Oddly enough, if you're used to wokring with Macs, one button mice are actually better.
Let me start by saying that you CAN connect a 5, or 6, or 65,355 button mouse to the Mac, and each button will be recognized, including a scroll wheel. Taking advantage of over 3 buttons is a task for special drivers, but they can be had. In fact, I'd seriously consider the purchase (only like $39 or less for a lil USB mouse, right?) if it wasnt' for what I'm about to share...
With that out of the way, Apple has done it again - they made it look like it was harder, but in reality it poses a unique advantage. You see, I don't really feel as though I "use" my Mac, I kind of "drive" it, almost like a car (but without the gas pedal and such). With my right hand (YMBL - you may be a leftie) I hold the mouse, and my left hand stays on the keyboard. Now, Apple has provided a Contexual Menu system for quite some time now, since MacOS 8, if memory serves. In order to "right-click" on a Mac, I simply hold the control key down when clicking. YMMV between different apps which don't use the CMM Plugin (Apple's contexual menu API) to do contexual menus, and instead roll their own, possibly with the option key or Command key, but those cases are few and far between. This gives me the advantage of having other shortcut keys at my disposal.
I keep my hand with the keyboard like i keep my hand with the mouse, and if i click something and want it deleted, Command-Delete. Wanna select a bunch of files or folders and open them all? Drag-select and while you're doing that, reach for Command-O. As soon as you let go with the mouse, punch it and away you go. Much faster than the let-go-then-double-click-and-try-not-to-deselect method. It's like having a button for each menu item and such on the mouse. Who says only mice can drive a GUI? Think Different and speed around your OS. (Yes, I'm aware that Windows and Konqueror do this too)
Also, F1-F12 keys are assignable. I can put a browser on one, a mail reader on another, Photoshop on a third, my favorate MP3 playlist on a fourth, and the Finder (i.e. "MacOS Explorer" - I feel dirty now) window for my main hard drive on a fifth. This is why Apple doesn't make a corny internet-savvy keyboard with the extra buttons up top that half the time dont' work - they keys which are there provide the nessisary functionality (and FYI they can be made to only shortcut if you use Cmd-FKEY, so programs that use them like Word aren't affected). The keyboard is just as important in navagating MacOS as the mouse is. I know it's possible in Other OS Worlds as well, but typing directory names and doing Cmd-O is a great speedy navigation tool, much like using the Tab key in a shell, only to go back, instead of deleting the entire directory name, I can Cmd-W. With enough practice, I can perform non-routine tasks with lightning speed and accuracy, making onlookers' eyes bulge and prompts the question "How the hell did you just do that??" Workflow efficiency at it's best.
As for speed. Macs can be fast, but liek any other computer, you have to know how to use them. I can make a 733MHz G4 run CIRCLES around a P4 of around the same clock. Then again, I can probably make the P4 do the same. It all depends on how you interact with it. Ever notice the people who aren't compter savvy have the sluggish, troublesome machines? Computers are delecate and need to be babied alot, and it just depends on your experience who you are a better "parent" for. If you perfer KDE and you know every little thng about Linux and X, then I'm sure you'll have an easier time with keeping that healthy than a Mac. Same goes for Windows.
Why do I use a Mac? To summerize: Windows is an automatic that's a quart low. Linux is a standard with a V8 & NOS. MacOS is a goddamn F-14. (think which-is-more-fun-to-drive metaphor)
:-)
Oh yea, Jobs is a stick-in-the-ass. But we like him because he concentrates on quality, instead of quantity. Gates and his puppet Balmer just want to sell you whatever buzword they overheard at lunch and had R&D whip up into a.NET total solution for everything, ever. Steve wants to sell, too, but most of Apple's products have a clear, concise place in the computing enviroment, whilst what we see from Microsoft is Octopusware: It's tentacles attach to everything else and every progam tries to be a remote control for the rest though unessisary levels of componentry and regestry entires, IMHO.
As far as the zelotry goes, he's completely right, and I myself have been guilty of being a Mac zealot. This does stem largely from the "Apple sucks" zealots, though, who are really nothing but trolls, but who insist Macs cannot do anything at all. I met a hardcore Windows guy who was suprised Macs could connect to the Internet. This, after how long the iMac has been around, a computer DESIGNED for surfing (not to mention how long before that TCP/IP and PPP had been supported, as well as many browsers and FTP/E-mail/etc. programs)? C'mon, PC people (read: Windoze users), get your sh*t together. I have seen some very valid arguments against Apple (Apple isn't perfect, I'll give you that), and some I have seen are unfactual and trollish to the point of slander.
As for the parent post's second point, there is an excuse but it's not a good one. Apple is undergoing alot of changes, and the OS department is now switching from a legacy system it's been using for over 18 years to a completely new system with completely new problems, obstacles and gotchas, including supporting the ENTIRE legacy OS on top of all that. That's right, I'm sure 9 is still under development, and will be until it's no longer needed at all. Think about how large Apple is. I mean, they are big but they're no Microsoft, their resources are somewhat limited, and they have alot going on. Times of transition have always been hectic at the Apple camp, and this is probably the largest transition of ANY type Apple has ever made. The switch from System 6 to System 7 was relatively painless, a few bugs here and there but they got the job done. The switch from 68k to PPC was much smoother, somewhat slow but the PPC was backwards compatable with 68k code though a software emulator that ran at near native speed, that's impressive.
Now all that has changed. Everything the Mac ever was under the hood, it isnt' anymore. Sure the API is still supported through Carbon but this is only a tie-in.
Try this for me and tell me if you have no time to optimize because you're too busy making it work:
1. Take a Linux kernel and modify it to work on a processor it wasn't intended for.
2. Redesign Windows Media Player, DirectX and the standard screen drawing APIs (whatever they are) to integrate seamlessly with it.
3. Port the Windows GUI to it.
4. Add a system for including three seperate APIs (Win95/98, NT/2000, and a new MFC no one is too keen on yet).
5. Make sure it not only boots and runs wth reasonable speed, but can also run XP as a "side chain" process to support programs that would otherwise not function correctly under the normal OS.
I'm sure after only a year you could have 500 engeneers on it and still have trouble. I would say Apple took on a HELL of a task and it ended up working out quite nice, dispite a few kinks in performance. Imagine if Microsoft had done the same thing?;-) No, I'm not being a zelot (yet), I'm suprised Apple pulled it off with the grace they did.
<rant> Another thing I've noticed: Users are getting less and less patient with computers. Once they see the fastest one, nothing else is good enough. There is a difference between functional and perfect, grandma doesn't need to surf that fast... </rant>
<zealotry> And, just for shits and giggles, the only time I've ever seen IE take more than 4 seconds to render a page on any Mac is when the page uses tables heavily (i.e. SLASHDOT, amongst others). Most pages are rather responsive, even on my lowly 250MHz 8600. </zealotry>
From The Article:Companies with Unix versions of Apache will find that the server has been completely redesigned and can take advantage of POSIX support to run in a multiprocess, multithreaded mode that provides much greater scalability than before.
cd/usr/bin/apache ./httpd ps -aux
Hmmm... I see a few Apache processes here, and this is 1.3... is ZDNet still as dumb as they have always been or am I missing something here? Has Apache perviously been missing some features that would be required to qualify it as POSIX compliant? It sounds like this sentence is trying to "lie without lying". Or, since IANAUE (*Unix Expert), there may be something about POSIX I missed.
Things like this are the reason the only time I ever use C|Net/ZDNet is for downoad.com.
No one can BE a heavy user on Time Warner/ Road Runner.
We're capped. This is total crap. Downstream I barely pull 20k anymore (on average. I've seen peaks of around 70, but that's way down from the 250 AVERAGE I used to pull), and upstream is an 8k joke.
If TW/RR can't deal then their network model is fucked. All I know is to get a packet to my friends house down the block, RR transmits data all the way to Albany, NY (about 45 miles west) and back (he uses Verizon DSL, I'm not sure about their routing) and that seems like a waste of resources when this area could have it's own local pipe which takes bandwidth problems off of us and Albany. I bet all that fiber Qwest laid along the railroad bed is still dark, too, and that goes RIGHT past the TW office. (IANANE but it DOES seem odd, wouldn't you say?)
And Road Runner is still clogged with Code Red and NIMDA, there are security notices out and everything. Maybe jerking the connection of those users would free up some bandwidth, I know my ~70MB a week logfiles could use the break, or perhaps I can charge Time Warner when my disk finally burns itself out. They sure don't do anythign about it, whether I report it or not.
You're somewhat right, Geeks, this will NEVER hold enough $$$ to beat Microsoft PACs and the like... if we all pass it off like it won't and ignore it! That is the WRONG MOVE
Sign up, get this thing rolling, the/. comunity is big but it's not everyone, once you get word spread I'm sure plenty more members could be had.
But if wont' happen if everyone just says "It won't happen."
I have a small Apache server running for my friends and my personal use (I make techno music as a hobby and let my friends download the MP3s from my site), and it doesn't pull alot of traffic - or so I thought.
I recently ran out of room on my server machine, a G4 with a tiny 9GB hard drive in it. I knew it had alot of stuff and was getting full, but completely out of space? COme to find out the Apache logs had swollen to over 150MB EACH with goddamn Code-Red scans, many of which originated from other Road Runner addresses. To this very day I have to keep a cron running to watch the logs and wipe them if they get over 50MB.
My house here has 2 computers sharing the connection, so we get a little more than average traffic between surfing/downloads and AIM being on all the time.
If they try to charge me extra because of this scanning activity, I'm going to not pay my bill until they unplug me and even after that never pay them. Screw my credit report, if they can't even scan for and warn users about viral activity I'm certainly not going to pay them to gauge me on how often I get scanned by viruses!
Of course, the people who are still infected and scanning 24/7 will be hit the worst, but the money in my pocket is what I'm trying to protect, because there isn't much of it anymore...
I'm not sure but hopefully enough of the up-and-commers in the industry realize this and maybe the next generation of game companies will start sprouting up with more of a "game" oriented approach, I know mine will be.;-D
One can only hope it becomes a catchy trend, so the suits push for it.
When I was seven years old, I got a Nintendo for Christmas. After playing it for nearly an hour, my parents began to laugh at the way I was playing the Super Mario Bros. The gameplay was so emmersive I would actually move the controller around when jumping to try and make Mario jump, as if the movement would "push" him further along. Of course once I realized it made gameplay more difficult by not holding the controller still to keep my hands ready to hit the buttons I tried to stop, only to find that breaking this habbit was more difficult. THAT was gameplay.
This inspired me. I wanted to make a game of my own, and was delighted to discover a kit that allowed players to create their own games, but disheartened to learn it was only availible in Japan. This however was what got me into computers, learning programming and eventually techniques for making games. It was much easier than I thought! Basic concepts of computing simply applied to graphics, double buffering was just a few extra memory moves, man this was great! I would be able to make any kind of game. And then 3D came along.
For those who don't know (which I would think would be few of you, but let me state my point), 3D is a WHOLE other ballpark. It's complex, it takes alot of skill and a TON of math and programming. To the point where creating most games in 3D is fruitless, all the development time is spent on making the game look good and work as a 3D game, not on the story, or most importantly, the gameplay. The graphics, that's all. Game companies can barely afford to spend time in other areas because "it has to look better than the others." Roving cameras, pinpoint detail, cutscenes, it's all become such bloatware. Many developers have forgotten: I play games to do exactly that. Play them. If you gameplay sucks you are NOT doing your job.
Some games have taken steps in the right direction, such as The Legend of Zelda series. It may not be your favorate type of game but if you've played it you know that's innovative gameplay. The assignable buttons, the Z-Targeting system is especially nice, and the ease of which different activities can be performed with the A buton, depending on your current situation. Few games take time for this.
Another thing is that no one takes the time to be creative. Reality may be the most difficult thing to simulate, but why does it need to be simulated every time? You have before you a blank page where imagination is the limit, but the imagination seems to only conjour the same thing over and over, a push back to reality.
Now, some games are realistic and that's good. The Gran Turismo series, for example, absolutely beautiful. But is that all you've got? 3D worlds that look like outside my window? (no, there are no cars going 150mph out there but you get what I mean. ) I agree with a pervious poster who claimed Nintendo and Sega where last of the real gaming companies.
SO enough rant, here's where it stands: Any platform that has a few realistic (looks and gameplay) titles, a few cartoony action games which are fun to play, a few well thought out and crafted puzzle games and some adventure games thrown in for good measure is where I'll stay. If I want interactive movies I'll watch pr0n.
Why doesn't this ruling show up in more courts? IANAPL, but if I was I'd be embarrased as hell if I lost a case and found out I could have won due to PREVIOUS LEGISLATION a la this little gem.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me start by saying that you CAN connect a 5, or 6, or 65,355 button mouse to the Mac, and each button will be recognized, including a scroll wheel. Taking advantage of over 3 buttons is a task for special drivers, but they can be had. In fact, I'd seriously consider the purchase (only like $39 or less for a lil USB mouse, right?) if it wasnt' for what I'm about to share...
With that out of the way, Apple has done it again - they made it look like it was harder, but in reality it poses a unique advantage. You see, I don't really feel as though I "use" my Mac, I kind of "drive" it, almost like a car (but without the gas pedal and such). With my right hand (YMBL - you may be a leftie) I hold the mouse, and my left hand stays on the keyboard. Now, Apple has provided a Contexual Menu system for quite some time now, since MacOS 8, if memory serves. In order to "right-click" on a Mac, I simply hold the control key down when clicking. YMMV between different apps which don't use the CMM Plugin (Apple's contexual menu API) to do contexual menus, and instead roll their own, possibly with the option key or Command key, but those cases are few and far between. This gives me the advantage of having other shortcut keys at my disposal.
I keep my hand with the keyboard like i keep my hand with the mouse, and if i click something and want it deleted, Command-Delete. Wanna select a bunch of files or folders and open them all? Drag-select and while you're doing that, reach for Command-O. As soon as you let go with the mouse, punch it and away you go. Much faster than the let-go-then-double-click-and-try-not-to-deselect method. It's like having a button for each menu item and such on the mouse. Who says only mice can drive a GUI? Think Different and speed around your OS. (Yes, I'm aware that Windows and Konqueror do this too)
Also, F1-F12 keys are assignable. I can put a browser on one, a mail reader on another, Photoshop on a third, my favorate MP3 playlist on a fourth, and the Finder (i.e. "MacOS Explorer" - I feel dirty now) window for my main hard drive on a fifth. This is why Apple doesn't make a corny internet-savvy keyboard with the extra buttons up top that half the time dont' work - they keys which are there provide the nessisary functionality (and FYI they can be made to only shortcut if you use Cmd-FKEY, so programs that use them like Word aren't affected). The keyboard is just as important in navagating MacOS as the mouse is. I know it's possible in Other OS Worlds as well, but typing directory names and doing Cmd-O is a great speedy navigation tool, much like using the Tab key in a shell, only to go back, instead of deleting the entire directory name, I can Cmd-W. With enough practice, I can perform non-routine tasks with lightning speed and accuracy, making onlookers' eyes bulge and prompts the question "How the hell did you just do that??" Workflow efficiency at it's best.
As for speed. Macs can be fast, but liek any other computer, you have to know how to use them. I can make a 733MHz G4 run CIRCLES around a P4 of around the same clock. Then again, I can probably make the P4 do the same. It all depends on how you interact with it. Ever notice the people who aren't compter savvy have the sluggish, troublesome machines? Computers are delecate and need to be babied alot, and it just depends on your experience who you are a better "parent" for. If you perfer KDE and you know every little thng about Linux and X, then I'm sure you'll have an easier time with keeping that healthy than a Mac. Same goes for Windows.
Why do I use a Mac? To summerize:
Windows is an automatic that's a quart low. Linux is a standard with a V8 & NOS. MacOS is a goddamn F-14. (think which-is-more-fun-to-drive metaphor)
:-)
Oh yea, Jobs is a stick-in-the-ass. But we like him because he concentrates on quality, instead of quantity. Gates and his puppet Balmer just want to sell you whatever buzword they overheard at lunch and had R&D whip up into a .NET total solution for everything, ever. Steve wants to sell, too, but most of Apple's products have a clear, concise place in the computing enviroment, whilst what we see from Microsoft is Octopusware: It's tentacles attach to everything else and every progam tries to be a remote control for the rest though unessisary levels of componentry and regestry entires, IMHO.
We both got all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions. But, they use a sesame seed bun. My buns have no seeds.
What does dumb fuck mean?
Isn't there something you should be doing right now?
That and you should QYFB.
Mac or Macintosh is for Apple Macintosh computers.
When people say "MAC" I think networking. When people say "Mac" I think Macintosh.
This is how I metamoderate, BTW.
As for the parent post's second point, there is an excuse but it's not a good one. Apple is undergoing alot of changes, and the OS department is now switching from a legacy system it's been using for over 18 years to a completely new system with completely new problems, obstacles and gotchas, including supporting the ENTIRE legacy OS on top of all that. That's right, I'm sure 9 is still under development, and will be until it's no longer needed at all. Think about how large Apple is. I mean, they are big but they're no Microsoft, their resources are somewhat limited, and they have alot going on. Times of transition have always been hectic at the Apple camp, and this is probably the largest transition of ANY type Apple has ever made. The switch from System 6 to System 7 was relatively painless, a few bugs here and there but they got the job done. The switch from 68k to PPC was much smoother, somewhat slow but the PPC was backwards compatable with 68k code though a software emulator that ran at near native speed, that's impressive.
Now all that has changed. Everything the Mac ever was under the hood, it isnt' anymore. Sure the API is still supported through Carbon but this is only a tie-in.
Try this for me and tell me if you have no time to optimize because you're too busy making it work:
- 1. Take a Linux kernel and modify it to work on a processor it wasn't intended for.
- 2. Redesign Windows Media Player, DirectX and the standard screen drawing APIs (whatever they are) to integrate seamlessly with it.
- 3. Port the Windows GUI to it.
- 4. Add a system for including three seperate APIs (Win95/98, NT/2000, and a new MFC no one is too keen on yet).
- 5. Make sure it not only boots and runs wth reasonable speed, but can also run XP as a "side chain" process to support programs that would otherwise not function correctly under the normal OS.
I'm sure after only a year you could have 500 engeneers on it and still have trouble. I would say Apple took on a HELL of a task and it ended up working out quite nice, dispite a few kinks in performance. Imagine if Microsoft had done the same thing?<rant>
Another thing I've noticed: Users are getting less and less patient with computers. Once they see the fastest one, nothing else is good enough. There is a difference between functional and perfect, grandma doesn't need to surf that fast...
</rant>
<zealotry>
And, just for shits and giggles, the only time I've ever seen IE take more than 4 seconds to render a page on any Mac is when the page uses tables heavily (i.e. SLASHDOT, amongst others). Most pages are rather responsive, even on my lowly 250MHz 8600.
</zealotry>
I really have no idea, I'm not suggesting anything...
cd /usr/bin/apache
./httpd
ps -aux
Hmmm... I see a few Apache processes here, and this is 1.3... is ZDNet still as dumb as they have always been or am I missing something here? Has Apache perviously been missing some features that would be required to qualify it as POSIX compliant? It sounds like this sentence is trying to "lie without lying". Or, since IANAUE (*Unix Expert), there may be something about POSIX I missed.
Things like this are the reason the only time I ever use C|Net/ZDNet is for downoad.com.
#3321228 gets a 2 Informative and I get 0: Redundant.
This is such a troll but if you're not willnig to moderate properly, do the /. community a favor and DON'T!!!!!!!!!!!!
...like Laura Croft. MMMmmmm.
...Worst episode, ever.
:-D
Sorry, I couldn't help myself. (-1 Redundant)
All your meaning of life are be thought of by us.
For great justice, take off every Zig.
...This one keeps the flow going pretty steadily. :-D
We're capped. This is total crap. Downstream I barely pull 20k anymore (on average. I've seen peaks of around 70, but that's way down from the 250 AVERAGE I used to pull), and upstream is an 8k joke.
If TW/RR can't deal then their network model is fucked. All I know is to get a packet to my friends house down the block, RR transmits data all the way to Albany, NY (about 45 miles west) and back (he uses Verizon DSL, I'm not sure about their routing) and that seems like a waste of resources when this area could have it's own local pipe which takes bandwidth problems off of us and Albany. I bet all that fiber Qwest laid along the railroad bed is still dark, too, and that goes RIGHT past the TW office. (IANANE but it DOES seem odd, wouldn't you say?)
And Road Runner is still clogged with Code Red and NIMDA, there are security notices out and everything. Maybe jerking the connection of those users would free up some bandwidth, I know my ~70MB a week logfiles could use the break, or perhaps I can charge Time Warner when my disk finally burns itself out. They sure don't do anythign about it, whether I report it or not.
Sign up, get this thing rolling, the /. comunity is big but it's not everyone, once you get word spread I'm sure plenty more members could be had.
But if wont' happen if everyone just says "It won't happen."
I recently ran out of room on my server machine, a G4 with a tiny 9GB hard drive in it. I knew it had alot of stuff and was getting full, but completely out of space? COme to find out the Apache logs had swollen to over 150MB EACH with goddamn Code-Red scans, many of which originated from other Road Runner addresses. To this very day I have to keep a cron running to watch the logs and wipe them if they get over 50MB.
My house here has 2 computers sharing the connection, so we get a little more than average traffic between surfing/downloads and AIM being on all the time.
If they try to charge me extra because of this scanning activity, I'm going to not pay my bill until they unplug me and even after that never pay them. Screw my credit report, if they can't even scan for and warn users about viral activity I'm certainly not going to pay them to gauge me on how often I get scanned by viruses!
Of course, the people who are still infected and scanning 24/7 will be hit the worst, but the money in my pocket is what I'm trying to protect, because there isn't much of it anymore...
...download all the pr0n you can before it's too late!!!
Although I love Macs to death, I might want to warn you about OS X: she's an illegal minor until sometime around August or so (10.2).
"She told me she was 18, Officer, I swear!"
:-D
One can only hope it becomes a catchy trend, so the suits push for it.
*snicker*
Anyone know the predicted area of landing? I'm sure a general idea can be had based on current orbit...
This inspired me. I wanted to make a game of my own, and was delighted to discover a kit that allowed players to create their own games, but disheartened to learn it was only availible in Japan. This however was what got me into computers, learning programming and eventually techniques for making games. It was much easier than I thought! Basic concepts of computing simply applied to graphics, double buffering was just a few extra memory moves, man this was great! I would be able to make any kind of game. And then 3D came along.
For those who don't know (which I would think would be few of you, but let me state my point), 3D is a WHOLE other ballpark. It's complex, it takes alot of skill and a TON of math and programming. To the point where creating most games in 3D is fruitless, all the development time is spent on making the game look good and work as a 3D game, not on the story, or most importantly, the gameplay. The graphics, that's all. Game companies can barely afford to spend time in other areas because "it has to look better than the others." Roving cameras, pinpoint detail, cutscenes, it's all become such bloatware. Many developers have forgotten: I play games to do exactly that. Play them. If you gameplay sucks you are NOT doing your job.
Some games have taken steps in the right direction, such as The Legend of Zelda series. It may not be your favorate type of game but if you've played it you know that's innovative gameplay. The assignable buttons, the Z-Targeting system is especially nice, and the ease of which different activities can be performed with the A buton, depending on your current situation. Few games take time for this.
Another thing is that no one takes the time to be creative. Reality may be the most difficult thing to simulate, but why does it need to be simulated every time? You have before you a blank page where imagination is the limit, but the imagination seems to only conjour the same thing over and over, a push back to reality.
Now, some games are realistic and that's good. The Gran Turismo series, for example, absolutely beautiful. But is that all you've got? 3D worlds that look like outside my window? (no, there are no cars going 150mph out there but you get what I mean. ) I agree with a pervious poster who claimed Nintendo and Sega where last of the real gaming companies.
SO enough rant, here's where it stands: Any platform that has a few realistic (looks and gameplay) titles, a few cartoony action games which are fun to play, a few well thought out and crafted puzzle games and some adventure games thrown in for good measure is where I'll stay. If I want interactive movies I'll watch pr0n.
"One GameCube, please."
Why doesn't this ruling show up in more courts? IANAPL, but if I was I'd be embarrased as hell if I lost a case and found out I could have won due to PREVIOUS LEGISLATION a la this little gem.
*sip*
*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT*
"(groan) Excuse me, waiter, but these are a bit strong, don't you think?"