I discovered IE when I double clicked on a.htm file on the harddisk once and wondered what it was.
I think you just proved the opposite point you intended.
Even back then, Microsoft/IE was stealing file associations! Multiple times in the past an update has set it IE(rather than the default browser) to be the default browser; the most recent time was an IE8 update.
If it isn't antitrust to claim control of a computer from another browser, it sure is shady to ignore what the user selects, so at the best IE/Microsoft are shady.:/
This is just like when an upgrade from IE6 to IE7 reset my Google search to MSN/"Live" search, and I had to change it back - and yet on another computer it left Yahoo search as the default. They seem to specifically target competitors; shady!
Antec makes GOOD power supplies; not GREAT power supplies.
For a long time, their PSUs had weak +3.3/+5.0v rails, which caused a lot of stability problems with some boards. If the board or components draw too much, the PSUs can blow, even when there's plenty of +12v power to spare.
I had an Antec NEO HE 550 take a board with it. Now I stick to reliably good brands, like Seasonic(High efficiency), Corsair(rebranded Seasonic), Silverstone, PC P&C and Sparkle(for cheap PSUs); Sparkle makes about the best $40 PSU money can buy... but last time I checked they didn't make anything over 400 watts. When going for a Gaming PC, I always go with one of the other brands. Usually Corsair/Seasonic, because PC P&C makes noisy PSUs, and Silverstone is damn expensive. (though very stable according to oscilloscopes)
Ethanol is a horribly inefficient biofuel. I don't know why it's pushed so hard. Whenever someone says "Biofuel" people immediately think Corn.
Soy based biofuels are many times more efficient than corn... and Algae based biofuels are even more efficient than those! It's not a small number either; something like 20x more efficient. (Can't give exact numbers; don't remember how much exactly)
Nah, these guys have the highest power per watt (excluding initial setup cost)
But they're taking the supercomputer angle rather than server farm angle. Unless you cache everything in RAM, your webserver won't have enough I/O. Not feasible for a company like Google, but potentially feasible for MMOs or even sites like/. (Where you have more processing than disk IO. Heck, with terabytes of memory, just cache everything in RAM until the discussion is locked.)
But honestly, I wouldn't want to deal with another architecture. There's too much good free software on x86.
...and if its a machine that will have a bunch of drives, I'd go with 800 to 1000 watts just in case.
I used to feel the same way about PSUs, but then I picked up a Kill-a-Watt off newegg, and checked how much power my computers were actually using. Now I realize I don't need nearly as much PSU as I thought.
Corsair HX620 (very efficient) Athlon X2 @ 2.8ghz Asus M3N78 Pro 2x1GB DDR2-800 Asus 8800GS 4x Seagate 320GB HDD 1x DVD
Samsung Syncmaster 940BW 2.0 Speakers
Power consumption when playing Left4Dead? 170 watts from the wall. If I shut my monitor off, it drops to ~136w. If I shut my speakers off, ~128w. If I get out of Left4Dead and leave it at the desktop, only ~90 watts. (though once I turn the Monitor/Speakers back on, it's back up to ~130w)
I think the efficiency on most cheap PSUs must really blow; if you go with a quality Corsair one, you really don't draw a lot of juice...
But then again, Athlon X2's and 8800GS's are relatively low power, and Asus makes very efficient boards.
Either you people have crazy hardware prices, or you and me really have very different ideas about skimping... 40 bucks for a PSU is cheap-ass, second grade, fell-off-a-truck stuff in my book.
I was lucky enough to get a Corsair VX450 on sale for $40. The prices seem to have gone up - but it has free shipping right now, and newegg always jacks the prices up on free shipping items.
A 9800GT though will not stress a VX450.
You're right though; $60-100 for a PSU would be more appropriate if you plan to have a beefy videocard or multiple videocards.
Or he could just get one new. Newegg sometimes has CPUs as cheap as $30, and I guarantee they're more powerful than a 2ghz P4.
CPU - $30 Mobo - $50 or $60. PSU - $40 (I never skimp on these) Case - $? (Anything with free shipping; those things can be heavy!) RAM - $10 (do you need more than 1GB?) HDD - $40 (or salvage one from an old computer) Videocard - $70 (Newegg had 9800 GTs going for $70 yesterday!)
Brand new, and it comes to around or under $250. Toss in some peripherals like keyboard/mouse/speakers and you're at $280-$350. (depending on your tastes)
Now add a cheap monitor if you need one. (Either off craigslist, or from newegg for around $100)
Brand new doesn't actually cost that much - but I suppose $100 is better than $300.
Sorry if I come off like a raving lunatic. I'm just not at all impressed with what happened to my HDDs.
The video struck home with me, since I've experienced a lot of the stuff mentioned first hand. In addition to the HDD fiasco...
-Before Ubuntu 9.04, I always had to configure xorg.conf manually. -The Alsa mixer has always had a million options listed (well, technically 32 options); on a 1440x900 monitor, it's about two screens big. None of the options do what they claim to. It's the cryptic ones with device names that seen to do what I want. (change volume levels) -Recently I noticed some commercial Windows/OSX/Linux software (Woohoo!), but the only version of Linux supported was Ubuntu. I found that funny when they mentioned it in the vid.
I will admit, I didn't hear a lot of solutions to anything in that vid. It was more identifying problems... and quite a bit of complaining that you can't live off donations.
You used it on random hardware that doesn't have Linux drivers and it didn't work out.
It was working, and then after an update it stopped. That's my point.
If you had purchased the OS pre-installed, as the vast majority of Windows users do (the rest suffer as more than most Linux users installing it themselves), then you could expect all your hardware to be compatible, and usability bugs to be fixed.
Unlikely. If you had bothered to watch that video (containing legit complaints from linux users and devs), you'd have remembered that one of the guys bought an Ubuntu compatible laptop(actually, netbook? Mini-1000), and just a few months later compatibility with its soundcard was cut.
If not cutting compatibility with already working hardware is an unreasonable expectation... then you're right that perhaps Linux (on the Desktop) isn't for me.
You are correct about that. Lately it seems every installer I run has a toolbar bundled with it. Many free programs (like Foxit Reader) have advertisements, although they aren't very intrusive.
a strong percentage (Perhaps even most) of the really powerful free software on Windows migrated from Linux
I don't consider programs like Firefox or OpenOffice to be "migrated from Linux". If anything, it's probably the other way around.
But GIMP is definitely a linux app. Heck, half the time it crashes instantly when running in win32.;) But on Ubuntu it's been solid enough...
Still, as far as intuitive interfaces go, it has nothing on PaintDotNet, which is my point. Find a free linux program that is very good, and I'll find you one on Windows that's also free (maybe not FOSS) but does have a "better" (more intuitive) interface.
And by the way, you couldn't fathom the number of computer novices have lost all of their data and/or endless hours of time to Windows driver issues; and you claim that it's ready.
Yeah, but it was their fault right?;)
I'm still using Ubuntu. I tossed a cheap PCI SATA card in, and all the drives work fine off of it.
I would be happier with Linux if hardware manufacturers supported it better, but I doubt it's the solution you claim it to be. Look at how many shitty Windows drivers are out there! Manufacturer support is probably worse than just open sourcing the hardware specs or designs and letting FOSS devs have at it. (not likely to happen)
I'm still using Ubuntu, because I believe any experienced computer user should have experience with every common OS. I believe Ubuntu is the next big OS beside Windows and OSX.
But none of that changes the fact that they cut/broke support for my mobo's SATA controller. It's not just limited to me; with 8.10, they broke Bluetooth support. With 9.04, they broke support for sound on some netbooks/laptops. (watch the vid I linked for more details)
Regression testing is important. Maybe you're right; Linux is ready for the desktop... I'm just worried that in 6 months it won't be!
I'd say power users customize their UI to suit them, rather than just taking it as is. They use shortcuts for frequently used tasks, rather than taking the long route.
I met an older lady recently(retired secretary) that was blazing through letters in Word. I observed no problems with her mouse coordination, so I suspect in a half decade or so she'll be a power user, if she isn't one already. (She knew what a CPU, HDD, and RAM were, and was able to describe their purposes. She also used Firefox.)
I'm not sure if there's a one-size-fits-all definition of a power user, but it's easy to spot them in person.
I don't know; it's pretty lax in the syntax it accepts. If anything that makes it easier to learn, although it does promote sloppy habits. (like not quoting all paths)
Windows also has the most quality free software. Not all is FOSS, but Windows definitely has boatloads of free stuff that does what it's supposed to, without crashing, and with highly intuitive UIs.
Linux isn't ready for the desktop. Ubuntu's kernel updated, and farked all my partitions. The new libata driver doesn't work with my mobo's lame SATA controller. Ubuntu detected I/O errors and ran FSCK when booting, and FSCK automatically "fixed" the partitions.
Luckily I'm not a noob. I'm a skilled Windows user, and had everything ghosted to a second box, so it cost me all of 2 hours of my time. But if that happened to you, would it cost you such little time? How about a computer novice?
To re-iterate, Linux isn't ready for the desktop. I agree with the troll.
Parallel port passthrough (vmware terminology) is the only thing stopping me from migrating many old win9x/dos computers to Ubuntu + VirtualBox for a bunch of local businesses.
We need it for licensing dongles!
Sun has incredible engineers, but I don't doubt you about them losing sight of what's important. An app store... great.:P Good luck with that.
I can tell you what they need. They need to solidify java support for OGL ES 2.0, right now. Java isn't easily usable on the iPhone (one of the most popular phones out there), so they need a wedge to make Java SE ubiquitous across this generation of smartphones.
Some version of OpenGL ES is in every smartphone I know about, so it's fairly safe making that their wedge.
These new phones have plenty of memory; if java gets tight bindings with OGL ES 2.0, and makes it a breeze setting up an IDE to dev for phones, java will become be the language of choice for indy game devs on non-Apple smartphones. Heck, most of these phones already have some sort of java support(perhaps Java ME), so kick it up a notch with tight and efficient bindings(to Java SE; not ME), and watch the devs flock to the platform!
Lets face it, when making an indy game you go for whatever language cuts the dev time the most, and java is definitely ahead of languages like Objective C in that regard! Performance wise, it's not that far behind, either.
Who knows; maybe they're already doing that, and the app store is part of their strategy?... but probably not.
I have to agree with you. I always wait for the good deals.
I have an 8800GS, which I picked up for $45 in October 08. Just recently I spied a 9800GT for $60. I was tempted to buy it, but decided not, since all my current games still play fine.
Left4Dead sure is fun when you get a good team together in Versus.:D
Slashdot Mirror
I discovered IE when I double clicked on a .htm file on the harddisk once and wondered what it was.
I think you just proved the opposite point you intended.
Even back then, Microsoft/IE was stealing file associations! Multiple times in the past an update has set it IE(rather than the default browser) to be the default browser; the most recent time was an IE8 update.
If it isn't antitrust to claim control of a computer from another browser, it sure is shady to ignore what the user selects, so at the best IE/Microsoft are shady. :/
This is just like when an upgrade from IE6 to IE7 reset my Google search to MSN/"Live" search, and I had to change it back - and yet on another computer it left Yahoo search as the default. They seem to specifically target competitors; shady!
Antec makes GOOD power supplies; not GREAT power supplies.
For a long time, their PSUs had weak +3.3/+5.0v rails, which caused a lot of stability problems with some boards. If the board or components draw too much, the PSUs can blow, even when there's plenty of +12v power to spare.
I had an Antec NEO HE 550 take a board with it. Now I stick to reliably good brands, like Seasonic(High efficiency), Corsair(rebranded Seasonic), Silverstone, PC P&C and Sparkle(for cheap PSUs); Sparkle makes about the best $40 PSU money can buy... but last time I checked they didn't make anything over 400 watts. When going for a Gaming PC, I always go with one of the other brands. Usually Corsair/Seasonic, because PC P&C makes noisy PSUs, and Silverstone is damn expensive. (though very stable according to oscilloscopes)
Ethanol is a horribly inefficient biofuel. I don't know why it's pushed so hard. Whenever someone says "Biofuel" people immediately think Corn.
Soy based biofuels are many times more efficient than corn... and Algae based biofuels are even more efficient than those! It's not a small number either; something like 20x more efficient. (Can't give exact numbers; don't remember how much exactly)
Nah, these guys have the highest power per watt (excluding initial setup cost)
But they're taking the supercomputer angle rather than server farm angle. Unless you cache everything in RAM, your webserver won't have enough I/O. Not feasible for a company like Google, but potentially feasible for MMOs or even sites like /. (Where you have more processing than disk IO. Heck, with terabytes of memory, just cache everything in RAM until the discussion is locked.)
But honestly, I wouldn't want to deal with another architecture. There's too much good free software on x86.
Madworld has lots of gore! You can't top it!
...and if its a machine that will have a bunch of drives, I'd go with 800 to 1000 watts just in case.
I used to feel the same way about PSUs, but then I picked up a Kill-a-Watt off newegg, and checked how much power my computers were actually using. Now I realize I don't need nearly as much PSU as I thought.
Corsair HX620 (very efficient)
Athlon X2 @ 2.8ghz
Asus M3N78 Pro
2x1GB DDR2-800
Asus 8800GS
4x Seagate 320GB HDD
1x DVD
Samsung Syncmaster 940BW
2.0 Speakers
Power consumption when playing Left4Dead? 170 watts from the wall. If I shut my monitor off, it drops to ~136w. If I shut my speakers off, ~128w. If I get out of Left4Dead and leave it at the desktop, only ~90 watts. (though once I turn the Monitor/Speakers back on, it's back up to ~130w)
I think the efficiency on most cheap PSUs must really blow; if you go with a quality Corsair one, you really don't draw a lot of juice...
But then again, Athlon X2's and 8800GS's are relatively low power, and Asus makes very efficient boards.
Either you people have crazy hardware prices, or you and me really have very different ideas about skimping... 40 bucks for a PSU is cheap-ass, second grade, fell-off-a-truck stuff in my book.
I was lucky enough to get a Corsair VX450 on sale for $40. The prices seem to have gone up - but it has free shipping right now, and newegg always jacks the prices up on free shipping items.
A 9800GT though will not stress a VX450.
You're right though; $60-100 for a PSU would be more appropriate if you plan to have a beefy videocard or multiple videocards.
Or he could just get one new. Newegg sometimes has CPUs as cheap as $30, and I guarantee they're more powerful than a 2ghz P4.
CPU - $30
Mobo - $50 or $60.
PSU - $40 (I never skimp on these)
Case - $? (Anything with free shipping; those things can be heavy!)
RAM - $10 (do you need more than 1GB?)
HDD - $40 (or salvage one from an old computer)
Videocard - $70 (Newegg had 9800 GTs going for $70 yesterday!)
Brand new, and it comes to around or under $250. Toss in some peripherals like keyboard/mouse/speakers and you're at $280-$350. (depending on your tastes)
Now add a cheap monitor if you need one. (Either off craigslist, or from newegg for around $100)
Brand new doesn't actually cost that much - but I suppose $100 is better than $300.
But rants let the people ranting feel better. ;)
Sorry if I come off like a raving lunatic. I'm just not at all impressed with what happened to my HDDs.
The video struck home with me, since I've experienced a lot of the stuff mentioned first hand. In addition to the HDD fiasco...
-Before Ubuntu 9.04, I always had to configure xorg.conf manually.
-The Alsa mixer has always had a million options listed (well, technically 32 options); on a 1440x900 monitor, it's about two screens big. None of the options do what they claim to. It's the cryptic ones with device names that seen to do what I want. (change volume levels)
-Recently I noticed some commercial Windows/OSX/Linux software (Woohoo!), but the only version of Linux supported was Ubuntu. I found that funny when they mentioned it in the vid.
I will admit, I didn't hear a lot of solutions to anything in that vid. It was more identifying problems... and quite a bit of complaining that you can't live off donations.
You used it on random hardware that doesn't have Linux drivers and it didn't work out.
It was working, and then after an update it stopped. That's my point.
If you had purchased the OS pre-installed, as the vast majority of Windows users do (the rest suffer as more than most Linux users installing it themselves), then you could expect all your hardware to be compatible, and usability bugs to be fixed.
Unlikely. If you had bothered to watch that video (containing legit complaints from linux users and devs), you'd have remembered that one of the guys bought an Ubuntu compatible laptop(actually, netbook? Mini-1000), and just a few months later compatibility with its soundcard was cut.
If not cutting compatibility with already working hardware is an unreasonable expectation... then you're right that perhaps Linux (on the Desktop) isn't for me.
You are correct about that. Lately it seems every installer I run has a toolbar bundled with it. Many free programs (like Foxit Reader) have advertisements, although they aren't very intrusive.
a strong percentage (Perhaps even most) of the really powerful free software on Windows migrated from Linux
I don't consider programs like Firefox or OpenOffice to be "migrated from Linux". If anything, it's probably the other way around.
But GIMP is definitely a linux app. Heck, half the time it crashes instantly when running in win32. ;) But on Ubuntu it's been solid enough...
Still, as far as intuitive interfaces go, it has nothing on PaintDotNet, which is my point. Find a free linux program that is very good, and I'll find you one on Windows that's also free (maybe not FOSS) but does have a "better" (more intuitive) interface.
And by the way, you couldn't fathom the number of computer novices have lost all of their data and/or endless hours of time to Windows driver issues; and you claim that it's ready.
Yeah, but it was their fault right? ;)
I'm still using Ubuntu. I tossed a cheap PCI SATA card in, and all the drives work fine off of it.
I would be happier with Linux if hardware manufacturers supported it better, but I doubt it's the solution you claim it to be. Look at how many shitty Windows drivers are out there! Manufacturer support is probably worse than just open sourcing the hardware specs or designs and letting FOSS devs have at it. (not likely to happen)
I'm still using Ubuntu, because I believe any experienced computer user should have experience with every common OS. I believe Ubuntu is the next big OS beside Windows and OSX.
But none of that changes the fact that they cut/broke support for my mobo's SATA controller. It's not just limited to me; with 8.10, they broke Bluetooth support. With 9.04, they broke support for sound on some netbooks/laptops. (watch the vid I linked for more details)
Regression testing is important. Maybe you're right; Linux is ready for the desktop... I'm just worried that in 6 months it won't be!
I'd say power users customize their UI to suit them, rather than just taking it as is. They use shortcuts for frequently used tasks, rather than taking the long route.
I met an older lady recently(retired secretary) that was blazing through letters in Word. I observed no problems with her mouse coordination, so I suspect in a half decade or so she'll be a power user, if she isn't one already. (She knew what a CPU, HDD, and RAM were, and was able to describe their purposes. She also used Firefox.)
I'm not sure if there's a one-size-fits-all definition of a power user, but it's easy to spot them in person.
Age isn't a guarantee; I made a batch RPG in Win2k!
But you're right. No exposure to cmdline stuff would make anything cmdline appear... esoteric?
I don't know; it's pretty lax in the syntax it accepts. If anything that makes it easier to learn, although it does promote sloppy habits. (like not quoting all paths)
Specifically, the homogeneous file system (no c:\ d:\ e:\ monkey business)
Yes, I too much prefer having my partitions mounted as /media/disk#, rather than easy to type single letters. :P
Windows also has the most quality free software. Not all is FOSS, but Windows definitely has boatloads of free stuff that does what it's supposed to, without crashing, and with highly intuitive UIs.
I use Wine for 7Zip in Ubuntu. There's just no good 7zip UIs for Linux, so I use the Win32 version.
Clearly it's for people that think they are power users, rather than actual power users.
You know, the guy that knows VB, so he's a programmer. He figured out how to use OpenOffice, GIMP, and VirtualDub, so he must be a power user.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoYL4R3Te2s
Linux isn't ready for the desktop. Ubuntu's kernel updated, and farked all my partitions. The new libata driver doesn't work with my mobo's lame SATA controller. Ubuntu detected I/O errors and ran FSCK when booting, and FSCK automatically "fixed" the partitions.
Luckily I'm not a noob. I'm a skilled Windows user, and had everything ghosted to a second box, so it cost me all of 2 hours of my time. But if that happened to you, would it cost you such little time? How about a computer novice?
To re-iterate, Linux isn't ready for the desktop. I agree with the troll.
I'm glad this got modded Redundant. Someone here knows something about Java!
Parallel port passthrough (vmware terminology) is the only thing stopping me from migrating many old win9x/dos computers to Ubuntu + VirtualBox for a bunch of local businesses.
We need it for licensing dongles!
Sun has incredible engineers, but I don't doubt you about them losing sight of what's important. An app store... great. :P Good luck with that.
I can tell you what they need. They need to solidify java support for OGL ES 2.0, right now. Java isn't easily usable on the iPhone (one of the most popular phones out there), so they need a wedge to make Java SE ubiquitous across this generation of smartphones.
Some version of OpenGL ES is in every smartphone I know about, so it's fairly safe making that their wedge.
These new phones have plenty of memory; if java gets tight bindings with OGL ES 2.0, and makes it a breeze setting up an IDE to dev for phones, java will become be the language of choice for indy game devs on non-Apple smartphones. Heck, most of these phones already have some sort of java support(perhaps Java ME), so kick it up a notch with tight and efficient bindings(to Java SE; not ME), and watch the devs flock to the platform!
Lets face it, when making an indy game you go for whatever language cuts the dev time the most, and java is definitely ahead of languages like Objective C in that regard! Performance wise, it's not that far behind, either.
Who knows; maybe they're already doing that, and the app store is part of their strategy?... but probably not.
Really? Why's it use so much CPU and memory? :o
(sorry! Had to!)
I have to agree with you. I always wait for the good deals.
I have an 8800GS, which I picked up for $45 in October 08. Just recently I spied a 9800GT for $60. I was tempted to buy it, but decided not, since all my current games still play fine.
Left4Dead sure is fun when you get a good team together in Versus. :D