Sony would win, the Japanese can make some awful darned small manufactured goods, small poison darts == bad for MS.
MS has not made ANYTHING small in years, and quite frankly with their track record every dart that they fired would be 25% larger then the last one (at least. . . . percentage increase would grow as firing time between darts was delayed!)
A: A person buy a windows PC and / or goes through extra work of setting up a PC that can run windows software
B: Said person PAYS money for a boxed game and then goes and PAYS month each month to actually play that game. (I oppose paying for a product TWICE. I will pay either a monthly fee or a one time purchase fee, CHOOSE)
C: Said person then gets addicted to a game with the most REPETITIVE FRIGGIN GAMEPLAY AROUND ON THE FACE OF THE DAMNED PLANET.
I mean come on, PONG has more potential strategy for play then EQ does. . ..
(though of course, Pong does kick ass, hehe.:):):) )
D: Isn't that enough?
Microsoft on the other hand makes OEMs PAY for Windows on x86 machines EVEN IF THE MACHINE DID NOT SHIP WITH WINDOWS.
Now that is one evil quest towards world domination, a generation of shoddy ass 32bit consoles masquerading as 64bit consoles not withstanding.
I recently had a VERY positive experance with an online store that uses AIM for sales assistence to answer customer questions about product availability and features.
Suffice to say being able to enter an AIM screen name and ask a question and get a reply a few minutes later without having to sit there on hold with the phone was DEFINTLY a positive when dealing with the company.
It is also likely a good deal cheaper then a small time company running a complete phone query system to direct customer questions and such.
And what about those of us who have jobs that depend on knowing WTF the latest happenings in the real world are?
It is mighty handy for somebody running tech support to know about the latest computer virii before it hits the customer base, or even the networks servers, if it is a virus that does not propagate by e-mail but rather by exploiting a server vulnerability.
All at once yes, but how many can you hit independently, quickly, and accuratly?
I am saying that the N64 has a better controler then the PSX though, and that the comfort of the PSX controler is less then the SNES one that it is based on.
I did not compare the functionality of the SNES controler VS the PSX controler, just the comfert.:)
It is technicaly impossible to use both a d-pad and analog stick at once AND use your thumb for any sort of buttons.
The C directional keys acted as a D-Pad anyways.
Hold a N64 controler sometime. For the longest time I could not stand the controler, I used a third party controler that had only two handles on it.
Eventualy I was forced to use the stock controler for an extended period of time and realized how genius its construction was.
Oh, and the PSX controler is NOT just a modified SNES controler.
You see, the SNES controler can actualy be USED. The PSX controler maxs me feel like I am playing with some sort of. . . . toy.
I want everything I own to feel like either a f*cking power tool or like something that could have come out of the 25th century.
Thus the original GB, the TI-82, and the Game Cube.
Power, Power, 25th century*.
*I have my Game Cube on top of the speaker for my CD player. A 128bit console that sits on top of a speaker is rather Kick Ass in my opinion.:)
relativly small speaker too, hehe. (this was back when they made speakers with FUNCTIONAL tops on them, you know, FLAT!:) )
The PSX controler is also Awfully Small. Like Super Friggin Duper small.
The way that the N64 did it with a back button ROCKED. It allowed for a finger that is normaly inactive to be in use ALL the time no matter WHAT your hand position was.
The PSX on the other hand could require you to rearrange your hands depending on what control scheme the game was using. Bleh. Amen for Nintendo's strict Game Control guidelines for developers. (The GBA is an EXCELLENT example of this, one button is OK the other always Negative. Just like the good ol' NES.:) )
And I have held the X-Box controler.
IT IS FUCKING SMALL DAMNIT.
(did I mention that I have _HUGE_ hands? Yes, I am trying to learn to play the Piano.:) Only regret is that I didn't work harder to try and get lessons earlier.:) )
Anybody else remember that picture in Nintendo Power during the Gulf War of that GameBoy that had had a grenade go off on top of it and it still worked the only thing wrong with it was the very dim LCD screen afterwards?
Nintendo makes some darn fine products, my original GameBoy has been dropped I do not know how many times, only my TI-82 has suffered more abuse (i.e, 60 pounds of books dropped on it repeatedly for days at a time, heh. AKA it was in the bottom of my bookbag.:) ).
A few horizontal and vertical lines of the display are begining to wear out (and a few are actualy gone) but all in all it is still perfectly usable.
The controler on it also KICKS THE ASS out of the one on the GameBoy Color. The GBC d-pad makes my thumb hurt, while I could play the Original Game Boy for hours on end.
Granted when I was still using my Original GameBoy for hours on end I was a lot younger, but on the other hand my hands have always been big. (haha bad joke bad joke, but still true.)
Oh, and the X-Box controler _IS_ way to friggin small.
I have a rating system for controlers that is based upon how many buttons at once can be pressed on it.
The X-Box does miserably. The N64 controler is the best out of the last generation of controlers, the Super Nintendo controler takes the cake though, I had complete access and control over ALL of the Super Nintendo Controler's buttons at once.
The criteria is that you find the most efficent hand layout for the controler that gives you access to the most amount of buttons at once and judge from there.
Products already existed that allowed you to put a touch screen to a currently existing monitor, this product right here is just an evolution of those other products.
Now once they release one for which a Waccom Airbrush works on (They are those Digital Airbrushs that detect tilt and have flow control and every other possible feature. They are Very Nifty Indeed(:D) ) I will be right out to buy it.
Well right after it drops below $400 or so, hehe.:)
Still though, I am instantly thinking of the artistic possabilities for this.
No, wait. The UI possabilities! YA!!!!
Heh, can I set the machine up so it has five "mouse pointers" going on at once? Hehehe. I have long fingers so I could get some REALLY [i]creative[/i] usage out of this thing, LOL! Would give a whole new meaning to the term multitasking, LOL!
"Oh yah, hell, I'm just playing Quake3, UT, and Half-Life all at once.":D
(Ok so my poor left hand would run out of fingers to use to control all of my characters, but hey, hehe. I could still do Defender, Breakout, and Joust all at once.:) )
Yes, but 2 column wide text is STILL too small to read.
A size 4 (or whatever it turns out to be when you have two paragraphs next to each other fit on your screen) font is too small to be human readable even at 800x600 (well the resolution does not really matter. )
Now I agree that PROPER formatted documents ARE readable mostly thanks to those pre-set zoom buttons (namely fit to page width) but besides that, everything else is hellish.:(
PDF, for when you REALLY want that whole entire paper metaphor mapped onto a screen that has no bearing what so ever to paper at all!
I HATE having to pan around PDF documents to read what I wan to read, websites that do that are considered piss poor designed, but nooo, PDF files can get away with using size 4 fonts with fixed cartridge returns. Bleh. I _HAVE_ seen a few GOOD PDF documents that are meant to be readable on a computer monitor without horizontal scrolling, but they are VERY rare.
Pray tell, how the HELL did PDF files catch on anyways? They are icky icky icky ICKY to use.
"Oh look mah, I can make the text wrap around the image in all sorts of nifty ways!"
Well yah that's great bub, but do you have to keep that book/magazine 2 column format? Really now, that is nice and all when I am viewing a friggin BOOK or MAGAZINE but NOT when I am looking at it on a COMPUTER MONITOR.
Only those FEW applications which use the HTML rendering engine.
Which is mostly used for shoddy help files. REALLY shoddy help files that I _HATE_ using because they are less organized then the old format. (yah yah they can techinicaly do more things, but they are still annoying as hell.)
I will still be able to play Quake3, UT, GTA(insert number here), do my 3d Modeling and Rendering, run Photoshop, get on the Net, run StarOffice, and pretty much do everything but be able to view the 1 in 10 help file that is in HTML format.
(HTML may be used in those things were you click on a blue underlined word and a informational bit pops up, but that is the only other use that I can think off).
Except that when IE first came out Gecko wasn't in its current Kick Ass form.
"Recently in the press, there have been a lot of articles about something Netscape calls "Gecko." This is marketing hoopla around two Mozilla projects: NGLayout (formerly known as Raptor) and XPFE. "
---http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/gecko.html "Page reorganization: The layout engine used in Mozilla (which is known by many names) started off as a project to write a new layout engine for Mozilla and became the layout engine of Mozilla and the foundation for a nearly-complete rewrite in late 1998. " ----http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/
In other words, in 1996 or what was to become the Gecko that we all know and love was still. . . . That ol' Netscape rendering engine. ^_^
ARG! Dude, the point is that NEITHER EXPLORER OR IEXPLORE ARE PART OF THE WINDOWS OS ITSELF. THEY ARE JUST A SHELL.
I can delete explorer.exe and iexplore.exe and STILL have a PERFECTLY funcitonal OS!
(well OK minus one or two odd ball things, but only for those few apps that try and directly reference explorer.exe itself, and I have not seen an application try and do that in YEARS now).
Think of it as the difference between Xwindows and Gnome. An X application will run with just X up and running, Gnome just makes shit look prettier (or not, depending on your stance on that issue. ^_^).
Some applications do indeed require Gnome to work, but in Windows there is not that distinction, what in X is a window manager pretty much IS the OS in MS Windows itself. (well and awhole lot of other stuff as well.:) )
Since this style of an article was last posted, I have changed my password system from CourseNameRandomNumber (choose a educational course, choose a 4-5 digit number, put the two together) to just using REALLY long strings of random words and numbers intermixed, with both upper and lower case letters being used.
It is still not compleatly secure, since it does have actual words in it, but 10-15 character passwords are pretty damn good for something that can be remembered by a mere mortal.:)
Hey, anything to get the little buggers to stop spending money on useless crap.:)
Jeez, with what pot is costing these days, nobody who smokes it should DARE complain that they don't have enough money because of "circumstances beyond their control."
Dipshits. >;(
---- is sick and tired of hearing people whine about not being able to afford a computer. (then seeing them buying $200 nikes and lighting up a joint. . . . )
Sometimes on occasion Iexplore.exe is running separate browser window instances then Explorer.exe and if iexplore.exe dies explorer.exe does not care.
The difference actually seems to be dependent upon if you start your browser window up from a regular folder view or if you invoke IE explicitly.
A direct invocation (sorry just had to use that word again.:) ) of Internet Explorer (AKA clicking on the little blue 'e') will get you a separate process called Iexplore.exe
Kill this as often as you want.:) Nothing happens to explorer.
Yes the interface itself is highly interdependent, but not to the extent that the entire browser is needed within the OS. As I said, the actual internet part of internet explorer can be ripped out and put through a shredder and the OS will run just fine.
That seems to be one misconception, that Explorer and/or Iexplore. are needed for Windows to run.
They are the GUI, they can be replaced quite easily. Actually they are not even the GUI, some other process manages the background color if it is set to a solid, and basic dialogs and buttons and such, so IE cannot be TOO highly ingrained into the system.
::notes that he posts a 3 page essay style response to the RIAA shutting down radio stations and gets 1 moderation, yet he quickly shits out a stream of conciseness message and doesn't even spell check it and gets tons of replies and moderations on it:: I'd rather that people had responded to my essay style post.:)
You would be surprised as to the amount of direct outright propaganda that Washingtonians receive every day in favor of Microsoft.
(such as the 'story' on 'software piracy' that they aired last night. Including how you lose out on that lovely support MS gives you, yah right, LOL! If you buy a plan that includes it. . . . Ah, or how piracy only saves companies a 'few' dollars, not mentioning that those office CDs cost a few hundreds from MS and that buying them FROM piraters costs only a few dollars. Heh.)
All of the stories have such a horrid positive angle to them that I swear MS could declare that Washington State is seceding from The Union and nobody in the news bureaus would bat an eye.:(
Irony is of course that ALL data that we recieve and send for human consumption is INDEED structured.
It is just not structured according to how the COMPUTER sees it.
Hell this posting of mine right here is structured, and beyond the obvious sentances/paragraphs explanation that is most often given.
Almost all written work is designed as so to allow for the reader to follow along the author's thought process.
Indeed writting could be looked at as some sort of bare level one shot emulation code for the human brain.
Now for computers this makes NO sense at all.
Uh duh, they don't think.
Now with a lot of work native languages can indeed be PARTIALY understood by computers, and there is an artificial language out there (I forget the name) that was designed from the ground up for both comptuer and human understanding on a quasi-equal level. But even so it cannot match the same. . . . underlying meanings between both parties.
Humans are capible of understanding all of the complexities of modern day computers, it may require a lot of work and some darn good wizardy, but it IS possible.
The issue is that the way that computers 'think' is not but a subset of our own thought methods that we have expanded upon and made more complex but ultimatly added nothing new too.
And yet it is by the very nature of being a subset that computer 'thinking' (ugh I hate using that term in this context) can only contain a partial set of the abilities of Human thinking.
"But a clever enough algorithmic composition system can get around this, by using a human to direct it through infinite musical space. With any luck, the human will have some idea of what sounds good; that's a really difficult thing to teach a computer."
(speaking about the Kong Karma's composition functions)
Humans have to GUIDE the computer.
For instance the file finder feature on many OSs.
If I tell my Windows box to search for mIRC* it will search my entire computer's hard drive including my Cygwin folder and my C:\corel folder.
Which is obviously highly friggin stupid since mIRC is NOT going to be in either one of those. (well not today at least.:) )
But the COMPUTER does not know that. Despite having a highly refined layout system for my files that has everything compacted into nice small little subsets of subsets as to what types of file it is, the damn computer has;
No idea WTF mIRC is, what IRC is (outside of some sort of program that tells the computer to interpet network packet X with Y evaluation system and display Z depending on X's contents, and oh yah shove the word IRC on the window while your at it. That is ALL computers know of IRC), what the hell a 'program file' is or why in the world (no concept of 'why' either) mIRC would be in C:\program files\
Now if I use a bit of human judgement and direct the computer to search only C:\program files\ it can find the requested files just fine.
But it is STUPID. Period.
What is the BEST possible outcome we can hope for in this situation? Hmm?
Hah. All files in some sort of a database system? Make it 'object based'? Or just add assloads of data to the 'file fork'.
Bah it would STILL come down to the computer going over each friggin entry in a database until it gets a match with the search string. Hell even if some more efficent searching algorithm is used besides just going through every item in the database, the fact is that the computer
(pay attention here folks)
STILL HAS NO FRIGGIN IDEA AS TO WHAT IN THE HELL mIRC is.
I can add descriptors to heck to all files associated with the program. And the computer will STILL NOT KNOW WHAT mIRC IS!
Once again.
THE COMPUTER HAS NO IDEA AS TO WHAT THE HELL ANYTHING IS.
For instance.
I know off hand that my copy of virtual dub is in F:\video editing tools\virtual dub\ (actualy the version number follows it, but close enough.:) )
Now the computer has no idea as to what 'video editing tools' is (I am using is here folks, plural? Huh, whats that? what is 'what'. The computer does not have an understanding of ANY of these topics.)
In fact, one thing that SO many people seem to forget, is that COMPUTERS UNDERSTAND NOTHING.
Nothing AT ALL.
PERIOD.
So please.
Please.
PLEASE
Understand that the computer will NEVER be able to truly organize or structure your data, because the computer does not even know what the hell a structure is. Sure you can tell it to shove such and such bits into such and such places, but it knows not what those bits are or what those bits mean or what those places mean or what the hell a place is or ANYTHING ELSE AT ALL.
I can make my computer feel happy.
I have it show "I am happy" on the screen.
That is as close as you are ever going to get the current breeds of computers to being able to understand or think about anything at all.
Because everything eventualy comes down to that same basic fact.
The computer does what you tell it too and nothing else.
The rendering is. . . . well who knows. I have seen it freeze up upon trying to open a PDF document (oddly enough the one linked to by the site linked to in this story. The instructions on how to setup a program to use their product) and do some other weird and funky stuff, but there are also times when Moz's rendering was a bit better then IEs in regards to handling fonts.
On the plus side it increases ALL font sizes.
On a highly related downside it can also end up changing the width of the page. IE does this if you are looking at a plain old Text document, but that is about it (with some other notable exceptions, it is not the rule though). In general though, automatic text wrapping is a good thing.
I can see how that could be a problem for buttons and what not though, since obviously wrapping text in those cases would change not just the size but the proportions of the button too, thus not ensuring that the overall user interface of the site remains consistent or usable.
You give some and you take some. . ..
It doesn't handle downloads worth a shit though, LOL! Still, hehe. You figure that they would have by NOW finally figured out that.ZIP files should NOT be saved as.zip.txt files! Or opened as such either. . . . grrrrrrr.
Explorer.exe can indeed take the place of Iexplore.exe for some tasks.
I can nuke either process and have a web browser that still works perfectly well. (random guess as to which of my open browser windows would go down with either process though).
I can also kill both explorer.exe and iexplore.exe and have a perfectly functional OS.
I can kill explorer.exe and use some other shell and just have iexplore.exe being used for web browsing.
Hell if I wanted too I could setup Staroffice5 as my shell and use Moz as my browser and not have a single damn issue as far as the OS is concerned and still be able to run all of my programs.
So no IE is NOT integrated into the operating system to any decent extent, that is just Microsoft FUD that they are managing to convince even their opponents of. Do not believe it.
Uh, you mean the mod boxs show up for you with IE? Heh. They only show up for me if I zoom in on a particular thread, only occasionaly can I see the mod boxs in the full view.:(
I want one of these to replace my Matrox G400 Dual Head MAX card.:~(
Sad that it is not PC compatible, though I can guess as to why.
Sun should seriously think about getting into the PC hardware business for the high end proffesionals, there really is more potential to sell peripherals for the wide PC market then there is in trying to get everybody to switch over to their plateform. (how ever kick ass their machines may be.)
Ah, besides, a G400 MAX card that could do a bit more in the 3D arena from time to time would also be nice, hehe. I would seriously like to be able to run the occasional game at a resolution higher then 640x480@16bit color (well actualy I can run in 32bit color since the G400 was one of the first consumer cards to not take/too much/ of a hit from running in 32bit color VS running in 16bit color. Now days a lot of cards run better in 32bit color then they do in 16bit color. . ..)
Ah, and no the G500 is not what I am talking about. ^_^
Oh well, hopefuly the Kyro3 will be coming out Any Day Now(TM), though I do believe that it is a year or so behind its unofficaly leaked due date, LOL!
Slashdot Mirror
Sony would win, the Japanese can make some awful darned small manufactured goods, small poison darts == bad for MS.
MS has not made ANYTHING small in years, and quite frankly with their track record every dart that they fired would be 25% larger then the last one (at least. . . . percentage increase would grow as firing time between darts was delayed!)
"It's like playing Q3. You're told you can't use the BFG, but some dumbshit does and nobody boots him for it. You'd bitch too!"
Hell no I wouldn't, I would just show that SOB what a shotgun and some rockets can do.
Cheaters cheat because they suck, and those who suck CAN be beaten even if they cheat.
I don't mind EQ since it requires that:
.
:) :) :) )
A: A person buy a windows PC and / or goes through extra work of setting up a PC that can run windows software
B: Said person PAYS money for a boxed game and then goes and PAYS month each month to actually play that game. (I oppose paying for a product TWICE. I will pay either a monthly fee or a one time purchase fee, CHOOSE)
C: Said person then gets addicted to a game with the most REPETITIVE FRIGGIN GAMEPLAY AROUND ON THE FACE OF THE DAMNED PLANET.
I mean come on, PONG has more potential strategy for play then EQ does. . .
(though of course, Pong does kick ass, hehe.
D: Isn't that enough?
Microsoft on the other hand makes OEMs PAY for Windows on x86 machines EVEN IF THE MACHINE DID NOT SHIP WITH WINDOWS.
Now that is one evil quest towards world domination, a generation of shoddy ass 32bit consoles masquerading as 64bit consoles not withstanding.
I recently had a VERY positive experance with an online store that uses AIM for sales assistence to answer customer questions about product availability and features.
Suffice to say being able to enter an AIM screen name and ask a question and get a reply a few minutes later without having to sit there on hold with the phone was DEFINTLY a positive when dealing with the company.
It is also likely a good deal cheaper then a small time company running a complete phone query system to direct customer questions and such.
And what about those of us who have jobs that depend on knowing WTF the latest happenings in the real world are?
It is mighty handy for somebody running tech support to know about the latest computer virii before it hits the customer base, or even the networks servers, if it is a virus that does not propagate by e-mail but rather by exploiting a server vulnerability.
"Massive CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files "
Oh yes, the Windows Registery is just SOOO much more managable!
::reachs down to pick eyes up off of ground::
Sorry, then just rolled right on out!
All at once yes, but how many can you hit independently, quickly, and accuratly?
:)
I am saying that the N64 has a better controler then the PSX though, and that the comfort of the PSX controler is less then the SNES one that it is based on.
I did not compare the functionality of the SNES controler VS the PSX controler, just the comfert.
Read the fricken page.
The adapters are infinatly reusable AND can have logos printed on them too.
The adaptor is the razer, the CDs are the blades, you have it backwards.
It is technicaly impossible to use both a d-pad and analog stick at once AND use your thumb for any sort of buttons.
:)
:) )
:) )
:) Only regret is that I didn't work harder to try and get lessons earlier. :) )
The C directional keys acted as a D-Pad anyways.
Hold a N64 controler sometime. For the longest time I could not stand the controler, I used a third party controler that had only two handles on it.
Eventualy I was forced to use the stock controler for an extended period of time and realized how genius its construction was.
Oh, and the PSX controler is NOT just a modified SNES controler.
You see, the SNES controler can actualy be USED. The PSX controler maxs me feel like I am playing with some sort of. . . . toy.
I want everything I own to feel like either a f*cking power tool or like something that could have come out of the 25th century.
Thus the original GB, the TI-82, and the Game Cube.
Power, Power, 25th century*.
*I have my Game Cube on top of the speaker for my CD player. A 128bit console that sits on top of a speaker is rather Kick Ass in my opinion.
relativly small speaker too, hehe. (this was back when they made speakers with FUNCTIONAL tops on them, you know, FLAT!
The PSX controler is also Awfully Small. Like Super Friggin Duper small.
The way that the N64 did it with a back button ROCKED. It allowed for a finger that is normaly inactive to be in use ALL the time no matter WHAT your hand position was.
The PSX on the other hand could require you to rearrange your hands depending on what control scheme the game was using. Bleh. Amen for Nintendo's strict Game Control guidelines for developers. (The GBA is an EXCELLENT example of this, one button is OK the other always Negative. Just like the good ol' NES.
And I have held the X-Box controler.
IT IS FUCKING SMALL DAMNIT.
(did I mention that I have _HUGE_ hands? Yes, I am trying to learn to play the Piano.
My original B/W Gameboy still works.
:) ).
But no I would not sell it too him.
Anybody else remember that picture in Nintendo Power during the Gulf War of that GameBoy that had had a grenade go off on top of it and it still worked the only thing wrong with it was the very dim LCD screen afterwards?
Nintendo makes some darn fine products, my original GameBoy has been dropped I do not know how many times, only my TI-82 has suffered more abuse (i.e, 60 pounds of books dropped on it repeatedly for days at a time, heh. AKA it was in the bottom of my bookbag.
A few horizontal and vertical lines of the display are begining to wear out (and a few are actualy gone) but all in all it is still perfectly usable.
The controler on it also KICKS THE ASS out of the one on the GameBoy Color. The GBC d-pad makes my thumb hurt, while I could play the Original Game Boy for hours on end.
Granted when I was still using my Original GameBoy for hours on end I was a lot younger, but on the other hand my hands have always been big. (haha bad joke bad joke, but still true.)
Oh, and the X-Box controler _IS_ way to friggin small.
I have a rating system for controlers that is based upon how many buttons at once can be pressed on it.
The X-Box does miserably. The N64 controler is the best out of the last generation of controlers, the Super Nintendo controler takes the cake though, I had complete access and control over ALL of the Super Nintendo Controler's buttons at once.
The criteria is that you find the most efficent hand layout for the controler that gives you access to the most amount of buttons at once and judge from there.
Products already existed that allowed you to put a touch screen to a currently existing monitor, this product right here is just an evolution of those other products.
:)
:D
:) )
Now once they release one for which a Waccom Airbrush works on (They are those Digital Airbrushs that detect tilt and have flow control and every other possible feature. They are Very Nifty Indeed(:D) ) I will be right out to buy it.
Well right after it drops below $400 or so, hehe.
Still though, I am instantly thinking of the artistic possabilities for this.
No, wait. The UI possabilities! YA!!!!
Heh, can I set the machine up so it has five "mouse pointers" going on at once? Hehehe. I have long fingers so I could get some REALLY [i]creative[/i] usage out of this thing, LOL! Would give a whole new meaning to the term multitasking, LOL!
"Oh yah, hell, I'm just playing Quake3, UT, and Half-Life all at once."
(Ok so my poor left hand would run out of fingers to use to control all of my characters, but hey, hehe. I could still do Defender, Breakout, and Joust all at once.
Yes, but 2 column wide text is STILL too small to read.
:(
A size 4 (or whatever it turns out to be when you have two paragraphs next to each other fit on your screen) font is too small to be human readable even at 800x600 (well the resolution does not really matter. )
Now I agree that PROPER formatted documents ARE readable mostly thanks to those pre-set zoom buttons (namely fit to page width) but besides that, everything else is hellish.
PDF, for when you REALLY want that whole entire paper metaphor mapped onto a screen that has no bearing what so ever to paper at all!
I HATE having to pan around PDF documents to read what I wan to read, websites that do that are considered piss poor designed, but nooo, PDF files can get away with using size 4 fonts with fixed cartridge returns. Bleh. I _HAVE_ seen a few GOOD PDF documents that are meant to be readable on a computer monitor without horizontal scrolling, but they are VERY rare.
Pray tell, how the HELL did PDF files catch on anyways? They are icky icky icky ICKY to use.
"Oh look mah, I can make the text wrap around the image in all sorts of nifty ways!"
Well yah that's great bub, but do you have to keep that book/magazine 2 column format? Really now, that is nice and all when I am viewing a friggin BOOK or MAGAZINE but NOT when I am looking at it on a COMPUTER MONITOR.
Yeesh.
Only those FEW applications which use the HTML rendering engine.
Which is mostly used for shoddy help files. REALLY shoddy help files that I _HATE_ using because they are less organized then the old format. (yah yah they can techinicaly do more things, but they are still annoying as hell.)
I will still be able to play Quake3, UT, GTA(insert number here), do my 3d Modeling and Rendering, run Photoshop, get on the Net, run StarOffice, and pretty much do everything but be able to view the 1 in 10 help file that is in HTML format.
(HTML may be used in those things were you click on a blue underlined word and a informational bit pops up, but that is the only other use that I can think off).
Except that when IE first came out Gecko wasn't in its current Kick Ass form.
"Recently in the press, there have been a lot of articles about something Netscape calls "Gecko." This is marketing hoopla around two Mozilla projects: NGLayout (formerly known as Raptor) and XPFE. "
---http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/gecko.html
"Page reorganization: The layout engine used in Mozilla (which is known by many names) started off as a project to write a new layout engine for Mozilla and became the layout engine of Mozilla and the foundation for a nearly-complete rewrite in late 1998. "
----http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/
In other words, in 1996 or what was to become the Gecko that we all know and love was still. . . . That ol' Netscape rendering engine. ^_^
ARG! Dude, the point is that NEITHER EXPLORER OR IEXPLORE ARE PART OF THE WINDOWS OS ITSELF. THEY ARE JUST A SHELL.
:) )
I can delete explorer.exe and iexplore.exe and STILL have a PERFECTLY funcitonal OS!
(well OK minus one or two odd ball things, but only for those few apps that try and directly reference explorer.exe itself, and I have not seen an application try and do that in YEARS now).
Think of it as the difference between Xwindows and Gnome. An X application will run with just X up and running, Gnome just makes shit look prettier (or not, depending on your stance on that issue. ^_^).
Some applications do indeed require Gnome to work, but in Windows there is not that distinction, what in X is a window manager pretty much IS the OS in MS Windows itself. (well and awhole lot of other stuff as well.
Since this style of an article was last posted, I have changed my password system from CourseNameRandomNumber (choose a educational course, choose a 4-5 digit number, put the two together) to just using REALLY long strings of random words and numbers intermixed, with both upper and lower case letters being used.
:)
It is still not compleatly secure, since it does have actual words in it, but 10-15 character passwords are pretty damn good for something that can be remembered by a mere mortal.
Hey, anything to get the little buggers to stop spending money on useless crap. :)
Jeez, with what pot is costing these days, nobody who smokes it should DARE complain that they don't have enough money because of "circumstances beyond their control."
Dipshits. >;(
---- is sick and tired of hearing people whine about not being able to afford a computer. (then seeing them buying $200 nikes and lighting up a joint. . . . )
ARG!!!
:) ) of Internet Explorer (AKA clicking on the little blue 'e') will get you a separate process called Iexplore.exe
:) Nothing happens to explorer.
:)
No no no no NO!
Sometimes on occasion Iexplore.exe is running separate browser window instances then Explorer.exe and if iexplore.exe dies explorer.exe does not care.
The difference actually seems to be dependent upon if you start your browser window up from a regular folder view or if you invoke IE explicitly.
A direct invocation (sorry just had to use that word again.
Kill this as often as you want.
Yes the interface itself is highly interdependent, but not to the extent that the entire browser is needed within the OS. As I said, the actual internet part of internet explorer can be ripped out and put through a shredder and the OS will run just fine.
That seems to be one misconception, that Explorer and/or Iexplore. are needed for Windows to run.
They are the GUI, they can be replaced quite easily. Actually they are not even the GUI, some other process manages the background color if it is set to a solid, and basic dialogs and buttons and such, so IE cannot be TOO highly ingrained into the system.
::notes that he posts a 3 page essay style response to the RIAA shutting down radio stations and gets 1 moderation, yet he quickly shits out a stream of conciseness message and doesn't even spell check it and gets tons of replies and moderations on it::
I'd rather that people had responded to my essay style post.
You would be surprised as to the amount of direct outright propaganda that Washingtonians receive every day in favor of Microsoft.
:(
(such as the 'story' on 'software piracy' that they aired last night. Including how you lose out on that lovely support MS gives you, yah right, LOL! If you buy a plan that includes it. . . . Ah, or how piracy only saves companies a 'few' dollars, not mentioning that those office CDs cost a few hundreds from MS and that buying them FROM piraters costs only a few dollars. Heh.)
All of the stories have such a horrid positive angle to them that I swear MS could declare that Washington State is seceding from The Union and nobody in the news bureaus would bat an eye.
Irony is of course that ALL data that we recieve and send for human consumption is INDEED structured.
:) )
:) )
It is just not structured according to how the COMPUTER sees it.
Hell this posting of mine right here is structured, and beyond the obvious sentances/paragraphs explanation that is most often given.
Almost all written work is designed as so to allow for the reader to follow along the author's thought process.
Indeed writting could be looked at as some sort of bare level one shot emulation code for the human brain.
Now for computers this makes NO sense at all.
Uh duh, they don't think.
Now with a lot of work native languages can indeed be PARTIALY understood by computers, and there is an artificial language out there (I forget the name) that was designed from the ground up for both comptuer and human understanding on a quasi-equal level. But even so it cannot match the same. . . . underlying meanings between both parties.
Humans are capible of understanding all of the complexities of modern day computers, it may require a lot of work and some darn good wizardy, but it IS possible.
The issue is that the way that computers 'think' is not but a subset of our own thought methods that we have expanded upon and made more complex but ultimatly added nothing new too.
And yet it is by the very nature of being a subset that computer 'thinking' (ugh I hate using that term in this context) can only contain a partial set of the abilities of Human thinking.
Ah, to take a related explanation from Dansdata
"But a clever enough algorithmic composition system can get around this, by using a human to direct it through infinite musical space. With any luck, the human will have some idea of what sounds good; that's a really difficult thing to teach a computer."
(speaking about the Kong Karma's composition functions)
Humans have to GUIDE the computer.
For instance the file finder feature on many OSs.
If I tell my Windows box to search for mIRC* it will search my entire computer's hard drive including my Cygwin folder and my C:\corel folder.
Which is obviously highly friggin stupid since mIRC is NOT going to be in either one of those. (well not today at least.
But the COMPUTER does not know that. Despite having a highly refined layout system for my files that has everything compacted into nice small little subsets of subsets as to what types of file it is, the damn computer has;
No idea WTF mIRC is, what IRC is (outside of some sort of program that tells the computer to interpet network packet X with Y evaluation system and display Z depending on X's contents, and oh yah shove the word IRC on the window while your at it. That is ALL computers know of IRC), what the hell a 'program file' is or why in the world (no concept of 'why' either) mIRC would be in C:\program files\
Now if I use a bit of human judgement and direct the computer to search only C:\program files\ it can find the requested files just fine.
But it is STUPID. Period.
What is the BEST possible outcome we can hope for in this situation? Hmm?
Hah. All files in some sort of a database system? Make it 'object based'? Or just add assloads of data to the 'file fork'.
Bah it would STILL come down to the computer going over each friggin entry in a database until it gets a match with the search string. Hell even if some more efficent searching algorithm is used besides just going through every item in the database, the fact is that the computer
(pay attention here folks)
STILL HAS NO FRIGGIN IDEA AS TO WHAT IN THE HELL mIRC is.
I can add descriptors to heck to all files associated with the program. And the computer will STILL NOT KNOW WHAT mIRC IS!
Once again.
THE COMPUTER HAS NO IDEA AS TO WHAT THE HELL ANYTHING IS.
For instance.
I know off hand that my copy of virtual dub is in F:\video editing tools\virtual dub\ (actualy the version number follows it, but close enough.
Now the computer has no idea as to what 'video editing tools' is (I am using is here folks, plural? Huh, whats that? what is 'what'. The computer does not have an understanding of ANY of these topics.)
In fact, one thing that SO many people seem to forget, is that COMPUTERS UNDERSTAND NOTHING.
Nothing AT ALL.
PERIOD.
So please.
Please.
PLEASE
Understand that the computer will NEVER be able to truly organize or structure your data, because the computer does not even know what the hell a structure is. Sure you can tell it to shove such and such bits into such and such places, but it knows not what those bits are or what those bits mean or what those places mean or what the hell a place is or ANYTHING ELSE AT ALL.
I can make my computer feel happy.
I have it show "I am happy" on the screen.
That is as close as you are ever going to get the current breeds of computers to being able to understand or think about anything at all.
Because everything eventualy comes down to that same basic fact.
The computer does what you tell it too and nothing else.
::starts up Moz .98 something::
.
.ZIP files should NOT be saved as .zip.txt files! Or opened as such either. . . . grrrrrrr.
::notes it is taking up 11megs::
::closes Moz::
The rendering is. . . . well who knows. I have seen it freeze up upon trying to open a PDF document (oddly enough the one linked to by the site linked to in this story. The instructions on how to setup a program to use their product) and do some other weird and funky stuff, but there are also times when Moz's rendering was a bit better then IEs in regards to handling fonts.
On the plus side it increases ALL font sizes.
On a highly related downside it can also end up changing the width of the page. IE does this if you are looking at a plain old Text document, but that is about it (with some other notable exceptions, it is not the rule though). In general though, automatic text wrapping is a good thing.
I can see how that could be a problem for buttons and what not though, since obviously wrapping text in those cases would change not just the size but the proportions of the button too, thus not ensuring that the overall user interface of the site remains consistent or usable.
You give some and you take some. . .
It doesn't handle downloads worth a shit though, LOL! Still, hehe. You figure that they would have by NOW finally figured out that
Explorer.exe can indeed take the place of Iexplore.exe for some tasks.
I can nuke either process and have a web browser that still works perfectly well. (random guess as to which of my open browser windows would go down with either process though).
I can also kill both explorer.exe and iexplore.exe and have a perfectly functional OS.
I can kill explorer.exe and use some other shell and just have iexplore.exe being used for web browsing.
Hell if I wanted too I could setup Staroffice5 as my shell and use Moz as my browser and not have a single damn issue as far as the OS is concerned and still be able to run all of my programs.
So no IE is NOT integrated into the operating system to any decent extent, that is just Microsoft FUD that they are managing to convince even their opponents of. Do not believe it.
Uh, you mean the mod boxs show up for you with IE? Heh. They only show up for me if I zoom in on a particular thread, only occasionaly can I see the mod boxs in the full view. :(
I want one of these to replace my Matrox G400 Dual Head MAX card. :~(
/too much/ of a hit from running in 32bit color VS running in 16bit color. Now days a lot of cards run better in 32bit color then they do in 16bit color. . . .)
Sad that it is not PC compatible, though I can guess as to why.
Sun should seriously think about getting into the PC hardware business for the high end proffesionals, there really is more potential to sell peripherals for the wide PC market then there is in trying to get everybody to switch over to their plateform. (how ever kick ass their machines may be.)
Ah, besides, a G400 MAX card that could do a bit more in the 3D arena from time to time would also be nice, hehe. I would seriously like to be able to run the occasional game at a resolution higher then 640x480@16bit color (well actualy I can run in 32bit color since the G400 was one of the first consumer cards to not take
Ah, and no the G500 is not what I am talking about. ^_^
Oh well, hopefuly the Kyro3 will be coming out Any Day Now(TM), though I do believe that it is a year or so behind its unofficaly leaked due date, LOL!