The best time to buy Apple hardware is a week after they introduce new equipment... That gives you the longest time between your purchase and the replacement coming out. The week gives you time to check the early adopter's trouble reports too:) Always check the rumour sites, or you'll do as a friend of mine did, and buy a 30GB iPod a week before the 40GB appeared for the same price.
Friends of mine who bought the first model of any product line (G3 towers, Powerbooks, etc) find they get all the teething problems associated with a new release, so if you can, wait for the second revision of anything.
So if you want a Powerbook, check the rumour sites - they are all estimating Q2 shipping. This would suggest a revision anything up to 6 months later (usually just a speed bump, but they tend to iron out the wrinkles too).
If you can't wait that long, buy one now - they're still great machines, even if they're superceded next week!
Following this advice I got a 30GB iPod when it was new (the 2nd rev of the 3G series) and the 17" 1GHz iMac (first of the widescreen ones, but not the first flatscreen), both of which have never given me a day's trouble.
That's an immigration thing, not an airline thing.
The airlines hand out the landing cards - but (unless something weird happened) you should have handed them in to the Immigration officials, not the Airline.
And I think it's fair enough, I have to hand in the same thing going to almost any country outside the EU - it is a first check for them, to ensure you're not planning to stay, on a tourist visa... If they have an address and they suspect something funny, they can call someone to vouch for you.
But can we please finish some of the existing ones? Bring them up to a polished standard and people will want to use them, and that'll help the migration to Linux, give us the critical mass of users required to get investment in the next 'big missing application'.
Look at FireFox - now at 1.0, fully capable, (Slashdot rendering bugs aside) and the mainstream media is loving it.
OpenOffice.Org and The Gimp aside, there's not many OSS products that are to the same quality - even fewer if you include documentation! And please don't just list a dozen apps as a rebuttal - look how much developer time is being spent on SourceForge applications in Alpha/Beta/PreDesign status. (Note I didn't say wasted...)
OK, I know people can't migrate their whole office until they have replacements for Access, Outlook, Notes, etc - but if we make all those things 'just good enough' for the geek crowd, the average user won't want to touch them. Believe it or not, people use Clippy to get help in Word & Outlook - I've lost track of the number of OSS projects where the documentation is a hastily-prepared FAQ and the help button opens a window saying 'coming soon'.
Get the leading OSS projects to 1.0 (Or even 1.1:) and then worry about adding more. No IT manager worth his salt will risk rolling out Version 0.75a of anything unless he's got the support of the MD/CEO - if it fails, even if the MS equivalent would have more problems, he'll be for the high jump for installing 'test versions'.
And document, document, document...
Mark, pouring petrol on his Karma and handing you a match...
Having to select the application window before I can quit it using the application menu. Or I have to right click on the dock icon to quit. Annoying still.
OK, use Splat-Tab (Apple/Command/Cloverleaf, call it what you will) to switch between apps. When you get to the one you want, hold down Splat and press Q. It quits the application. Press H instead and it Hides it. There's more of these...
Hope this helps.. It seems this is OS X 10.3 only, so you might want to check out LiteSwitch X which does the same thing.
That's all they did - his rang and he answered it in the shop, so they politely asked him to take the call outside. He came back in and all was well...
My point wasn't 'string them all up', but that it's possible to ask someone politely to stop doing something that annoys people - bring back the human touch instead of 'block frequencies a-z, and install re-routing software so they get an announcement'... I know it's SlashDot, but sometimes technology isn't the answer:)
It's a matter of good manners to use a phone in such a way that it does not disturb nearby people more than a normal conversation would. And everyone in the world is good mannered, obviously...:) My pet peeve is people who shout into their phone "Hello? UI can't hear you, no. Hello? Are you there? What? No, I'm in a shop".
I know people use phones (my job depends on it, I work for a large multi-national telecommunications equipment supplier, so I have every interest in phones being as widespread as possible)
I think we've got off the point - I was saying 'ban people from the cinema' rather than using a technological solution, and giving the example of a (small) supermarket where I'd seen that approach used. I know it's not like having someone natter away all through a movie!
The point is, there's enough people who appreciate it to keep the shop alive - if they find they're having to shut down because everyone has enough friends who want to jabber on cellphones constantly, then I'm sure they'll reconsider.
It seems from reading the comments here though, that plenty of/.ers will be happy to patronise places that don't like cellphones...
Make it a clear policy - if your phone rings, leave and don't come back.
There's a chain of supermarkets in Holland (Albert Heijn) with a neat little 'no-cell' sign on the door. A friend of mine was in there when his phone rang, and he answered it. Within 2 seconds, one of the shop staff told him to take the call outside and took his shopping basket from him.
You could tell the rest of the people in the shop were pleased, so they could shop without someone yammering away behind them.
My friend was less amused, but for some reason still couldn't figure out that if he turned the phone off for two minutes he could do his shopping and leave instead of complaining he couldn't do both...
I suspect it'll just be a larger 4G iPod, with the ability to show Album Art stored in the ID3 tags.
As others have pointed out, most digital cameras have a larger screen, so the only advantage here is additional storage... Nice as it is to have all your photos with you, and of course it'll have TV-out, I can't see it being used to really show them off with the same size screen as the current iPod.
Who knows, maybe there'll be the long-fabled firmware release that makes the current 4G iPods colour-screened;)
Whenever anyone asks me for a reason for something, I now always say 'because of the risk of Terrorism'.
Why do you not want to eat at KFC? Because of the risk of Terrorism.
Why did you not clean the house? Because of the risk of Terrorism.
The more we do this, the more people will be used to associating 'the risk of terrorism' with a stupid excuse, and the sooner it'll stop seeming like a sensible reason for things.
It's like saying 'post 9/11 changes' are the reason caravan holidays in Wales are more popular now... Sadly that's a genuine reason that's been given. See Private Eye's WarBalls section from issue 1115
Fedora Core 1 / Cambridge 21 July 2003 - Test 1 (originally called Beta 1) release 25 September 2003 - Test 2 release 13 October 2003 - Test 3 release 5 November 2003 - General Availability
That's what, 10 months from release to 'legacy'? Even Mac OS X takes longer that that between 'forced upgrades':)
"The information is purposely not specific and does not disclose any vulnerability details or other information that could put customers at risk."
All they are providing is a 'heads-up' - we're going to release a patch with severity X on date Y. Vulnerabilities in products A, B, C will be fixed.
They are not giving patches away early, nor details of the vulnerabilities. So this won't mean we'find ourselves at greater risk than premium customers'. I don't expect most people to read the article before posting, and it is apparant that the editors stopped reading them ages ago too, but now even the guy submitting it hasn't read it?
If you need advance notice that a patch might be coming for, say, Outlook, pay for it. It sounds like a service of dubious value, as you won't be able to test the patch any sooner. I guess you can make sure your crack team of roll-out testers aren't all on vacation that day, but that's about it:) And lo and behold, that's all they claim:
Microsoft said the program is designed to provide very limited information in a brief e-mail three business days before the anticipated release of monthly security bulletins. It also said the notification is to assist customers with resource planning for the monthly security bulletin release.
But I've not seen a single comment yet that points out that they can try and get he contract ruled null and void...
I have no idea how likely they are to win that, but I seriously doubt Apple (Computer) lawyers are going to walk into the courtroom and try and say 'no, we didn't go into the music business' (except in the case that they then try and have 'the music business' defined as the 'act of signing artists to produce music').
I imagine they'll try and claim that they signed the original contract under duress, or that it's infair restriction of competition, or that it's void because the original lawsuit (over a trademark) was frivolous, or something that justifies the HUGE amounts of money the lawyers will be taking in...
Either that, or as people have suggested, suck it up and pay a settlement. How much do Apple (Computers) have in the bank? In 2003 it was $3,396,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents. $3.4 billion buys you a lot of copies of The White Album:)
I know it's not Linux, but Mac OS X does this (or can do).
The first user you create is an admin, but runs (kind of) as an 'ordinary user', but with the power to 'sudo'. Think of them as being in the 'wheel' group.
If I want to drag an application from an install disk image (or compile one) I can. If I want to make it usable by all users, I need to enter my password when I drag it into the 'global' applications folder.
OK, some apps require the admin password to install (and many shouldn't, but still do it) but last night I installed a library managing application into ~/temp while I tried it out. When I decided it was ok for me, I stuck it into/Applications.
A 'normal' user could run it from their own folder, and not damage the rest of the system. As we've seen though, it can do some serious damage to their files if they're not lucky:)
Not perfect, but none of the apps should run as root anyhow, even if you need to be root to put it into the/Applications folder.
I've been known to use a pirate key to extend the evaluation time on a package, or get rid of the annoying 'reminder' screens that get in the way.
OK, I don't always remember to license the app properly (although I will pay for things that I use regularly). I was impressed by one app last night.
I'd downloaded it ages ago, found it had a silly limitation in the 'pre-registered' version, so used a pirate key to evaluate it properly. I promptly forgot about it.
Then last night I downloaded an upgrade, and the first time I ran it it popped up a window saying 'Please don't pirate software' explaining I had used an "illegal" key. It continued to run in evaluation mode, and didn't bug me again.
This tickled my conscience, but I decided that it wasn't worth the fee (it's a great app, but I use it so infrequently, I can live without it). Since they asked nicely, I deleted it, and won't use it again, rather than look for another pirate key.
Professional, polite and it means I'm likely to consider and purchase other software from them in the future. This is the perfect example of what I'd expect from a shareware developer. That said, if they disabled the app somehow, I would understand that too; as long as they broke nothing else!
Mark
PS I don't recall if it had a message about 'if you believe your key is valid, please contact us' but I'm willing to assume they'd sort out problems like that with the same level of prefessionalism.
Actually, yes it does. Sci-fi, even "hard" sci-fi, introduces devices that cannot be manufactured at current technological level.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke.
Now the magic abilities of LOTR & similar fantasy is presented as innate abilities of (some of) the 'people' who populate the world. Compare this with the Jedi, force users and adepts. Until the 'midichlorians' were introduced, this was accepted as certain people being able to tap into the 'force which surrounds all living beings' - sounds pretty magical to me, not technological.
As for the tools of these 'magic force users', in LOTR magic rings & swords are, if not common, at least known of and accepted as such. In Star Wars we accept that the basis for the 'magical' devices is technology ("I see you have constructed a new light saber"), but then in LOTR 'people' created the magic rings, magic swords and all the rest - so isn't that advanceed technology?
I think it's tricky to draw a line, but if I had to, it couldn't be solely on the basis of technobabble, as you rightly point out, but it would be based on the attitude of the inhabitants of the universe. If we try and say 'I made this, and I used scientific principles' (even if those principles are technobabble, look at Star Trek!) then I'd say it's Sci-Fi. If we accept 'it's magic, and I made this device to tap the magical energies' then it's fantasy. Even if the device gathers magical rays from the air and produces a picture of things from far away.... Is it a TV? or a scrying stone?
I feel there's a very wide grey area between Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and the division is one of tone - the author gets to decide which it is, and he writes in that fashion. Perhaps this is why my local bookshop lumps them all together into 'sci-fi/fantasy' - to avoid this argument!
Want mplayer, but Fedora doesn't have the ability to play DVD's or Mp3's? Head on down to Dag's RPM repositories, follow his directions and go: apt-get update apt-get upgrade apt-get install mplayer libdvdcss xmms
Yeah, 'cos that's obvious.
The average Windows user (and isn't that who he's talking about targetting?) does a web search for 'play dvds' and installs the first application he sees. Either that or he asks a friend 'what do you use to watch movies' and installs what he's told. Either way, he goes to a web page, downloads the.exe or.zip file and runs it - reboots if necessary and gets on with the job he wanted to.
What if I don't want mplayer? I ought to be able to do a google search for 'dvd player linux' and download a program to install it. As things stand, I can't. At the very least, give me an 'add software' button on the desktop, which I can click and chose 'DVD player' from, and it does that for me...
I use Mac OS X, because I can download a disk image, drag the application to any folder I like and run it, and it works. If it needs 'dependencies', it's a package I double-click on, and it works out where to put things. When Linux works like that, it'll be ready for prime time on the desktop.
The author admits he used to want to write a GUI tool to edit.conf files for users, so he'd not have to play with the.conf files any more, but by the time he knew enough to do it, he no longer felt he needed to. As long as all software development in Free/Open Source software is 'itch-scratching' the average (non-geek) user is going to struggle to get started, because by the time he knows how to solve the basic problems, he has no incentive to solve them for the people coming up behind him. In extreme cases, he'll even say things like 'I had to figure out vi, so everyone should' (and I've seen a lot of those comments below).
Linux on the desktop? I think we need a large organisation to decide they want it, and either develop something themselves (c.f. what Apple did with FreeBSD, taking the good open source core and adding some spit and polish) or throw a load of cash at a rag-tag group of developers and hope for the best (as I think IBM are doing, hoping they get the stuff they want out of it, didn't they support Apache to make it better?)
In my opinion, until that happens, this guys complaints are perfectly valid. Hell, the Mac doesn't have the problems he's describing, and people STILL aren't switching from Windows in droves - why would they go to Linux? Comments like 'another loser with no clue, why do we care?' are the reason no-one takes Linux on the desktop seriously - if you want Linux to remain the preserve of the few, feel free to dismiss people who just want to get work done as 'clueless dweebs'...
Mark
PS And I'm not a clueless dweeb, I got Linux working back in the days of monitor refresh rates and hand-tooling lilo.conf... I support systems more complex than most hardcore geek's home networks for a living:) That means I appreciate the problems, not that I can't solve them!
PPS It's realy quite nice. Install debian, upgrade to unstable. I've been running it for 2 years, no sweat and completely up to date. Bully for you. Tell Joe Average to 'upgrade to unstable' and he'll look at you as if you're crazy. The only reason he was given to switch to Linux was 'it's more stable':)
I thought it was interesting that the acceleration has to go past 3 gees to *arm* the device, then back below three gees to actually *deploy* it. [...] Is this a new design, I wonder, or is this a tried-and-true method that's worked better than anything else so far?
Slashdot Mirror
Good point, wait for the new OS version, and save $150!
The 'up to date' program usually only applies to people who buy hardware after the OS in announced but before it ships...
The best time to buy Apple hardware is a week after they introduce new equipment... That gives you the longest time between your purchase and the replacement coming out. The week gives you time to check the early adopter's trouble reports too :) Always check the rumour sites, or you'll do as a friend of mine did, and buy a 30GB iPod a week before the 40GB appeared for the same price.
Friends of mine who bought the first model of any product line (G3 towers, Powerbooks, etc) find they get all the teething problems associated with a new release, so if you can, wait for the second revision of anything.
So if you want a Powerbook, check the rumour sites - they are all estimating Q2 shipping. This would suggest a revision anything up to 6 months later (usually just a speed bump, but they tend to iron out the wrinkles too).
If you can't wait that long, buy one now - they're still great machines, even if they're superceded next week!
Following this advice I got a 30GB iPod when it was new (the 2nd rev of the 3G series) and the 17" 1GHz iMac (first of the widescreen ones, but not the first flatscreen), both of which have never given me a day's trouble.
Mark
That's an immigration thing, not an airline thing.
The airlines hand out the landing cards - but (unless something weird happened) you should have handed them in to the Immigration officials, not the Airline.
And I think it's fair enough, I have to hand in the same thing going to almost any country outside the EU - it is a first check for them, to ensure you're not planning to stay, on a tourist visa... If they have an address and they suspect something funny, they can call someone to vouch for you.
Mark
Though I think they could save the show by having Six of Nine hot oil wrestle with T'Pol
Actually I think her name is Thirty-Six of D.
Could have been fun to have 'revealed' that the Maquis were led by Wesley ...
Mark
It wasn't in the write-up, but it was in the top comment (when ordered by score).
:)
Why yes, I am a Karma Whore
I know, you'll mod me down as flamebait...
:) and then worry about adding more. No IT manager worth his salt will risk rolling out Version 0.75a of anything unless he's got the support of the MD/CEO - if it fails, even if the MS equivalent would have more problems, he'll be for the high jump for installing 'test versions'.
But can we please finish some of the existing ones? Bring them up to a polished standard and people will want to use them, and that'll help the migration to Linux, give us the critical mass of users required to get investment in the next 'big missing application'.
Look at FireFox - now at 1.0, fully capable, (Slashdot rendering bugs aside) and the mainstream media is loving it.
OpenOffice.Org and The Gimp aside, there's not many OSS products that are to the same quality - even fewer if you include documentation! And please don't just list a dozen apps as a rebuttal - look how much developer time is being spent on SourceForge applications in Alpha/Beta/PreDesign status. (Note I didn't say wasted...)
OK, I know people can't migrate their whole office until they have replacements for Access, Outlook, Notes, etc - but if we make all those things 'just good enough' for the geek crowd, the average user won't want to touch them. Believe it or not, people use Clippy to get help in Word & Outlook - I've lost track of the number of OSS projects where the documentation is a hastily-prepared FAQ and the help button opens a window saying 'coming soon'.
Get the leading OSS projects to 1.0 (Or even 1.1
And document, document, document...
Mark, pouring petrol on his Karma and handing you a match...
Having to select the application window before I can quit it using the application menu. Or I have to right click on the dock icon to quit. Annoying still.
OK, use Splat-Tab (Apple/Command/Cloverleaf, call it what you will) to switch between apps. When you get to the one you want, hold down Splat and press Q. It quits the application. Press H instead and it Hides it. There's more of these...
Hope this helps.. It seems this is OS X 10.3 only, so you might want to check out LiteSwitch X which does the same thing.
Mark
So two out of ten, at least for me, and neither of those two are particularly griping.
:)
I think you mean gripping. All the comments on those stories seem to be griping.
Mark
PS In accordence with ISO Flaming Standards, this spelling flame contains one (1) spelling error.
Google's Calculator comes to the rescue again :)
Mark
That's all they did - his rang and he answered it in the shop, so they politely asked him to take the call outside. He came back in and all was well...
:)
My point wasn't 'string them all up', but that it's possible to ask someone politely to stop doing something that annoys people - bring back the human touch instead of 'block frequencies a-z, and install re-routing software so they get an announcement'... I know it's SlashDot, but sometimes technology isn't the answer
It's a matter of good manners to use a phone in such a way that it does not disturb nearby people more than a normal conversation would. :) My pet peeve is people who shout into their phone "Hello? UI can't hear you, no. Hello? Are you there? What? No, I'm in a shop".
And everyone in the world is good mannered, obviously...
I know people use phones (my job depends on it, I work for a large multi-national telecommunications equipment supplier, so I have every interest in phones being as widespread as possible)
I think we've got off the point - I was saying 'ban people from the cinema' rather than using a technological solution, and giving the example of a (small) supermarket where I'd seen that approach used. I know it's not like having someone natter away all through a movie!
Well, that's a chance they're taking.
/.ers will be happy to patronise places that don't like cellphones...
The point is, there's enough people who appreciate it to keep the shop alive - if they find they're having to shut down because everyone has enough friends who want to jabber on cellphones constantly, then I'm sure they'll reconsider.
It seems from reading the comments here though, that plenty of
Mark
Make it a clear policy - if your phone rings, leave and don't come back.
There's a chain of supermarkets in Holland (Albert Heijn) with a neat little 'no-cell' sign on the door. A friend of mine was in there when his phone rang, and he answered it. Within 2 seconds, one of the shop staff told him to take the call outside and took his shopping basket from him.
You could tell the rest of the people in the shop were pleased, so they could shop without someone yammering away behind them.
My friend was less amused, but for some reason still couldn't figure out that if he turned the phone off for two minutes he could do his shopping and leave instead of complaining he couldn't do both...
Mark
I suspect it'll just be a larger 4G iPod, with the ability to show Album Art stored in the ID3 tags.
;)
As others have pointed out, most digital cameras have a larger screen, so the only advantage here is additional storage... Nice as it is to have all your photos with you, and of course it'll have TV-out, I can't see it being used to really show them off with the same size screen as the current iPod.
Who knows, maybe there'll be the long-fabled firmware release that makes the current 4G iPods colour-screened
Mark
Whenever anyone asks me for a reason for something, I now always say 'because of the risk of Terrorism'.
Why do you not want to eat at KFC? Because of the risk of Terrorism.
Why did you not clean the house? Because of the risk of Terrorism.
The more we do this, the more people will be used to associating 'the risk of terrorism' with a stupid excuse, and the sooner it'll stop seeming like a sensible reason for things.
It's like saying 'post 9/11 changes' are the reason caravan holidays in Wales are more popular now... Sadly that's a genuine reason that's been given. See Private Eye's WarBalls section from issue 1115
Mark
(sorry I could not find out where to put the ??? patr)
It's in at 6b:
6. PROFIT!
6b. Improvements???
7. Special Edition
8. PROFIT!
Hope this helps...
Mark
It didn't even last a year! From the roadmap:
:)
Fedora Core 1 / Cambridge
21 July 2003 - Test 1 (originally called Beta 1) release
25 September 2003 - Test 2 release
13 October 2003 - Test 3 release
5 November 2003 - General Availability
That's what, 10 months from release to 'legacy'? Even Mac OS X takes longer that that between 'forced upgrades'
Mark
They are not giving patches away early, nor details of the vulnerabilities. So this won't mean we'find ourselves at greater risk than premium customers'. I don't expect most people to read the article before posting, and it is apparant that the editors stopped reading them ages ago too, but now even the guy submitting it hasn't read it?
Posts claiming it's extortion are way off-base.
If you need advance notice that a patch might be coming for, say, Outlook, pay for it. It sounds like a service of dubious value, as you won't be able to test the patch any sooner. I guess you can make sure your crack team of roll-out testers aren't all on vacation that day, but that's about it
RTFA!
Mark
(I'm not a lawyer, but I've paid one, once).
:)
But I've not seen a single comment yet that points out that they can try and get he contract ruled null and void...
I have no idea how likely they are to win that, but I seriously doubt Apple (Computer) lawyers are going to walk into the courtroom and try and say 'no, we didn't go into the music business' (except in the case that they then try and have 'the music business' defined as the 'act of signing artists to produce music').
I imagine they'll try and claim that they signed the original contract under duress, or that it's infair restriction of competition, or that it's void because the original lawsuit (over a trademark) was frivolous, or something that justifies the HUGE amounts of money the lawyers will be taking in...
Either that, or as people have suggested, suck it up and pay a settlement. How much do Apple (Computers) have in the bank? In 2003 it was $3,396,000,000 in cash and cash equivalents. $3.4 billion buys you a lot of copies of The White Album
Mark
PS And yes, I understand they can't use it all...
I know it's not Linux, but Mac OS X does this (or can do).
/Applications.
:)
/Applications folder.
The first user you create is an admin, but runs (kind of) as an 'ordinary user', but with the power to 'sudo'. Think of them as being in the 'wheel' group.
If I want to drag an application from an install disk image (or compile one) I can. If I want to make it usable by all users, I need to enter my password when I drag it into the 'global' applications folder.
OK, some apps require the admin password to install (and many shouldn't, but still do it) but last night I installed a library managing application into ~/temp while I tried it out. When I decided it was ok for me, I stuck it into
A 'normal' user could run it from their own folder, and not damage the rest of the system. As we've seen though, it can do some serious damage to their files if they're not lucky
Not perfect, but none of the apps should run as root anyhow, even if you need to be root to put it into the
Mark
I've been known to use a pirate key to extend the evaluation time on a package, or get rid of the annoying 'reminder' screens that get in the way.
OK, I don't always remember to license the app properly (although I will pay for things that I use regularly). I was impressed by one app last night.
I'd downloaded it ages ago, found it had a silly limitation in the 'pre-registered' version, so used a pirate key to evaluate it properly. I promptly forgot about it.
Then last night I downloaded an upgrade, and the first time I ran it it popped up a window saying 'Please don't pirate software' explaining I had used an "illegal" key. It continued to run in evaluation mode, and didn't bug me again.
This tickled my conscience, but I decided that it wasn't worth the fee (it's a great app, but I use it so infrequently, I can live without it). Since they asked nicely, I deleted it, and won't use it again, rather than look for another pirate key.
Professional, polite and it means I'm likely to consider and purchase other software from them in the future. This is the perfect example of what I'd expect from a shareware developer. That said, if they disabled the app somehow, I would understand that too; as long as they broke nothing else!
Mark
PS I don't recall if it had a message about 'if you believe your key is valid, please contact us' but I'm willing to assume they'd sort out problems like that with the same level of prefessionalism.
Actually, yes it does. Sci-fi, even "hard" sci-fi, introduces devices that cannot be manufactured at current technological level.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke.
Now the magic abilities of LOTR & similar fantasy is presented as innate abilities of (some of) the 'people' who populate the world.
Compare this with the Jedi, force users and adepts. Until the 'midichlorians' were introduced, this was accepted as certain people being able to tap into the 'force which surrounds all living beings' - sounds pretty magical to me, not technological.
As for the tools of these 'magic force users', in LOTR magic rings & swords are, if not common, at least known of and accepted as such. In Star Wars we accept that the basis for the 'magical' devices is technology ("I see you have constructed a new light saber"), but then in LOTR 'people' created the magic rings, magic swords and all the rest - so isn't that advanceed technology?
I think it's tricky to draw a line, but if I had to, it couldn't be solely on the basis of technobabble, as you rightly point out, but it would be based on the attitude of the inhabitants of the universe. If we try and say 'I made this, and I used scientific principles' (even if those principles are technobabble, look at Star Trek!) then I'd say it's Sci-Fi. If we accept 'it's magic, and I made this device to tap the magical energies' then it's fantasy. Even if the device gathers magical rays from the air and produces a picture of things from far away.... Is it a TV? or a scrying stone?
I feel there's a very wide grey area between Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and the division is one of tone - the author gets to decide which it is, and he writes in that fashion. Perhaps this is why my local bookshop lumps them all together into 'sci-fi/fantasy' - to avoid this argument!
Mark
Want mplayer, but Fedora doesn't have the ability to play DVD's or Mp3's?
.exe or .zip file and runs it - reboots if necessary and gets on with the job he wanted to.
.conf files for users, so he'd not have to play with the .conf files any more, but by the time he knew enough to do it, he no longer felt he needed to. As long as all software development in Free/Open Source software is 'itch-scratching' the average (non-geek) user is going to struggle to get started, because by the time he knows how to solve the basic problems, he has no incentive to solve them for the people coming up behind him. In extreme cases, he'll even say things like 'I had to figure out vi, so everyone should' (and I've seen a lot of those comments below).
:) That means I appreciate the problems, not that I can't solve them!
:)
Head on down to Dag's RPM repositories, follow his directions and go:
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install mplayer libdvdcss xmms
Yeah, 'cos that's obvious.
The average Windows user (and isn't that who he's talking about targetting?) does a web search for 'play dvds' and installs the first application he sees. Either that or he asks a friend 'what do you use to watch movies' and installs what he's told. Either way, he goes to a web page, downloads the
What if I don't want mplayer? I ought to be able to do a google search for 'dvd player linux' and download a program to install it. As things stand, I can't. At the very least, give me an 'add software' button on the desktop, which I can click and chose 'DVD player' from, and it does that for me...
I use Mac OS X, because I can download a disk image, drag the application to any folder I like and run it, and it works. If it needs 'dependencies', it's a package I double-click on, and it works out where to put things. When Linux works like that, it'll be ready for prime time on the desktop.
The author admits he used to want to write a GUI tool to edit
Linux on the desktop? I think we need a large organisation to decide they want it, and either develop something themselves (c.f. what Apple did with FreeBSD, taking the good open source core and adding some spit and polish) or throw a load of cash at a rag-tag group of developers and hope for the best (as I think IBM are doing, hoping they get the stuff they want out of it, didn't they support Apache to make it better?)
In my opinion, until that happens, this guys complaints are perfectly valid. Hell, the Mac doesn't have the problems he's describing, and people STILL aren't switching from Windows in droves - why would they go to Linux? Comments like 'another loser with no clue, why do we care?' are the reason no-one takes Linux on the desktop seriously - if you want Linux to remain the preserve of the few, feel free to dismiss people who just want to get work done as 'clueless dweebs'...
Mark
PS And I'm not a clueless dweeb, I got Linux working back in the days of monitor refresh rates and hand-tooling lilo.conf... I support systems more complex than most hardcore geek's home networks for a living
PPS It's realy quite nice. Install debian, upgrade to unstable. I've been running it for 2 years, no sweat and completely up to date. Bully for you. Tell Joe Average to 'upgrade to unstable' and he'll look at you as if you're crazy. The only reason he was given to switch to Linux was 'it's more stable'
I thought it was interesting that the acceleration has to go past 3 gees to *arm* the device, then back below three gees to actually *deploy* it. [...] Is this a new design, I wonder, or is this a tried-and-true method that's worked better than anything else so far?
It worked for Keanu...
Mark
PS OK, technically it worked for Dennis, but Keanu's such a silly name.