You can do something similar on the Powerbook/iBook with iScroll2. It can't detect which finger is on the touchpad (can't think how that'd be done) but if you tap with one finger already on the pad then it takes it as a right-click. Linky: http://www-users.kawo2.rwth-aachen.de/~razzfazz/is croll2/
Even works on the "older" iBooks and Powerbooks that theoretically don't support the two finger scrolling... turns out it works just fine and Apple just enable some firmware switch on the new models which this hack does regardless.
- That he was so obsessed with the goal of hiding a computer in a wall that he went out and bought a computer that's so small there's absolutely no point in hiding it in the wall. And to make matters funnier, he didn't make the CD drive accessible and had to buy an external one... about the same size as a Mac Mini and a lot uglier.
- This quote: "Since the Mac is designed in america, it's most convenient to measure it in their units, Imperial units, goodness knows why they can't use SI units like the rest of the world, probably their bias against the french." (Hahaha. He has a point.)
- The whole "I'm so cool, I own a computer made by Apple Macintosh" (it's Apple, retard), "and I openly show how much I hate IE" (annoying) and "Let's deliberately get to a stage where I have to test it's still working as an excuse to show an Apple desktop" thing he has going.
- This unnecessary comment: "NOTE FOR LAYMEN: it's imperitive that the wires for the LED are kept the same way around, because an LED is just that, a DIODE, and thus it will only work if the current is going one way." Well, no shit Sherlock! I'm glad your university degree taught you *something*. Personally I learned that in Science class at about age 12.
- The excessive use of CAT5 for everything just to look cool to a Slashdot audience. Ironically, ends up looking a complete pratt by using a patch cable *outside* of the wall. I have no words!
- At the end of the day, all he did was plonk the Mini on the floor and create a wall-mounted port replicator, and even end up wasting money on an external optical drive!
Got to love it. You have to be sorry for him, he's obviously just trying to look cool. He's also fallen for the old pitfall of obsessing so much about solving a challenge that didn't even exist, he ended up creating more problems and overcomplicating the whole thing. But it's so funny.
As someone who works for a non-profit ("charity") we don't exactly have the greatest machines, nor can we afford them. We use what we've been kindly given over the years.
Being head of IT, I made sure I have the best of the bunch, which is an 833MHz P3 with 768MB of RAM and a 20GB Quantum Fireball which our now-deceased graphic design department managed to *buy* on thier own budget a few years ago. It runs Windows 2000.
Firefox takes a painful 12 seconds to load. IE takes 2 seconds max. I suspect it's something to do with IE being part loaded at startup of course, but then Opera only takes a couple of seconds to load too.
Other machines are more around the P2-300 mark. They have 64MB of RAM if lucky (32 in some cases). Firefox can take a good 30-40 seconds or so to load, and then it takes up *all* of the RAM. If you try to so much as press the start button without closing FF first then you're looking at a 30 second thrashing session.
IE, in contrast, takes 5 seconds to load on those... still faster on an antique than FF is on my semi-respectable machine. Opera manages something like 10 seconds and Windows is still usable.
Now, the obvious argument is that Firefox isn't designed for older machines. But is that really such an excuse to be sloppy and use over-bloated code? Perhaps if developers would *aim* for better performance on older machines, they (and their users) would be deligted by the results on the newer ones.
Oh come on. I'm a slashdot reader - do you really think I'd buy substandard hardware? Last I knew, $200+ Abit and Asus motherboards were perfectly good.
Some machines sleep fine, others just love staying asleep or having other problems... I've used enough different machines with different sleep issues (which have been 99.9% stable otherwise) to take that fact for granted. Although it's not always Windows directly - often it's badly designed software or drivers that simply don't like being suspended.
No, I understand that entirely, and have used that option myself... but you're misunderstanding my point in your eagerness to flame me for hyping (slightly tongue in cheek) an Apple "feature"
My point is that there's a clearly visible choice - and sometimes (IMO) choice is actually a *bad* thing. Now, I know that's a very unpopular view on a Linux-biased site, but that's how I see it. Because in this case, some computer manufacturers set it to shut down, some set it to stand by or hibernate, some even have it ask. So as a person uses a computer at work or college, or uses a friend's machine, they won't know what'll happen. So they use the menu instead.
What would be better behaviour is if it just always asked, and to have it do something else by default (which let's face it, only a geek would really care about) required a small registry tweak instead.
I think the reason your average Luser doesn't press that button, apart from having it drummed into them not to 5 years ago, is that its behaviour is so inconsistent. Sometimes it shuts down, sometimes it sleeps, sometimes it locks the machine up (yay for Windows' ACPI support)
Yet again I'd have to be an Apple whore and say that OS X wins on that one - one little window pops up asking you what you want to do.
Can't speak for your parent, but personally I suggest that yes it does hurt him. Competition is competition whether it's from a legal free product or a legal commercial one or a pirate copy of a commercial one.
The only difference is, one is legal hurt and the other isn't...
Final Fantasy is Squenix's flagship product. Why would they ditch it?
At the moment they're milking the FF7 cash cow. That's not necessarily a good thing in itself, but it proves that FF is definitely still popular and profitable, and they're not going to drop it any time soon. Based on FF7 we now have Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus in development... that's 1 movie and 3 games right there. Then of course you have FF12 coming, and initial indications show that it might've gone back to a 'dark' theme which is a very positive step IMO.
They do have problems, but axing FF is definitely not the answer!
What they do need to do though is stop milking the hell out of FF7. Because... a) It's diverting their attention away from developing new titles such as FF12, which still wasn't even playable at E3 because they're so busy milking FF7 dry. b) Rehashing old titles gets boring. I took my online name from FF7 I liked it so much, and even I'm getting tired of hearing about all its Pokemon-style spinoffs and merchandise and yadda yadda every time Squenix opens its corporate mouth. It won't take much more to convert FF7 from the best game of all time to the most annoying over-hyped product since crazy frog. I'd like to see a PS3 remake, but no more spinoffs pleeeeease!
I agree with other posters in that bringing FF back to its roots would be a very good idea. X-2 was light hearted and fun so that was good, but it still missed several things that used to make FF what it was - and their previous "new" FF (X) was little more than an interactive DVD.
Bringing back the overworld between towns, and later a proper pilotable airship - would be a very, very good start. Take good ol' FF7... the ultimate in exploration. The story was great, but that was only a part of the game - more than half of what made it fun was exploring every corner of the map, every hidden area (you know, hidden behind waterfalls and things), doing all the sidequests etc. It's just not the same when you find hidden areas by inputting a code into the autopilot. X-2 at least got rid of the extreme linearity that X had, but it's still not enough.
There was also the immersion factor. The game feels truly epic when you can see the overall effect of your actions and/or the course of the story on the whole world as you walk/ride/fly around it. FF6's world being almost completely destroyed / transformed, FF7's world becoming overshadowed with meteor, a huge gun disappearing from one town only to appear in another etc. FF9's world losing its mist, cities being converted to holes in the ground etc. It's not the same when you can only see one part of it at a time - much better to feel like you're flying around it.
And there's nothing like the feeling of progression as you go from travelling on foot (tedious) to chocobo (better), to boat (new contintents!), to airship (go anywhere - teh w00t!).
If they start doing old-style FF again with an overworld and free moment, non-linearity, mildly technical but not to insane battle system, lots of sidequests etc. They'll have a hit.
I'm normally all for leaving on good terms, so as not to burn bridges.
But fuck it - from what you said, he's an absolute arsehole.
I'm not sure how your legislation is, but in the UK generally the employee has a *lot* of rights and the employer has very few. So my thoughts are as follows...
Wait out the absolute bare minimum notice, if the new company wants to take you ASAP. Don't be nasty or disruptive in case it gives him an excuse for dismissal. If he tries to withhold your paycheque for not finding a replacement, as someone said, remind him that it's his responsibility to do so and not yours. If it's not in your job description, tell him that too. And do all this via a tribunal - to hell with being nice, he wouldn't hesitate to be nasty. Work to the letter. If you get asked to do something that isn't in your job description, or something that might need training you haven't received, then refuse to do it. Once you're in the next job, forget about it. You might be tempted to slag him off in the papers, but you don't want your new employer trying to get rid of you in fear that you'll do the same to him.
I downloaded it and installed it out of curiosity, as you do.
Apart from their first attempts to try and copy Apple with the pretty effects when you restore a window from minimize and the little search engine appearing everywhere, nothing much has changed. Funny how they've finally "accidentally leaked" a practical demonstration (if buggy) of these technologies just before Tiger is released.
To their credit though, there is the revolutionary scrollbar on the start menu which I've been crying out for for 10 years, and about bloody time! It's magnificent. But apart from that, almost nothing seems to have changed.
To be fair, this *is* a pre-beta... but I wouldn't even call it a pre-alpha at this stage. They still seem to be throwing ideas around after all these years.
Anyway - the fastest way to get this is on usenet alt.binaries.mac.osx.apps - we're all slashdotters so hopefully everyone knows how to get there;) Top speed, no queues, no uploading, and direct to your ISP's servers so *very* little chance of getting intercepted. Yum.
People being lazy is possibly the greatest problem: Very few people are going to sit down and add descriptions to all their photographs, documents and video footage.People being lazy is possibly the greatest problem: Very few people are going to sit down and add descriptions to all their photographs, documents and video footage.
I wonder about this. Surely the reason people are lazy about doing such things is because up to now there hasn't been a *reason* to do so?
I own a Mac with iPhoto etc, and yes I'm that kind of lazy person. I've never described a photo without a reason to do so - i.e. publishing a web gallery. But isn't that the point? People are usually lazy for a reason, as in there's no percievable need for them to expend that energy.
I intend to buy Tiger. Now, because I *know* that in the future I'll be able to have access to such a powerful search function, and that its performance is directly related to how well I describe my photos (and other files), I'll have a reason to do so and keep up with it. And I'm very confident that I will do so.
Somewhat similar to the Honda Change Something advertising campaign, which used almost exactly the same idea... "we're so proud of this, we broke into song and look at this really cute cartoon we did".
They have a copy of the advert they had on TV on their website. It's a very catchy cartoon song which managed to convince thousands of brits that Honda are these really cool engineers who love revolutionising things and are all-round really nice, cool guys. And then it made them walk into work every morning singing "hate something, change something make something betterrrrrrr!!". Very effective technique.
I mean, I don't know what the sentences are over there, but here in the UK I'm pretty sure people have had less for manslaughter!
I despise spam as much as anyone else, but I couldn't compare it to the seriousness of killing someone. Sure, I can see how it's a criminal act (upsetting all of society) vs. civil (issues between individual people and/or businesses) and so some jail time is warranted. But come on... 9 years....
What a delightfully effective way of sending a sorta "mexican wave" of shudders down the spine of every person who's ever touched Internet Explorer in the last 5 years or so and instantly put them off your product for life.
I've never seen a company go so quickly from "cool" to "near sco-level"
If this is true, they can go feck off and die, and rot alongside the rest of the popup mongering scum.
If it's an early April Fools... well... that's another story!
Eh, obviously I did want to solve the problem because I *did* solve it... just in a different way and seemingly one that is not acceptable to you - well sorry about that:)
Actually there were two problems, one the snooze button and two the fact that buzzers / beepers generally do nothing for me (maybe because there are so many existent in the waking world nowadays?) - no chance of sleeping through those bells though!
I've been fighting with alarm clocks for years. Always becoming immune to them and either sleeping through altogether or having an unconscious habit of pressing the snooze button. I've tried all manner of ways to get around it - using multiple alarms, putting the alarm across the room... I'd always manage to snooze them, often turning off all except one, then walk back across the room and flop back into bed.
Then it just clicked a few weeks ago - one of those "duh" moments. ( As blogged on my site ) I threw out my digital alarms, went out and bought an old-fashioned Westclox wind-up alarm. You wind it up every night, adjust the little lever to allow the hammer to move between the bells at the alarm time, and that's it!
Then it goes off and you get up.
It really is that simple. I wish I'd thought of it 10,15+ years ago!
It doesn't have a snooze function, so you know you have no choice in the matter... you can't "just return to that dream for another 10 minutes" - you have to get up. And there's nothing like a hammer striking a couple of bells to make you jump out of bed, much more effective than some little buzzer.
About 3 weeks using it so far, haven't snoozed once;) Best "gadget" (traditional clocks are actually pretty cool IMO) that I've bought in a long, long time! And they're so user friendly... ok they're not millisecond-accurate but it's fun adjusting them to get as reasonably-accurate as you can.
I tell ya, the snooze button was the worst design decision ever made. Alarm clocks are designed to be evil, to give you a sudden kick to get you out of bed - then they went and put a "shut up" button on it! Evil, evil idea and so many of us now waste up to an hour of our days just fighting that damn button because we all sit there and accept it. I'd love to meet whoever invented it so I could bring along the biggest "snooze button" I can find and hit him around the head with it.
Slashdot Mirror
... ended up with this thing
;)
http://samugliestdog.com/images/Sammagnetweb.jpg
You can do something similar on the Powerbook/iBook with iScroll2. It can't detect which finger is on the touchpad (can't think how that'd be done) but if you tap with one finger already on the pad then it takes it as a right-click. Linky:s croll2/
http://www-users.kawo2.rwth-aachen.de/~razzfazz/i
Even works on the "older" iBooks and Powerbooks that theoretically don't support the two finger scrolling... turns out it works just fine and Apple just enable some firmware switch on the new models which this hack does regardless.
Just what I was thinking, of course the correct phrase would be
_ _1,2,,8657.html
"Calm down, dear. It's only a mouse!"
On a related note, the remix of "calm down dear, it's just a commercial" (Windows Media codec required):
http://www.blogtelevision.net/p/Watch-Video-Calm_
- That he was so obsessed with the goal of hiding a computer in a wall that he went out and bought a computer that's so small there's absolutely no point in hiding it in the wall. And to make matters funnier, he didn't make the CD drive accessible and had to buy an external one... about the same size as a Mac Mini and a lot uglier.
k itchen/cut5.jpg
- This quote: "Since the Mac is designed in america, it's most convenient to measure it in their units, Imperial units, goodness knows why they can't use SI units like the rest of the world, probably their bias against the french."
(Hahaha. He has a point.)
- This picture: http://www.caffeine-junkies.com/images/articles/i
Just screams out 'M-m-m-mac mini!'
He should've scrawled labels on it with black marker pen...
- The whole "I'm so cool, I own a computer made by Apple Macintosh" (it's Apple, retard), "and I openly show how much I hate IE" (annoying) and "Let's deliberately get to a stage where I have to test it's still working as an excuse to show an Apple desktop" thing he has going.
- This unnecessary comment: "NOTE FOR LAYMEN: it's imperitive that the wires for the LED are kept the same way around, because an LED is just that, a DIODE, and thus it will only work if the current is going one way."
Well, no shit Sherlock! I'm glad your university degree taught you *something*. Personally I learned that in Science class at about age 12.
- The excessive use of CAT5 for everything just to look cool to a Slashdot audience. Ironically, ends up looking a complete pratt by using a patch cable *outside* of the wall. I have no words!
- At the end of the day, all he did was plonk the Mini on the floor and create a wall-mounted port replicator, and even end up wasting money on an external optical drive!
Got to love it. You have to be sorry for him, he's obviously just trying to look cool. He's also fallen for the old pitfall of obsessing so much about solving a challenge that didn't even exist, he ended up creating more problems and overcomplicating the whole thing. But it's so funny.
As someone who works for a non-profit ("charity") we don't exactly have the greatest machines, nor can we afford them. We use what we've been kindly given over the years.
Being head of IT, I made sure I have the best of the bunch, which is an 833MHz P3 with 768MB of RAM and a 20GB Quantum Fireball which our now-deceased graphic design department managed to *buy* on thier own budget a few years ago. It runs Windows 2000.
Firefox takes a painful 12 seconds to load. IE takes 2 seconds max. I suspect it's something to do with IE being part loaded at startup of course, but then Opera only takes a couple of seconds to load too.
Other machines are more around the P2-300 mark. They have 64MB of RAM if lucky (32 in some cases). Firefox can take a good 30-40 seconds or so to load, and then it takes up *all* of the RAM. If you try to so much as press the start button without closing FF first then you're looking at a 30 second thrashing session.
IE, in contrast, takes 5 seconds to load on those... still faster on an antique than FF is on my semi-respectable machine. Opera manages something like 10 seconds and Windows is still usable.
Now, the obvious argument is that Firefox isn't designed for older machines. But is that really such an excuse to be sloppy and use over-bloated code? Perhaps if developers would *aim* for better performance on older machines, they (and their users) would be deligted by the results on the newer ones.
That, was a scream from the Planet!
Don't you hear it? As if to say "I hurt", "I suffer".
Oh come on. I'm a slashdot reader - do you really think I'd buy substandard hardware? Last I knew, $200+ Abit and Asus motherboards were perfectly good.
Some machines sleep fine, others just love staying asleep or having other problems... I've used enough different machines with different sleep issues (which have been 99.9% stable otherwise) to take that fact for granted. Although it's not always Windows directly - often it's badly designed software or drivers that simply don't like being suspended.
No, I understand that entirely, and have used that option myself... but you're misunderstanding my point in your eagerness to flame me for hyping (slightly tongue in cheek) an Apple "feature"
My point is that there's a clearly visible choice - and sometimes (IMO) choice is actually a *bad* thing. Now, I know that's a very unpopular view on a Linux-biased site, but that's how I see it. Because in this case, some computer manufacturers set it to shut down, some set it to stand by or hibernate, some even have it ask. So as a person uses a computer at work or college, or uses a friend's machine, they won't know what'll happen. So they use the menu instead.
What would be better behaviour is if it just always asked, and to have it do something else by default (which let's face it, only a geek would really care about) required a small registry tweak instead.
I think the reason your average Luser doesn't press that button, apart from having it drummed into them not to 5 years ago, is that its behaviour is so inconsistent. Sometimes it shuts down, sometimes it sleeps, sometimes it locks the machine up (yay for Windows' ACPI support)
Yet again I'd have to be an Apple whore and say that OS X wins on that one - one little window pops up asking you what you want to do.
I'd think it was ugly no matter what OS it was on. Actually, I find most of the Linux UIs to be pretty ugly too (Bluecurve isn't bad though)
"Seems like Microsoft is doing what Microsoft does best. Copying other companies. Maybe that's an unfair statement, but man, I hate Microsoft =)"
:)
But only Microsoft can 'borrow' from one of the greatest (visually) UIs on the planet and still manage to make it so... butt ugly
Can't speak for your parent, but personally I suggest that yes it does hurt him. Competition is competition whether it's from a legal free product or a legal commercial one or a pirate copy of a commercial one.
The only difference is, one is legal hurt and the other isn't...
Final Fantasy is Squenix's flagship product. Why would they ditch it?
At the moment they're milking the FF7 cash cow. That's not necessarily a good thing in itself, but it proves that FF is definitely still popular and profitable, and they're not going to drop it any time soon. Based on FF7 we now have Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus in development... that's 1 movie and 3 games right there. Then of course you have FF12 coming, and initial indications show that it might've gone back to a 'dark' theme which is a very positive step IMO.
They do have problems, but axing FF is definitely not the answer!
What they do need to do though is stop milking the hell out of FF7. Because...
a) It's diverting their attention away from developing new titles such as FF12, which still wasn't even playable at E3 because they're so busy milking FF7 dry.
b) Rehashing old titles gets boring. I took my online name from FF7 I liked it so much, and even I'm getting tired of hearing about all its Pokemon-style spinoffs and merchandise and yadda yadda every time Squenix opens its corporate mouth. It won't take much more to convert FF7 from the best game of all time to the most annoying over-hyped product since crazy frog. I'd like to see a PS3 remake, but no more spinoffs pleeeeease!
I agree with other posters in that bringing FF back to its roots would be a very good idea. X-2 was light hearted and fun so that was good, but it still missed several things that used to make FF what it was - and their previous "new" FF (X) was little more than an interactive DVD.
Bringing back the overworld between towns, and later a proper pilotable airship - would be a very, very good start. Take good ol' FF7... the ultimate in exploration. The story was great, but that was only a part of the game - more than half of what made it fun was exploring every corner of the map, every hidden area (you know, hidden behind waterfalls and things), doing all the sidequests etc. It's just not the same when you find hidden areas by inputting a code into the autopilot. X-2 at least got rid of the extreme linearity that X had, but it's still not enough.
There was also the immersion factor. The game feels truly epic when you can see the overall effect of your actions and/or the course of the story on the whole world as you walk/ride/fly around it. FF6's world being almost completely destroyed / transformed, FF7's world becoming overshadowed with meteor, a huge gun disappearing from one town only to appear in another etc. FF9's world losing its mist, cities being converted to holes in the ground etc. It's not the same when you can only see one part of it at a time - much better to feel like you're flying around it.
And there's nothing like the feeling of progression as you go from travelling on foot (tedious) to chocobo (better), to boat (new contintents!), to airship (go anywhere - teh w00t!).
If they start doing old-style FF again with an overworld and free moment, non-linearity, mildly technical but not to insane battle system, lots of sidequests etc. They'll have a hit.
I'm normally all for leaving on good terms, so as not to burn bridges.
But fuck it - from what you said, he's an absolute arsehole.
I'm not sure how your legislation is, but in the UK generally the employee has a *lot* of rights and the employer has very few. So my thoughts are as follows...
Wait out the absolute bare minimum notice, if the new company wants to take you ASAP.
Don't be nasty or disruptive in case it gives him an excuse for dismissal.
If he tries to withhold your paycheque for not finding a replacement, as someone said, remind him that it's his responsibility to do so and not yours. If it's not in your job description, tell him that too. And do all this via a tribunal - to hell with being nice, he wouldn't hesitate to be nasty.
Work to the letter. If you get asked to do something that isn't in your job description, or something that might need training you haven't received, then refuse to do it.
Once you're in the next job, forget about it. You might be tempted to slag him off in the papers, but you don't want your new employer trying to get rid of you in fear that you'll do the same to him.
Good luck!
http://www.apple.com/macosx/newfeatures/ ;)
Ehhhh heh heh heh .... that is NOT where to get it. Doesn't take a genius to guess what I'm thinking of :)
I mean alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.ms-beta !!
I downloaded it and installed it out of curiosity, as you do.
;) Top speed, no queues, no uploading, and direct to your ISP's servers so *very* little chance of getting intercepted. Yum.
Apart from their first attempts to try and copy Apple with the pretty effects when you restore a window from minimize and the little search engine appearing everywhere, nothing much has changed. Funny how they've finally "accidentally leaked" a practical demonstration (if buggy) of these technologies just before Tiger is released.
To their credit though, there is the revolutionary scrollbar on the start menu which I've been crying out for for 10 years, and about bloody time! It's magnificent. But apart from that, almost nothing seems to have changed.
To be fair, this *is* a pre-beta... but I wouldn't even call it a pre-alpha at this stage. They still seem to be throwing ideas around after all these years.
Anyway - the fastest way to get this is on usenet alt.binaries.mac.osx.apps - we're all slashdotters so hopefully everyone knows how to get there
I wonder about this. Surely the reason people are lazy about doing such things is because up to now there hasn't been a *reason* to do so?
I own a Mac with iPhoto etc, and yes I'm that kind of lazy person. I've never described a photo without a reason to do so - i.e. publishing a web gallery. But isn't that the point? People are usually lazy for a reason, as in there's no percievable need for them to expend that energy.
I intend to buy Tiger. Now, because I *know* that in the future I'll be able to have access to such a powerful search function, and that its performance is directly related to how well I describe my photos (and other files), I'll have a reason to do so and keep up with it. And I'm very confident that I will do so.
Mate, this site wouldn't "voom" if you put four million hits through it! It's bleedin' demised!
(Sorry, that was necessary. British humour.)
They have a copy of the advert they had on TV on their website. It's a very catchy cartoon song which managed to convince thousands of brits that Honda are these really cool engineers who love revolutionising things and are all-round really nice, cool guys. And then it made them walk into work every morning singing "hate something, change something make something betterrrrrrr!!". Very effective technique.
9 years is ridiculous!
I mean, I don't know what the sentences are over there, but here in the UK I'm pretty sure people have had less for manslaughter!
I despise spam as much as anyone else, but I couldn't compare it to the seriousness of killing someone. Sure, I can see how it's a criminal act (upsetting all of society) vs. civil (issues between individual people and/or businesses) and so some jail time is warranted. But come on... 9 years....
Oh well. At least they're trying
Yes. *Very* trying!
(I know I know, we need a score: -1, Predictable)
What a delightfully effective way of sending a sorta "mexican wave" of shudders down the spine of every person who's ever touched Internet Explorer in the last 5 years or so and instantly put them off your product for life.
I've never seen a company go so quickly from "cool" to "near sco-level"
If this is true, they can go feck off and die, and rot alongside the rest of the popup mongering scum.
If it's an early April Fools... well... that's another story!
Eh, obviously I did want to solve the problem because I *did* solve it... just in a different way and seemingly one that is not acceptable to you - well sorry about that :)
Actually there were two problems, one the snooze button and two the fact that buzzers / beepers generally do nothing for me (maybe because there are so many existent in the waking world nowadays?) - no chance of sleeping through those bells though!
Then it just clicked a few weeks ago - one of those "duh" moments. ( As blogged on my site ) I threw out my digital alarms, went out and bought an old-fashioned Westclox wind-up alarm. You wind it up every night, adjust the little lever to allow the hammer to move between the bells at the alarm time, and that's it!
Then it goes off and you get up.
It really is that simple. I wish I'd thought of it 10,15+ years ago!
It doesn't have a snooze function, so you know you have no choice in the matter... you can't "just return to that dream for another 10 minutes" - you have to get up. And there's nothing like a hammer striking a couple of bells to make you jump out of bed, much more effective than some little buzzer.
About 3 weeks using it so far, haven't snoozed once ;) Best "gadget" (traditional clocks are actually pretty cool IMO) that I've bought in a long, long time! And they're so user friendly... ok they're not millisecond-accurate but it's fun adjusting them to get as reasonably-accurate as you can.
I tell ya, the snooze button was the worst design decision ever made. Alarm clocks are designed to be evil, to give you a sudden kick to get you out of bed - then they went and put a "shut up" button on it! Evil, evil idea and so many of us now waste up to an hour of our days just fighting that damn button because we all sit there and accept it. I'd love to meet whoever invented it so I could bring along the biggest "snooze button" I can find and hit him around the head with it.