I laughed my ass off the so-called FAQ. Generally FAQs are done with real questions. Here, the answer ISC want to giuve to the community are re-written as questions. Like: "You mean this whole thing is just to _add_ a new level of access for the organizations ISC considers critical to the Internet's infrastructure."
> The FAQ makes it absolutely, positively clear that EVERY SINGLE CURRENT AVENUE of bug notification will REMAIN IN PLACE.
Use you head.
First, current way of handling bugs isn't correct, or this member-only list would not be necessary.
Second, with a different channel for the most demanding users, do you beleive that the current avenues will become more or less performant ?
Third, by having a fee-based list for most important security issue, do you think that ISC won't have an interest conflict ?
Fourth, this FAQ is written from the sole point of view of ISC. You need to take its content with a grain of salt, particulary due to the biased questions.
Fifth, what I found most missing are the guarantees. For instance, if there was something like a way to get access to all the list archive automatically after, say 7 days, I would be much less suspicious.
> Correct me if I'm wrong, as I don't own an smp system, but don't you have to reboot to change from uniprocessor mode to dual processor mode
Sure. You misread me, or I mis-expressed myself.
There was a 'foreach' before point 1 and 2. I meant:
boot mono kernel
compile kernel with -j 1
boot mono kernel
compile kernel with -j 2
boot mono kernel
compile kernel with -j 3
boot mono kernel
compile kernel with -j 4
boot smp kernel
compile kernel with -j 1
boot smp kernel
compile kernel with -j 2
boot smp kernel
compile kernel with -j 3
boot smp kernel
compile kernel with -j 4
This is how a serious benchmark should be done, with the machine state as similar as possible before each tests.
If one suspect that the best compile time would be '-j 2' for a mono kernel and '-j 3' for a bi proc one, then the 8 tests are more or less necessary ("mono -j 1" and "mono -j 3" are necessary to prove that best compile time for a mono machine is -j 2 and "smp -j 2" and "smp -j 4" are needed to prove than -j 3 is best for smp. "mono -j 4" amd "smp -j 1" are here for the sake of completness).
If someone want to avoid 8 reboots, he can do:
boot mono kernel
compile kernel and throw away results
compile kernel with -j 1
compile kernel with -j 2
compile kernel with -j 3
compile kernel with -j 4
boot smp kernel
compile kernel and throw away results
compile kernel with -j 1
compile kernel with -j 2
compile kernel with -j 3
compile kernel with -j 4
There, only 2 reboots are necessary. Of course, if the machine have much memory, the numbers will be very different from first benchmarks (because you could end with everything cached)
> The race analogy only holds true if you *remember* the directory paths. Luckily the auto-completion makes that easier, but for the most part you'd better have few directories or a great memory. Especially in dealing with files you haven't touched in a while. I sure find myself typing 'ls' a lot...
locate is your friend for old files. And modern shells enables you to put wildcards anywhere, so you don't have to remember every path.
> This is all very nice and good, but what if you wanted to use a spreadsheet instead? Not everyone wants to only use a word processor. You have to decide what you're going to do mentally, then tell the computer "I'd like to do this now." Just because I start typing numbers doesn't mean I want to create a spreadsheet, but then again typing words doesn't mean that I'm continuing with my novel - I could be typing the headings for my spreadsheet.
If you are talking about your personal case, then your are right. If you are talking about joe random clueless user, you are probably wrong. He would press the 'Typewriter' button to turns its computer into a typewriter, or the 'Spreadsheet' button to turns its computer into a spreadsheet. When getting into its typewriter, he would find its novel at the exact place he left it, but could choose to insert a new blank page to do something else. Of course the novel will not disapear, because it would not disapear in the real world.
> Saving state on exit is a good idea, but that can already be done. You may have already seen it - it's the 'document changed; save?' dialog box.
I couldn't disagree more. Look at a real clueless user. Go to its machine when he is not using it (say he is to a meeting), and see if all of its documents are saved, or even named. In general, those are not. I know people that create a lot of throw-away documents and don't save them because they don't want to have to choose a name, a place, etc, etc. At one point, such users stop quitting their applications, because they don't want the 'save as' dialog. This is an error made by OS/system level libraries designer. Application should never ask if you want to save. Application should never loose state. Applications should be able to revert up to any point in time. 'Save As...' on application exit doesn't cut it.
> The OS doesn't "get in the way", it provides basic services that all applications need
Nope.
Let's see a Windows machine:
There is an 'explorer' application that is quite complex, that shows you a lot of directories, in several different modes. It gives you access to both your hard disk and your CDROM (as if a user would ever think of a CDROM as a kind of hard disk), and to configuration utilities. This application can be configured in many different ways (and each version of Windows is different). You have to master at least part of this application to do something usefull with your PC (because you will sometimes be throwed at it).
At the bottom of the screen, there is a 'start menu', that you have to master in order to get job done. It is more or less randomly filled with junk, and can be configured in many different ways. Of course, it have a very deep structure, so is hard to use for casual user. In latest versions of windows, randomly clicking in it may move applications all over the place. Did I mention that, in lastest version of Windows someone thought it would be a good idea to have it changing magically ?
Then, there is a thing called the 'task bar'. You also have to master this strange interface, because clicking the wrong button in an application window will miniaturize it somewhere here. There is also an 'icon tray', where some function are located, obfuscated in very small icons that sometimes ask for you attention. A lot of other junk may also appear on that bar. If you clic at the wrong place, you may have this bar getting bigger, disapearing, or even going to another place in the screen (If you miss the start button, you may end dragging the bar over the edges of the screen. At that point, technical support is needed to get the task bar in its original location). If you randomly clic/drag on the taks bar, hell may break loose (ie: A quick Launch window may appear, things may move around, etc). Better stay away of this thingy.
Then, you have a two mouse buttons, with a right button giving you shortcuts to some functionality. This is a good idea. Unfortunately, there are a few operations that _requires_ you to use this right-clic magic. Oh, and this right clics options are changing depending on:
* What applications are installed
* What the current application is
* Where you clic on the application
Better beware. Have respect for this right-clic.
Then, you have the application with which you want to work. Thanks to the large amount of libraries avalaible, most applications are 800 pounds-gorilla using every misfeature of the "operating system". Each have movable/configurable icon bars, status bar, use right-clic for a few functions, etc, etc. We all know the mess applications are.
In the case where you were able to do a document, saving it should be done in care. The functionality given in this panel enbles you to do a lot of harm to your system, and more or less reproduce the whole functionality of the explorer.
To do the slighest amount of work without external help, you need to master all that. Do you really beleive it is a good thing ?
(I choosed the windows example, but I am writing this on a Macintosh system, and most of this is true for the macintosh. Gnome or KDE suffer of the same kind of problems, in an exacerbated way due to the lack of coherence between the applications. In another hand, Gnome/KDE applications are not meant for the computer illiterate)
This is what the article refers to the 'OS'. And I wholeheartly agree with the article. I personally think that interface are too complex for users, and too simple for me. There is no silver bullet here. I would not use a computer designed for end-user, but end-user shouldnot be forced to use a computer designed for me.
> I wouldn't be following these guidelines too much if I was a system designer.
Unfortunately, system designed seems to agree with you.
"Free does not sustain a business," Miller said. "Development costs money, QA (quality assurance) costs money, support costs money."
That's *exactly* why microsoft have such a high margin...
Cheers,
--fred
Re:Rant: L'aveugle et le paralytique
on
OS X on x86?
·
· Score: 1
> Nope. I was alive then, and I remember.
Well, I was alive too. And I became an Apple developer in 1986. I developed a bit for the atari later. IMNSHO, the atari never 'caught' up with the mac for anything but games and music (for instance, GEM was ugly). Anyway, you are right to correct me. I should simply have said years ahead of Microsoft.
> 1982-1984 was a great time in personal computer history, when things advanced very fast and new platforms appeared every few months
You cannot get anyone more convinced than me. Those were terrific times. Apple2, TRS80, Lynx, TI99/4A, ZX81, spectrum, NewBrain, MO5, TO7, Excelvision, Accorn. QL. Atari. Amiga.
Hey, I still use my TRS-80 model 100 as a serial console.
Cheers,
--fred
Rant: L'aveugle et le paralytique
on
OS X on x86?
·
· Score: 3
"The blind man and the paralytic one", or "Confession of an old NeXTer"
The only thing that is sure, is that they need to do something else too. OS/X ppc only will not cut it.
In 1984, Apple once was years ahead everyone else.
Apple did not know how to manage its advance. The simple and friendly Macintosh mutated into a huge number of sub-standard overpriced hardware. Slim APIs and thin operating system (hey, it had to run into 128Kb of RAM) evolved into a convoluted mess. Instead of slowly adapting, they tried grandious plans that failed (Pink, Copland, OpenDoc...). A lot of working technologies were destroyed (Hypercard, to name one).
In 1991, NeXT had 10 years of advance.
NeXT did not know how to manage its advance. Pieces after pieces they dropped their assets, in order to stay profitable. First the hardware. Then the OS. Then ObjC (despite numerous claims of the opposite, NeXT was in the process of dropping ObjC in favor of java, for fucking marketing reasons). At the end, NeXT was dropping the whole AppKit, and focused on WebObjects *consulting*, which was rewritten in java. At this point, you could look behind, and see that NeXT basically dropped every single piece that gave it its '10 years of advance'. In the process, NeXT pissed about evey company that developed for them (At the time of the OPENSTEP/Enterprise thing [ie: AppKit on windows], NeXT refused to indicate how costly would be the run-time license [hint: they didn't knew themselves], despite numerous asking from the developers. It is quite nice when you tell an independant developer that he will have to compete with the biggest established players in the biggest market, but will have to pay a premium for each copy of its software. And that you cannot tell him how much the premium is going to be. "It is going to be cheap. Trust us. We are working hard on that."). I think NeXT was doomed the day Lighthouse Design sold to Sun.
NeXT then bought Apple for a negative amount of money. This was a good thing. NeXT have software that once rocked. Apple have hardware that once rocked. Thogether they are, IMHO, the only credible commercial alternative to Wintel.
The merge was difficult. Lot of good things were lost there (Newton, OPENSTEP, YB/windows). We almost lost ObjC. The most important asset of NeXT is FoundationKit/AppKit, which require developers to use a different langage. One of the amusing decision made by NeXT was to stop supporting C++. A very good idea those days. A sure way to alienate most of the existing Apple developers, but well, us NeXTers are fucking morons, and you have to play with our rules. Those have never changed over the years. I can give them to you in full:
"We are right. You are wrong. End of discussion."
In 2001, apple hardware is ahead no-one. PC hardware *blow* macintosh at any time. Linux/*BSD are way ahead of Darwin. Win2K is rock solid (and trust me, this is a pain for me to admit it). OSX interface is unusable at best (I have trouble to feel NeXTstep throught this slow mess.)
OSX/x86 could be a way to get mindshare back. But it is useless. It'll end up on the 4th partition of a linux freak that would boot it once a week, because he is bored of playing with gnome themes, then will reboot under windows to play the latest games a couple of hours later.
Nope. The only way I see for them is to:
1/ Revive Yellow Box (This implies porting Qartz to windows to get rid of the fscking Adobe DPS licensing issue). Price it at an exact 0$. Give it away from their website. Give it from magazine CDs. Tell developers to learn objective C, so they will use the best object oriented API in the world *and* deploy the same code under different operating system
2/ Write the unix yellow box. Price it at the same 0$. Tell unix deleloper that they can use the best object oriented API in the world *and* deploy the same code under different operating system
3/ Help the GNUstep project to implement the OpenStep spec. A statment that they will not sue the project would already be a great thing (gnustep-db developers are afraid that Apple sue them on 4 key EOF patent. Development basically stopped).
At this point apple will have a viable and healthy software platform. They could then sell ppc boxes, arguing that they are compatible with old Mac OS applications and have the best OpenStep^WCocoa implementation out there.
Unfortunately, this would require Next/Apple to do the right thing, which, based on personal experience, is very unlikely.
Great journalistic stance. We all know that Freshmeat ][ have no relation with slashdot. And sure, the announcment is not to be discussed. So what ? Is this only an ad for another Valinux site ? And you tell your readership to shut up ?
Second, freshmeat.net produced a FUD/flamebait article on mozilla a couple of days ago. 100 post discussed it to various length. In freshmeat ][, the article is still there, but the comments have disapeared. Great respect of readership there too.
> You guys evidently haven't seen good trolls if you think this is elegant. This is such an obvious troll that it's not even amusing. Needs a much better write-up.
This is pure jealousy. The troll is rude, got #10, had 17 replies, and is scored '0: Insightful'
Sure, it is an obvious troll. Any sufficiently non-obvious troll is indistinguishable from karma-whoring. I tend to like obvious trolls when they are elegant. And, IMHO, this one is.
Yep. I find this one very elegant. Full of shit inside, with a nice formal wrapping around.
I don't think he'll get the hordes, because refuting it is too difficult. Basically, most points he make are sort-of right, from which he draws flawed conclusions. A very nice one, indeed.
> Alot of the new cheap 802.11 cards are just re-badged Lucent chips, so the wvlan_cs driver works for them!
> Oh, the DWL-500's are just PCI adapters for the DWL-650 which is the PCMCIA card
_That_ was the kind of info I was looking for. And with the URL. Thanks a lot.
Looks like this is the 'wi(4) - Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA driver'
According to the FreeBSD man page, there are two models, base (up to 2 Mbps)and Turbo (Up to 6Mps). The product exists in PCMCI and ISA (which is and PCMCIA in a ISA-PCMCIA bridge).
ITOH, according to the wavelan web site, the current models (orinoco) are 11Mbps, and use either 64 or 128 bits encryption. They sell the ISA bridge too. Looks like it'll gonna cost me about 400$... Mmm.
> 802.11b networks currently require no license. Sure would be nice if people researched things before posting meaningless comments on/.
Are you refering to you specifically ?
I am talking about the license under which the *entered*data* is avalaible. Read carefully: "how the database is licensed.". I even talk about the cddb fiasco (ie: everyone entering the author/title of their CDs, just to discover later that cddb.com claims the database is copyrighted and no longer free to use)
So to paraphrase you:
The entry form (or other part of the site) currently don't display the license onto which the database is avalaible. Sure would be nice if people researched things before posting meaningless comments on/.
I now this is off-topic, but I happilly trade useless karma against good advice.
I am in the market for a couple of 802.11 wireless board. I have only ISA (or VLB!) ports avalaible for the base station (an old 486 DX4/100), to a laptop (PCMCIA).
Both hosts are FreeBSD. I'd like to support a good vendor (ie: one that plays well with open source, release its specs, etc).
I'd like to see the license. I am surprised that, afert the cddb fiasco anyone is still ready to enter information into on-line without checking before how the database is licensed.
> So if someone disagrees with you, then they must be a troll?
First, if you did not want to play a troll here, you'd better have choosed a different nickname. "Reality Master 101" ?
Second, I use troll as a compliment.
Third, agreeing, disagreeing to a post content don't really mean anything. I hope you don't think your opinions are accurately represented in a few hundred of bytes.
> Guess what? It's a product. You can choose to buy that product or not. We're not talking about food or housing
Guess what ? Food, housing, health care, education are all products. So your 'it's a product' is basically casted to void.
> we're talking about a movie in a particular format. Note that it isn't even the only format you can buy
Is it ? <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000053 VBN/ref=v_dh_hir_6/107-9806512-4018115>
In 5 to 10 years, movies won't be released on VHS anymore. Don't pretend you don't know this.
> It's their product. They can do whatever they want with it.
The problem is that, when we have bought such product, DMCA will prevent me to say "It is my product. I can do whatever I want with it".
> It's called "freedom"
Yeah. The freedom to buy politician. The freedom to push scelerate laws. The freedom to replace the word 'citizen' by the word 'consumer'. All that kind of freedom.
> But since you appear to advocate socialism, freedom is a word you may not be familiar with
Please, don't assume anything.
> > There is no such thing as an honest (or dishonest) company. Don't anthropomorphize.
> You know what I mean, but instead you choose to deliberately pretend that you don't rather than make a substantive argument.
No. You choosed not to understand what I said. Let me repeat:
"There is no such thing as an honest (or dishonest) company. Don't anthropomorphize"
Like in:
'It's their product. They can do whatever they want with it. It's called "freedom"' You are confusing freedom of citizen with freedom to trade. Those concepts are totally different. You are anthropomorphizing corportations. Honesty dishonesty, freedom.
Companies are not honest or dishonest. They can't be. Even if they spend hundred of million to build a corporate image, a company have no moral standing. Not even the slighest one. They can't have. By definition.
Let's go to your original post:
> I have the freedom to choose the honest companies over the dishonest ones
I'd say that freedom is a word not familiar to you. The synonym 'liberty' would be more appropriate in your sentence. Freedom have connotations you don't seem to grasp. In particular, "the condition of being free of restraints". An _alternative_ between compeeting _corporations_ giving you _liberty_ of _choice_ don't carry most of the meanings of _freedom_.
(bored, so I'll reply to that. I'll spend a couple of minutes, and practice my poor english).
Hi, reality master 101, how is your trolling session today ?
> There is no law requiring me to use Microsoft software
Wrong. Take DeCSS as an example. If you own a PC you are required to use Windows to view your DVDs. Law is here to enforce that. DMCA will give a new meaning to this. The law will not say "you are required to use window", but "it is illegal to use software non-approved by the industry", and, funnily, the industry will only approve windows software.
Sure, you can say that there is no law that forces you to buy a PC (at least now). In that case, there is no law that requires you do do anything, as you always have the possibility of reject your American citizenship.
> I have the freedom to choose the honest companies over the dishonest ones
There is no such thing as an honest (or dishonest) company. Don't anthropomorphize.
Slashdot Mirror
I laughed my ass off the so-called FAQ. Generally FAQs are done with real questions. Here, the answer ISC want to giuve to the community are re-written as questions. Like: "You mean this whole thing is just to _add_ a new level of access for the organizations ISC considers critical to the Internet's infrastructure."
> The FAQ makes it absolutely, positively clear that EVERY SINGLE CURRENT AVENUE of bug notification will REMAIN IN PLACE.
Use you head.
First, current way of handling bugs isn't correct, or this member-only list would not be necessary.
Second, with a different channel for the most demanding users, do you beleive that the current avenues will become more or less performant ?
Third, by having a fee-based list for most important security issue, do you think that ISC won't have an interest conflict ?
Fourth, this FAQ is written from the sole point of view of ISC. You need to take its content with a grain of salt, particulary due to the biased questions.
Fifth, what I found most missing are the guarantees. For instance, if there was something like a way to get access to all the list archive automatically after, say 7 days, I would be much less suspicious.
Cheers,
--fred
Maybe you should try this in a windows machine one of those days.
> One of the coolest things you can do in KDE is access files via URLs from *any* KDE application.
Win2K. Take Notepad.exe. File->Open... Enter ftp://www.next.com as a file name. Open whatever file you want.
Cheers,
--fred
> Correct me if I'm wrong, as I don't own an smp system, but don't you have to reboot to change from uniprocessor mode to dual processor mode
Sure. You misread me, or I mis-expressed myself.
There was a 'foreach' before point 1 and 2. I meant:
boot mono kernel
compile kernel with -j 1
boot mono kernel
compile kernel with -j 2
boot mono kernel
compile kernel with -j 3
boot mono kernel
compile kernel with -j 4
boot smp kernel
compile kernel with -j 1
boot smp kernel
compile kernel with -j 2
boot smp kernel
compile kernel with -j 3
boot smp kernel
compile kernel with -j 4
This is how a serious benchmark should be done, with the machine state as similar as possible before each tests.
If one suspect that the best compile time would be '-j 2' for a mono kernel and '-j 3' for a bi proc one, then the 8 tests are more or less necessary ("mono -j 1" and "mono -j 3" are necessary to prove that best compile time for a mono machine is -j 2 and "smp -j 2" and "smp -j 4" are needed to prove than -j 3 is best for smp. "mono -j 4" amd "smp -j 1" are here for the sake of completness).
If someone want to avoid 8 reboots, he can do:
boot mono kernel
compile kernel and throw away results
compile kernel with -j 1
compile kernel with -j 2
compile kernel with -j 3
compile kernel with -j 4
boot smp kernel
compile kernel and throw away results
compile kernel with -j 1
compile kernel with -j 2
compile kernel with -j 3
compile kernel with -j 4
There, only 2 reboots are necessary. Of course, if the machine have much memory, the numbers will be very different from first benchmarks (because you could end with everything cached)
Cheers,
--fred
1/ They did the 'mono' test on a bi processor kernel, paying the SMP tax (a SMP enabled kernel is slower than an non-SMP enabled one)
2/ They used -j 3 for the bi procesor one, while the first one was probably I/O bound.
3/ The did the mono-processor first, than the bi processor. The disk cache may have helped the second compile.
A correct way to test would be:
foreach i (1 2 3 4)
1/ Boot the machine with a mono processor kernel
2/ time make -j $n bzImage ; make clean
Repeat with multi processor kernel.
If one don't want to reboot between each test, than you should do something like:
make -j $n bzImage ; make clean ;
before running the real tests.
Cheers,
--fred
I'd love to have mod points for this one.
> why don't you just consider yourself lucky that you don't have the same problems as he does?
You mean, like beeing an Asshole ?
> 1. Type "ls > dirlist.txt"
/etc' in the dialog. Press return.
> 2. Press Enter.
Yeah. A nice command on NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Mac OS X Server is:
ls | pbcopy
Directory listing straight into the pasteboard.
Another way, from Edit.app (NeXTstep, OPENSTEP, not in later version @&^%#^@!):
Click where you want the listing to be inserted. Do <Command>-<Shitf>-'|'. Enter 'ls
This kind of things were what made NeXTstep really powerfull.
Cheers,
--fred
> The race analogy only holds true if you *remember* the directory paths. Luckily the auto-completion makes that easier, but for the most part you'd better have few directories or a great memory. Especially in dealing with files you haven't touched in a while. I sure find myself typing 'ls' a lot...
/usr/include/*/atm.h
/usr/include/netatm/atm.h
/etc/*/rc*<CTRL-X>*
/etc/defaults/rc.conf /etc/upgrade/rc.firewall
locate is your friend for old files. And modern shells enables you to put wildcards anywhere, so you don't have to remember every path.
ie:
bash-2.03$ ls -l
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 17612 Jul 27 2000
AFAIK, you still have to know how deep the file is located.
In interactive use, '^X*' (ie: Control X, then '*') is your friend. For instance, you type (FreeBSD file layout):
grep -i ipnat
and you get
grep -i ipnat
Cheers,
--fred
> This is all very nice and good, but what if you wanted to use a spreadsheet instead? Not everyone wants to only use a word processor. You have to decide what you're going to do mentally, then tell the computer "I'd like to do this now." Just because I start typing numbers doesn't mean I want to create a spreadsheet, but then again typing words doesn't mean that I'm continuing with my novel - I could be typing the headings for my spreadsheet.
If you are talking about your personal case, then your are right. If you are talking about joe random clueless user, you are probably wrong. He would press the 'Typewriter' button to turns its computer into a typewriter, or the 'Spreadsheet' button to turns its computer into a spreadsheet. When getting into its typewriter, he would find its novel at the exact place he left it, but could choose to insert a new blank page to do something else. Of course the novel will not disapear, because it would not disapear in the real world.
> Saving state on exit is a good idea, but that can already be done. You may have already seen it - it's the 'document changed; save?' dialog box.
I couldn't disagree more. Look at a real clueless user. Go to its machine when he is not using it (say he is to a meeting), and see if all of its documents are saved, or even named. In general, those are not. I know people that create a lot of throw-away documents and don't save them because they don't want to have to choose a name, a place, etc, etc. At one point, such users stop quitting their applications, because they don't want the 'save as' dialog. This is an error made by OS/system level libraries designer. Application should never ask if you want to save. Application should never loose state. Applications should be able to revert up to any point in time. 'Save As...' on application exit doesn't cut it.
> The OS doesn't "get in the way", it provides basic services that all applications need
Nope.
Let's see a Windows machine:
There is an 'explorer' application that is quite complex, that shows you a lot of directories, in several different modes. It gives you access to both your hard disk and your CDROM (as if a user would ever think of a CDROM as a kind of hard disk), and to configuration utilities. This application can be configured in many different ways (and each version of Windows is different). You have to master at least part of this application to do something usefull with your PC (because you will sometimes be throwed at it).
At the bottom of the screen, there is a 'start menu', that you have to master in order to get job done. It is more or less randomly filled with junk, and can be configured in many different ways. Of course, it have a very deep structure, so is hard to use for casual user. In latest versions of windows, randomly clicking in it may move applications all over the place. Did I mention that, in lastest version of Windows someone thought it would be a good idea to have it changing magically ?
Then, there is a thing called the 'task bar'. You also have to master this strange interface, because clicking the wrong button in an application window will miniaturize it somewhere here. There is also an 'icon tray', where some function are located, obfuscated in very small icons that sometimes ask for you attention. A lot of other junk may also appear on that bar. If you clic at the wrong place, you may have this bar getting bigger, disapearing, or even going to another place in the screen (If you miss the start button, you may end dragging the bar over the edges of the screen. At that point, technical support is needed to get the task bar in its original location). If you randomly clic/drag on the taks bar, hell may break loose (ie: A quick Launch window may appear, things may move around, etc). Better stay away of this thingy.
Then, you have a two mouse buttons, with a right button giving you shortcuts to some functionality. This is a good idea. Unfortunately, there are a few operations that _requires_ you to use this right-clic magic. Oh, and this right clics options are changing depending on:
* What applications are installed
* What the current application is
* Where you clic on the application
Better beware. Have respect for this right-clic.
Then, you have the application with which you want to work. Thanks to the large amount of libraries avalaible, most applications are 800 pounds-gorilla using every misfeature of the "operating system". Each have movable/configurable icon bars, status bar, use right-clic for a few functions, etc, etc. We all know the mess applications are.
In the case where you were able to do a document, saving it should be done in care. The functionality given in this panel enbles you to do a lot of harm to your system, and more or less reproduce the whole functionality of the explorer.
To do the slighest amount of work without external help, you need to master all that. Do you really beleive it is a good thing ?
(I choosed the windows example, but I am writing this on a Macintosh system, and most of this is true for the macintosh. Gnome or KDE suffer of the same kind of problems, in an exacerbated way due to the lack of coherence between the applications. In another hand, Gnome/KDE applications are not meant for the computer illiterate)
This is what the article refers to the 'OS'. And I wholeheartly agree with the article. I personally think that interface are too complex for users, and too simple for me. There is no silver bullet here. I would not use a computer designed for end-user, but end-user shouldnot be forced to use a computer designed for me.
> I wouldn't be following these guidelines too much if I was a system designer.
Unfortunately, system designed seems to agree with you.
Cheers,
--fred
From the artice:
"Free does not sustain a business," Miller said. "Development costs money, QA (quality assurance) costs money, support costs money."
That's *exactly* why microsoft have such a high margin...
Cheers,
--fred
> Nope. I was alive then, and I remember.
Well, I was alive too. And I became an Apple developer in 1986. I developed a bit for the atari later. IMNSHO, the atari never 'caught' up with the mac for anything but games and music (for instance, GEM was ugly). Anyway, you are right to correct me. I should simply have said years ahead of Microsoft.
> 1982-1984 was a great time in personal computer history, when things advanced very fast and new platforms appeared every few months
You cannot get anyone more convinced than me. Those were terrific times. Apple2, TRS80, Lynx, TI99/4A, ZX81, spectrum, NewBrain, MO5, TO7, Excelvision, Accorn. QL. Atari. Amiga.
Hey, I still use my TRS-80 model 100 as a serial console.
Cheers,
--fred
"The blind man and the paralytic one", or "Confession of an old NeXTer"
The only thing that is sure, is that they need to do something else too. OS/X ppc only will not cut it.
In 1984, Apple once was years ahead everyone else.
Apple did not know how to manage its advance. The simple and friendly Macintosh mutated into a huge number of sub-standard overpriced hardware. Slim APIs and thin operating system (hey, it had to run into 128Kb of RAM) evolved into a convoluted mess. Instead of slowly adapting, they tried grandious plans that failed (Pink, Copland, OpenDoc...). A lot of working technologies were destroyed (Hypercard, to name one).
In 1991, NeXT had 10 years of advance.
NeXT did not know how to manage its advance. Pieces after pieces they dropped their assets, in order to stay profitable. First the hardware. Then the OS. Then ObjC (despite numerous claims of the opposite, NeXT was in the process of dropping ObjC in favor of java, for fucking marketing reasons). At the end, NeXT was dropping the whole AppKit, and focused on WebObjects *consulting*, which was rewritten in java. At this point, you could look behind, and see that NeXT basically dropped every single piece that gave it its '10 years of advance'. In the process, NeXT pissed about evey company that developed for them (At the time of the OPENSTEP/Enterprise thing [ie: AppKit on windows], NeXT refused to indicate how costly would be the run-time license [hint: they didn't knew themselves], despite numerous asking from the developers. It is quite nice when you tell an independant developer that he will have to compete with the biggest established players in the biggest market, but will have to pay a premium for each copy of its software. And that you cannot tell him how much the premium is going to be. "It is going to be cheap. Trust us. We are working hard on that."). I think NeXT was doomed the day Lighthouse Design sold to Sun.
NeXT then bought Apple for a negative amount of money. This was a good thing. NeXT have software that once rocked. Apple have hardware that once rocked. Thogether they are, IMHO, the only credible commercial alternative to Wintel.
The merge was difficult. Lot of good things were lost there (Newton, OPENSTEP, YB/windows). We almost lost ObjC. The most important asset of NeXT is FoundationKit/AppKit, which require developers to use a different langage. One of the amusing decision made by NeXT was to stop supporting C++. A very good idea those days. A sure way to alienate most of the existing Apple developers, but well, us NeXTers are fucking morons, and you have to play with our rules. Those have never changed over the years. I can give them to you in full:
"We are right. You are wrong. End of discussion."
In 2001, apple hardware is ahead no-one. PC hardware *blow* macintosh at any time. Linux/*BSD are way ahead of Darwin. Win2K is rock solid (and trust me, this is a pain for me to admit it). OSX interface is unusable at best (I have trouble to feel NeXTstep throught this slow mess.)
OSX/x86 could be a way to get mindshare back. But it is useless. It'll end up on the 4th partition of a linux freak that would boot it once a week, because he is bored of playing with gnome themes, then will reboot under windows to play the latest games a couple of hours later.
Nope. The only way I see for them is to:
1/ Revive Yellow Box (This implies porting Qartz to windows to get rid of the fscking Adobe DPS licensing issue). Price it at an exact 0$. Give it away from their website. Give it from magazine CDs. Tell developers to learn objective C, so they will use the best object oriented API in the world *and* deploy the same code under different operating system
2/ Write the unix yellow box. Price it at the same 0$. Tell unix deleloper that they can use the best object oriented API in the world *and* deploy the same code under different operating system
3/ Help the GNUstep project to implement the OpenStep spec. A statment that they will not sue the project would already be a great thing (gnustep-db developers are afraid that Apple sue them on 4 key EOF patent. Development basically stopped).
At this point apple will have a viable and healthy software platform. They could then sell ppc boxes, arguing that they are compatible with old Mac OS applications and have the best OpenStep^WCocoa implementation out there.
Unfortunately, this would require Next/Apple to do the right thing, which, based on personal experience, is very unlikely.
Cheers,
--fred
> Those who can, create. Those who can't, bitch
Great journalistic stance. We all know that Freshmeat ][ have no relation with slashdot. And sure, the announcment is not to be discussed. So what ? Is this only an ad for another Valinux site ? And you tell your readership to shut up ?
Second, freshmeat.net produced a FUD/flamebait article on mozilla a couple of days ago. 100 post discussed it to various length. In freshmeat ][, the article is still there, but the comments have disapeared. Great respect of readership there too.
Cheers,
--fred
> You guys evidently haven't seen good trolls if you think this is elegant. This is such an obvious troll that it's not even amusing. Needs a much better write-up.
This is pure jealousy. The troll is rude, got #10, had 17 replies, and is scored '0: Insightful'
Sure, it is an obvious troll. Any sufficiently non-obvious troll is indistinguishable from karma-whoring. I tend to like obvious trolls when they are elegant. And, IMHO, this one is.
Cheers,
--fred
seebs ? Peter Seebach ? Recall of endless discussion on comp.lang.c, in (iirc) 1991/1992. You and Dan Pop are responsible of most of my C pedantry :-)
Nice to heard you again, a bit sad that you are not using a flamethrower against void main()...
Cheers,
--fred
Yep. I find this one very elegant. Full of shit inside, with a nice formal wrapping around.
I don't think he'll get the hordes, because refuting it is too difficult. Basically, most points he make are sort-of right, from which he draws flawed conclusions. A very nice one, indeed.
> Alot of the new cheap 802.11 cards are just re-badged Lucent chips, so the wvlan_cs driver works for them!
> Oh, the DWL-500's are just PCI adapters for the DWL-650 which is the PCMCIA card
_That_ was the kind of info I was looking for. And with the URL. Thanks a lot.
Cheers,
--fred
Looks like this is the 'wi(4) - Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA driver'
According to the FreeBSD man page, there are two models, base (up to 2 Mbps)and Turbo (Up to 6Mps). The product exists in PCMCI and ISA (which is and PCMCIA in a ISA-PCMCIA bridge).
ITOH, according to the wavelan web site, the current models (orinoco) are 11Mbps, and use either 64 or 128 bits encryption. They sell the ISA bridge too. Looks like it'll gonna cost me about 400$... Mmm.
Thanks for the answer,
Cheers,
--fred
> 802.11b networks currently require no license. Sure would be nice if people researched things before posting meaningless comments on /.
/.
Are you refering to you specifically ?
I am talking about the license under which the *entered*data* is avalaible. Read carefully: "how the database is licensed.". I even talk about the cddb fiasco (ie: everyone entering the author/title of their CDs, just to discover later that cddb.com claims the database is copyrighted and no longer free to use)
So to paraphrase you:
The entry form (or other part of the site) currently don't display the license onto which the database is avalaible. Sure would be nice if people researched things before posting meaningless comments on
Cheers,
--fred
I now this is off-topic, but I happilly trade useless karma against good advice.
I am in the market for a couple of 802.11 wireless board. I have only ISA (or VLB!) ports avalaible for the base station (an old 486 DX4/100), to a laptop (PCMCIA).
Both hosts are FreeBSD. I'd like to support a good vendor (ie: one that plays well with open source, release its specs, etc).
Looks like boards with drivers are:
an(4) - Aironet Communications 4500/4800 wireless network adapter driver
wi(4) - Lucent Technologies WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 PCMCIA driver
and
ray: Raytheon Raylink 802.11 wireless NICs, OEM as Webgear Aviator 2.4GHz
Any pointer/advice ? Can those boards be mix/matched easily, or are there problems if vendors differs ?
Cheers,
--fred
I'd like to see the license. I am surprised that, afert the cddb fiasco anyone is still ready to enter information into on-line without checking before how the database is licensed.
Cheers,
--fred
> Could it be that Katz is not in line with the general /. readership?
/. readership, which definitely is not the majority.
I'd say that jonkatz is not in line with the *vocal*
While you post to say "I don't like the movies jonkatz likes", I didn't planned to post saying "I liked Shadow of the Vampire".
Cheers,
--fred
Moderators are assholes, today. This is *funny*. Even if bob is a respected troll, the rating should be applied to the content of the posting.
And, btw, bob is trying to get the less possible karma. So modding him up is the best way to piss him off.
Cheers,
--fred
> So if someone disagrees with you, then they must be a troll?
First, if you did not want to play a troll here, you'd better have choosed a different nickname. "Reality Master 101" ?
Second, I use troll as a compliment.
Third, agreeing, disagreeing to a post content don't really mean anything. I hope you don't think your opinions are accurately represented in a few hundred of bytes.
> Guess what? It's a product. You can choose to buy that product or not. We're not talking about food or housing
Guess what ? Food, housing, health care, education are all products. So your 'it's a product' is basically casted to void.
> we're talking about a movie in a particular format. Note that it isn't even the only format you can buy
Is it ? <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000053 VBN/ref=v_dh_hir_6/107-9806512-4018115>
In 5 to 10 years, movies won't be released on VHS anymore. Don't pretend you don't know this.
> It's their product. They can do whatever they want with it.
The problem is that, when we have bought such product, DMCA will prevent me to say "It is my product. I can do whatever I want with it".
> It's called "freedom"
Yeah. The freedom to buy politician. The freedom to push scelerate laws. The freedom to replace the word 'citizen' by the word 'consumer'. All that kind of freedom.
> But since you appear to advocate socialism, freedom is a word you may not be familiar with
Please, don't assume anything.
> > There is no such thing as an honest (or dishonest) company. Don't anthropomorphize.
> You know what I mean, but instead you choose to deliberately pretend that you don't rather than make a substantive argument.
No. You choosed not to understand what I said. Let me repeat:
"There is no such thing as an honest (or dishonest) company. Don't anthropomorphize"
Like in:
'It's their product. They can do whatever they want with it. It's called "freedom"' You are confusing freedom of citizen with freedom to trade. Those concepts are totally different. You are anthropomorphizing corportations. Honesty dishonesty, freedom.
Companies are not honest or dishonest. They can't be. Even if they spend hundred of million to build a corporate image, a company have no moral standing. Not even the slighest one. They can't have. By definition.
Let's go to your original post:
> I have the freedom to choose the honest companies over the dishonest ones
I'd say that freedom is a word not familiar to you. The synonym 'liberty' would be more appropriate in your sentence. Freedom have connotations you don't seem to grasp. In particular, "the condition of being free of restraints". An _alternative_ between compeeting _corporations_ giving you _liberty_ of _choice_ don't carry most of the meanings of _freedom_.
Cheers,
--fred
(bored, so I'll reply to that. I'll spend a couple of minutes, and practice my poor english).
Hi, reality master 101, how is your trolling session today ?
> There is no law requiring me to use Microsoft software
Wrong. Take DeCSS as an example. If you own a PC you are required to use Windows to view your DVDs. Law is here to enforce that. DMCA will give a new meaning to this. The law will not say "you are required to use window", but "it is illegal to use software non-approved by the industry", and, funnily, the industry will only approve windows software.
Sure, you can say that there is no law that forces you to buy a PC (at least now). In that case, there is no law that requires you do do anything, as you always have the possibility of reject your American citizenship.
> I have the freedom to choose the honest companies over the dishonest ones
There is no such thing as an honest (or dishonest) company. Don't anthropomorphize.
Cheers,
--fred