Frankly, at this point, I'm all done being patient. I want an adult in charge, put the fist down and say, "universal broadband access, no excuses." If welding together enough of these separate bean-counter telecoms creates the opportunity at the national level for this to occur, I'm all for it.
Oh with comcast you'll get your broadband alright;
just so long as you don't download over a few gigs a month. Or use any "bad" ports.
Hey, that looks far better than the dodgy anti-alising that I get under X, I want Scale2x fonts not AA fonts.
No you don't.:)
2xSAI eats up CPU power just video sized resolution, to selectivly 2xSAI just fonts, err, heh. Not good.:)
2xSAI also changes the shape of an object, square edges get rounded off and the like. Content would not end up coming out looking like what it originated as. Good for old video games and such where blocky text was a neccesity but technology can now cure that, but regular AA is better for text on a computer monitor.
Next thing you know Mozilla will be all GTK2ed and AAed.
I'm sorry, but can somebody PLEEAASEEEE tell me why it has been taking this long to get complete workable implementation of a feature that Windows has had since around 1997 or so? (NT4+ / 95w/+)
I dont even consider X usable on the network, tightvnc or remote desktop does a better job at that.
TightVNC is in my experience just a tad wee bit slower then remote desktop for Windows to Windows connections. 800x600@8bit color over a 128kbit upstream 1.5Mbit downstream.
I guess I should try it again now that I am at 256kbit upsteam, but for some reason I doubt it will be too much better, remote desktop did not improve much. . . .
Sigh. No. There's nothing about X11 that dictates that.
Neccitating building from the ground up mayhaps?
Ok put it this way;
implementing window transparency support in, err, Windows, is ONE LINE OF CODE (namely an API call.:) )
Actual programs to do something with this (put a UI around it and all that) can take up, oh, 5 or 6 kilobytes of code compiled.
Heh.
The API call is stable, it has been there since Windows 2000, it is not going anywheres anytime soon, though developers who don't mind pissing off Windows 2000 customers (which they should be mindful of. ^_^ ) can even use hardware acceleration for some of the GUI elements.
About the only thing that X-11 seems to give to developers is some damn fine networking material. Now I will grant that Windows, err, sucks when it comes to remote usage. It sucks and it sucks horribly. 128kbit is not enough. 256kbit is not enough. Quite frankly I do not know the minimum bandwidth that IS enough, Netmeeting sucks. A lot. Heh. But it does its job, more or less. On occasion.
But cruddo, anything else? Want to play a video in a window? Sound? Music? Heck just shoving GUI elements together even. Things integrate with less seems and less work then they do on X-11.
The reason for this should be quite obvious. The Windows API sucked for the longest time. Heck it was revised a few times and came out sucking even MORE.
But MS is nothing else if not persistent. They kept at it until they had something usable on their hands. Usable AND modern (more or less.:P ) While it isn't OSX, it also doesn't need to thwamp the CPU to get anything done (heh).
X-11, err, well. Heh. There isn't much actually to it. . . . It is not very close to the hardware, which is a good thing for portability, but it makes creating a consistent user experience all that much harder.
Sound support! You can now have it play a sound on receipt of any incoming mail.
You're kidding, right?
I sure hope so. Us Windows users are bitching about degrees of CONTROL over our sound support.
"well why can't I just have a sound play when such and such person enters the system between this and that time, I don't want an alert when just anybody comes on!"
Also from the original post;
Even better, you can use sounds as actions in filters, so you can set it up to not beep at you every 30 seconds when you receive spam or mail list traffic.
That is nice, and it sounds powerful. Indeed a filter could be setup so that sound only played it the mail was from a certain user. Not the most intuitive system in the world, but very powerful.
I would still like to be able to not have MSN Messenger pop up a window when just ANYBODY comes online, ick. That is one thing that *Nix has over Windows, it is almost always more configurable. Just doing that configuring can at times be a pain.;)
On the plus side, application integration makes for a situation similar to that which Window's users have been spoiled with for awhile. Being able to read an e-mail, tap a bottom, and have an appointment alert added is a nice way to work. As is being able to be writing an e-mail message and seamlessly switch over to a calendar, double check the date of a meeting, copy it and flip back to the date message and paste it in.
On the flip side, implementing for "The X Window System" (I think I got that right. ..) means that development is always going to be playing catch up to Microsoft.
*begins to imagine the work necessary for implementation if video attachments and video on demand for the desktop ever take off*
Well not like that is going to happen too soon. *G*
This can be handled transparently. Put two windows on the screen, a text editor and a LaTeX viewer. Whenever the user saves the document in the text editor, it would tell the LaTeX viewer to refresh the view of the document.
Only a *nix user would ever think that is transparent.:-D
I was turning in written papers in third grade, but they were more of the two-paragraph, handwritten during class on wide-ruled paper type.
Lets see, in forth grade I remember having to some some rather irritatingly long reports for the time. Hmm. *shrugs* Third grade is kind of a blur. ^_^
I remember for a 4th or 5th grade report on Edison ripping the picture of the Wizard from The Bards Tale where the Wizard is zapping lighting between his hands and using that as my cover graphic.
"Wizard of Menlo Park". Get it? Well the teacher thought it was neat. . . . (this was before the days when type written papers where a requirement)
I agree that using TeX is overkill though. Honestly, I think I used some early version of Word. . . .
Last time I checked, eight-year-olds don't need to do a lot of typewritten papers.
What sort of a piss poor school system are you in?
Granted I typed all of my papers just because it was quicker and easier then writting them, but in any decent schooling system, yes, written papers ARE expected from the third grade on up.
The Big thing is now you won't have to agreee to some silly dracnonian EULA that pretty much says "We Microsoft have the right to rape and pillage your pc like a bavarian village if we even start to think your not doing what we want..."
I actualy wonder what would happen if MS put that into their EULA. Slashdot would likely take notice, and all of the 100% pro-ms folks would jump up to defend their beloved company saying "Oh no, just because that is in there does not mean they will ever use it!"
most.wmv files will use the Windows Media Video codec, which AFAIK don't have any kind of open source solution.
Thankfully the only videos ever encoded in WMV format are videos showing off, err, the supposed advantages of encoding videos into the WMV format. . ..
You missed the point too. When you buy a USB device and then point at some drivers, those drivers are NOT provided by Windows. They are provided by the manufacturer.
True, to an extent. There has been a push in the Windows world recently to move more towards device independent drivers, but unfortunately some (many) manufacturers are not cooperating. Even today many digital cameras do not plug into the computer as USB mass storage devices and instead need to access their contents through some funky software program.
I am not doubting that a general purpose reprogrammable media playing device is possible, but likely it will have some serious hurdles to overcome. Mostly it will be related to price at first, as far as I can see.
A new minimalist PC is only around $300 with all of the trimmings.
Programmable, general purpose, sounds good to me.
Form Factor a concern? Those mini-cube PCs can be had all preassembled for around $365.
TV-Out is cheap, many video cards now days support it nativly, and a seperate video out device (icky though) can be purchased for cheap if need be.
Or, if you have a PS2, get the QCast [qcast.com] software and a PS2 network adapter. DiVX/AVI/MPEG/SVCD/VCD/MP3 from a remote PC via ethernet, and the server software works on linux/windows/mac.
Or, purchase a freakin TV-Out card, heh.
Or if you want the control unit to be closer to your TV, I saw a 'bare bones'(not truely, has too much stuff) PC for $199, MoBo, CPU, Case, Powersupply, LAN, Video, and soundcard.
Shove a HD in there of whatever size. Use a TV-Out of your preferred choice.
See, this USB port thing is a, err, piece of metal and plastic. And these things you plug into them, well, they, um, err, also are metal and plastic. And that big box known as a computer is, (can you guess?) metal and plastic. What you need are those, um, whatja-ma-call-it thingys. I think they're called drivers.
See that thing called a user sitting in front of the screen? Guess what he does not give a royal frig about?
USB gives ways for the OS to detect WTF has just been plugged in, allowing for the user to do something else besides baby the OS.
Hardware doesn't run itself--you need drivers to do it, even for USB.
MS has this thing called the Generic HID driver, it allows for darn near any analog input device to be plugged into the computer and work somehow.
TWAIN, scanners;
VESA, Video (though really a new 2D API needs to be made up and widely implemented. . ..)
Monitor refresh rates and such can also be communicated automatically to the operating system.
Now Linux can, to one degree or another, do the rest of those just fine (no idea about TWAIN support, then again, TWAIN is not exactly the best standard in the world. . . . icky icky baaa d standard), the USB mouse should come come naturally.
Actually I think that USB mice should be in the same place that PS/2 mice are supported at, the BIOS. (heya, USB keyboards are supported in the BIOS. . . . heh)
Then again, I do not actually own a USB mouse sooooo;
just mostly the idea that adding a USB mouse is such a hassle that the author of the walk through omitted it. Even if manual configuration is necessary, it should not be that long to explain.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh with comcast you'll get your broadband alright;
just so long as you don't download over a few gigs a month. Or use any "bad" ports.
Enjoy beind owned.
FUUUUCKED!
Comcast == monthly download limits.
Fuuuuck!
Comcast is the suck!
TGDSLINRP (Thank God DSL Is Now Reasonably Priced)
Hey, that looks far better than the dodgy anti-alising that I get under X, I want Scale2x fonts not AA fonts.
:)
:)
No you don't.
2xSAI eats up CPU power just video sized resolution, to selectivly 2xSAI just fonts, err, heh. Not good.
2xSAI also changes the shape of an object, square edges get rounded off and the like. Content would not end up coming out looking like what it originated as. Good for old video games and such where blocky text was a neccesity but technology can now cure that, but regular AA is better for text on a computer monitor.
Err;
:)
I just use, uh, Media Player 6.4
I'm sorry, but can somebody PLEEAASEEEE tell me why it has been taking this long to get complete workable implementation of a feature that Windows has had since around 1997 or so? (NT4+ / 95w/+)
TightVNC is in my experience just a tad wee bit slower then remote desktop for Windows to Windows connections. 800x600@8bit color over a 128kbit upstream 1.5Mbit downstream.
I guess I should try it again now that I am at 256kbit upsteam, but for some reason I doubt it will be too much better, remote desktop did not improve much. . . .
Neccitating building from the ground up mayhaps?
Ok put it this way;
implementing window transparency support in, err, Windows, is ONE LINE OF CODE (namely an API call.
Actual programs to do something with this (put a UI around it and all that) can take up, oh, 5 or 6 kilobytes of code compiled.
Heh.
The API call is stable, it has been there since Windows 2000, it is not going anywheres anytime soon, though developers who don't mind pissing off Windows 2000 customers (which they should be mindful of. ^_^ ) can even use hardware acceleration for some of the GUI elements.
About the only thing that X-11 seems to give to developers is some damn fine networking material. Now I will grant that Windows, err, sucks when it comes to remote usage. It sucks and it sucks horribly. 128kbit is not enough. 256kbit is not enough. Quite frankly I do not know the minimum bandwidth that IS enough, Netmeeting sucks. A lot. Heh. But it does its job, more or less. On occasion.
But cruddo, anything else? Want to play a video in a window? Sound? Music? Heck just shoving GUI elements together even. Things integrate with less seems and less work then they do on X-11.
The reason for this should be quite obvious. The Windows API sucked for the longest time. Heck it was revised a few times and came out sucking even MORE.
But MS is nothing else if not persistent. They kept at it until they had something usable on their hands. Usable AND modern (more or less.
X-11, err, well. Heh. There isn't much actually to it. . . . It is not very close to the hardware, which is a good thing for portability, but it makes creating a consistent user experience all that much harder.
You're kidding, right?
I sure hope so. Us Windows users are bitching about degrees of CONTROL over our sound support.
"well why can't I just have a sound play when such and such person enters the system between this and that time, I don't want an alert when just anybody comes on!"
Also from the original post;
That is nice, and it sounds powerful. Indeed a filter could be setup so that sound only played it the mail was from a certain user. Not the most intuitive system in the world, but very powerful.
I would still like to be able to not have MSN Messenger pop up a window when just ANYBODY comes online, ick. That is one thing that *Nix has over Windows, it is almost always more configurable. Just doing that configuring can at times be a pain.
On the plus side, application integration makes for a situation similar to that which Window's users have been spoiled with for awhile. Being able to read an e-mail, tap a bottom, and have an appointment alert added is a nice way to work. As is being able to be writing an e-mail message and seamlessly switch over to a calendar, double check the date of a meeting, copy it and flip back to the date message and paste it in.
.) means that development is always going to be playing catch up to Microsoft.
On the flip side, implementing for "The X Window System" (I think I got that right. .
*begins to imagine the work necessary for implementation if video attachments and video on demand for the desktop ever take off*
Well not like that is going to happen too soon. *G*
Only a *nix user would ever think that is transparent.
So that is why all the trolls are always in such a crappy mood, hung over from the beer and STDs from the hookers.
Lets see, in forth grade I remember having to some some rather irritatingly long reports for the time. Hmm. *shrugs* Third grade is kind of a blur. ^_^
I remember for a 4th or 5th grade report on Edison ripping the picture of the Wizard from The Bards Tale where the Wizard is zapping lighting between his hands and using that as my cover graphic.
"Wizard of Menlo Park". Get it? Well the teacher thought it was neat. . . . (this was before the days when type written papers where a requirement)
I agree that using TeX is overkill though. Honestly, I think I used some early version of Word. . . .
Not if somebody makes a good TeX distribution for Windows.
Astrophysics isn't very hard if you have a good teacher. . .
Doesn't mean it isn't a complex subject.
The key is that with the current status of (La)Tex on Windows, getting anything at all to work is not a very nice experience.
Though it just somehow seems "wrong" that a text document has to be compiled. . . . f-ed up some how I guess, heh.
We have these things called "videos" now and they display moving pictures, with sound even!!!
Why combine that with that new fangled P2P thingy and you got yourself 60GB of data in no time! (ok so about three weeks to a month over broadband)
What sort of a piss poor school system are you in?
Granted I typed all of my papers just because it was quicker and easier then writting them, but in any decent schooling system, yes, written papers ARE expected from the third grade on up.
That depends. If you want the kids to be able to go home and continue working with the material on their Windows PCs, then yes.
(La)Tex on Windows is a royal pain in the arse.
Feh. Use plain text formatting, all they really need. Fixed Width Forever! (Hey, I actually think fixed width looks better, heh)
I actualy wonder what would happen if MS put that into their EULA. Slashdot would likely take notice, and all of the 100% pro-ms folks would jump up to defend their beloved company saying "Oh no, just because that is in there does not mean they will ever use it!"
Thankfully the only videos ever encoded in WMV format are videos showing off, err, the supposed advantages of encoding videos into the WMV format. . .
True, to an extent. There has been a push in the Windows world recently to move more towards device independent drivers, but unfortunately some (many) manufacturers are not cooperating. Even today many digital cameras do not plug into the computer as USB mass storage devices and instead need to access their contents through some funky software program.
$350 or so? About standard price for a medium quality DVD player, though I must admit I am holding out for a
Plus it has to many moving parts.
IDE HD and the CD/DVD ROM drive. Only just added the IDE HD over a standard setup.
Heck, use a C3 if you do not want to have to deal with a CPU fan.
Matrox G400. Owns.
A new minimalist PC is only around $300 with all of the trimmings.
Programmable, general purpose, sounds good to me.
Form Factor a concern? Those mini-cube PCs can be had all preassembled for around $365.
TV-Out is cheap, many video cards now days support it nativly, and a seperate video out device (icky though) can be purchased for cheap if need be.
Or, purchase a freakin TV-Out card, heh.
Or if you want the control unit to be closer to your TV, I saw a 'bare bones'(not truely, has too much stuff) PC for $199, MoBo, CPU, Case, Powersupply, LAN, Video, and soundcard.
Shove a HD in there of whatever size. Use a TV-Out of your preferred choice.
(remote controls for PCs are dirt cheap as well)
See that thing called a user sitting in front of the screen? Guess what he does not give a royal frig about?
USB gives ways for the OS to detect WTF has just been plugged in, allowing for the user to do something else besides baby the OS.
Nah, I just usualy accuse those around of being "one of them dang trolls" and move on.
MS has this thing called the Generic HID driver, it allows for darn near any analog input device to be plugged into the computer and work somehow.
TWAIN, scanners;
VESA, Video (though really a new 2D API needs to be made up and widely implemented. . .
Monitor refresh rates and such can also be communicated automatically to the operating system.
Now Linux can, to one degree or another, do the rest of those just fine (no idea about TWAIN support, then again, TWAIN is not exactly the best standard in the world. . . . icky icky baaa d standard), the USB mouse should come come naturally.
Actually I think that USB mice should be in the same place that PS/2 mice are supported at, the BIOS. (heya, USB keyboards are supported in the BIOS. . . . heh)
Then again, I do not actually own a USB mouse sooooo;
just mostly the idea that adding a USB mouse is such a hassle that the author of the walk through omitted it. Even if manual configuration is necessary, it should not be that long to explain.