1992 was the year that OS/2 2.0 (the first 32-bit version) was released by IBM with its nifty ability to run both DOS and Windows software out of the box and a real drag-and-drop GUI that made the newly released Windows 3.1 desktop look fairly primitive.
Unlike DOS GUIs like GEM, PC/GEOS, and others which preceded it, OS/2 was demonstrably better than Windows in almost every way you could think of except in three areas:
* It required more RAM than Windows did (OS/2 was usable in 8MB while Windows was usable in 4MB).
* It had support for fewer devices (especially video cards) than Windows, which was a major issue for a number of people I knew who were interested in it including myself, and
* It required a bit of a mind shift to use if one was used to Windows, mainly because it actually used the second mouse button for context menus and such (unlike Windows).
It was missing native software, but that didn't matter -- most of the folks I know used it as a platform to run DOS or Windows software anyway. Why not? It that that job very well.
We know from history that preloads, developer deals, and various other Microsoft tactics and actions would cause OS/2 to drop from the industry radar roughly four years later, but I'm sure that the introduction of IBM's product scared the crap out of some folks in Redmond.:-)
I for one am thankful that IBM released such a product -- in those days, we didn't have many alternatives on x86 hardware (BeOS wasn't around yet, nobody in PC land had heard of the BSDs, and Linux was just barely starting to become useful).
If you have a reliable source of information to counter it, please provide a link or cite a formal source.
Otherwise, I have to conclude that you're simply blowing smoke.
This link (provided elsewhere in this discussion) also seems to indicate that the US is in fact directly providing funds, not just materials as you indicate above. A quote from this site:
"Total UN and MDB-Related Contributions Would Reach Almost $4 Billion
In the context of the budget request and subject to congressional approval, total US contributions to the organizations in the United Nations system and peacekeeping could total over $2.2 billion in FY2005. The principal components include: UN regular budget, $362.2 million; specialized agencies, $420 million; war crimes tribunals, $66 million; Capital Master Plan loan guarantee, $6 million; peacekeeping, $650 million; voluntary programs, approximately $700 million to organizations such as UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, and UNRWA, among others. With the inclusion of US commitments to the multilateral development banks, the total would increase to about $3.7 billion in FY2005."
It seems the US financial contributions to the UN are (and have been) nontrivial over the past 50 years, and it also seems that the question of "UN debt" is a contested issue.
In fact, the majority in the US now seem to disagree with many of Bush's actions as president as well as with the way he is handling the White House in general.
"The United States is the largest financial contributor to the UN, and has been every year since its creation in 1945. U.S. contributions to the UN system in 2003 were well over $3 billion. In-kind contributions include items such as food donations for the World Food Program.
The U.S.-assessed contribution to the UN regular budget in 2003 was $341 million, and to UN specialized agencies was over $400 million. The United States also contributed $686 million in assessments to the peacekeeping budget; $57 million for the support of the international war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia; and $6 million for preparatory work relating to the Capital Master Plan to renovate the UN Headquarters in New York. Moreover, each year the United States provides a significant amount in voluntary contributions to the UN and its affiliated agencies and activities, largely for humanitarian and development programs."
It wasn't intrusive, and sounded more like constant air movement than anything else. At first I thought it was simply that, in fact, but I learned later that it was done intentionally.
It seems that a majority of companies have very specific experience requirements when it comes to IT folks, and not just technical requirements.
When I was looking for work last year, I was rejected for first-level interviews for reasons that varied from "we're looking for programmers with five years of experience in our specific line of business" to "while you appear to know the language and platform, we're looking for people with experience with our company-specific environment".
I ran into the former at least two instances that I can recall, both of them banking companies who wanted people with "check imaging" experience as well as a whole list of mainframe/database/distributed technologies. I suspect the latter was a case of a company fishing for former employees and not really looking for outside help.
Cubes can end up being a good workspace if laid out correctly in an environment which provide some semblence of privacy.
When I worked as an IT employee for Northwest Airlines, for example, the building I worked in (MSP Building J, i.e. "the computer center") had a white noise generator in the center area that did a very good job of drowning out conversations that were more than ten feet or so away. One could easily stand up and talk to the person next to you thanks to the relatively low cube walls (I'm 6'1", and they were above my head level when sitting but about elbow height on me when standing) which was nice when discussion stuff with the teammate next door, but conversations in the next row were almost impossible to hear when sitting down.
...but it's limited to JP Software shells (4DOS, 4NT, 4OS2), and the authors of Linux shells don't seem interested in implementing it.
SELECT is a command which provides a fullscreen point-and-shoot file selection interface for other commands, allowing for the easy arbitrary selection of target files (point-and-shoot) in command aliases or batch/script files. In essence, it provides a mini filemanager interface which can be used to select the targets for *any* command on the command line, used in aliases, etc.
Some simple examples (from my 4OS2 alias file) are as follows:
In 1987, just after I graduated from college, I bought an equalizer from the Sound of Music store near the Ridgedale shopping center in Minnetonka, MN (for the curious, Sound of Music was a Twin Cities stereo/electronics store that later grew a bit bigger and changed its name to Best Buy), and it came with two huge sheets of schematics. The unit was made by Audio Reflex, and it's still working, although I've disconnected it for the time being.
On how much RAM should it work then? 256MB is the absolute minimium these days, with 512MB being the standard on computers.
True for folks who have newer hardware, but not true for everyone. Not at all.
Case in point: my largest box at home (out of seven boxes) is a 256MB PPro, but the rest of my machines vary between 64MB and 192MB, with most of them still sitting at 64MB.
The *only* platform I use that has a desktop which seems to require more RAM than I have on many of my machines is Linux.
On 64MB hardware, OS/2 Warp 4 absolutely flies, Windows 95B/98/NT4/2k varies from very fast (95B) to fast enough to not cause impatience issues (2K), and BeOS 5 Pro flies. Solaris 7 and 8 are also fairly fast (tho I hate CDE). My current Linux distros using lighter window managers (or older versions of KDE such as 2.2) are also quite fast.
A 64MB PPro box running any of the above platforms is perfectly capable of running a browser like FireFox 1.0.7 very quickly, can listen to/burn/rip CDs, can run graphics programs, play low-res videos, and run just almost any general application you care to name including the latest incarnations of OpenOffice (though some swapping will occur depending on platform), and it can also run a number of interesting games including a fair number of once fairly popular titles (UT, Tribes 1, Quake 1/2/3A, SC, TA, AOE I/II, Homeworld, NFS 2/3/4, Madden 2001, etc.).
Because of the above, I've really seen very little reason to upgrade my desktop boxes except for playing newer games, and I'll be doing that on a separate game system when I finally get around to building one.
Newer versions of KDE seem to growing (in terms of resource usage) at a very fast rate, and the desktop looks like it's gaining all kinds of visual candy, but I still can't get as much functionality out of KDE as I could out of OS/2, and its WorkPlace Shell was quite usable on a 16MB machine!!! One wonders, quite frankly, where all that space is going. Eye candy?
Not true -- it can be somewhat independent.
on
Palm's Mistakes
·
· Score: 1
Unless you are willing to commit to an expensive flukey online service your PDA will forever remain an appendage to your PC.
With all due respect, even my little m105 with its stock PalmOS 3.5 can use standard PPP and a V.90 clipmodem to connect to my normal ISP, and I can use telnet to read my mail in Pine(!) via the unix shell and Xiino locally on the PDA to do web surfing.
No additional expense at all, and the software I use (pTelnet and Xiino) is actually pretty decent for what it does.
Since I have a pair of m105's and a pair of 8MB Northstar MemorySafe flash modules, I don't even back up my Palms to my PC anymore.
All software, music, literature, and other similar materials are implicitly copyrighted once they are created unless they are explicitly assigned to the public domain, at least in the United States.
In addition, many copyrighted materials, including all software released under popular open source licenses like the GPL and the BSDL, contain explicit permission to copy, and many shareware programs also fall into this category as do concert recordings by some bands (e.g., Grateful Dead), a number of books released under various licenses, etc.
Because of this, the implication that all "copyrighted" materials are somehow prohibited from being freely distributed is a gross oversimplification.
Instead, folks should be talking about whether or not material is being distributed in violation of its *license*.
If the content were first, the new site would be a lot more usable here in Links. That way I wouldn't have to flip by the first 4-5 screens just to see anything relevant...
At least the site is still usable. I can still sign in via Links 0.99, and the articles and postings are still readable (actually, the comment sections are fine). I'm just disappointed that the main article screen has gone from extremely usable site that Links can handle in text mode with color to a stretched out vertical mess with no color information.
I'd guess that the staff limited themselves to GUI mainstream browsers when testing. Not a good move, IMO.
I see at least one person driving and talking away on their cell phone during my short 8-mile jaunt to/from work every day, often changing lanes or turning without signalling and doing other things which compromise traffic safety, and I'd love to be able to carry a portable jammer in my car so I could *terminate* their unsafe conversations and help them to concentrate on the multi-ton metal object they're supposedly "in control" of...
IMSNShO, the use of cell phones while driving in a moving vehicle should be treated the same as drinking and driving -- the associated risks are roughly similar.
I think most of the work in Links was focused on getting things like frames and such to be proportionate but still usable in text mode, and I don't think the base Links browser (the original tree, not the "2.x" or "hacked" versions like eLinks, etc.) supports stylesheets at all.
Too bad -- most of the other forums sites I read (OSNews, Linux Today, etc.) are still very usable in classic Links, and Slashdot was as well... until today.:-(:-(
Links used to show Slashdot colors and frames properly even in text mode on an 80x25 screen (or at least close approximations that were very usable), but now all of the content is strung together vertically, making the site much harder to use.
Time to start playing with site settings, I guess...
Slashdot Mirror
Word 5.5 is better -- a freely downloadable, family-mode DOS and OS/2 text-mode program from Microsoft. Hey, it does RTF! :-)
Interesting. Thanks!
1992 was the year that OS/2 2.0 (the first 32-bit version) was released by IBM with its nifty ability to run both DOS and Windows software out of the box and a real drag-and-drop GUI that made the newly released Windows 3.1 desktop look fairly primitive.
:-)
Unlike DOS GUIs like GEM, PC/GEOS, and others which preceded it, OS/2 was demonstrably better than Windows in almost every way you could think of except in three areas:
* It required more RAM than Windows did (OS/2 was usable in 8MB while Windows was usable in 4MB).
* It had support for fewer devices (especially video cards) than Windows, which was a major issue for a number of people I knew who were interested in it including myself, and
* It required a bit of a mind shift to use if one was used to Windows, mainly because it actually used the second mouse button for context menus and such (unlike Windows).
It was missing native software, but that didn't matter -- most of the folks I know used it as a platform to run DOS or Windows software anyway. Why not? It that that job very well.
We know from history that preloads, developer deals, and various other Microsoft tactics and actions would cause OS/2 to drop from the industry radar roughly four years later, but I'm sure that the introduction of IBM's product scared the crap out of some folks in Redmond.
I for one am thankful that IBM released such a product -- in those days, we didn't have many alternatives on x86 hardware (BeOS wasn't around yet, nobody in PC land had heard of the BSDs, and Linux was just barely starting to become useful).
If you have a reliable source of information to counter it, please provide a link or cite a formal source.
Otherwise, I have to conclude that you're simply blowing smoke.
This link (provided elsewhere in this discussion) also seems to indicate that the US is in fact directly providing funds, not just materials as you indicate above. A quote from this site:
"Total UN and MDB-Related Contributions Would Reach Almost $4 Billion
In the context of the budget request and subject to congressional approval, total US contributions to the organizations in the United Nations system and peacekeeping could total over $2.2 billion in FY2005. The principal components include: UN regular budget, $362.2 million; specialized agencies, $420 million; war crimes tribunals, $66 million; Capital Master Plan loan guarantee, $6 million; peacekeeping, $650 million; voluntary programs, approximately $700 million to organizations such as UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, and UNRWA, among others. With the inclusion of US commitments to the multilateral development banks, the total would increase to about $3.7 billion in FY2005."
http://www.state.gov/p/io/fs/2004/36416.htm= 328791
http://www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c=fvKRI8MPJpF&b
http://www.mikenew.com/un-debt.html
It seems the US financial contributions to the UN are (and have been) nontrivial over the past 50 years, and it also seems that the question of "UN debt" is a contested issue.
In fact, the majority in the US now seem to disagree with many of Bush's actions as president as well as with the way he is handling the White House in general.
This quote is from the following web site:
"The United States is the largest financial contributor to the UN, and has been every year since its creation in 1945. U.S. contributions to the UN system in 2003 were well over $3 billion. In-kind contributions include items such as food donations for the World Food Program.
The U.S.-assessed contribution to the UN regular budget in 2003 was $341 million, and to UN specialized agencies was over $400 million. The United States also contributed $686 million in assessments to the peacekeeping budget; $57 million for the support of the international war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia; and $6 million for preparatory work relating to the Capital Master Plan to renovate the UN Headquarters in New York. Moreover, each year the United States provides a significant amount in voluntary contributions to the UN and its affiliated agencies and activities, largely for humanitarian and development programs."
It wasn't intrusive, and sounded more like constant air movement than anything else. At first I thought it was simply that, in fact, but I learned later that it was done intentionally.
It seems that a majority of companies have very specific experience requirements when it comes to IT folks, and not just technical requirements.
When I was looking for work last year, I was rejected for first-level interviews for reasons that varied from "we're looking for programmers with five years of experience in our specific line of business" to "while you appear to know the language and platform, we're looking for people with experience with our company-specific environment".
I ran into the former at least two instances that I can recall, both of them banking companies who wanted people with "check imaging" experience as well as a whole list of mainframe/database/distributed technologies. I suspect the latter was a case of a company fishing for former employees and not really looking for outside help.
Cubes can end up being a good workspace if laid out correctly in an environment which provide some semblence of privacy.
When I worked as an IT employee for Northwest Airlines, for example, the building I worked in (MSP Building J, i.e. "the computer center") had a white noise generator in the center area that did a very good job of drowning out conversations that were more than ten feet or so away. One could easily stand up and talk to the person next to you thanks to the relatively low cube walls (I'm 6'1", and they were above my head level when sitting but about elbow height on me when standing) which was nice when discussion stuff with the teammate next door, but conversations in the next row were almost impossible to hear when sitting down.
...but it's limited to JP Software shells (4DOS, 4NT, 4OS2), and the authors of Linux shells don't seem interested in implementing it.
.ZIP files as potential targets.
SELECT is a command which provides a fullscreen point-and-shoot file selection interface for other commands, allowing for the easy arbitrary selection of target files (point-and-shoot) in command aliases or batch/script files. In essence, it provides a mini filemanager interface which can be used to select the targets for *any* command on the command line, used in aliases, etc.
Some simple examples (from my 4OS2 alias file) are as follows:
TCOPY=select copy (*.*) %1
TMOVE=select move (*.*) %1
TDEL=select del (*.*)
TRUN=select %1 (*.*)
TEDIT=trun fte
TLIST=trun list
UNZ=f:\unz.cmd
TUNZ=select unz (*.zip)
The filespec in parenthesis limits the files which appear in the selection list, so the TUNZ command will only show
It happened to me once, anyway.
:-)
In 1987, just after I graduated from college, I bought an equalizer from the Sound of Music store near the Ridgedale shopping center in Minnetonka, MN (for the curious, Sound of Music was a Twin Cities stereo/electronics store that later grew a bit bigger and changed its name to Best Buy), and it came with two huge sheets of schematics. The unit was made by Audio Reflex, and it's still working, although I've disconnected it for the time being.
Not bad for an $80 component.
On how much RAM should it work then? 256MB is the absolute minimium these days, with 512MB being the standard on computers.
True for folks who have newer hardware, but not true for everyone. Not at all.
Case in point: my largest box at home (out of seven boxes) is a 256MB PPro, but the rest of my machines vary between 64MB and 192MB, with most of them still sitting at 64MB.
The *only* platform I use that has a desktop which seems to require more RAM than I have on many of my machines is Linux.
On 64MB hardware, OS/2 Warp 4 absolutely flies, Windows 95B/98/NT4/2k varies from very fast (95B) to fast enough to not cause impatience issues (2K), and BeOS 5 Pro flies. Solaris 7 and 8 are also fairly fast (tho I hate CDE). My current Linux distros using lighter window managers (or older versions of KDE such as 2.2) are also quite fast.
A 64MB PPro box running any of the above platforms is perfectly capable of running a browser like FireFox 1.0.7 very quickly, can listen to/burn/rip CDs, can run graphics programs, play low-res videos, and run just almost any general application you care to name including the latest incarnations of OpenOffice (though some swapping will occur depending on platform), and it can also run a number of interesting games including a fair number of once fairly popular titles (UT, Tribes 1, Quake 1/2/3A, SC, TA, AOE I/II, Homeworld, NFS 2/3/4, Madden 2001, etc.).
Because of the above, I've really seen very little reason to upgrade my desktop boxes except for playing newer games, and I'll be doing that on a separate game system when I finally get around to building one.
Newer versions of KDE seem to growing (in terms of resource usage) at a very fast rate, and the desktop looks like it's gaining all kinds of visual candy, but I still can't get as much functionality out of KDE as I could out of OS/2, and its WorkPlace Shell was quite usable on a 16MB machine!!! One wonders, quite frankly, where all that space is going. Eye candy?
Unless you are willing to commit to an expensive flukey online service your PDA will forever remain an appendage to your PC.
With all due respect, even my little m105 with its stock PalmOS 3.5 can use standard PPP and a V.90 clipmodem to connect to my normal ISP, and I can use telnet to read my mail in Pine(!) via the unix shell and Xiino locally on the PDA to do web surfing.
No additional expense at all, and the software I use (pTelnet and Xiino) is actually pretty decent for what it does.
Since I have a pair of m105's and a pair of 8MB Northstar MemorySafe flash modules, I don't even back up my Palms to my PC anymore.
All software, music, literature, and other similar materials are implicitly copyrighted once they are created unless they are explicitly assigned to the public domain, at least in the United States.
In addition, many copyrighted materials, including all software released under popular open source licenses like the GPL and the BSDL, contain explicit permission to copy, and
many shareware programs also fall into this category as do concert recordings by some bands (e.g., Grateful Dead), a number of books released under various licenses, etc.
Because of this, the implication that all "copyrighted" materials are somehow prohibited from being freely distributed is a gross oversimplification.
Instead, folks should be talking about whether or not material is being distributed in violation of its *license*.
Windows 3.1, OS/2, and Windows 95 all have their own BMP variants.
http://atlc.sourceforge.net/bmp.html
At least the comments are closer to the top when I change to "light" mode. That's helpful.
Not sure what I think of the
(
* Read More...
* 1100 bytes in body
* 562 of 695 comments
)
Sequences at the end of each story summary, tho. A Horizontal rule would look a lot nicer.
If the content were first, the new site would be a lot more usable here in Links. That way I wouldn't have to flip by the first 4-5 screens just to see anything relevant...
At least the site is still usable. I can still sign in via Links 0.99, and the articles and postings are still readable (actually, the comment sections are fine). I'm just disappointed that the main article screen has gone from extremely usable site that Links can handle in text mode with color to a stretched out vertical mess with no color information.
I'd guess that the staff limited themselves to GUI mainstream browsers when testing. Not a good move, IMO.
I see at least one person driving and talking away on their cell phone during my short 8-mile jaunt to/from work every day, often changing lanes or turning without signalling and doing other things which compromise traffic safety, and I'd love to be able to carry a portable jammer in my car so I could *terminate* their unsafe conversations and help them to concentrate on the multi-ton metal object they're supposedly "in control" of...
IMSNShO, the use of cell phones while driving in a moving vehicle should be treated the same as drinking and driving -- the associated risks are roughly similar.
I think most of the work in Links was focused on getting things like frames and such to be proportionate but still usable in text mode, and I don't think the base Links browser (the original tree, not the "2.x" or "hacked" versions like eLinks, etc.) supports stylesheets at all.
... until today. :-( :-(
Too bad -- most of the other forums sites I read (OSNews, Linux Today, etc.) are still very usable in classic Links, and Slashdot was as well
Version 8.5
Build 7700
Platform Win32
System Windows XP
Links used to show Slashdot colors and frames properly even in text mode on an 80x25 screen (or at least close approximations that were very usable), but now all of the content is strung together vertically, making the site much harder to use.
Time to start playing with site settings, I guess...
It's called "learning from experience". :-)
...don't forget that some Links variants are quite capable of creating a graphical display.