Visual Studio is great for.NET but not so great for anything else. Its like a car that no matter what you do it always ends up at the same destination.
If you dont want to use MFC or.NET, then there are much better IDE's out there than VS.
Silverlight has a much better programing model the Flash. I have not looked at Flex yet but Flash is nasty.
Sure, the Flash IDE is a toy, the timeline is only useful for simple animation, and Actionscript 1 and 2 are crap, but Flash isn't bad at all if you're working on a pure code-based Actionscript 3 project.
I agree with this. Having used flex/actionscript3 recently it is very easy to learn/use, even on linux - and worked great. Admittedly I was only doing a simple game but as a programmer I was impressed at how easy it was to get up and running.
Find a good text editor that does syntax highlighting for actionscript (even as2 highlighting will work ok) and just use the console-based compiler for generating the swf files.
I never liked flash before - and I'm still not a fan of websites coded entirely in flash, but I'm starting to become a fan of flash programming and the web apps it can potentially produce:)
I did look at silverlight but the linux plugin (moonlight) is a long way from compatibility with the windows one (2 versions behind!), and also I saw the term ".NET" and decided I'd see what flash was like these days...and I'm glad I did.:) The flex SDK (including flex/actionscript compiler) is free so you can develop flash on linux/mac/windows and its free. This is a huge plus for me.
The patent (from 1995) is pretty clear that it has to be completely transparent to the user which implies not only no reboot, but no notification. Anybody tries that on my machine gets the software booted off right quickly.
But if there was no notification - how would you know?
I know it doesn't affects us geeks, but it'll give Grandma a heart attack.
No she won't. Grandma would likely stick with the default system and anyone close enough to suggest it to her would likely buy it 3rd party and install it for her.
Wrong. Until recently, grandma didn't even own a computer.
However, if you were to tell grandma that you were going to "stick" a "RAM" in her computer, then yes, she may well have a heart attack.
disclaimer: i dont currently use ubuntu....but have used it in the past
i'm not sure why people think ubuntu is any more bloated than any other mainstream linux distro. They run the same software stack and if you listed the running processes when you reached the GUI you'd probably find most mainstream linux distros are much the same.
Most linux distros including ubuntu are built from the same standard components, and sometimes there are modifications made such as improvements to specific software and also corporate branding on images etc. Such modifications are usually minor in comparison to the original software, and its doubtful that they add much to the memory footprint or speed of the OS as a whole...generally speaking.
Please identify the 'cruft' you refer to in ubuntu and I'll happily be proven wrong.
I know their TOS sounds like it could be open-ended but their privacy policy is much more limiting in what they will do with your content.
I'm not sure if the privacy policy is as legally binding as the TOS though.
Sounds like facebook have cleared it up anyway in their responses to TFA.
In both of the above cases - you do need to trust the company who has your content.
If facebook (or any company) misuse any user's content it would be a death warrant to their services as soon as it hit the media...so I dont see this happening ever.
Nope. Free software people don't give a rats ass about copyright law. The GPL is actually a hack to circumvent copyright law. Think about it.
The GNU/Free Software people most certainly care about copyright law, because without it their pet license is unenforcable.
Without copyright law, there is no need to enforce the GPL, because everyone has the rights it grants to the end user.
Not true. Without copyright law - anyone can make changes to source code and release a binary-only version including those changes. Sure anyone else can then copy that binary but this is very different to the GPL - where whoever is given a copy of the binary also has a right to the source code (incl said changes).
I happen to know the owners of Webshield and whilst they are very nice people and well-meaning, I disagree with the marketing/concept behind webshield (and others). I can see a benefit for concerned parents in having an internet provider that blocks all illicit content, BUT such a system DOESN'T EXIST. Not at webshield, not anywhere.
The problem with these content filtering systems is that they ignore this and wrongly fool their customers into thinking the internet is now safe for their children so that they dont need to monitor it. Admittedly they do offer a "whitelist-only" solution but who wants that?
I'm all for every household and every parent putting in place their own filtering and their own guidelines for internet use in their family.
Well here in Australia we'd have the first battery that works in reverse - ie. starts flat and slowly recharges. We'd need overcharge protection too otherwise they'd all explode after 10mins of driving.
MS doesn't have to bundle anything - they just need to make it easier than having to insert a separate cd or download a file from a separate website for every single program we want to install/run.
Its not impossible to imagine a MS-hosted (or independent) software repository where you could download (and optionally pay for) third-party software.
Maybe they'd get sued for that too, I dont know.
At least have some sort of package management and the ability to add third-party repositories.
This is one area where linux is great and windows not so great. Update all your software from one single application.
Also, I'd like to point out that while we have companies profiting off their own distro, we will not see any effort towards merging into 1 distro.
I'd like it to stay as is. There are only about 5 major distros, and they all compete with each other - which has brought great results to Linux in general. Most of them contribute changes and features so that everyone can use them which results in Linux advancing. This is as close to the ONE LINUX as we need.
Things like freedesktop.org etc and LSB are good too. Just create standards to ensure that all major distros are 100% compatible (so that software makers can target just one standard) and let each distro find their strengths.
Yeah I'm still living outside and walking everywhere until Apple finally make the iHouse and iCar. Unfortunately Apple iAir is not yet released either, i feel so guilty for breathing in this inferior product:(
Here in Australia even 24Mbps is marketed as super fast, and in reality most of us only manage to reach 5-10Mbps on a good day. A large percentage of Australians still cannot get anything faster than 1.5Mbps thanks to poor infrastructure choices from Telstra (1.5Mbps is ADSL1 here - yes it can support 8Mbps but Telstra in its wisdom limited it to 1.5 right from the start).
There seems to be no progress in increasing these speeds or upgrading infrastructure anytime soon - so it looks like we'll be even further behind the rest of the world with every passing year.
the trouble with ditching x86 is finding someone who will spend the $$$$$$ to develop a more efficient processor knowing that it wont run windows.
The whole reason for netbooks is that you can still do all the usual stuff on them - and if your 'usual stuff' means running your windows apps then you'll want to run windows.
To me the biggest benefit of netbooks is that they are cheap, small and x86 - so its like a pda but with a real keyboard, good sized screen and its a full computer.
it can be determined by regular shaping and chipping of the rock that doesn't naturally happen with that type of mineral. the other give away is finding more than one in the same area. even if by some random chance the rock ended up looking like an axe naturally, it won't happen 2 or 3 times more in the same immediate area.
most people here believe the earth evolved by chance which requires much worse odds than what you've described here....but I digress...(gonna get modded down for that surely haha)
I'm still not sure how its not just simply tools made from 1.8M year old rock? How do they know at what point there was human involvement? The stone is still the same stone no matter how it was carved - so aren't they just giving us the age of the stone, and not the tools?
I still find it hard to believe that humans could exist for that long and yet not develop much at all for nearly 2 million years and suddenly we've invented cars, computers, etc, all in the last 100 years. If we are supposed to be getting smarter that rapidly, there certainly isn't evidence of that today...
If it all goes wrong and destroys the earth, they will discover ONE thing, that God does not exist.
On the flip side, perhaps the one thing standing in the path of it going horribly wrong (and potentially the reason why its delayed? i really dont know - i know they say its safe but does anyone REALLY know until its done?) is the fact that God will not let man destroy the earth.
Your views will determine which of these 2 options you're going by.
The DOOM engine also used an extension of the same technology (raycasting) as wolf3d, as did Rise of the Triad (and several other games of the same era, Heretic comes to mind also).
The DOOM engine was expanded to use ceiling textures and sloping walls/ceilings etc and was much improved over wolf3d but still not using the same techniques as we use these days. I believe that among the first games to do it the current way were Duke3D(?) and Quake - and you'll remember they used to advertise the "rooms above rooms feature".
One major misunderstanding in the article relates to the application being tied to the window - this is simply not true. A window requires an application, but it is possible and very easy to have an application with no window (at least not one that is visible).
Every Windows application begins at some kind of WinMain() normally, or the usual main() with some kind of Windows event loop.
Displaying a window is optional, and even if you display a window (or multiple windows) its pretty easy to hide them (including from the taskbar). The author hints that hiding windows completely necessitates tray icons, but in reality, showing tray icons is also optional. Its there for convenience, because if you hide the window and dont provide a tray icon, how do you then get it back?
In OSX, it doesn't need to worry because of the way the dock leaves applications running even when you're not using them. Why do that? If I've closed the last document of an application, I'm not using it any more - so IMO it should close.
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Visual Studio is great for .NET but not so great for anything else. Its like a car that no matter what you do it always ends up at the same destination.
If you dont want to use MFC or .NET, then there are much better IDE's out there than VS.
Silverlight has a much better programing model the Flash. I have not looked at Flex yet but Flash is nasty.
Sure, the Flash IDE is a toy, the timeline is only useful for simple animation, and Actionscript 1 and 2 are crap, but Flash isn't bad at all if you're working on a pure code-based Actionscript 3 project.
I agree with this. Having used flex/actionscript3 recently it is very easy to learn/use, even on linux - and worked great. Admittedly I was only doing a simple game but as a programmer I was impressed at how easy it was to get up and running.
Find a good text editor that does syntax highlighting for actionscript (even as2 highlighting will work ok) and just use the console-based compiler for generating the swf files.
I never liked flash before - and I'm still not a fan of websites coded entirely in flash, but I'm starting to become a fan of flash programming and the web apps it can potentially produce :)
I did look at silverlight but the linux plugin (moonlight) is a long way from compatibility with the windows one (2 versions behind!), and also I saw the term ".NET" and decided I'd see what flash was like these days...and I'm glad I did. :) The flex SDK (including flex/actionscript compiler) is free so you can develop flash on linux/mac/windows and its free. This is a huge plus for me.
The patent (from 1995) is pretty clear that it has to be completely transparent to the user which implies not only no reboot, but no notification. Anybody tries that on my machine gets the software booted off right quickly.
But if there was no notification - how would you know?
No she won't. Grandma would likely stick with the default system and anyone close enough to suggest it to her would likely buy it 3rd party and install it for her.
Wrong. Until recently, grandma didn't even own a computer.
However, if you were to tell grandma that you were going to "stick" a "RAM" in her computer, then yes, she may well have a heart attack.
disclaimer: i dont currently use ubuntu....but have used it in the past
i'm not sure why people think ubuntu is any more bloated than any other mainstream linux distro. They run the same software stack and if you listed the running processes when you reached the GUI you'd probably find most mainstream linux distros are much the same.
Most linux distros including ubuntu are built from the same standard components, and sometimes there are modifications made such as improvements to specific software and also corporate branding on images etc.
Such modifications are usually minor in comparison to the original software, and its doubtful that they add much to the memory footprint or speed of the OS as a whole...generally speaking.
Please identify the 'cruft' you refer to in ubuntu and I'll happily be proven wrong.
Apple update doesn't push Safari 4 - you have to go to the apple website and download and install it yourself.
is there a difference? (we're talking apple users here).
apple only need to announce a new software product and the entire apple user base will have it installed within a week. :)
dont know how they do it...
i have a msi wind and opensuse 11.1 (with update to kde 4.2) works very well.
That said, I kept winxp on it too (dual boot with 60GB each) because I found it ran very well.
Pretty much all hardware worked out of the box on both (thanks to the custom windows install that comes with it).
got an example? (not disagreeing with you btw)
I know their TOS sounds like it could be open-ended but their privacy policy is much more limiting in what they will do with your content.
I'm not sure if the privacy policy is as legally binding as the TOS though.
Sounds like facebook have cleared it up anyway in their responses to TFA.
In both of the above cases - you do need to trust the company who has your content.
If facebook (or any company) misuse any user's content it would be a death warrant to their services as soon as it hit the media...so I dont see this happening ever.
Without copyright law, there is no need to enforce the GPL, because everyone has the rights it grants to the end user.
Not true.
Without copyright law - anyone can make changes to source code and release a binary-only version including those changes. Sure anyone else can then copy that binary but this is very different to the GPL - where whoever is given a copy of the binary also has a right to the source code (incl said changes).
GPL != public domain.
Although I hear some versions will only run 2 or 3 apps at the time. Seems kinda silly to me though. ;-)
Apparently Vista had the ability to run 2 or 3 apps at the same time before but they're still waiting for PC hardware to catch up...
Anyway, 3 apps should be enough for anyone...
I happen to know the owners of Webshield and whilst they are very nice people and well-meaning, I disagree with the marketing/concept behind webshield (and others). I can see a benefit for concerned parents in having an internet provider that blocks all illicit content, BUT such a system DOESN'T EXIST. Not at webshield, not anywhere.
The problem with these content filtering systems is that they ignore this and wrongly fool their customers into thinking the internet is now safe for their children so that they dont need to monitor it. Admittedly they do offer a "whitelist-only" solution but who wants that?
I'm all for every household and every parent putting in place their own filtering and their own guidelines for internet use in their family.
Build a safe home out of trust, not out of fear!
Well here in Australia we'd have the first battery that works in reverse - ie. starts flat and slowly recharges.
We'd need overcharge protection too otherwise they'd all explode after 10mins of driving.
Not only that...
This action from Microsoft takes "Microsoft Anti-Malware" to a whole new level.
Not only will it protect your pc from malware (yet badly), it will also hunt down the author. Show me a competing anti-malware product that does THAT!
You could run Vista
hello....its called online software repositories.
MS doesn't have to bundle anything - they just need to make it easier than having to insert a separate cd or download a file from a separate website for every single program we want to install/run.
Its not impossible to imagine a MS-hosted (or independent) software repository where you could download (and optionally pay for) third-party software.
Maybe they'd get sued for that too, I dont know.
At least have some sort of package management and the ability to add third-party repositories.
This is one area where linux is great and windows not so great. Update all your software from one single application.
I think the GP has a fair point.
This is very true.
Also, I'd like to point out that while we have companies profiting off their own distro, we will not see any effort towards merging into 1 distro.
I'd like it to stay as is. There are only about 5 major distros, and they all compete with each other - which has brought great results to Linux in general. Most of them contribute changes and features so that everyone can use them which results in Linux advancing. This is as close to the ONE LINUX as we need.
Things like freedesktop.org etc and LSB are good too. Just create standards to ensure that all major distros are 100% compatible (so that software makers can target just one standard) and let each distro find their strengths.
I'm with Linus on this one :)
Yeah I'm still living outside and walking everywhere until Apple finally make the iHouse and iCar. Unfortunately Apple iAir is not yet released either, i feel so guilty for breathing in this inferior product :(
Really? Bob the Builder fixed mine.
All this internet speed talk makes me cry...
Here in Australia even 24Mbps is marketed as super fast, and in reality most of us only manage to reach 5-10Mbps on a good day. A large percentage of Australians still cannot get anything faster than 1.5Mbps thanks to poor infrastructure choices from Telstra (1.5Mbps is ADSL1 here - yes it can support 8Mbps but Telstra in its wisdom limited it to 1.5 right from the start).
There seems to be no progress in increasing these speeds or upgrading infrastructure anytime soon - so it looks like we'll be even further behind the rest of the world with every passing year.
and dont get me started on pricing...
the trouble with ditching x86 is finding someone who will spend the $$$$$$ to develop a more efficient processor knowing that it wont run windows.
The whole reason for netbooks is that you can still do all the usual stuff on them - and if your 'usual stuff' means running your windows apps then you'll want to run windows.
To me the biggest benefit of netbooks is that they are cheap, small and x86 - so its like a pda but with a real keyboard, good sized screen and its a full computer.
it can be determined by regular shaping and chipping of the rock that doesn't naturally happen with that type of mineral. the other give away is finding more than one in the same area. even if by some random chance the rock ended up looking like an axe naturally, it won't happen 2 or 3 times more in the same immediate area.
most people here believe the earth evolved by chance which requires much worse odds than what you've described here....but I digress...(gonna get modded down for that surely haha)
I'm still not sure how its not just simply tools made from 1.8M year old rock? How do they know at what point there was human involvement? The stone is still the same stone no matter how it was carved - so aren't they just giving us the age of the stone, and not the tools?
I still find it hard to believe that humans could exist for that long and yet not develop much at all for nearly 2 million years and suddenly we've invented cars, computers, etc, all in the last 100 years. If we are supposed to be getting smarter that rapidly, there certainly isn't evidence of that today...
If it all goes wrong and destroys the earth, they will discover ONE thing, that God does not exist.
On the flip side, perhaps the one thing standing in the path of it going horribly wrong (and potentially the reason why its delayed? i really dont know - i know they say its safe but does anyone REALLY know until its done?) is the fact that God will not let man destroy the earth.
Your views will determine which of these 2 options you're going by.
The DOOM engine also used an extension of the same technology (raycasting) as wolf3d, as did Rise of the Triad (and several other games of the same era, Heretic comes to mind also).
The DOOM engine was expanded to use ceiling textures and sloping walls/ceilings etc and was much improved over wolf3d but still not using the same techniques as we use these days. I believe that among the first games to do it the current way were Duke3D(?) and Quake - and you'll remember they used to advertise the "rooms above rooms feature".
yes, very small numbers like 29 million (divided by mass size).
(http://counter.li.org/estimates.php)
One major misunderstanding in the article relates to the application being tied to the window - this is simply not true. A window requires an application, but it is possible and very easy to have an application with no window (at least not one that is visible).
Every Windows application begins at some kind of WinMain() normally, or the usual main() with some kind of Windows event loop.
Displaying a window is optional, and even if you display a window (or multiple windows) its pretty easy to hide them (including from the taskbar). The author hints that hiding windows completely necessitates tray icons, but in reality, showing tray icons is also optional. Its there for convenience, because if you hide the window and dont provide a tray icon, how do you then get it back?
In OSX, it doesn't need to worry because of the way the dock leaves applications running even when you're not using them. Why do that? If I've closed the last document of an application, I'm not using it any more - so IMO it should close.