, and it would make professionals take GIMP more seriously. Bonus points: add a calibrator like Adobe Gamma/Colorsync/Supercal.
Yeah... I think that's about all for now. Watch everyone disagree
If you love X10 gear, but hate X10's sales division, you should look at some of the X10 licensees. They produce X10 compatible gear, but either cheaper clone versions or extravagently expensive $100 wall switches.
You should check out SmartHome, an enormous home automation site I am not affilited with in any way, or X10 Pro, X10's slightly more serious professional division.
--
Every Ethernet card has a hardware MAC address that is unique to every network interface in the world (supposedly). Many serious copy protection schemes are based partially on MAC address. While this can be changed on some cards, it won't work to have your machine and another machine with the same MAC address on the network. Microsoft can check your MAC address against a database of users' MAC addresses, too, to ensure you aren't faking it.
--
Apple MacOS
In MacOS 9, extra language packs can be installed using the cusom install option in the installer on the MacOS CDROM. With the Japanese language pack, you can display and enter Japanese text in various applications. SimpleText localized in Japanese is included in the extras folder on the CD, also. Previous version of the MacOS (to 8.0, I think) included 'Multilingual Internet Access' - basically, Japanese fonts, but no Japanese input method.
Microsoft Windows
In Windows 2000 (only, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong), the Japanese language pack can be installed in the initial operating system install. The Microsoft IME has various useful features, including the ability to draw a Kanji character on the screen and have it converted the appropriate actual character. Japanese language support can be installed in older versions of Windows, but I'm not familiar with them.
UNIX
Using a combination of tools like kterm, kinput2, and various dictionary servers, you can happily input Japanse in UNIX too. A good resource to look at is the Debian GNU/Linux task-japanese package. In that link is a list of sub-packages, which you download for various other UNIXes too, other than Debian GNU/Linux (from seperate websites, of course).
--
You can download a patch for 2.4.0-prerelease from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/testing/pre release-diff.
--
Disney didn't even manage to break even on the theatrical release. They spent about four million dollars on the English version, and only made about 1.2 million (at last check) on the release. They're already around 2.8 million in the hole already. Buying the DVD won't stop the millions they lost on the production of the English soundtrack to this movie.
Besides, this one time the fan community actually got Disney to do what it wanted. The Japanese track was requested, along with better translated Japanese subtitles, and here it is. If you don't buy it, you're telling Disney to flat-out-ignore us.
--
Nov 26 00:15:48 EST 2000
Some slightly-more-sophisticated script kiddies brought Open Root down this time. Next time, Kaworu's really going to try to tighten the security even more than it was. We'll see how Kaworu's next revision does against the onslaught of script kiddies...
Open-Root is back up again.
Telnet to sekt7.org port 30, login as openroot with password Gotroot. Su to root with password Ihatelamers.
Make sure you visit the OpenRoot homepage and the discussion board to post any changes you've made on the system.
The official IRC channel is irc.openprojects.net #openroot. Enjoy. We haven't had any script kiddies yet after switching to OpenBSD. Please keep it that way. Maybe it's OpenBSD's aura?
Kayo, co-sysadmin
A related RealPlayer stream (that works) is available on AOL's corporate site. Here are links to the broadband and narrowband versions of the stream.
The presentation, by representatives of Gateway, AOL, Transmeta, and Broadcom, talks about Gateway's vision - the 'Wired Home' - HPNA and 802.11-based home device integration. Play MP3s from your PC, stream DVDs to your TV, get AIM in your kitchen, etc... It has a general introduction to the webpad, too, but it's targeted more at the stockholders and press.
Gateway points out that their Select and Performance series PCs already have HPNA cards integrated.
Of course, being Gateway, they have stated that the whole thing won't work with anything but Gateway PCs. They will have cards and software for other PCs 'sometime in the future'. Personally, I find it hard to believe that their stuff will only work on Gateway PCs. I bet that doesn't leave much oppertunity for open-source clients and servers either.
Well, @Home has restrictions on that for me - they block all incoming traffic to ports 137-139, effectively blocking SMB/NMB traffic.
And, if you use secure passwords, thing should be fine even on a cable network - DOCSIS prevents other people sniffing stuff for you.