I've been saying just this for years. Dell has had a $199 model Axim for something like 3-4 years now, since before the Simputer was ever in production. And originally, the Simputer was even more costly. It maybe an X30 sans wifi now, but Dell has had $199 PPCs since the debut of the X5 Basic.
Do other cities do this? I mean, is it worth having a/. story about each one that does? I can't find any good news release, but even here in piddly lil Duluth, MN (d-town reprasent!), last outpost on the northern frontier, they've an initiative to get free wifi across all of downtown and through Canal Park, a big tourist district in our fair town. In addition to the wifi, they also have free kiosks for use by folks without computers. It's only downtown/Canal Park, so it's not like you pick it up everywhere in our really long and skinny city... But still, it's pretty cool.
Locking down windows is pretty easily done. You must be building apps in a different way than I am, but when I build mine programmatically or through a GUI builder like Prefab, I don't have this problem. I have seen it with random morphs, though. Or, someone could still pull apart my window by pulling up the Halos, by Alt- or Middle-Clicking on various Morphs (= Widgets) and then deleting them, moving them, resizing them, rotating them, changing their color, changing their action etc etc etc. I don't usually lock mine down to prevent that, but that is completely doable as well, and it's something some folks who have created "shippable" apps have done. If you'd like more information, check the Squeak-dev archive, ask the list anew, or email me and I can get you the information.
The second point is very true- Squeak and pretty much every other Smalltalk environment is very self-conitained.
How is the license restrictive? The GPL is the issue here, not playing well, polluting everything it touches. The GPL wasn't written for image-based languages like Smalltalk or Lisp, and if you license something under the GPL, by being loaded into the image the licenses are all made GPL. That's a problem with the GPL, not with the SqueakL. If you can convince the GPL to be changed so that these problems don't exist, what else is there?
If you're concerned about the old issues about the Squeak fonts from Apple having that weird clause, you've nothing to worry about now. They were dumped a while back in favor of truly Free fonts that don't have any funky Apple clauses.
The SqueakL is pretty much BSD-style. Unlike the GPL, you aren't forced to share your modifications, etc. You can use it in commercial software, sell it, etc. Squeak is open in a way, culturally and technologically, that most FOSS developers have no idea.
As has been pointed out, nobody agrees on exactly what set of features constitutes "object-oriented". "OO zealots will choose some subset of this menu by whim and then use it to try to convince you that you are a loser."
You can claim that, and in modern use it may be true. But the term "object oriented" was invented by Alan Kay to describe the programming model of Smalltalk. It wasn't used for Simula, which was the first language which was OO, not until Alan Kay coined the term. The far more elegant retort is this classic anecdote. I trust you'll read it before you reply.:)
I don't know why you bring up Lisp in this sense- CLOS happened way after Smalltalk. Sure, the first Lisp came about in the mid- to late-1950s. But McCarthy didn't invent CLOS. My assertion that Smalltalk was "first fully OO" language doesn't mean I dislike Lisp. Lisp is Smalltalk's most immediate intellectual anscestor, and if not for Lisp we'd all be using really shitty languages like C++, but most likely worse ones.
And yes, you can emulate/do OOP via lambdas pretty easily, but it gets messy quick without any proper inheritance, etc. Lisp and C are both capable of doing OOP, but neither are OO languages. By "Lisp" I don't mean Common Lisp w/ CLOS, ISLISP (which has a simpler OOP system built-in), or one of the other small-time Lisp implementations with a built-in OOP system, rather the pre-CLOS lisp that would pre-date Smalltalk, which first took proper form in the late 70s with Smalltalk-78 and then -80. Smalltalk-72 had the same OO qualities, but the language changed quite a bit between 72 and 80.
But if you want to get in a who did it first pissing contest, you'd do a lot better refering to Simula rather than Lisp. You make like Lisp a lot more than Simula, but it was the first language with features we'd call OO.
Sure, as long as you don't care about it looking like a normal app. It doesn't use Gtk+ or Qt on Linux, or Windows widgets on Windows, or Aqua widgets on the Mac. Stuff you write in Squeak feels even less native than Javascript on a webpage, and that takes some doing.
OK, for some folks maybe support for wxWidgets isn't enough. For the wxSqueak support, we've only got OS X and Win32 right now, but if you're talking about shippable apps, those are the two most important platforms. If you've never used wxWidgets, I'll fill you in: it's a cross-platform and multi-language widget set that gets you GUI support on Windows, Mac OS X, and plenty of Unixes.
So yeah, it's great if you're doing CS research and don't care how ugly or hard to use it is (I never could figure out what all the million different window-title-bar-buttons do). If you want to actually write an app to do something for people, it sucks.
Don't get me wrong, I think the default Squeak look is ugly. But like I cited with my own screenshots, it doesn't have to be. You can even get a boring native look via wxSqueak if you like.
As for the titlebars, I'm wondering if you're thinking of something else. There is minimize (aka collapse), maximize, close and the window menu. Same four buttons as Windows has, and most X11 WMs have the same four. Though if you're a minimalist using ionwm maybe that is a bit upsetting. For for newbies, it sure beats having them learn a pagefull of key-commands to do basic window management, wouldn't you agree?
Why is their user interface system not worth a bucket of warm spit? Or rather, since it can't be used to write normal apps, why are so many Squeak advocates trying to convince me that I'm a loser for not using Squeak?
No one said you were a loser. If you want to waste your time, be my guest. Just don't get so upset when some of us would rather not.
You think GNOME/KDE think about shipping a product for a user? Their dev community is no different than Squeak's, though quite a bit larger. I point you too the big "debates" that raged a month or three ago about what the users want in their DE vs what the developers feel like putting in.
Squeak hasn't been close to dying since it's inception. If the squeak-dev list traffic is any indication, a lot of growth has happened in the last year...
Squeak has a lot of programmers interested, a lot of people in education too... But perhaps not so many designers, no. But in the usual mode of open source: if you don't like it, lend a hand!
Though it's not as bad as it is on default- most people have a customized environment, though a better default should be picked. A couple screenshots from my Squeak images, one with with an IceWM theme and another IceWM theme'd Squeak.
Squeak has come up here a few times before. Squeak is an implementation of the Smalltalk programming language- the first fully OO language. It's where the WIMP (windows, icons, menus and pointers) GUI was invented, what Steve Jobs and his crew saw at Xerox Parc when they toured it.
Squeak has a lot of interesting media authoring capabilities in addition to the core language. In a lot of ways it's an OS running on top of whatever host OS you're running. It is completely binary compatible across platforms; not write once, debug anywhere like Java, but true cross platform compatibility with your binaries.
It runs on oodles of platforms: Linux/X11, Linux/DirectFB, Linux/SDL, Linux/SVGAlib, most any unix with X11, Mac OS X, Mac OS Classic, Windows XP/2k/ME/98/95, Acorn RiscOS, DOS, Pocket PC 2k/2k2/WM2003, WinCE 2.11-4.2, and probably a few more platforms I completely forgot. I develop for the Pocket PC in Squeak; I simply copy my image to my Axim via wifi and open it up- there's never any doubt as to whether or not it'll run ala Java.
Again, the OQO is close, but it's a bit small- I've had PDAs with the same screen and size- but incredibly expensive. I've been watching the OQO for the 4 or so years since it was first announced; on the first round of "pre-orders" 3 years ago I came --> <-- this close to eBaying my iBook G3/500 and putting in for an OQO- sure glad I didn't, as they didn't come out and preorder monies were just refunded.:P
I'd love to have one- but like the U50/U70, there's no way I'd carry that $2000 device with me everywhere like I do my $375 Dell Axim X50V, a really capable device.
When are we going to see some diversity in tablets? It's easy to find a big, heavy tablet with a 12-15" screen, attached keyboard, all the wizbangs you could ask for... But when am I going to see a replacement for my Newton, at least hardware-wise? While the Newton wasn't pocketable in the same way Palm Pro was, it was still small enough to have with me all the time, stuck in my pocket or in a small bag/case. For me, it's the perfect form factor- a large paperback book. I want a PDA or a tablet with a 6" 800x600+ screen. I want it thinish, but I'm not asking much- an 1" or under is thin enough for me.
I mean, we have the ability to do it. But no one is. These companies wonder why tablets aren't selling... But when you slap a touchscreen on a laptop with a swivel screen and add $500 to the price you're not going to get many suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconsumers interested. Not everyone is wanting a 6" tablet/PDA- but obviously not everyone watns the 12" or 14" tablets they *are* offering.
The Sony U50/U70 would be close- but it is so damned expensive. There's no way I'm going to buy a $2500 "PDA," and stick it in my pocket, carrying it with me through the day. But I would be willing to do that to something that cost maybe $600, perhaps with a 624 MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM and only couple GB of flash. CE, Linux or XP, whatever. I'd prefer CE or Linux, but anything would be an upgrade hardware-wise to the PDAs we have today that have a 4" screen on the outset. Nice VGA 3.7"-4" screens, yes, but tiny nonetheless.
So, Apple, Sony, Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Dell, Gateway- if you're listening, PLEASE! Hook me up!
When Windwaker came out, people griped endlessly because it wasn't photorealistic. Whether it was as a reaction to the reception of Windwaker or not, we will soon have a more realistic-style Zelda. And everyone is still bitching. This particular fellow has no comments about Windwaker, but plenty of other folks bitched. So it's only fitting someone does now.
Though I agree with him for the most part- I really am not interested in attempts at photorealistic games, not until they start to look really nice. So far, I've not seen anything anywhere near this level. Something that looks like the Final Fantasty movie, but maybe a smidge better.
Am I the only one who sees this as the succesor to Ocarina? The graphic style is very similar, although much improved. Many of the same characters, etc. If anything, this seems to be the same Link as lived in the Ocarina time, though that's yet to be seen for sure. But what was so disturbing about the "photorealistic" Ocarina of Time?
No matter what, whatever new Zelda game Nintendo puts out won't be just like the original NES game. Nor will it be like just like Ocarina of Time or a Link to the Past. A lot of folks seem to have a hard time coming to grips with that.
I am taking this as a challenge by DVD Jon for content providers to supply a version of their software for Linux. Coincidentally, this would also mean Apple would have to port QuickTime to Linux.
Woooah, buddy. Far more likely is that Apple would just create a webstore, for folks who don't have iTunes.
It all comes down to the ease of installs. I'll be honest, I hesitated alittle before installing firefox on linux. I feared too many dependencies etc.
Huh, weird.
It's just I've never heard of anyone having an attitude quite like that. That is, if Firefox demanded a bunch of crazy shared libraries that all had to be installed, that would blow. But like many applications like it, as well as all the Moz apps that you download from their site, they've got it all linked in there. And they have for years. Just like Netscape before it. *shrug*
I mean, if I'm worried an app will have a bunch of dependencies I try to install it. If it complains about not having libfoo-2.1.4-24 and I have libfoo-2.1.4-39 and a bunch of others, I may reconsider. But why hestiate? The only way to find out is to try it.
Squeak Smalltalk can do multiple cursors. Someone would have to do a bit of simple hackery for Windows/Linux to take two PS/2/usb mice and feed it to Squeak, or also there are some easier (but more expensive) ways to do it with two squeak processes. The usual use of two (or more) cursors in Squeak is for the remote access/collaboration software built in- you can have 5 people connected remotely, each with their own cursor with its own focus, as well as the person who is sat down in front of the computer. No problem, it's all there.
It may be a place to start playing if you're interested in that sort of thing.
this seems to be regional. some areas of the USA i won't get sig checked much, but it seems around in Minnesota (where I live) I do. I have "SEE ID" written on the back of mine, and a lot of places, maybe 70% seem to ask for my ID. Some places do so because they have a policy to look all the time (the grocery store i usually shop at), where some places look in response to my SEE ID. Some places don't look but in a way that seems justified- at the food co-cop I shop at they know me well enough, so I don't feel too insecure about it.
But then again, I have had places that look at "SEE ID" and compare it with my craptastic signature, pretending to compare them. Which is plainly BS. But not too often.
However, GNU Classpath has an easier job ahead of them than the Mono folks, which begs the question as to why they chose to go with the Microsoft technology in the first place.
Since when was writing OSS about what was the easiest thing to do? As the cliche goes, the easiest thing for Linus to do was to suck it up and run DOS, telnet'ing into the Uni's Unix boxes for doing anything along those lines. Or hell, get a Mac and run MachTen.
I'm not going to be so silly as to use words like "better." But why go with the MS tech? Because.NET is a lot cooler, has a lot more appeal to a lot of folks than Java. On.NET I can use my preferred language and access all the libraries written by the sad schmucks who put up with inferior languages like C++, C#, J++, etc. And they can access mine. A great idea, a VM designed to host multiple languages.
And yes, there are other languages for the JVM, but very, very few provide two-way language interop and none provide it on the level of.NET.
Which is precisely why I said "The reason for this story is that this article is supposed to be a review..." not "this fine review." So yeah, it's retarded for/. to post this as a review when it's nothing new or review, but it's not like it's never been mentioned.
Whilst engadget rules, and usually has news a few days before slashdot, it's not like this thing is new to anyone, slashdot included. The reason for this story is that this article is supposed to be a review, whereas all the information about it before was marketing information from the manufacturer.
The funny thing is that in this instance,/. actually beat Engadget to the punch, posting its story on 12. July, Engadget on the 13th.
Wise remark. Like it or not - apple hw, without max os x isn't a mac.
It's just another linux machine with that horrible X thing on it.:P
Like it or not, but that isn't the case.
Recently, I've been considering buying a new laptop. I last had an iBook G3/500, recently bequethed to my girlfriend, with me using a PDA/handheld as my main computer for the last year or so. So, thinking about getting another full laptop, I've been shopping around. But since I've had my fill of OS X, I was looking at PCs too, since I'd probably be fine on a PC running Windows or Linux. But I keep coming back to the Macs. With the quality of hardware, the size/weight factor it's hard to find a notebook of comparable price, one that isn't a big piece of junk.
Saying that a Mac without OS X isn't a Mac just isn't true. There's more to a Mac than software. Most folks who think so have never used a Mac, not for any long period of time. Similarily, a PC running OS X isn't a Mac. Maybe an x86 machine produced by Apple could make it as one, though.
I don't know about you, but when I code, I *never* use any useful libraries. Programming should never be about getting something done- rather, it should be about reinventing the all the wheels, gears, axels and windshield wipers that I could ever need... In other words, re-writing the OS for each and every app! WOOT! 152 thumbs up!
I thought this too, especially after looking at the page, seeing the libraries and components it uses to do this. 200 lines seems almost too much, but I suppose it's python, which can be a bit verbose, though nothing like languages outside of it's language class- c, c++, java, and others would prolly be more... But about all those 200 lines of python are doing:
1. initialize DataGlyph, webcam. 2. Get Webcam image. Hand off image of puzzle piece to DataGlyph library. 3. DataGlyph library returns code. DataGlyph is just a visual means of encoding data, sort of the successor to the barcode. DataGlyph returns "2x4". 4. Take the puzzle piece image, resize it to fit the proportions of your display canvas, and pop it into the second column, fourth row.
Yeah, 200 lines, a system that relies on oodles of other libraries. But still, that's a helluva slippery slope if you're going to question that. What is a reliable means of counting LOC then? Even the simplest C program- let's say printf("Hello World!\n"); - relies on the various libraries of the OS, and those libraries rely on other stdlib, etc etc... So, is it 2 lines, or a hundred?
The Apple Store sucks ass. I'll never buy anything there again, though I will continue to buy Macs.
I bought a PowerMac G4 in 99/00, but it was b0rked. Instead of taking it as a return and sending a replacement, they wanted me to take it to the nearest Apple service rep. Being a college freshman with no car, I had to find a friend of my roomate's who would give me a ride down, and then lugged it a few blocks and took the bus back with it. And then I had to take it back down, since they fucked up on the repair. Car back, bus down. A huge pain in the ass. I've never had anything like that through MacMall though- even when the manufactuer wouldn't take something back or repair it I've had MacMall give me a replacement. Pffft.
No matter what multitool you decide on, I'd reccomend also getting a Leatherman Micra tool. It's a mini-leatherman, works as a keychain. I'm the kind of person who hates having unneccesary crap in their pockets, but the Micra is useful enough that it's more than worth the 1 x 6.5 x 2 cm it takes up in my pocket. I have one of those handy keychain seperators, for times I need the micra for more than a few seconds, to get my bulk of my keys off. The lot of it collapses into a nice ball that takes up little space in my pocket, alongside my wallet. It has the majority of tools I need as a desktop maint/support guy at a library. The only time I have to go back to my desk to get my full toolkit is when I need my 8" long phillips bit to get somewhere annoying. Unlike my Swiss Army Knife (closest current model seems to be the Herc), the scizzors is still fully springy, even after sitting in my pocket for 3 years (4 now?) and getting a fair bit of use. You'd be surprised how often you need to clip a coupon out of a flier found at the grocery store, left in a cart, or need a pseudo-phillips screwdriver. I really love this lil guy.
Beyond that... I prefer a regular, original Leatherman. If I were to buy a new tool today, I may consider one of the other Leathermans, perhaps one geared toward tech stuff, be it a Leatherman or otherwise, but I'm in no need to replace this one.
Slashdot Mirror
Duh.
I've been saying just this for years. Dell has had a $199 model Axim for something like 3-4 years now, since before the Simputer was ever in production. And originally, the Simputer was even more costly. It maybe an X30 sans wifi now, but Dell has had $199 PPCs since the debut of the X5 Basic.
Do other cities do this? I mean, is it worth having a /. story about each one that does? I can't find any good news release, but even here in piddly lil Duluth, MN (d-town reprasent!), last outpost on the northern frontier, they've an initiative to get free wifi across all of downtown and through Canal Park, a big tourist district in our fair town. In addition to the wifi, they also have free kiosks for use by folks without computers. It's only downtown/Canal Park, so it's not like you pick it up everywhere in our really long and skinny city... But still, it's pretty cool.
Aren't a lot of towns doing this?
Locking down windows is pretty easily done. You must be building apps in a different way than I am, but when I build mine programmatically or through a GUI builder like Prefab, I don't have this problem. I have seen it with random morphs, though. Or, someone could still pull apart my window by pulling up the Halos, by Alt- or Middle-Clicking on various Morphs (= Widgets) and then deleting them, moving them, resizing them, rotating them, changing their color, changing their action etc etc etc. I don't usually lock mine down to prevent that, but that is completely doable as well, and it's something some folks who have created "shippable" apps have done. If you'd like more information, check the Squeak-dev archive, ask the list anew, or email me and I can get you the information.
The second point is very true- Squeak and pretty much every other Smalltalk environment is very self-conitained.
How is the license restrictive? The GPL is the issue here, not playing well, polluting everything it touches. The GPL wasn't written for image-based languages like Smalltalk or Lisp, and if you license something under the GPL, by being loaded into the image the licenses are all made GPL. That's a problem with the GPL, not with the SqueakL. If you can convince the GPL to be changed so that these problems don't exist, what else is there?
If you're concerned about the old issues about the Squeak fonts from Apple having that weird clause, you've nothing to worry about now. They were dumped a while back in favor of truly Free fonts that don't have any funky Apple clauses.
The SqueakL is pretty much BSD-style. Unlike the GPL, you aren't forced to share your modifications, etc. You can use it in commercial software, sell it, etc. Squeak is open in a way, culturally and technologically, that most FOSS developers have no idea.
As has been pointed out, nobody agrees on exactly what set of features constitutes "object-oriented". "OO zealots will choose some subset of this menu by whim and then use it to try to convince you that you are a loser."
:)
You can claim that, and in modern use it may be true. But the term "object oriented" was invented by Alan Kay to describe the programming model of Smalltalk. It wasn't used for Simula, which was the first language which was OO, not until Alan Kay coined the term. The far more elegant retort is this classic anecdote. I trust you'll read it before you reply.
I don't know why you bring up Lisp in this sense- CLOS happened way after Smalltalk. Sure, the first Lisp came about in the mid- to late-1950s. But McCarthy didn't invent CLOS. My assertion that Smalltalk was "first fully OO" language doesn't mean I dislike Lisp. Lisp is Smalltalk's most immediate intellectual anscestor, and if not for Lisp we'd all be using really shitty languages like C++, but most likely worse ones.
And yes, you can emulate/do OOP via lambdas pretty easily, but it gets messy quick without any proper inheritance, etc. Lisp and C are both capable of doing OOP, but neither are OO languages. By "Lisp" I don't mean Common Lisp w/ CLOS, ISLISP (which has a simpler OOP system built-in), or one of the other small-time Lisp implementations with a built-in OOP system, rather the pre-CLOS lisp that would pre-date Smalltalk, which first took proper form in the late 70s with Smalltalk-78 and then -80. Smalltalk-72 had the same OO qualities, but the language changed quite a bit between 72 and 80.
But if you want to get in a who did it first pissing contest, you'd do a lot better refering to Simula rather than Lisp. You make like Lisp a lot more than Simula, but it was the first language with features we'd call OO.
Sure, as long as you don't care about it looking like a normal app. It doesn't use Gtk+ or Qt on Linux, or Windows widgets on Windows, or Aqua widgets on the Mac. Stuff you write in Squeak feels even less native than Javascript on a webpage, and that takes some doing.
OK, for some folks maybe support for wxWidgets isn't enough. For the wxSqueak support, we've only got OS X and Win32 right now, but if you're talking about shippable apps, those are the two most important platforms. If you've never used wxWidgets, I'll fill you in: it's a cross-platform and multi-language widget set that gets you GUI support on Windows, Mac OS X, and plenty of Unixes.
So yeah, it's great if you're doing CS research and don't care how ugly or hard to use it is (I never could figure out what all the million different window-title-bar-buttons do). If you want to actually write an app to do something for people, it sucks.
Don't get me wrong, I think the default Squeak look is ugly. But like I cited with my own screenshots, it doesn't have to be. You can even get a boring native look via wxSqueak if you like.
As for the titlebars, I'm wondering if you're thinking of something else. There is minimize (aka collapse), maximize, close and the window menu. Same four buttons as Windows has, and most X11 WMs have the same four. Though if you're a minimalist using ionwm maybe that is a bit upsetting. For for newbies, it sure beats having them learn a pagefull of key-commands to do basic window management, wouldn't you agree?
Why is their user interface system not worth a bucket of warm spit? Or rather, since it can't be used to write normal apps, why are so many Squeak advocates trying to convince me that I'm a loser for not using Squeak?
No one said you were a loser. If you want to waste your time, be my guest. Just don't get so upset when some of us would rather not.
You think GNOME/KDE think about shipping a product for a user? Their dev community is no different than Squeak's, though quite a bit larger. I point you too the big "debates" that raged a month or three ago about what the users want in their DE vs what the developers feel like putting in.
Squeak hasn't been close to dying since it's inception. If the squeak-dev list traffic is any indication, a lot of growth has happened in the last year...
Squeak has a lot of programmers interested, a lot of people in education too... But perhaps not so many designers, no. But in the usual mode of open source: if you don't like it, lend a hand!
Though it's not as bad as it is on default- most people have a customized environment, though a better default should be picked. A couple screenshots from my Squeak images, one with with an IceWM theme and another IceWM theme'd Squeak.
Squeak has come up here a few times before. Squeak is an implementation of the Smalltalk programming language- the first fully OO language. It's where the WIMP (windows, icons, menus and pointers) GUI was invented, what Steve Jobs and his crew saw at Xerox Parc when they toured it.
Squeak has a lot of interesting media authoring capabilities in addition to the core language. In a lot of ways it's an OS running on top of whatever host OS you're running. It is completely binary compatible across platforms; not write once, debug anywhere like Java, but true cross platform compatibility with your binaries.
It runs on oodles of platforms: Linux/X11, Linux/DirectFB, Linux/SDL, Linux/SVGAlib, most any unix with X11, Mac OS X, Mac OS Classic, Windows XP/2k/ME/98/95, Acorn RiscOS, DOS, Pocket PC 2k/2k2/WM2003, WinCE 2.11-4.2, and probably a few more platforms I completely forgot. I develop for the Pocket PC in Squeak; I simply copy my image to my Axim via wifi and open it up- there's never any doubt as to whether or not it'll run ala Java.
Also see Squeak.org and the Squeak Swiki.
Again, the OQO is close, but it's a bit small- I've had PDAs with the same screen and size- but incredibly expensive. I've been watching the OQO for the 4 or so years since it was first announced; on the first round of "pre-orders" 3 years ago I came --> <-- this close to eBaying my iBook G3/500 and putting in for an OQO- sure glad I didn't, as they didn't come out and preorder monies were just refunded. :P
I'd love to have one- but like the U50/U70, there's no way I'd carry that $2000 device with me everywhere like I do my $375 Dell Axim X50V, a really capable device.
One day, I hope...
When are we going to see some diversity in tablets? It's easy to find a big, heavy tablet with a 12-15" screen, attached keyboard, all the wizbangs you could ask for ... But when am I going to see a replacement for my Newton, at least hardware-wise? While the Newton wasn't pocketable in the same way Palm Pro was, it was still small enough to have with me all the time, stuck in my pocket or in a small bag/case. For me, it's the perfect form factor- a large paperback book. I want a PDA or a tablet with a 6" 800x600+ screen. I want it thinish, but I'm not asking much- an 1" or under is thin enough for me.
I mean, we have the ability to do it. But no one is. These companies wonder why tablets aren't selling... But when you slap a touchscreen on a laptop with a swivel screen and add $500 to the price you're not going to get many suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hconsumers interested. Not everyone is wanting a 6" tablet/PDA- but obviously not everyone watns the 12" or 14" tablets they *are* offering.
The Sony U50/U70 would be close- but it is so damned expensive. There's no way I'm going to buy a $2500 "PDA," and stick it in my pocket, carrying it with me through the day. But I would be willing to do that to something that cost maybe $600, perhaps with a 624 MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM and only couple GB of flash. CE, Linux or XP, whatever. I'd prefer CE or Linux, but anything would be an upgrade hardware-wise to the PDAs we have today that have a 4" screen on the outset. Nice VGA 3.7"-4" screens, yes, but tiny nonetheless.
So, Apple, Sony, Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Dell, Gateway- if you're listening, PLEASE! Hook me up!
When Windwaker came out, people griped endlessly because it wasn't photorealistic. Whether it was as a reaction to the reception of Windwaker or not, we will soon have a more realistic-style Zelda. And everyone is still bitching. This particular fellow has no comments about Windwaker, but plenty of other folks bitched. So it's only fitting someone does now.
Though I agree with him for the most part- I really am not interested in attempts at photorealistic games, not until they start to look really nice. So far, I've not seen anything anywhere near this level. Something that looks like the Final Fantasty movie, but maybe a smidge better.
Am I the only one who sees this as the succesor to Ocarina? The graphic style is very similar, although much improved. Many of the same characters, etc. If anything, this seems to be the same Link as lived in the Ocarina time, though that's yet to be seen for sure. But what was so disturbing about the "photorealistic" Ocarina of Time?
No matter what, whatever new Zelda game Nintendo puts out won't be just like the original NES game. Nor will it be like just like Ocarina of Time or a Link to the Past. A lot of folks seem to have a hard time coming to grips with that.
I am taking this as a challenge by DVD Jon for content providers to supply a version of their software for Linux. Coincidentally, this would also mean Apple would have to port QuickTime to Linux.
Woooah, buddy. Far more likely is that Apple would just create a webstore, for folks who don't have iTunes.
It all comes down to the ease of installs. I'll be honest, I hesitated alittle before installing firefox on linux. I feared too many dependencies etc.
Huh, weird.
It's just I've never heard of anyone having an attitude quite like that. That is, if Firefox demanded a bunch of crazy shared libraries that all had to be installed, that would blow. But like many applications like it, as well as all the Moz apps that you download from their site, they've got it all linked in there. And they have for years. Just like Netscape before it. *shrug*
I mean, if I'm worried an app will have a bunch of dependencies I try to install it. If it complains about not having libfoo-2.1.4-24 and I have libfoo-2.1.4-39 and a bunch of others, I may reconsider. But why hestiate? The only way to find out is to try it.
How many points is "arrrrr" worth?
Like 11 or something. But I got your ass beat with "arrrrrrrrrrr," plus a triple word score.
Squeak Smalltalk can do multiple cursors. Someone would have to do a bit of simple hackery for Windows/Linux to take two PS/2/usb mice and feed it to Squeak, or also there are some easier (but more expensive) ways to do it with two squeak processes. The usual use of two (or more) cursors in Squeak is for the remote access/collaboration software built in- you can have 5 people connected remotely, each with their own cursor with its own focus, as well as the person who is sat down in front of the computer. No problem, it's all there.
It may be a place to start playing if you're interested in that sort of thing.
this seems to be regional. some areas of the USA i won't get sig checked much, but it seems around in Minnesota (where I live) I do. I have "SEE ID" written on the back of mine, and a lot of places, maybe 70% seem to ask for my ID. Some places do so because they have a policy to look all the time (the grocery store i usually shop at), where some places look in response to my SEE ID. Some places don't look but in a way that seems justified- at the food co-cop I shop at they know me well enough, so I don't feel too insecure about it.
But then again, I have had places that look at "SEE ID" and compare it with my craptastic signature, pretending to compare them. Which is plainly BS. But not too often.
However, GNU Classpath has an easier job ahead of them than the Mono folks, which begs the question as to why they chose to go with the Microsoft technology in the first place.
.NET is a lot cooler, has a lot more appeal to a lot of folks than Java. On .NET I can use my preferred language and access all the libraries written by the sad schmucks who put up with inferior languages like C++, C#, J++, etc. And they can access mine. A great idea, a VM designed to host multiple languages.
.NET.
Since when was writing OSS about what was the easiest thing to do? As the cliche goes, the easiest thing for Linus to do was to suck it up and run DOS, telnet'ing into the Uni's Unix boxes for doing anything along those lines. Or hell, get a Mac and run MachTen.
I'm not going to be so silly as to use words like "better." But why go with the MS tech? Because
And yes, there are other languages for the JVM, but very, very few provide two-way language interop and none provide it on the level of
Which is precisely why I said "The reason for this story is that this article is supposed to be a review..." not "this fine review." So yeah, it's retarded for /. to post this as a review when it's nothing new or review, but it's not like it's never been mentioned.
Whilst engadget rules, and usually has news a few days before slashdot, it's not like this thing is new to anyone, slashdot included. The reason for this story is that this article is supposed to be a review, whereas all the information about it before was marketing information from the manufacturer.
/. actually beat Engadget to the punch, posting its story on 12. July, Engadget on the 13th.
The funny thing is that in this instance,
Wise remark. Like it or not - apple hw, without max os x isn't a mac.
:P
It's just another linux machine with that horrible X thing on it.
Like it or not, but that isn't the case.
Recently, I've been considering buying a new laptop. I last had an iBook G3/500, recently bequethed to my girlfriend, with me using a PDA/handheld as my main computer for the last year or so. So, thinking about getting another full laptop, I've been shopping around. But since I've had my fill of OS X, I was looking at PCs too, since I'd probably be fine on a PC running Windows or Linux. But I keep coming back to the Macs. With the quality of hardware, the size/weight factor it's hard to find a notebook of comparable price, one that isn't a big piece of junk.
Saying that a Mac without OS X isn't a Mac just isn't true. There's more to a Mac than software. Most folks who think so have never used a Mac, not for any long period of time. Similarily, a PC running OS X isn't a Mac. Maybe an x86 machine produced by Apple could make it as one, though.
It's March 10th already?
Since it can use anything it wants...
I don't know about you, but when I code, I *never* use any useful libraries. Programming should never be about getting something done- rather, it should be about reinventing the all the wheels, gears, axels and windshield wipers that I could ever need... In other words, re-writing the OS for each and every app! WOOT! 152 thumbs up!
I thought this too, especially after looking at the page, seeing the libraries and components it uses to do this. 200 lines seems almost too much, but I suppose it's python, which can be a bit verbose, though nothing like languages outside of it's language class- c, c++, java, and others would prolly be more... But about all those 200 lines of python are doing:
1. initialize DataGlyph, webcam.
2. Get Webcam image. Hand off image of puzzle piece to DataGlyph library.
3. DataGlyph library returns code. DataGlyph is just a visual means of encoding data, sort of the successor to the barcode. DataGlyph returns "2x4".
4. Take the puzzle piece image, resize it to fit the proportions of your display canvas, and pop it into the second column, fourth row.
Yeah, 200 lines, a system that relies on oodles of other libraries. But still, that's a helluva slippery slope if you're going to question that. What is a reliable means of counting LOC then? Even the simplest C program- let's say printf("Hello World!\n"); - relies on the various libraries of the OS, and those libraries rely on other stdlib, etc etc... So, is it 2 lines, or a hundred?
Sorry, I should clarify... I'm talking about the entity known as "The Apple Store," not "an Apple store." Sorry for being unclear.
The Apple Store sucks ass. I'll never buy anything there again, though I will continue to buy Macs.
I bought a PowerMac G4 in 99/00, but it was b0rked. Instead of taking it as a return and sending a replacement, they wanted me to take it to the nearest Apple service rep. Being a college freshman with no car, I had to find a friend of my roomate's who would give me a ride down, and then lugged it a few blocks and took the bus back with it. And then I had to take it back down, since they fucked up on the repair. Car back, bus down. A huge pain in the ass. I've never had anything like that through MacMall though- even when the manufactuer wouldn't take something back or repair it I've had MacMall give me a replacement. Pffft.
No matter what multitool you decide on, I'd reccomend also getting a Leatherman Micra tool. It's a mini-leatherman, works as a keychain. I'm the kind of person who hates having unneccesary crap in their pockets, but the Micra is useful enough that it's more than worth the 1 x 6.5 x 2 cm it takes up in my pocket. I have one of those handy keychain seperators, for times I need the micra for more than a few seconds, to get my bulk of my keys off. The lot of it collapses into a nice ball that takes up little space in my pocket, alongside my wallet. It has the majority of tools I need as a desktop maint/support guy at a library. The only time I have to go back to my desk to get my full toolkit is when I need my 8" long phillips bit to get somewhere annoying. Unlike my Swiss Army Knife (closest current model seems to be the Herc), the scizzors is still fully springy, even after sitting in my pocket for 3 years (4 now?) and getting a fair bit of use. You'd be surprised how often you need to clip a coupon out of a flier found at the grocery store, left in a cart, or need a pseudo-phillips screwdriver. I really love this lil guy.
Beyond that... I prefer a regular, original Leatherman. If I were to buy a new tool today, I may consider one of the other Leathermans, perhaps one geared toward tech stuff, be it a Leatherman or otherwise, but I'm in no need to replace this one.