Not true - For example, The Sum of All Fears STILL isn't out over here, it comes out in September last I heard. In the USA it has been out for months. 6-9 months is a little over the top, but we're certainly still waiting quite a while.
I've seen many films available for DVD release in America that are only recent cinema releases here.
I was under the impression reels of film degraded in quality after many runs - this was the advantage touted of digital film distribution. I find it hard to believe that other countries get the poor quality leftovers after the US has finished with them.
So either all those new MMORPGs aren't going to be popular or the current big ones are going to lose a lot of customers.
That assumes a static consumer base. By all accounts the number of game players are increasing and 'public acceptability' (whatever that may be) of gamers is also on the increase.
With consoles sporting internet connections and network ports, MMORPGs I'm sure will become inceasingly popular.
I'll agree that people aren't going to be playing more than 1 or 2 at a time, but with more people playing, more MMORPGs doesn't neccesarily mean less popularity per game.
DVD-Rs dont write in an hour and half, the A04 does 2x writing, which means about 30 minutes. DVD+R does it at 2.4x - we're not talking huge time savings..
You assume that because we're both meant to be democracies, that the general public knows what is good and right, and that they will vote accordingly.
I don't think that the general public are really going to take much notice about this - perhaps it seems elitist, it probably is - but I doubt they'd realise the implications or care in the slightest.
I once set up about 10 or so dummy passport accounts (don't ask why - long story).. anyway, none of these were ever used, and never handed out to anyone.
Then one day crushlink emails me to 5 of these dummy accounts telling each of them that someone has a crush on me! The only way the addresses could have been aquired would be by trawling through the microsoft site looking for addresses.
I also note with interest a link in the salon article to http://www.rhythm.cx/crushlink/ - some guy who set up an email address just to try and catch crushlink out, and got an email from 'jennyslist.com'. So that is where jennyslist got those email addresses of mine..
News and press releases September 14th 2001 job openings posted
Front page If you are part of either an established game development team or a new team with outstanding talent, and you are looking for funding and intersted in...
Not very current and I hope you've got a fair bit of experience in the video games industry before you send off a CV - the programming and artist positions they have open each demand at least 5 years.
"The feature-rich Odyssey 1000 has a 20 Gigabyte hard drive for optimum MP3 and Windows MediaTM WMA playback and doubles as a data storage unit for movies, spreadsheets, e- books, and more."
Now, you may not be able to interface with it as easily since it isn't running Linux, but you should be able to hack it. It's not locked down to transferring just audio files.
I think the point was that the size of the list doesn't have to relate in any way to the source, or how targetted the addresses are.
I could have a 1,000,000 customer email list and a 400,000 random email addresses harvested from the net. I'd expect to get a higher percentage response rate from the 1,000,000 list in both numbers and percentages.
Are you serious? I'll assume you are. I personally (and I'm sure a lot of other Linux users are the same) can't stand IE. It has its good points, one being the almost perfect offline browsing, but the rest? I can't stand it's boring as hell user interface (where are the tabs, and why no google search from the location bar?), and the way it completely screws up processing web pages. It's also been weighed down by MSN branding recently. However, if you must have IE, you can run it in the latest builds of Wine I've heard. I don't think it's perfect, but it's certainly usable.
IE - Tabs would be nice, but I'm not too fussed about the 'boring' UI. I want to see the web pages, and have it not crash. IE very very rarely crashes on me, and I've never seen a page rendered badly. I'm not sure how it screws up processing pages as you refer to - I've seen Linux browsers fare very badly on many, many pages. Yes, there's some bad HTML out there, and whilst in theory boycotting bad pages is the answer - but what if you actually want to use the page x browser doesn't render as well as IE?
MSN branding? The only evidence of that I see (IE 6.0) is the homepage is MSN. I've changed my homepage on my Linux page too - it's not that big a deal. Mandrake installs with the Mandrake page as its browser's homepages, and I've changed them too. Google search? You can grab the google bar from the google home page if you want to get this. Not as nice as with other browsers though, alright.
Some people seem to think that you can continue to make things more and more intuitive and easy until you don't even have to think to operate computers. I'm beginning to think that's wrong. There will always be people who drop off the end, those who can't or won't learn new things.
I totally agree - there will always be people who'll drop out and just not get it. However, when even *I* can think of ways of making some things simpler, people who really study UIs I'm sure can say that many things in Linux can be made simpler and more intuitive without loss of control.
No, Linux shouldn't be dumbed down to the point that to make things simple for the masses means frustration for everyone else - Windows XP is guity of this. I've had to turn virtually all of the 'helpers' it has off to get things done effiently. However - the fact that it's easier for beginners and that I *could* make things more advanced is something that should be considered.
Busted - I haven't used Mozilla 1.0, only older versions which drove me mad.
Opera is my browser of choice, and I am very impressed by its speed, stability and rendering (which IE *is* good at on all 3 too by the way).
Most people don't need a screen resolution switcher? Ever used a shared PC? I know lots of people that really don't like high resolutions and will go down to 800x600 to make things easier to see. I prefer higher, and will always up the res on a PC set at 640x480 in libraries for example.
6. Die stray processes, die! Ever tried ctrl-alt-escape in KDE? Obvious and transparent, no?
Ever thought of ctrl-alt-delete on a PC ?
Ok, you've got me on this one - although does it work in GNOME? WindowMaker? etc. The great thing about the choice Linux provides user, as the article mentions, is that all too often there are no standard ways of doing certain basic things across the board.
What really *is* easy is this: Right click on desktop -> properties -> settings [or Start -> Control Panel -> Display settings] Do you truly believe either of those options are easy to a beginner?
Yes, I do - or at least far easier than in Linux.
I've taught many people how to do it, and they've remembered, because the graphical prompts make it pretty easy to remember things.
I found it myself after not much effort, without going on the internet (we didn't have it), or finding a book (didn't have any). It was fairly intuitive. Editing/etc/x11/xf86config however, is not.
Start - the home for most things [as copied in KDE/GNOME]
Control Panel - A guess would put this as where the options are
Display settings - To do with the display perhaps?
Settings - A little bit more effort to remember, but not complicated
Compare this with linux, the only standard semi-reliable (as this assumes you do it right) is going into/etc/X11/XF86Config and setting up all the mode lines for your card and monitor etc.
Yes, you can do things in xf86config - but are you saying that *that* is easier than Windows? There is no easy standard way of doing it - and this is not a complex task at all!
You sir, truly sound like an arrogant elitest (as complained about in the article). Face it,- not everyone should have to spend vast amounts of time learning how to do things which can be made easier without the loss of control if you want it.
The theory that ease of use is not a consideration, and that since computers are complicated and that most people will find them difficult is madness. Why not code in straight binary, hell - it's difficult, but computers are complicated so just face it that we don't need a simpler way of coding!
"Linux is not aiming to emulate the dated windows way of doing things."
We're talking about bringing Linux to the desktop. It doesn't need to exactly emulate the way Windows things, it just needs to make certain things easier for people who haven't spent a few years mastering it, but still want to get things done.
1. No 'best' browser. Gosh, how about the nice thing we call choice?
If they were all very good at doing what they do - that's fine. Sadly, they're not. Whenever I'm in Linux I *always* yearn for IE when I'm browsing, no matter what browser I use. The author's point is that all the current options aren't that amazing, and all have pretty big faults.
2. Prompting for a filesystem scan. Damn, if only this was adjustable, oh yeah... Not the most obvious thing in the world to change though - and something IMO the default should be automatically done in the background.
3. Printing needs to be easier to configure. It can't get much easier that printconf (for Red Hat users). Ok, in Mandrake it was pretty easy to get my printer working, granted.
4. Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things. Yeah, reading a book or taking a class (or searching online) is so hard. When will people realize that a computer it a techinical thing? You have to be willing to do a little homework, even with a mac (if you've never used one).
Yeah, good viewpoint. Why make things easier and more intuitive when the users could just get off their lazy asses and go study to use the machine!
Please. Most people will pretty quickly pick up Windows, and most things are pretty easy to work out how to do. There are stable, easy to use, tried and tested configuration screens that work. Complexity and a steep learning curve does not bring superiority.
You don't have to lose power and control by making things easier to use.
5. Cleaner redraws. Ok, sure.
6. Die stray processes, die! Ever tried ctrl-alt-escape in KDE?
Obvious and transparent, no?
7. Easy way of sharing files. You like in windows, where I find places like Doctors offices "sharing" all their patient records on the internet? Check out programs like share sniffer if you want to find them too.
So, because some people stupid, things should be made much more complicated than they need to be for everyone else? Cars should be made harder to drive - keep all those damn idiots off the roads.
Yeah, right.
8. Sound support. Ok, if you want professional audio production cards, you got me, but for most other sound cards there just isn't a problem.
I can't say I've had much of a problem with my cards, but they've been pretty standard items.
9. No common editor which supports "soft wrapping." Well... pico does this (ctrl-j)
You'd have thought more of the more popular editors would have it (at least as an option). It's a pretty basic thing to have.
10. No easy way to configure X - especially change resolution on the fly. Actually, it couldn't be easier to change resolutions on the fly. Hold ctrl and alt, then hit - or + on the numberic key pad. This cycles you through all your selected resolutions, on the fly. Just make sure you selected all the ones you want when you setup x (Red Hat users use Xconfigurator to select resolutions).
Couldn't be easier? I beg to differ. Once you *know* that you press that combination, and you've already gone through the process of having all your resolutions and refresh rates configured, yeah, it's easy. What really *is* easy is this:
Right click on desktop -> properties -> settings
[or Start -> Control Panel -> Display settings]
Drag the slider to the resolution you want. Select colour depth. Press OK.
No text config file that you need to setup with all the options your system can support.
Yes, Linux should be more powerful and dynamic than Windows - that's part of the whole point of it. However, things can be easier without the expense of control.
As has been already pointed out, they must already be configured.
Have you ever tried changing resolution, refresh rate or colour depth in windows? It's painfully easy to do, ever since Windows 95. Microsoft do get somethings right y'know - changing resolutions should be a pretty easy task. I don't see *anything* lost, but much gained by using a graphical config app for this over straight text based configuration.
I've got most of the fancy new graphics, start menu etc turned off in XP and it looks just like 2000. Guess what- I don't actually notice much difference either.
The only real changes that I make use of:
- nicer multiuser login for home pcs
- the nicer icon appearance on the desktop (transparent backgrounds and shadows on the text)
My current case of choice (got two of them) is the Globalwin 802 - the intake on the front has a removable filter you can simply clean. I'd never noticed it until a while back when I was silencing the machine (using things from quietpc.com) and thought that the new 'silent' fan I'd installed in the front was making a fair bit more noise than another one I had as an exhaust.
I removed the front panel and noticed that there was a huge amount of dust built up over it.. cleaned it and it much was quieter and shifted a fair bit more air.
The moral is - if you use filters, make sure you clean them!
I had a previous model of the natural keyboard (no app buttons) and that was the guilty one as far as misaligned arrow keys/ insert/del key block.
I later managed to destroy that keyboard through various years of drinks being spilt etc. and got a new one about 9 months ago. It is complete with app buttons but lo, it has normal arrow keys and insert/del key blocks. So my solution - go and buy yourself a new one:)
"A notepad is faster to write on (no matter what the Palm people say), more reliable, and more indestructible than a PDA can dream of."
I'm willing to bet I can touchtype on my Psion 5mx faster than I can write.
"more reliable, and more indestructible than a PDA can dream of"
Although you have the nice advantage of being able to back up your notes/appointments/contacts etc.
Lose your filofax, get your papers wet, you're in for some problems. Smash your PDA - no worries, you synced in the morning so you've got a spare copy you can call up from your PC. Worth a consideration..
Slashdot Mirror
Not true - For example, The Sum of All Fears STILL isn't out over here, it comes out in September last I heard. In the USA it has been out for months. 6-9 months is a little over the top, but we're certainly still waiting quite a while.
I've seen many films available for DVD release in America that are only recent cinema releases here.
I was under the impression reels of film degraded in quality after many runs - this was the advantage touted of digital film distribution. I find it hard to believe that other countries get the poor quality leftovers after the US has finished with them.
That assumes a static consumer base. By all accounts the number of game players are increasing and 'public acceptability' (whatever that may be) of gamers is also on the increase.
With consoles sporting internet connections and network ports, MMORPGs I'm sure will become inceasingly popular.
I'll agree that people aren't going to be playing more than 1 or 2 at a time, but with more people playing, more MMORPGs doesn't neccesarily mean less popularity per game.
5 driver reboots?
...
:)
When it says 'Do you wish to restart now?' click no, and it'll then detect the next device, install the driver, keep clicking no
Then when you're done installing all the drivers, reboot.
Never gone wrong for me anyway
DVD-Rs dont write in an hour and half, the A04 does 2x writing, which means about 30 minutes. DVD+R does it at 2.4x - we're not talking huge time savings..
http://www.cd-rmedia.co.uk/ have their cheapest 1x DVD-R media at £1.25 each here, which is pretty damn cheap.
I'm thinking of getting a Pioneer drive this month, although I've heard that 4x writers are coming out in October - anyone heard anything on this?
You assume that because we're both meant to be democracies, that the general public knows what is good and right, and that they will vote accordingly.
I don't think that the general public are really going to take much notice about this - perhaps it seems elitist, it probably is - but I doubt they'd realise the implications or care in the slightest.
I once set up about 10 or so dummy passport accounts (don't ask why - long story) .. anyway, none of these were ever used, and never handed out to anyone.
Then one day crushlink emails me to 5 of these dummy accounts telling each of them that someone has a crush on me! The only way the addresses could have been aquired would be by trawling through the microsoft site looking for addresses.
I also note with interest a link in the salon article to http://www.rhythm.cx/crushlink/ - some guy who set up an email address just to try and catch crushlink out, and got an email from 'jennyslist.com'. So that is where jennyslist got those email addresses of mine..
It certainly does work on Win2K, there are loads of programs that'll let you send CTRL-ALT-DEL from another PC.
VNC,PCanwyhere...sub7..
News and press releases
September 14th 2001
job openings posted
Front page
If you are part of either an established game development team or a new team with outstanding talent, and you are looking for funding and intersted in...
Not very current and I hope you've got a fair bit of experience in the video games industry before you send off a CV - the programming and artist positions they have open each demand at least 5 years.
If you look at the article:
:)
"The feature-rich Odyssey 1000 has a 20 Gigabyte hard drive for optimum MP3 and Windows MediaTM WMA playback and doubles as a data storage unit for movies, spreadsheets, e- books, and more."
Now, you may not be able to interface with it as easily since it isn't running Linux, but you should be able to hack it. It's not locked down to transferring just audio files.
I want one.
I think the point was that the size of the list doesn't have to relate in any way to the source, or how targetted the addresses are.
I could have a 1,000,000 customer email list and a 400,000 random email addresses harvested from the net. I'd expect to get a higher percentage response rate from the 1,000,000 list in both numbers and percentages.
"I am running my 7200 Maxtor 27GB as Primary master, and LG 32X CD-RW as Secondary Master on an Intel 815EEA2 board"
;)
And then..
"Try moving your CD-RW as a secondary master and keeping your hard drive as the primary master."
I think that was a bit redundant
Are you serious? I'll assume you are. I personally (and I'm sure a lot of other Linux users are the same) can't stand IE. It has its good points, one being the almost perfect offline browsing, but the rest? I can't stand it's boring as hell user interface (where are the tabs, and why no google search from the location bar?), and the way it completely screws up processing web pages. It's also been weighed down by MSN branding recently. However, if you must have IE, you can run it in the latest builds of Wine I've heard. I don't think it's perfect, but it's certainly usable.
IE - Tabs would be nice, but I'm not too fussed about the 'boring' UI. I want to see the web pages, and have it not crash. IE very very rarely crashes on me, and I've never seen a page rendered badly. I'm not sure how it screws up processing pages as you refer to - I've seen Linux browsers fare very badly on many, many pages. Yes, there's some bad HTML out there, and whilst in theory boycotting bad pages is the answer - but what if you actually want to use the page x browser doesn't render as well as IE?
MSN branding? The only evidence of that I see (IE 6.0) is the homepage is MSN. I've changed my homepage on my Linux page too - it's not that big a deal. Mandrake installs with the Mandrake page as its browser's homepages, and I've changed them too. Google search? You can grab the google bar from the google home page if you want to get this. Not as nice as with other browsers though, alright.
Some people seem to think that you can continue to make things more and more intuitive and easy until you don't even have to think to operate computers. I'm beginning to think that's wrong. There will always be people who drop off the end, those who can't or won't learn new things.
I totally agree - there will always be people who'll drop out and just not get it. However, when even *I* can think of ways of making some things simpler, people who really study UIs I'm sure can say that many things in Linux can be made simpler and more intuitive without loss of control.
No, Linux shouldn't be dumbed down to the point that to make things simple for the masses means frustration for everyone else - Windows XP is guity of this. I've had to turn virtually all of the 'helpers' it has off to get things done effiently. However - the fact that it's easier for beginners and that I *could* make things more advanced is something that should be considered.
Busted - I haven't used Mozilla 1.0, only older versions which drove me mad.
Opera is my browser of choice, and I am very impressed by its speed, stability and rendering (which IE *is* good at on all 3 too by the way).
Most people don't need a screen resolution switcher? Ever used a shared PC? I know lots of people that really don't like high resolutions and will go down to 800x600 to make things easier to see. I prefer higher, and will always up the res on a PC set at 640x480 in libraries for example.
6. Die stray processes, die! Ever tried ctrl-alt-escape in KDE? Obvious and transparent, no?
/etc/x11/xf86config however, is not.
/etc/X11/XF86Config and setting up all the mode lines for your card and monitor etc.
Ever thought of ctrl-alt-delete on a PC ?
Ok, you've got me on this one - although does it work in GNOME? WindowMaker? etc. The great thing about the choice Linux provides user, as the article mentions, is that all too often there are no standard ways of doing certain basic things across the board.
What really *is* easy is this: Right click on desktop -> properties -> settings [or Start -> Control Panel -> Display settings]
Do you truly believe either of those options are easy to a beginner?
Yes, I do - or at least far easier than in Linux.
I've taught many people how to do it, and they've remembered, because the graphical prompts make it pretty easy to remember things.
I found it myself after not much effort, without going on the internet (we didn't have it), or finding a book (didn't have any). It was fairly intuitive. Editing
Start - the home for most things [as copied in KDE/GNOME]
Control Panel - A guess would put this as where the options are
Display settings - To do with the display perhaps?
Settings - A little bit more effort to remember, but not complicated
Compare this with linux, the only standard semi-reliable (as this assumes you do it right) is going into
Yes, you can do things in xf86config - but are you saying that *that* is easier than Windows? There is no easy standard way of doing it - and this is not a complex task at all!
You sir, truly sound like an arrogant elitest (as complained about in the article). Face it,- not everyone should have to spend vast amounts of time learning how to do things which can be made easier without the loss of control if you want it.
The theory that ease of use is not a consideration, and that since computers are complicated and that most people will find them difficult is madness. Why not code in straight binary, hell - it's difficult, but computers are complicated so just face it that we don't need a simpler way of coding!
"Linux is not aiming to emulate the dated windows way of doing things."
We're talking about bringing Linux to the desktop. It doesn't need to exactly emulate the way Windows things, it just needs to make certain things easier for people who haven't spent a few years mastering it, but still want to get things done.
1. No 'best' browser.
Gosh, how about the nice thing we call choice?
If they were all very good at doing what they do - that's fine. Sadly, they're not. Whenever I'm in Linux I *always* yearn for IE when I'm browsing, no matter what browser I use. The author's point is that all the current options aren't that amazing, and all have pretty big faults.
2. Prompting for a filesystem scan.
Damn, if only this was adjustable, oh yeah...
Not the most obvious thing in the world to change though - and something IMO the default should be automatically done in the background.
3. Printing needs to be easier to configure.
It can't get much easier that printconf (for Red Hat users).
Ok, in Mandrake it was pretty easy to get my printer working, granted.
4. Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things.
Yeah, reading a book or taking a class (or searching online) is so hard. When will people realize that a computer it a techinical thing? You have to be willing to do a little homework, even with a mac (if you've never used one).
Yeah, good viewpoint. Why make things easier and more intuitive when the users could just get off their lazy asses and go study to use the machine!
Please. Most people will pretty quickly pick up Windows, and most things are pretty easy to work out how to do. There are stable, easy to use, tried and tested configuration screens that work. Complexity and a steep learning curve does not bring superiority.
You don't have to lose power and control by making things easier to use.
5. Cleaner redraws.
Ok, sure.
6. Die stray processes, die!
Ever tried ctrl-alt-escape in KDE?
Obvious and transparent, no?
7. Easy way of sharing files.
You like in windows, where I find places like Doctors offices "sharing" all their patient records on the internet? Check out programs like share sniffer if you want to find them too.
So, because some people stupid, things should be made much more complicated than they need to be for everyone else? Cars should be made harder to drive - keep all those damn idiots off the roads.
Yeah, right.
8. Sound support.
Ok, if you want professional audio production cards, you got me, but for most other sound cards there just isn't a problem.
I can't say I've had much of a problem with my cards, but they've been pretty standard items.
9. No common editor which supports "soft wrapping."
Well... pico does this (ctrl-j)
You'd have thought more of the more popular editors would have it (at least as an option). It's a pretty basic thing to have.
10. No easy way to configure X - especially change resolution on the fly.
Actually, it couldn't be easier to change resolutions on the fly. Hold ctrl and alt, then hit - or + on the numberic key pad. This cycles you through all your selected resolutions, on the fly. Just make sure you selected all the ones you want when you setup x (Red Hat users use Xconfigurator to select resolutions).
Couldn't be easier? I beg to differ. Once you *know* that you press that combination, and you've already gone through the process of having all your resolutions and refresh rates configured, yeah, it's easy. What really *is* easy is this:
Right click on desktop -> properties -> settings
[or Start -> Control Panel -> Display settings]
Drag the slider to the resolution you want. Select colour depth. Press OK.
No text config file that you need to setup with all the options your system can support.
Yes, Linux should be more powerful and dynamic than Windows - that's part of the whole point of it. However, things can be easier without the expense of control.
As has been already pointed out, they must already be configured.
Have you ever tried changing resolution, refresh rate or colour depth in windows? It's painfully easy to do, ever since Windows 95. Microsoft do get somethings right y'know - changing resolutions should be a pretty easy task. I don't see *anything* lost, but much gained by using a graphical config app for this over straight text based configuration.
"No mention of XP vs Win2k."
Probably because there isn't an awful lot.
I've got most of the fancy new graphics, start menu etc turned off in XP and it looks just like 2000. Guess what- I don't actually notice much difference either.
The only real changes that I make use of:
- nicer multiuser login for home pcs
- the nicer icon appearance on the desktop (transparent backgrounds and shadows on the text)
Erm... Yeah I think that's it.
They have. I've seen several myself.
My current case of choice (got two of them) is the Globalwin 802 - the intake on the front has a removable filter you can simply clean. I'd never noticed it until a while back when I was silencing the machine (using things from quietpc.com) and thought that the new 'silent' fan I'd installed in the front was making a fair bit more noise than another one I had as an exhaust.
I removed the front panel and noticed that there was a huge amount of dust built up over it.. cleaned it and it much was quieter and shifted a fair bit more air.
The moral is - if you use filters, make sure you clean them!
I had a previous model of the natural keyboard (no app buttons) and that was the guilty one as far as misaligned arrow keys/ insert/del key block.
:)
I later managed to destroy that keyboard through various years of drinks being spilt etc. and got a new one about 9 months ago. It is complete with app buttons but lo, it has normal arrow keys and insert/del key blocks. So my solution - go and buy yourself a new one
If each person only has 6gb of the 30gb used, spread multiple backups over your entire office using the spare space!
This revolutionary blended wing design, called BWB for short, was conceived by the McDonnell Douglas Corporation and now proposed by Boeing
I can't remember what model it was, but I recall seeing a laptop that could do exactly that. Appartly worked rather well.
With digital projectors on the increase though I'm not sure how useful this will be in the future...
"A notepad is faster to write on (no matter what the Palm people say), more reliable, and more indestructible than a PDA can dream of."
I'm willing to bet I can touchtype on my Psion 5mx faster than I can write.
"more reliable, and more indestructible than a PDA can dream of"
Although you have the nice advantage of being able to back up your notes/appointments/contacts etc.
Lose your filofax, get your papers wet, you're in for some problems. Smash your PDA - no worries, you synced in the morning so you've got a spare copy you can call up from your PC. Worth a consideration..