So, it's just going to fuck people over who know how to type. PLUS! Fuck people over who have to use more than 1 PC, unless they bring their crappy 53 key keyboard...
For what?
So people who can't type, can type 1-2 wpm faster? BUT... oh shit. They'll have to deal with a regular qwerty keyboard at work, and will just get even more confused?!
Like it or lump it, keyboards are here to stay, either dvorak or qwerty - they'll be around (mostly in qwerty layout) until voice recognition or mind control takes off.
Once you build a PC on your own, it's really easy to do again, and I don't ever see myself going back to pre-builts. Have a knowledgable friend (i.e. has built several PCs with no problems) help you the first time, then research and do your own upgrades. Afterward, even years later, you'll know how to quickly find high-quality information resouces (and avoid luser resources) to bring you up to date on the latest technology (since you already should understand the basics you won't be mislead by market-speak and fooled by large companies wiht too-good-to-be-true deals). For me, it's as simple as "oh, I need a new hard drive... hmm, look for Western Digital on Newegg and Tom's Hardware... here's a really good one for a nice price... wow, those transfer speeds are really up there nowadays, look at that SATA II 3meg."
I'm a "geek". I can/do build computers, am a Linux/Solaris admin of some 7 years, used to screw around with DOS memory management to get old games to work, etc - and I tell all the people I know who ask me what computer to buy, to just go buy a dell.
Why?
Because after 12 years in the industry, I just don't want to deal with the shit any more.
Yes, I build my own PCs, but I'm sure as hell not going to send a friend of mine to some mum+dad PC outfit to buy/build their own clone.
Yes, chances are you can get something quicker/cheaper/better, but if a friend of mine buys a Dell and it breaks, they call Dell and get new components the next day.
Some people have better things to do than root around with computers, like using them. Which is pretty much the point of owning a computer for 99.999% of people out there.
Yes, I could build them a PC. Yes, I could probably support it. Do i think it's worth my time, for the 10% fps increase in quake X? No...
There's far more to dealing with computers than fps/$. After you've been dealing with other people's computer issues for a few years, you come to realise this...
And as far as build quality goes on your typical Dell box - I'm happy. And I say that from the experience of supporting about 600 of them during the past 4 years... I can count the number of hardware issues I've had to deal with (other than the typical HD failure when old that all drives eventually go through, etc) without needing to use toes...
It also doesn't turn DMA on by default on cdrom drives - or 32bit disk access on ANY drive.
And it's not just flaky hardware... unless intel 865 chipset IDE controller on an intel board with a seagate drive is flaky - along with all the other hardware I've tested it on.
Simple enough to fix, but yeah - exactly that reason, makes stuff jerky, and slows down the desktop as well, when you're pushing it.
(hda = seagate 80gig drive, hdc = Pioneer DVD burner, hdd = LiteON cd burner)
Safe, I guess - but perhaps there should be either a "buggy" hardware register, or a "working" hardware register to enable it to be turned on by default, if safe, in the majority of cases?
I see your point, however, in the context of an open-source desktop environment study, even 3-6 months is a long time - more than a year is an eternity...
It's typically at least 1 minor rev of KDE or Gnome (in 6 months), and a lot can change in that time.
Also, good luck getting funding/approval/thesis time for a 6 year study:)
I agree though - an OS/environment that you can learn to be more productive in over the years is more important than the requirement to be instantly somewhat productive, if that comes at the cost of long term gains.
I find the gnome interface a little "cleaner", but several things in KDE just work better for me. The KDE IOslaves (fish, etc) just rock - excellent for web development, etc - they're a huge productivity boost for me.
Ripping CDs in whatever format with full CDDB support etc with drag and drop to another folder just rocks.
Having said that, right now at home I'm running ubuntu 5.10 with gnome. I find it less cluttered to navigate, but in terms of actual application use, right now KDE has it I think:D
Development is another story. I'm going to play with GORM/GNUstep on the weekend:)
I'd ensure first up that the study runs for "long enough".
3-6 months perhaps?
"Usability" imho, in the usual meaning of the term, is a load of wank.
Who cares if the first time someone uses the environment that it takes a little orientation to get used to? In the real world, if a couple of weeks of pain makes you much more productive after that, it's a net benefit imho - the remainder of your time using the environment outweighs the significance of the learning time.
I'm not saying that initial learning is not important, but I think that these studies need to show both sides of the equation...
Office 97 was a buggy pile of shit too, but heaps of people still use it and refuse to upgrade (or are bound to it by Access97 apps they refuse to rewrite/pay to rewrite), because it's "good enough".
This is why you use Windows messenger (that comes with XP and is patch-able up to high enough spec to work with the MSN network), and do not install MSN messenger.
Spam is not free speech, because the receiver pays.
Simple.
I love how people try the "free speech" shit with spam, it just does not apply, and any court that deems that it *DOES* apply needs to re-evaluate it's rulings... as another posted, I'd put it closer to unlawful trespass (particularly when sent via worms, etc or using software vulnerabilities to hide it's origin, as 99.99999% of it does) than "free speech"...
Frontier was a 3D PC game, and one of the genre that killed the Amiga off (way too slow due to not enough CPU power or a dedicated 3d processor). It's not really a good demonstration of the Amiga's abilities. If you're after some decent Amiga games, check out:
Turrican 1/2 (3 is crap, imho)
Xenon 2 - Megablast
Stunt Car Racer
Wolfchild
Zool (Mario on steroids, with Ninja swords)
Deuteros
Speedball 2
Etc... there's many more. Marble Madness came out very early in the Amiga's history and didn't really push the machine that hard at all:) Look for titles from the late 80s or early 90s to get a better idea:)
'What we'll offer in terms of gameplay and approachability will more than make up for the lack of HD,'
That was the excuse for using carts on the N64 as well.
Everybody was crapping on about load times being a factor - never mind that you could load the equivalent of an entire 8 megabit cart in a couple of seconds from CD (and then use it for streaming CD quality audio):) Sure the PS1 had load times, but at least you could fit some amount of media into the games...
Un-necessarily limiting storage was a shitty idea then too. No HD in 2006 is a shitty idea now. No HD = no virtual memory = less ability for persistent worlds, etc...:)
Cheapest system? Wasn't the game-cube the cheapest current gen system? What's that? It flopped?
Revolutionary controller? Like the Powerglove then?:D
Realistically, I'm probably not going to buy any of the next gen consoles - I've moved on to other things these days, but I still find the same old arguments Nintendo is trying to push quite amusing:)
The sooner nintendo "pull their head out of their ass" so to speak, and provide a system without the deliberate crippling intended for nintendo to try and maintain control over it's content, the better, imho:)
As Ballmer loves to say, "developers!" - if it costs them heaps to develop for Nintendo, they won't risk it without a decently large installed userbase. Without developers to make games, they won't get one...
Development Tools. To build the C/C++ samples, you must have a C/C++ compiler. If you are using Microsoft Visual C/C++®, run it at least once before installing the SDK. This will ensure that the environment variables are correctly configured. To build the Visual Basic samples, you must have Microsoft Visual Basic®. This SDK does not support working with Microsoft Visual C/C++®, 6.0 as support for VC 6.0 has ended. The last SDK that will work with VC 6.0 is the February 2003 Edition, you can order a CD on the fulfillment site. Side by side installations are not supported.
Brilliant hardware with the Amiga in 1985... and then they just.... stopped development and stayed at 7.14mhz.
A couple of over-priced high performance machines, (A3000/A4000/etc), but nothing cheap enough to get any market penetration... hence everyone just wrote for the base model anyway.
They rectified this somewhat in the early-mid 90s with the A1200, but it was too late - 5 years is a long time in the computing world and leaving it 8-9 years before updating your core hardware is retarded...
I remember checking out Wing Commander on the PC in 1991 and being blown away. Ditto for the framerate PCs were getting with stuff like Indy500, F1GP, etc.. the writing was on the wall and Commodore did nothing about it.
3D games killed the Amiga - simply not enough CPU power and/or no 3d processor... all it's funky custom hardware for dealing with sprites and 8 bit audio became fairly irrelevant:-\
The user, who purchased their computer with the ability to (or perhaps, for the purpose of) playing media, who also BUYS the CD in good faith - from a reputable company no less, or Sony/first4internet who are pushing the boundaries of the law and knobbling it?
If this was "freeware" or freely distributed, it would be called a trojan horse...
I think you're being a bit anal here - 99% (to pull a random but likely close figure) of the CD buying public, particularly those who would rip it to MP3/WMV/whatever will have autorun turned on, on their home PC, and will quite rightfully expect their CD drive to play CDs without owning their machine.
This software has not been detected as a virus by any of the AV software out there (to my knowlege) so blaming the user for not taking virus precautions is a bit weak.
And no, personally I'd never install player software for a DRM protected CD. But that doesn't mean that someone is an idiot for simply attempting to legally and quite reasonably *PLAY* the media they have purchased with their media-playing equipment.
Also, I *do* leave autorun turned on in Windows (when I use it), simply because it doesn't update the view of what CD is in your computer reliably (in my computer) without it.
I think you'll find that with the popularity of media-PCs, those who occasionally/regularly play CDs in their PC will outnumber those who don't...
Slashdot Mirror
For what?
So people who can't type, can type 1-2 wpm faster? BUT... oh shit. They'll have to deal with a regular qwerty keyboard at work, and will just get even more confused?!
Like it or lump it, keyboards are here to stay, either dvorak or qwerty - they'll be around (mostly in qwerty layout) until voice recognition or mind control takes off.
smash
smash.
Why?
Because after 12 years in the industry, I just don't want to deal with the shit any more.
Yes, I build my own PCs, but I'm sure as hell not going to send a friend of mine to some mum+dad PC outfit to buy/build their own clone.
Yes, chances are you can get something quicker/cheaper/better, but if a friend of mine buys a Dell and it breaks, they call Dell and get new components the next day.
Some people have better things to do than root around with computers, like using them. Which is pretty much the point of owning a computer for 99.999% of people out there.
Yes, I could build them a PC. Yes, I could probably support it. Do i think it's worth my time, for the 10% fps increase in quake X? No...
There's far more to dealing with computers than fps/$. After you've been dealing with other people's computer issues for a few years, you come to realise this...
And as far as build quality goes on your typical Dell box - I'm happy. And I say that from the experience of supporting about 600 of them during the past 4 years... I can count the number of hardware issues I've had to deal with (other than the typical HD failure when old that all drives eventually go through, etc) without needing to use toes...
smash.
It also doesn't turn DMA on by default on cdrom drives - or 32bit disk access on ANY drive.
And it's not just flaky hardware... unless intel 865 chipset IDE controller on an intel board with a seagate drive is flaky - along with all the other hardware I've tested it on.
Simple enough to fix, but yeah - exactly that reason, makes stuff jerky, and slows down the desktop as well, when you're pushing it.
For reference, this is what I get by default:
(hda = seagate 80gig drive, hdc = Pioneer DVD burner, hdd = LiteON cd burner)
Safe, I guess - but perhaps there should be either a "buggy" hardware register, or a "working" hardware register to enable it to be turned on by default, if safe, in the majority of cases?
smash.
Not that any other distro does either, but it's something the average user would miss, and it makes a heap of difference to media performance...
smash.
It's typically at least 1 minor rev of KDE or Gnome (in 6 months), and a lot can change in that time.
Also, good luck getting funding/approval/thesis time for a 6 year study :)
I agree though - an OS/environment that you can learn to be more productive in over the years is more important than the requirement to be instantly somewhat productive, if that comes at the cost of long term gains.
smash.
I find the gnome interface a little "cleaner", but several things in KDE just work better for me. The KDE IOslaves (fish, etc) just rock - excellent for web development, etc - they're a huge productivity boost for me.
Ripping CDs in whatever format with full CDDB support etc with drag and drop to another folder just rocks.
Having said that, right now at home I'm running ubuntu 5.10 with gnome. I find it less cluttered to navigate, but in terms of actual application use, right now KDE has it I think :D
Development is another story. I'm going to play with GORM/GNUstep on the weekend :)
smash.
3-6 months perhaps?
"Usability" imho, in the usual meaning of the term, is a load of wank.
Who cares if the first time someone uses the environment that it takes a little orientation to get used to? In the real world, if a couple of weeks of pain makes you much more productive after that, it's a net benefit imho - the remainder of your time using the environment outweighs the significance of the learning time.
I'm not saying that initial learning is not important, but I think that these studies need to show both sides of the equation...
smash.
smash.
Office 97 was a buggy pile of shit too, but heaps of people still use it and refuse to upgrade (or are bound to it by Access97 apps they refuse to rewrite/pay to rewrite), because it's "good enough".
smash.
smash.
They give the MS the code for their drivers to package with Windows, MS doesn't write them.
If they did that for Linux as well, no problem.
As it is, open source programmers do more than Microsoft's programmers - the whole hardware rant is a little unfair.
smash.
Stick ads in there, yet another reason to ditch the OS :)
smash.
smash.
Simple.
I love how people try the "free speech" shit with spam, it just does not apply, and any court that deems that it *DOES* apply needs to re-evaluate it's rulings... as another posted, I'd put it closer to unlawful trespass (particularly when sent via worms, etc or using software vulnerabilities to hide it's origin, as 99.99999% of it does) than "free speech"...
smash.
Etc... there's many more. Marble Madness came out very early in the Amiga's history and didn't really push the machine that hard at all :) Look for titles from the late 80s or early 90s to get a better idea :)
smash.
Everybody was crapping on about load times being a factor - never mind that you could load the equivalent of an entire 8 megabit cart in a couple of seconds from CD (and then use it for streaming CD quality audio) :) Sure the PS1 had load times, but at least you could fit some amount of media into the games...
Un-necessarily limiting storage was a shitty idea then too. No HD in 2006 is a shitty idea now. No HD = no virtual memory = less ability for persistent worlds, etc... :)
Cheapest system? Wasn't the game-cube the cheapest current gen system? What's that? It flopped?
Revolutionary controller? Like the Powerglove then? :D
Realistically, I'm probably not going to buy any of the next gen consoles - I've moved on to other things these days, but I still find the same old arguments Nintendo is trying to push quite amusing :)
The sooner nintendo "pull their head out of their ass" so to speak, and provide a system without the deliberate crippling intended for nintendo to try and maintain control over it's content, the better, imho :)
As Ballmer loves to say, "developers!" - if it costs them heaps to develop for Nintendo, they won't risk it without a decently large installed userbase. Without developers to make games, they won't get one...
smash.
smash.
smash.
Brilliant hardware with the Amiga in 1985... and then they just.... stopped development and stayed at 7.14mhz.
A couple of over-priced high performance machines, (A3000/A4000/etc), but nothing cheap enough to get any market penetration... hence everyone just wrote for the base model anyway.
They rectified this somewhat in the early-mid 90s with the A1200, but it was too late - 5 years is a long time in the computing world and leaving it 8-9 years before updating your core hardware is retarded...
I remember checking out Wing Commander on the PC in 1991 and being blown away. Ditto for the framerate PCs were getting with stuff like Indy500, F1GP, etc.. the writing was on the wall and Commodore did nothing about it.
3D games killed the Amiga - simply not enough CPU power and/or no 3d processor... all it's funky custom hardware for dealing with sprites and 8 bit audio became fairly irrelevant :-\
I still miss mine *sniff*...
smash.
smash.
Let's not forget who is at fault here.
The user, who purchased their computer with the ability to (or perhaps, for the purpose of) playing media, who also BUYS the CD in good faith - from a reputable company no less, or Sony/first4internet who are pushing the boundaries of the law and knobbling it?
If this was "freeware" or freely distributed, it would be called a trojan horse...
I think you're being a bit anal here - 99% (to pull a random but likely close figure) of the CD buying public, particularly those who would rip it to MP3/WMV/whatever will have autorun turned on, on their home PC, and will quite rightfully expect their CD drive to play CDs without owning their machine.
This software has not been detected as a virus by any of the AV software out there (to my knowlege) so blaming the user for not taking virus precautions is a bit weak.
And no, personally I'd never install player software for a DRM protected CD. But that doesn't mean that someone is an idiot for simply attempting to legally and quite reasonably *PLAY* the media they have purchased with their media-playing equipment.
Also, I *do* leave autorun turned on in Windows (when I use it), simply because it doesn't update the view of what CD is in your computer reliably (in my computer) without it.
I think you'll find that with the popularity of media-PCs, those who occasionally/regularly play CDs in their PC will outnumber those who don't...
smash.
That functionality has been added by the rootkit.
smash.
In my home machine? Geforce 4200TI - there's a compiler installed on that though.
smash.
I've run windows for 14 years and Linux for 10.
How about yourself?
smash.