Where again do you do desktop zoom in windows to see that video fullscreen where the website prefers to surround it by ads?
Flash video? You can't unless they add it to the flash movie.
Or how do I control a window transparency with a key plus the mouse wheel, so that I can see the window behind it too?
You're going to need special programs for that. Maybe something from Stardock.
Is it possible at all to choose which windows remain 'always on top' or 'always on bottom'?
Always has been. But it doesn't stick if you close the program.
Oh, and what shady buggy shareware do I need to get multiple desktops, and why can't I assign my own keyboard shortcuts to switch around them?
You mean workspaces, right? You can already get multiple desktops with ease, but your cursor will slide right off the side onto another.
Why can't I run a program on one computer and let it display on another?
Because it's not a feature of the OS? Actually, Remote Desktop is, but you wouldn't want to use that except over gigabit.;)
When I start a big program that takes a couple of seconds to start, and I go to the 'start' menu to start another program before the first one opens, then why does windows think it's a good idea to suddenly remove the menu where I'm trying to lookup that other program, just because the first program got far enough to open its first window?
Oh! This is a major peeve of mine. Especially when installers are going on in the background, constantly starting new exe's. You can go into the start menu a dozen times, and it closes almost immediately over and over.:P
But Ubuntu doesn't seem to be much better - at least 9.04 isn't.
Why, after logging in, when it looks on the screen that the computer is ready for me, does the mouse pointer still blink/flash and not let me actually do usefull things while the only thing happening is the harddrive light being on and the junk bar on the bottom getting larger and larger.
Turn off the junk.:P Or get an SSD. My computer from 2003 goes from boot menu to XP desktop in 6 seconds - then another ~12 to finish loading stuff. The trick is not having any crap running. This is approximately twice as fast as Ubuntu on the same computer.
Why does every program inform me in a different way that it has an update, or wants to check online for updates, and why do I need to reboot that often for that?
Reboots for updates have always annoyed me. Maybe this will relieve some of your stress.
What is 'fast web search', why does it hyjack my browser and make everything slower and how did it get in there, and how do I get rid of it? (repeat for dozens more spyware/adware).
Doesn't really apply to most slashdot readers. I haven't gotten any spyware since the first computer I built... and I'm pretty lax about keeping things up to date.
What is an adware scanner anyway? And why do I still need a virus scanner band-aid in the 21st century? Shouldn't that OS problem be actually solved by now?
Microsoft chose moronic default security settings with XP. If you lack a hardware router, your computer will literally be infected within 10 seconds.:/
Why did my webcam suddenly stop working after a windows update, and why do the Microsoft help pages do nothing more than ask me if their advice helped, instead of actually helping?
So, so true! The number of broken webcams I see has been climbing a lot recently.:P
Why can't I print a photo on my HP printer with the software that came with windows without it complaining abou
Most programs do have such update features. The question is more how well they work.
When people bring me computers needing a tuneup, usually they have Adobe Reader 8.1.0, Java 1.6.5 to 15 (not 18, the newest), and Flash 10.x (Congrats, Flash. Now if only you had less vulnerabilities)
This is despite them having auto-updaters. Multiple reboots leads to no prompts. Why aren't the updaters working? No idea - at first.
At that point I'll check winver and note it's an XP SP2 machine. After updating to XP SP3, suddenly they all work.
And just think. It'll only take one other advancement - a way to physically alter your brain - and then we'll be able to rewrite personalities and memories! Hurray! Millions of brainwashed people that genuinely believe what they believe.
Seriously, you're not going to find a reasonable way of storing that much data anywhere else.
HDDs certainly are looking appealing. 4x1.5TB for $400.
Just don't let them sit for more than 5 years without copying stuff off to new ones.
I'd probably just keep them in a working but offline storage computer. You can build one for cheap($400) and stick 12+ drives in. If you ever need data off, plug in the gigabit ethernet. Of course, if the data has to be locked away in a safety deposit box, that completely rules out this solution - but it should be alright if your office or servers are secured. Keep the storage systems in a locked room and encrypt the drives to protect against theft.
Disclaimer: I try to take security seriously, but I've never been in a situation where it was absolutely required. Someone here can probably poke holes in my suggestion.:P
Now nothing will be executed when you plunk a CD in. The CD may not even spin up, until you try to access it. It also changes the default action to opening the folder.
Sorry, sometimes I forget that not everyone has the same view of Python as I do. I've watched it become extremely popular in indy projects - and lately even for internal tools at businesses.
In the past few years, there's been a flood of Python praise in the news, and it seems to have entirely replaced Pascal as the "first language" everyone suggests.
Whenever I see someone asking how to make a 2D game, the first answer is always PyGame. How strange - even a few years ago, the first answer would've been Flash, and then C/SDL.
The great thing about standards, of course, is that there are so many of them. I consider code's readability and it is for me related to the manner in which the code is displayed, and the style that I find the most practical as well as pleasing to the eye is K&R variant. So this is the main point of contention here.
I accept your reasoning, and agree with it. I find Whitesmiths most pleasing.
In a project I want all code that is checked in to be in one style, that is all.
Good. I feel the same way.
So if you want to use your own style and your IDE supports displaying it in that style but does not modify the format of the lines of code that you did no touch and allows CVS to do its work, then go nuts.
So, we no longer disagree about anything - except that perhaps I need express my humour a little better. Debate resolved!
Your post is overflowing with hostility. I can see you're very set in your ways.
- you can 'woosh' me all you want, sarcasm does not follow in your case, from a single word given with no context.
Statement 'heresy' can is very ambiguous, if you don't think so: vagina.
Heresy is a very strong word.
The sarcasm is derived from the assumption of using Python (a young language) as the accepted standard rather than C. (the older language)
- I don't care, I don't do python day to day and if I did I would still use the correct K&R indentation.
No you wouldn't. There's no curly braces in python... and if you remove that difference, quite a lot of indentation styles are identical.
Apparently I use the Whitesmiths style - I do find it interesting that you consider only one indentation style correct, period, regardless of language. That's a very narrow view.
- yeah, good luck with that on my projects, someone with that attitude wouldn't be in the team for too long. If everyone changes the format to what they like all the time, CVS would not be useful to see the real code differences clearly because the entire file would change too often.
Smarter software.
The last IDE I used didn't store any indentation - it simply displayed it based on your preferences. CVS is happy, and every programmer is happy. Just don't open the code in notepad.
If you want to ram your favourite style down your team's throats, and discriminate against other coders simply because you're set in your ways... then go ahead. Not my problem. It's not yours either - it's only a problem for the guy with a different opinion than you, also trying to get hired by you.
You say 'heresy' on the idea of coding style standard to the guy responsible probably for one of the most used computer languages in history? I wonder.
*woosh*
It was sarcasm.
Also from my personal perspective, when you open a brace on its own line, at least bother to indent the code in the braces by one more tab or something, it looks like a mad man wrote it otherwise.
Why? Everything that happens in sequence is equally indented in my code.
Also, it wouldn't match up with Python's indenting then, would it?
If it bugs you so much, set your IDE to fix it. That's one of the benefits of smarter software - for such minor things, we can all do whatever works for us.
Java is more portable. Yes, they spin it as being ridiculously easy. It's still more portable.
Java -> Compile once. -> Test on each platform. -> Adjust code. -> Done
C -> Compile once per platform. -> Test on each platform. -> Deal with compiler specific bugs per-platform/architecture. -> Deal with debugger specific bugs, limitations, and inconsistencies per platform/architecture. -> Adjust code per platform. -> Done
I recall reading threads about people trying to optimize C for the GP2X. People fighting with cryptic error messages, discovering obscure bugs with certain toolchains. If you found a version of GCC that outputted stable code, performance was ridiculously unpredictable - some compiles would run 50-60% slower with the exact same options, for seemingly no reason. Profiling was even worse for predictability - I think one emu dev had performance ranging from 20-80% of what he wanted, depending on what he tested - but loading up the ROM he wanted to run faster wouldn't necessarily enhance code performance. Often it worsened it. Ultimately he replaced some bits with assembly, and got almost a 100% speedup (in FPS) over the best profiled run.
When Java has to compete with stuff like that, it's easy to highlight "write once run everywhere" as a benefit. You have to remember that although C is almost perfect on x86, it's not as mature on every platform, and other languages do oust it from its position quite frequently.
The beagleboard has had similar issues, as do most microcontrollers. Although you can't beat C or assembly for code densitity, on a lot of platforms it's very unpredictable and hard to properly debug.
I know why there is this new language now, forget about everything else, Ken just wanted to make a point of the correct style of opening braces and he came up with a language that does not allow you to do any different!
Heresy!
I was shocked to discover that I've always used Python style indentation, with one caveat. For short statements, I'll put brackets on the first line - stuff like this:
I haven't gotten any complaints, so it must still be readable. I think I started spacing the lines because I began with Javascript in Notepad. That's big black bold text on a white background. Pages of code looking like this gets extremely ugly:
I've seen people bragging on forums about having 50,000 songs on their computers.
50,000. Even at $2/song, you'd cause them a world of hurt by going after them. Enough to make an example of them, and significantly alter their lives.
But most of these infringement suits are absolutely ludicrous. If the same rules applied to these companies, they'd be out quadrillions of dollars. The article I linked says 300,000 willfully infringed songs, but how many times have they infringed? Probably hundreds of thousands to millions of times per song.
Case in point - we have a two tiered system, slanted towards big business.
Chuck Norris can travel through time. Although going into your own past would be dangerous to your very existence, Chuck Norris is more than capable of avoiding such deadly butterflies.
Oh, I fully agree. Mass Effect dialog wheels don't seem to be affected by mouse sensitivity. I have my sensitivity set quite high - about 5x the maximum the UI allows - because I don't have much room to move my mouse around. Navigating through dialog options is a tad annoying.
It doesn't bug me. The old system was compact, but lacking in features. No way to drag games around, or sort them under custom headings. Okay, the new beta doesn't seem to yet either, but at least it's using more of my monitor.:P
You have to create a Steam Community login to get all those extra public features. It's separate from your Steam purchasing login, and Steam Support login.
By default everything is public, but you have no friends. I set everything to be private right away - I'm curious to find out if I show up in the new "What your friends are playing" list.
What you save on steam sales would probably pay for a better connection plan.
I'm in Canada. I get 200GB/mo through TekSavvy for $27/mo. It's only 3mbit, but the cable where I live sucks, and no nearby ISPs can beat the bandwidth caps.
So far this month I've used ~70GB. Plenty of extra bandwidth if Steam wants to download tons of updates, or I want to download demos and new games.
I just leave it running while I'm out of the house or sleeping. It works quite well, and I never have to worry about caps like my Aussie friends do.
Slashdot Mirror
But who cares? They're the most successful MMO in existence. Everyone can have their pie.
Most pirates find the WoW pirate servers not that fun, and go back to the paid ones. If they do find them fun, then they can stick with them.
Everyone gets whatever they enjoy!
Those OSX users sure are a sensitive bunch.
Most of the OSX users on slashdot probably use 2+ operating systems.
Where again do you do desktop zoom in windows to see that video fullscreen where the website prefers to surround it by ads?
Flash video? You can't unless they add it to the flash movie.
Or how do I control a window transparency with a key plus the mouse wheel, so that I can see the window behind it too?
You're going to need special programs for that. Maybe something from Stardock.
Is it possible at all to choose which windows remain 'always on top' or 'always on bottom'?
Always has been. But it doesn't stick if you close the program.
Oh, and what shady buggy shareware do I need to get multiple desktops, and why can't I assign my own keyboard shortcuts to switch around them?
You mean workspaces, right? You can already get multiple desktops with ease, but your cursor will slide right off the side onto another.
Why can't I run a program on one computer and let it display on another?
Because it's not a feature of the OS? Actually, Remote Desktop is, but you wouldn't want to use that except over gigabit. ;)
When I start a big program that takes a couple of seconds to start, and I go to the 'start' menu to start another program before the first one opens, then why does windows think it's a good idea to suddenly remove the menu where I'm trying to lookup that other program, just because the first program got far enough to open its first window?
Oh! This is a major peeve of mine. Especially when installers are going on in the background, constantly starting new exe's. You can go into the start menu a dozen times, and it closes almost immediately over and over. :P
But Ubuntu doesn't seem to be much better - at least 9.04 isn't.
Why, after logging in, when it looks on the screen that the computer is ready for me, does the mouse pointer still blink/flash and not let me actually do usefull things while the only thing happening is the harddrive light being on and the junk bar on the bottom getting larger and larger.
Turn off the junk. :P Or get an SSD. My computer from 2003 goes from boot menu to XP desktop in 6 seconds - then another ~12 to finish loading stuff. The trick is not having any crap running. This is approximately twice as fast as Ubuntu on the same computer.
Why does every program inform me in a different way that it has an update, or wants to check online for updates, and why do I need to reboot that often for that?
Reboots for updates have always annoyed me. Maybe this will relieve some of your stress.
What is 'fast web search', why does it hyjack my browser and make everything slower and how did it get in there, and how do I get rid of it? (repeat for dozens more spyware/adware).
Doesn't really apply to most slashdot readers. I haven't gotten any spyware since the first computer I built... and I'm pretty lax about keeping things up to date.
What is an adware scanner anyway? And why do I still need a virus scanner band-aid in the 21st century? Shouldn't that OS problem be actually solved by now?
Microsoft chose moronic default security settings with XP. If you lack a hardware router, your computer will literally be infected within 10 seconds. :/
Why did my webcam suddenly stop working after a windows update, and why do the Microsoft help pages do nothing more than ask me if their advice helped, instead of actually helping?
So, so true! The number of broken webcams I see has been climbing a lot recently. :P
Why can't I print a photo on my HP printer with the software that came with windows without it complaining abou
Most programs do have such update features. The question is more how well they work.
When people bring me computers needing a tuneup, usually they have Adobe Reader 8.1.0, Java 1.6.5 to 15 (not 18, the newest), and Flash 10.x (Congrats, Flash. Now if only you had less vulnerabilities)
This is despite them having auto-updaters. Multiple reboots leads to no prompts. Why aren't the updaters working? No idea - at first.
At that point I'll check winver and note it's an XP SP2 machine. After updating to XP SP3, suddenly they all work.
If anyone is having issues managing updates, you might be interested in something like this: http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/
...you're changing the frequency and wavelength of your brain's electrical output to comply with the requirements of this device.
TV does the same thing.
And just think. It'll only take one other advancement - a way to physically alter your brain - and then we'll be able to rewrite personalities and memories! Hurray! Millions of brainwashed people that genuinely believe what they believe.
Seriously, you're not going to find a reasonable way of storing that much data anywhere else.
HDDs certainly are looking appealing. 4x1.5TB for $400.
Just don't let them sit for more than 5 years without copying stuff off to new ones.
I'd probably just keep them in a working but offline storage computer. You can build one for cheap($400) and stick 12+ drives in. If you ever need data off, plug in the gigabit ethernet. Of course, if the data has to be locked away in a safety deposit box, that completely rules out this solution - but it should be alright if your office or servers are secured. Keep the storage systems in a locked room and encrypt the drives to protect against theft.
Disclaimer: I try to take security seriously, but I've never been in a situation where it was absolutely required. Someone here can probably poke holes in my suggestion. :P
It takes a special kind of mind to do that.
And that said... I memorized a 48 character hexadecimal password, in case I ever need one. :P
You forgot one.
You sit behind a hardware firewall (router) which blocks any unrequested connections.
The CD rootkit thing can be fixed by entirely disabling Autorun in the registry.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom
Set AutoRun DWORD to 0
Now nothing will be executed when you plunk a CD in. The CD may not even spin up, until you try to access it. It also changes the default action to opening the folder.
Sorry, sometimes I forget that not everyone has the same view of Python as I do. I've watched it become extremely popular in indy projects - and lately even for internal tools at businesses.
In the past few years, there's been a flood of Python praise in the news, and it seems to have entirely replaced Pascal as the "first language" everyone suggests.
Whenever I see someone asking how to make a 2D game, the first answer is always PyGame. How strange - even a few years ago, the first answer would've been Flash, and then C/SDL.
The great thing about standards, of course, is that there are so many of them. I consider code's readability and it is for me related to the manner in which the code is displayed, and the style that I find the most practical as well as pleasing to the eye is K&R variant. So this is the main point of contention here.
I accept your reasoning, and agree with it. I find Whitesmiths most pleasing.
In a project I want all code that is checked in to be in one style, that is all.
Good. I feel the same way.
So if you want to use your own style and your IDE supports displaying it in that style but does not modify the format of the lines of code that you did no touch and allows CVS to do its work, then go nuts.
So, we no longer disagree about anything - except that perhaps I need express my humour a little better. Debate resolved!
Your post is overflowing with hostility. I can see you're very set in your ways.
- you can 'woosh' me all you want, sarcasm does not follow in your case, from a single word given with no context.
Statement 'heresy' can is very ambiguous, if you don't think so: vagina.
Heresy is a very strong word.
The sarcasm is derived from the assumption of using Python (a young language) as the accepted standard rather than C. (the older language)
- I don't care, I don't do python day to day and if I did I would still use the correct K&R indentation.
No you wouldn't. There's no curly braces in python... and if you remove that difference, quite a lot of indentation styles are identical.
Apparently I use the Whitesmiths style - I do find it interesting that you consider only one indentation style correct, period, regardless of language. That's a very narrow view.
- yeah, good luck with that on my projects, someone with that attitude wouldn't be in the team for too long. If everyone changes the format to what they like all the time, CVS would not be useful to see the real code differences clearly because the entire file would change too often.
Smarter software.
The last IDE I used didn't store any indentation - it simply displayed it based on your preferences. CVS is happy, and every programmer is happy. Just don't open the code in notepad.
If you want to ram your favourite style down your team's throats, and discriminate against other coders simply because you're set in your ways... then go ahead. Not my problem. It's not yours either - it's only a problem for the guy with a different opinion than you, also trying to get hired by you.
You say 'heresy' on the idea of coding style standard to the guy responsible probably for one of the most used computer languages in history? I wonder.
*woosh*
It was sarcasm.
Also from my personal perspective, when you open a brace on its own line, at least bother to indent the code in the braces by one more tab or something, it looks like a mad man wrote it otherwise.
Why? Everything that happens in sequence is equally indented in my code.
Also, it wouldn't match up with Python's indenting then, would it?
If it bugs you so much, set your IDE to fix it. That's one of the benefits of smarter software - for such minor things, we can all do whatever works for us.
Java is more portable. Yes, they spin it as being ridiculously easy. It's still more portable.
Java
-> Compile once.
-> Test on each platform.
-> Adjust code.
-> Done
C
-> Compile once per platform.
-> Test on each platform.
-> Deal with compiler specific bugs per-platform/architecture.
-> Deal with debugger specific bugs, limitations, and inconsistencies per platform/architecture.
-> Adjust code per platform.
-> Done
I recall reading threads about people trying to optimize C for the GP2X. People fighting with cryptic error messages, discovering obscure bugs with certain toolchains. If you found a version of GCC that outputted stable code, performance was ridiculously unpredictable - some compiles would run 50-60% slower with the exact same options, for seemingly no reason. Profiling was even worse for predictability - I think one emu dev had performance ranging from 20-80% of what he wanted, depending on what he tested - but loading up the ROM he wanted to run faster wouldn't necessarily enhance code performance. Often it worsened it. Ultimately he replaced some bits with assembly, and got almost a 100% speedup (in FPS) over the best profiled run.
When Java has to compete with stuff like that, it's easy to highlight "write once run everywhere" as a benefit. You have to remember that although C is almost perfect on x86, it's not as mature on every platform, and other languages do oust it from its position quite frequently.
The beagleboard has had similar issues, as do most microcontrollers. Although you can't beat C or assembly for code densitity, on a lot of platforms it's very unpredictable and hard to properly debug.
I know why there is this new language now, forget about everything else, Ken just wanted to make a point of the correct style of opening braces and he came up with a language that does not allow you to do any different!
Heresy!
I was shocked to discover that I've always used Python style indentation, with one caveat. For short statements, I'll put brackets on the first line - stuff like this:
public int getX() { return x; }
But for most stuff, my code looks like this:
if(linesIntersect(LineA, LineB))
{
drawText("X detected.", 8, 8);
doSomething();
}
I haven't gotten any complaints, so it must still be readable. I think I started spacing the lines because I began with Javascript in Notepad. That's big black bold text on a white background. Pages of code looking like this gets extremely ugly:
if(linesIntersect(LineA, LineB)) {
drawText("X detected.", 8, 8);
doSomething();
}
I've seen people bragging on forums about having 50,000 songs on their computers.
50,000. Even at $2/song, you'd cause them a world of hurt by going after them. Enough to make an example of them, and significantly alter their lives.
But most of these infringement suits are absolutely ludicrous. If the same rules applied to these companies, they'd be out quadrillions of dollars. The article I linked says 300,000 willfully infringed songs, but how many times have they infringed? Probably hundreds of thousands to millions of times per song.
Case in point - we have a two tiered system, slanted towards big business.
Chuck Norris can travel through time. Although going into your own past would be dangerous to your very existence, Chuck Norris is more than capable of avoiding such deadly butterflies.
I just picked up an Asus GTS 250 for $100 CAD after MIR with free shipping and one free game, brand new. That's about $90 USD. Not a bad deal.
If videocards cost too much, you aren't looking in the right places.
Most games are plug and play, no headaches.
But the most complex games (aka the best and newest ones) will not be. You have to give them a year or so to mature before picking them up.
Oh, I fully agree. Mass Effect dialog wheels don't seem to be affected by mouse sensitivity. I have my sensitivity set quite high - about 5x the maximum the UI allows - because I don't have much room to move my mouse around. Navigating through dialog options is a tad annoying.
That's unfortunate. If it was bandwidth rather than latency, then a few £5 plans and some load balancing might be the solution.
But I really don't know how you fight latency, short of getting a better ISP, which isn't an option for you.
Lower their fees to reasonable levels (like: competitive with direct bank -> bank transfers).
$0.50 flat?
Steam is just a website displayed inside an interface. I do all my purchasing online through Firefox.
http://store.steampowered.com/
Screenshots never worked for me inside the default UI. I do all my steam store browsing in Firefox.
It doesn't bug me. The old system was compact, but lacking in features. No way to drag games around, or sort them under custom headings. Okay, the new beta doesn't seem to yet either, but at least it's using more of my monitor. :P
You have to create a Steam Community login to get all those extra public features. It's separate from your Steam purchasing login, and Steam Support login.
By default everything is public, but you have no friends. I set everything to be private right away - I'm curious to find out if I show up in the new "What your friends are playing" list.
What you save on steam sales would probably pay for a better connection plan.
I'm in Canada. I get 200GB/mo through TekSavvy for $27/mo. It's only 3mbit, but the cable where I live sucks, and no nearby ISPs can beat the bandwidth caps.
So far this month I've used ~70GB. Plenty of extra bandwidth if Steam wants to download tons of updates, or I want to download demos and new games.
I just leave it running while I'm out of the house or sleeping. It works quite well, and I never have to worry about caps like my Aussie friends do.