What I'd really like to see Microsoft do is bundle installers for several browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari even) on the installation disc, and give the user the option to pick one (or several) during the initial installation or as part of the user account setup.
Your question has been asked many times by different people, and as far as I've seen this suggestion hasn't come up yet. Is there something obvious I'm missing? Don't say, "The browser will be out of date in a few months" - it's not like that's a problem for IE! (Admittedly, Firefox won't automatically update over major versions, but that's mostly irrelevant - anyone who installs Firefox in the first place will probably know that there's a newer major version out.)
And then came IE 5 for Windows 3.1, which included Microsoft's own dial-up connection manager and TCP/IP stack which, IIRC, could be used just fine with stuff other than IE 5.
Wow, where are you trying to buy them from? I can get the lower-capacity one for $20, and a higher-capacity one for $40 (sorry, I can't remember the specs) - and I'm in Canada. (For those who don't know, electronic gadgets are generally at least 10% more expensive up here in my experience).
Here you go, ThinkGeek has them for $25. Mind you, those only have one plug on them - you can plug a power strip into them, but you'd have to make sure you don't overload it.
And (don't shoot me) I was given an iPod for my birthday a few years ago, and I actually like it - and dual-boot to Windows to maintain it.
Psst, that's mostly unnecessary, unless you're purchasing music off of iTunes. AFAIK, Amarok can sync with iPods just fine, and I believe Rhythmbox and various other Linux-native players can too.
I never thought I'd say this, but score one (the first?) for Vista and 7 over XP - on both of those, Windows Update is in its own separate control panel, and isn't directly tied to Internet Explorer. You can still launch it through IE, sure, but it pops up in its own Window and you're not required to go through IE to get there either.
On a related note, I thought it interesting that Vista (and maybe 7 too, I haven't checked) provides an option in its newfangled file association manager to use as few Microsoft applications as possible. Are they - *gasp* - maybe coming to the realization that not everybody wants to use their stuff?!
Well, sorta, if your definition of the beginning of time is 1995 or thereabouts;) Before then, we had Write and its unhidable EOF character... This almost makes me want to fire up Windows 3.1 on some old machine and see if Write supported non-DOS line-endings like WordPad does.
I think MBAM is technically classified as anti-spyware, not anti-virus (even though it's marketted as the fairly generic "anti-malware"). It's a great program all the same, and it's the only thing I've found to reliably remove Antivirus XP 2008/2009.
I was going to post the same thing, but it looks like this is intended more for directory services as opposed to websites for entities offering services relating to networking and the Internet. I think.
Just as a side note, this is technically not like 1984: in 1984, the vast majority of the population (the "proles") were mostly left to their own devices with pornography and IIRC, drugs thrown in to keep them occupied. Only the upper-class and those who worked in government jobs (a somewhat redundant separation) were kept under a constantly watchful eye.
As the gist of the sig of someone around here says (sorry, I can't remember who), "Please read 1984 before talking about 1984.";)
Amazingly. Not only is jQuery thoroughly documented, demos and examples are widely available. Also, the amount of code required to do something is drastically smaller (and therefore, faster to write) for simple stuff, without restricting your options when you want to do something more complex. $.get('test.php', function(data) {
$('#div').html(data); }); That (if I got it right off the top of my head) makes a GET request to the file test.php and dumps whatever test.php produced into an element with the ID "div".
You specifically mentioned Mootools. I used it (and liked it) for a while, but I eventually got frustrated with the lack of documentation and the amount of JavaScript it took to get anything done. I really encourage you to take a shot at jQuery just to see how it matches up.
One thing that did take me a while to get used to is the non-Prototype-like selectors: if you're selecting an ID, you can't just do $('el'); you've got to do $('#el'). However, this really simplifies things if you've got to select by class ( $('.class') ).
I agree. I downloaded Sam & Max Episode 104: Abe Lincoln Must Die just to see what the fuss was about back when they released it for free, and I enjoyed the storyline/writing immensely. Not entirely/intelligent/, to be sure, but it was funny and well thought-out. Very obvious that they'd taken the time to consider (and then execute) what was appropriate dialog for that sort of game.
Welcome to/., etc. etc. (Boy does it feel weird to be saying that to someone with a lower UID than mine.) I think you probably ended up with that just because you didn't explain why you felt that way. So, what makes you think it's going to be dull?
Personally, I don't think it's going to be anything close to dull as a whole (although some parts may be). Repetitive at the beginning of a new game/planet/whatever they're calling it, maybe, but if it plays out properly, it shouldn't be the same twice (unless you're really trying for that).
Before I reply further: "pretty much any video" above != "pretty much any DVD". I should've specified that in the original post. By video, I was referring to something already on the hard drive; by DVD, I was referring to a physical disc.
Anyway, with regards to my first comment: I was thinking too singly-mindedly of GStreamer instead of ffmpeg. You're right; ffmpeg/mplayer does do just about anything out of the box. (I'm really not sure why more distros, especially Ubuntu, don't include it.)
Not all software uses ffmpeg as its decoder, though, including a lot of popular apps(Rhythmbox, Totem), which means most people won't even notice that ffmpeg-based stuff can do it fine.
Well, the one I'm talking about would've (both XP and Vista come with usable drivers for it) but it at least wouldn't have died after having once worked.
I know I can't expect every driver to be built-in; it's surprising that the kernel devs manage to package as many into it as they do. Although, that might be because they realize how difficult it can be to add new drivers at a later date. (I've rewritten that last bit three times and I'm still unsatisfied with how it sounds. What I'm trying to say is, "could your mother do it?", without having to get into whether or not she could even do it on Windows.)
I'd say the Linux standpoint is probably the better of your two options; at least the driver usually stays working once you've got it installed. The best method, though, would obviously be an autodetect that does what it's supposed to.
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What I'd really like to see Microsoft do is bundle installers for several browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari even) on the installation disc, and give the user the option to pick one (or several) during the initial installation or as part of the user account setup.
Your question has been asked many times by different people, and as far as I've seen this suggestion hasn't come up yet. Is there something obvious I'm missing? Don't say, "The browser will be out of date in a few months" - it's not like that's a problem for IE! (Admittedly, Firefox won't automatically update over major versions, but that's mostly irrelevant - anyone who installs Firefox in the first place will probably know that there's a newer major version out.)
--- Mr. DOS
And then came IE 5 for Windows 3.1, which included Microsoft's own dial-up connection manager and TCP/IP stack which, IIRC, could be used just fine with stuff other than IE 5.
--- Mr. DOS
Hey, did you hear that Sony's started making their own Kill-A-Watts to be packaged with new TV's? ;)
--- Mr. DOS
Wow, where are you trying to buy them from? I can get the lower-capacity one for $20, and a higher-capacity one for $40 (sorry, I can't remember the specs) - and I'm in Canada. (For those who don't know, electronic gadgets are generally at least 10% more expensive up here in my experience).
Here you go, ThinkGeek has them for $25. Mind you, those only have one plug on them - you can plug a power strip into them, but you'd have to make sure you don't overload it.
--- Mr. DOS
Psst, that's mostly unnecessary, unless you're purchasing music off of iTunes. AFAIK, Amarok can sync with iPods just fine, and I believe Rhythmbox and various other Linux-native players can too.
--- Mr. DOS
I never thought I'd say this, but score one (the first?) for Vista and 7 over XP - on both of those, Windows Update is in its own separate control panel, and isn't directly tied to Internet Explorer. You can still launch it through IE, sure, but it pops up in its own Window and you're not required to go through IE to get there either.
On a related note, I thought it interesting that Vista (and maybe 7 too, I haven't checked) provides an option in its newfangled file association manager to use as few Microsoft applications as possible. Are they - *gasp* - maybe coming to the realization that not everybody wants to use their stuff?!
--- Mr. DOS
What I hate most about the pictures is that they're usually (very) lossy JPEG's that have been re-saved as PNG's. *shudder*
--- Mr. DOS
Well, sorta, if your definition of the beginning of time is 1995 or thereabouts ;) Before then, we had Write and its unhidable EOF character... This almost makes me want to fire up Windows 3.1 on some old machine and see if Write supported non-DOS line-endings like WordPad does.
</nitpicking>
--- Mr. DOS
Hmm, that name rings a bell. I think I might've taken a cursory look at it at one point; I should go back and try it again. Thanks for the reminder!
--- Mr. DOS
I think MBAM is technically classified as anti-spyware, not anti-virus (even though it's marketted as the fairly generic "anti-malware"). It's a great program all the same, and it's the only thing I've found to reliably remove Antivirus XP 2008/2009.
--- Mr. DOS
I was going to post the same thing, but it looks like this is intended more for directory services as opposed to websites for entities offering services relating to networking and the Internet. I think.
Hey, at least it opens up more domain hacks! ;)
--- Mr. DOS
Just as a side note, this is technically not like 1984: in 1984, the vast majority of the population (the "proles") were mostly left to their own devices with pornography and IIRC, drugs thrown in to keep them occupied. Only the upper-class and those who worked in government jobs (a somewhat redundant separation) were kept under a constantly watchful eye.
As the gist of the sig of someone around here says (sorry, I can't remember who), "Please read 1984 before talking about 1984." ;)
--- Mr. DOS
I didn't know you could do that - thanks for the tip!
--- Mr. DOS
Amazingly. Not only is jQuery thoroughly documented, demos and examples are widely available. Also, the amount of code required to do something is drastically smaller (and therefore, faster to write) for simple stuff, without restricting your options when you want to do something more complex.
$.get('test.php', function(data) {
$('#div').html(data);
});
That (if I got it right off the top of my head) makes a GET request to the file test.php and dumps whatever test.php produced into an element with the ID "div".
You specifically mentioned Mootools. I used it (and liked it) for a while, but I eventually got frustrated with the lack of documentation and the amount of JavaScript it took to get anything done. I really encourage you to take a shot at jQuery just to see how it matches up.
One thing that did take me a while to get used to is the non-Prototype-like selectors: if you're selecting an ID, you can't just do $('el'); you've got to do $('#el'). However, this really simplifies things if you've got to select by class ( $('.class') ).
--- Mr. DOS
I agree. I downloaded Sam & Max Episode 104: Abe Lincoln Must Die just to see what the fuss was about back when they released it for free, and I enjoyed the storyline/writing immensely. Not entirely /intelligent/, to be sure, but it was funny and well thought-out. Very obvious that they'd taken the time to consider (and then execute) what was appropriate dialog for that sort of game.
--- Mr. DOS
You forgot to say that that idea was invented by harry666t.
--- Mr. DOS
The funny thing there is that After Dark was, AFAIK and IIRC, originally a Mac product...
--- Mr. DOS
Battlefield: 1812 would actually be sorta cool... until your musket jammed, of course.
--- Mr. DOS
Paint was last updated when they released Vista - they changed the default palette ;)
--- Mr. DOS
Isn't Yahtzee Australian?
--- Mr. DOS
Welcome to /., etc. etc. (Boy does it feel weird to be saying that to someone with a lower UID than mine.) I think you probably ended up with that just because you didn't explain why you felt that way. So, what makes you think it's going to be dull?
Personally, I don't think it's going to be anything close to dull as a whole (although some parts may be). Repetitive at the beginning of a new game/planet/whatever they're calling it, maybe, but if it plays out properly, it shouldn't be the same twice (unless you're really trying for that).
--- Mr. DOS
I, for one, welcome our mechanical brother overlords?
Now just watch as I get modded redundant...
--- Mr. DOS
True, I guess it does sound like I'm expecting a little much. But for things that were working to not die would be nice ;)
--- Mr. DOS
Before I reply further: "pretty much any video" above != "pretty much any DVD". I should've specified that in the original post. By video, I was referring to something already on the hard drive; by DVD, I was referring to a physical disc.
Anyway, with regards to my first comment: I was thinking too singly-mindedly of GStreamer instead of ffmpeg. You're right; ffmpeg/mplayer does do just about anything out of the box. (I'm really not sure why more distros, especially Ubuntu, don't include it.)
Not all software uses ffmpeg as its decoder, though, including a lot of popular apps(Rhythmbox, Totem), which means most people won't even notice that ffmpeg-based stuff can do it fine.
--- Mr. DOS
Well, the one I'm talking about would've (both XP and Vista come with usable drivers for it) but it at least wouldn't have died after having once worked.
I know I can't expect every driver to be built-in; it's surprising that the kernel devs manage to package as many into it as they do. Although, that might be because they realize how difficult it can be to add new drivers at a later date. (I've rewritten that last bit three times and I'm still unsatisfied with how it sounds. What I'm trying to say is, "could your mother do it?", without having to get into whether or not she could even do it on Windows.)
I'd say the Linux standpoint is probably the better of your two options; at least the driver usually stays working once you've got it installed. The best method, though, would obviously be an autodetect that does what it's supposed to.
--- Mr. DOS