The other reply is correct - I use virtual desktops for _everything_, basically one for each major app, and the behavior is that of switching desktops. I don't know if it would "focus" the app if I had them all in one desktop.
I used the unofficial debs from kde.org to upgrade from 3.1.4 to 3.2. Some of my favorite changes:
- Konqueror now has sane tabs - before they would have a scroll bar of sorts. I still sometimes instinctively keep only 3 or 4 tabs in Konqueror, while I'm used to several times that many in Mozilla.
- KDEwallet, once I get it properly set up, could prove quite useful for managing passwords.
- The ability to make one's taskbar transparent (I don't use this at the moment) and not the entire width of the screen (I do use this). Kicker as a whole is becoming more and more refined
- The debs I got have some nice icons, making me want to keep my taskbar bigger instead of ~Win2k sized
- I seem to notice a marginal speed increase. It's a nice trend that continues for recent KDE releases.
And now for the bad news. Some things that appear broken with my Debian setup, but I will wait to confirm with a Fedora-based install to determine if it's a packaging or KDE problem.
- One website that formerly rendered fine in Konqueror now doesn't use its pull down menus correctly. Probably a javascript issue that I haven't looked too closely at
- KMail has been a little flakey with one of my higher-traffic POP accounts, but this may not be KMails fault, just a coincidence.
- For whatever reason, my desktop occasionally gets switched to a Firefox virtual desktop I often keep open. Probably due to some javascript/focus thing with Firefox, but I hadn't noticed it before. Of course, somewhere along the line I upgraded Firefox, but I don't have the problem on a RH 8 system.
- I was really looking forward to Juk. Unfortunately, while it appears to work fine for mp3/ogg files, my install will simply not play FLACs until I try playing an OGG or mp3 first. Even then the application has crashed on me, and I stopped trying to use it and went back to xmms. I'm _really_ trying to be rid of xmms (and use something semi-full screen, preferably qt based). noatun has also been somewhat unstable for me, but that's true of every version (I think it was a problem with one of the "skins" this time). I haven't spent enough time with these to really track things down, so YMMV.
For me, the tabs in konqueror alone were worth the upgrade. The problems I listed above may very well be other applications or the packages, and none are showstoppers. After I get my new desktop set up (still haven't finalized a distro, could be Debian, Fedora, or Gentoo), I hope to be able to report any reproducible bugs.
Then take it apart, hand the baggie and instructions to another group, and see how they do.
High School Science Olympiad competitions have something similar, except they give you a prebuilt model (which often includes but is not limited to LEGOs), and you have to describe it in detail. You're given 15 minutes to do this. Then you pass it off to your partner who gets 15 minutes to reconstruct it. Since the rules are known beforehand good teams will practice a few times, and the winner (as our team was one year) is usually perfect or quite close.
It all depends on your definition of "close substitute". I argue that Linux is not a close substitute for Windows (though I use it as my primary OS), because it cannot run most Windows applications natively (and those it can are slower and sometimes less stable - I'm thinking of wine here). That's why many people aren't using alternatives - they want Windows games or Windows specific apps, etc. Even the availability for employees trained in MS software is a factor.
Substitute implies low cost in switching - and that's simply not the case - it's called "differentiated products" and it allows oligopolies and other more-competitive markets to make more profit.
The issue is not bundling but rather abusing a monopoly position to gain ground in a new market. That's why few people mind Apple release iTunes, etc. for OS X. Though the media player market is more difficult to analyze (because the player is free and profit is made by licensing the server, so money is made if you can command a decent market share), the browser market is a clear example of monopoly abuse. Netscape sold its browser many years ago, and was the dominant player in its industry. Since Microsoft could afford it, they gave away Internet Explorer, driving down Netscape (since it was their primary product, they could not make much money by giving away their browser) before it was purchased by AOL.
First of all, a monopoly is "the only supplier of a product for which there is no close substitute." (according to my Modern Industrial Organization textbook, by Carlton and Perloff.) This definition, and most others, have nothing to do with "market rights from the government". Those are simply government-established monopolies.
Now, from a practical standpoint, a company is a monopoly if it exerts too much influence in one market (basically a company that is close to a textbook monopoly). They have the ability to manipulate price to increase profits for themselves and by doing so create a deadweight loss to market (consumers lose a lot, monopoly gains some, some "welfare" just goes away).
Monopolies can be "natural" in some markets, usually those where fixed costs are high (think electrical companies with massive grids and expensive power plants). Many monopolies are left alone as long as they don't (overly) abuse their market power, usually by using that market influence to gain influence in a new market. This brings about anti-trust actions. With Microsoft, they leveraged their operating system "monopoly" to make their Internet Explorer the dominant browser in the market (by giving it away and tying it to the OS). They have been found guilty of this, but it's easy to see them using their market power in other areas as well.
Even if you were to define a "monopoly" as a company given that power by the government, one can make an argument for that with Microsoft as well. Copyrights and patents are what allows Microsoft to produce products that others could not simply resell at a lower price, decompile/disassemble and release the modified code, etc. (legally). However, most people see a need for copyrights and patents to encourage people to produce "intellectual property" and be able to make some money off of it.
In general, the function of government is to try to improve the welfare of its citizens, and reducing a monopoly's power has that effect.
Thanks. I heard about mythtv but checked it out long ago when it wasn't as developed. Strange that it didn't show up in my apt-cache searches. I will check it out.
I, for one, appreciate more alternative music players on the *nix side of the world. While setting up my music server (with video output to the TV), I tested a variety of applications to see what might work best. My requirements included:
- The ability to be controlled from an LIRC remote control
- The ability to interface to an LCD screen for song info (haven't set this up yet, but it was a consideration)
- Large, easy to read playlist
- Large buttons that are easy to manipulate by the somewhat awkward mouse on my wireless keyboard
I tried xine (along with derivatives like the gtk version), and found the playlists difficult to manipulate easily. xmms works decently, but I had to double size the top screen and those unfamiliar with it's interface (or winamp) would have a more difficult time adding songs because the "add" and "remove" buttons are practically unreadable on the TV. Though I found a decent theme, xmms is not designed for full screen usage with large buttons. Because of this, screen real estate is not devoted to things like easy-to-find switching of playlists along with other features I'm sure could be incorporated.
I would love for Juk to become a full featured sound program which could perform a variety of functions seamlessly:
- Ability to manipulate playlists on any other computer given appropriate access (without using remote X or VNC). Sharing of music between clients is not important to me, I have my music mounted from a central location within the network
- creating playlists by the meta data (like "smart" playlists on iTunes).
- Pop in a CD, have it show up as a separate playlist, and preferably be able to rip the tracks into OGG or FLAC on command
- Burn mix CDs based off the playlist (not as important, but shouldn't be too hard if code is shared with koncd)
- Interface doesn't need to be skinnable but should be usable at a variety of resolutions. Keyboard shortcuts should be available for just about everything.
Looks like some of those features already exist in Juk, and I look forward to using it once it's released with 3.2 stable.
Just think about that as you upgrade your redhate box. Of course, as others have pointed out, Red Hat intelligently backported fixes to 3.1 (RH 7.x), 3.4, and 3.5, and they are not vulnerable to this issue, at least according to Red Hat.
Course, I run Debian at home so upgrades are easy and fast.
Knoppix still king of bootable CDs
on
Knoppix 3.3 Is Out
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Though other bootable CDs like morphix look promising, I'm impressed with the rate at which Knoppix moves forward. Knoppix has consistently displayed nice polish visually and in terms of usability.
As it's debian-based, I'm hoping some more of the hardware-detection, auto-setup, and visual polish can make it to stock Debian (yes, I know you can "upgrade" to full Debian after booting knoppix). The boot process is cleaned up and functional for new users to Linux, and the speed is remarkable for loading a compressed image off a CD (so long as you have 128+ megs of RAM).
Kudos to those who work and contribute to Knoppix for producing such a quality assembly of open source software in such a useful form.
Well, 64kbps is a good rate for streaming and low-capacity situations (like flash-based mp3 players). If ogg can manage to become more popular in hardware, it would make an excellent alternative to standard mp3 encoding.
That said, I've fallen down the quality slope - with hard drives so large now I've decided just to encode all my music with FLAC and have absolutely no quality loss (lossless compression; flac is to ogg as PNG is to JIF). Granted, I don't know if I can tell the difference between ~256kbps ogg (what I used to use) and what ends up being 900+kbps flac, but it's nice to know I can generate a practically perfect audio CD if I ever lose the originals.
WIth a decent pair ($30 and up) of headphones or a good system, some songs sound tremendously better going from 128 -> 192, and even 192 -> 256. Check out The Cranberries' "Time is Ticking Out" as a good example - the beeping at the beginning of the song is lost at 128 kbps mp3, it's poor at 192 kbps mp3, but the song sounds great compared to the wav at ~256kbps ogg (no, I didn't try 256 kbps mp3 for comparison).
Now, if NPR would start streaming programs in ogg, I could finally be rid of real player at work.
This reminds me of the classic children's book
on
Microwave Fun
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· Score: 1
Pop Goes the Hamster and Other Fun Microwave Games.
The player itself looks great, and just might be worthy of my money in the next year or so.
The site, though, works like crap in mozilla. Can anyone post links to the menu-driven pages that we mozilla users can't access? I'd like to know if they're planning on making it OS-agnostic with the ethernet interface. Maybe a crappy web-based upload thing to be hacked into a little FTP server or something would be terrific.
IIRC, TiVo has provided source for their GPL-based software from the beginning, or very near it. In any case, they did long before Linksys fessed up to all its usage.
Re:They've had some problems...
on
Mandrake News
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· Score: 2
I gave a few bucks to Mandrake before MandrakeClub existed, and they gave me a free entry subscription for about a year I think (it's just about to expire). Thing is, it isn't quite worth the $5/month to us (yet). I'll keep my eye on it, and if they provide a fast update server (like Red Hat), they'll probably see at least $60/yr from us.
They've had some problems...
on
Mandrake News
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· Score: 4, Informative
Because my g/f enjoys using Mandrake on her laptop, we decided to buy the 9.0 standard edition for the following reasons:
1.) At the time our internet connection was having issues and 3 isos were not easy to quickly get
2.) We wanted to support Mandrake since they've created an excellent desktop distribution.
We got our copy just fine in mid-November, but then about three weeks later we got another copy. I e-mailed them and they said it was a mistake but in the end we cost Mandrake more money than I would've liked. Both packages were sent to a U.S. from Europe - not cheap. One would think they'd have a warehouse here, but maybe it's for tax purposes. They mentioned in their e-mail that they've had some shipping problems, so I'm probably not the only one.
I'm not sure how we'll support Mandrake in the future...for her, I think a small subscription fee for a dedicated update server would work well. She'd be getting value-added software (because it's faster to download), and Mandrake would get money that was a bandwidth + server cost, not shipping + packaging.
I don't think every cable company hates PVRs. In fact, Time Warner Cable is rolling out their own PVR, called iControl. It has basic PVR functionality, but it's main purpose for the cable company is pushing on-demand movings that you can pause, etc. as if you rented it.
Ironic that Time Warner Cable would do this, as it's part of the much larger AOL Time Warner which seems torn between the content provider and the content producer mode - the company owns lots of record companies and movie studios. Yet AOL and Time Warner Cable seem to be doing things the content part of the company doesn't like. It's like watching Sony make mp3 players and yet be distributing copy-restricted CDs.
So, to say the KDE people doesn't copy Windows, good or bad, is just plain wrong.
Please re-read my post. I didn't say that KDE people don't copy Windows. In fact, I said, "In the end, every UI uses common good ideas from the others."
My main point was that to say KDE is a clone of Windows is an incorrect simplification. I've seen innovative things come from KDE and things that have originated from Windows, Mac, etc. All UIs take ideas from others - but that's because these things work. You'll notice that some (not quite there yet) dialogs in KDE use verbs for their buttons instead of "OK" and "cancel" - that's good UI design that probably appeared first in Mac OS. Windows would be wise to implement the same.
What you call a clone I call a more enjoyable desktop experience. I've used KDE since the 1.x days, and I've been pleased to see several features implemented in KDE well before I saw it in the latest Windows version.
Take, for example, grouped tasks on the taskbar; I don't know at what point it became part of KDE or Windows exactly, but I distinctly remember using it in KDE for some time before seeing it in the latest Windows beta.
Another example would be built-in theme support that actually significantly changes the way the desktop looks. I'm talking widgets, borders, icons, etc. I agree that this feature is mere fluff and even unwanted in certain environments, but the ability for KDE to look and act like several environments is a strong feature in my view. As an example, for about the past month I tried out the "Mac OS" style menu - all my KDE menus showed up at the top of the screen. This is supposedly better for ergonomics because one can fling his/her mouse towards the top of the screen and hit the menu more quickly than hunting it out. In addition, some people like the focus to move with the mouse, and most X wms support this easily.
In the end, every UI uses common good ideas from the others. Mac OS X, Windows, KDE, GNOME, etc. all share a fair amount in common - to call any of them simply a "clone" of the other is oversimplified. To me, KDE makes a desktop experience that's relatively easy to learn, yet packs an incredible system for customization.
The biggest risk of Linux being branded as "cheap" is offering it as a "Windows replacement" on the cheapest of computers (like Walmart is doing). Putting it on cheap computers is fine, but I'd like to see some Linux ready mid level and high end machines be more advertised to the masses.
When we're dealing with a monopoly, the rules are different.
Did you ever stop to think about that statement. Really think about it? Yes, I have. At first glance, it may make sense that government should treat all companies alike. However, monopolies are considered bad for capitalism by most economists. Inevitably monopolies form; markets which operate best with monopolies are called natural monopolies (like water, electricity, etc).
In order to keep markets competitive, governments put greater restrictions on monopolies. Your electric company can't move into the light bulb business and charge you more for electricity if you don't buy their light bulbs.
Whether or not the operating system and office suite markets naturally create monopolies is irrelevant. Economically speaking, it's bad for competition and a free market to have Microsoft use its monopoly power to enter new markets. Giving away free products, anticompetitive licensing agreements to OEMs, and simply underpricing other competition are examples of this.
So yes, the rules are different for a monopoly. This is good for every consumer and every firm except Microsoft.
I promised myself I would avoid the first model of the cool Sharp Zaurus. I've been burned by jumping on first generation devices too many times (like WinCE 1.0, first gen mp3 CD player, etc). Even if the first generation was good (like the reviews seem to be saying), the second generation is usually worth waiting for.
Here I thought it would take several more months before we heard the first bits about the new model...now I'm going to have to (well, not really have to..but want to) figure out how to buy one.
I don't know if I really like the whole subnotebook thing. I just picked up a $200 Thinkpad off Ebay that's all of 4 lbs at 233 Mhz...it works great. I'm rather sold on the whole PDA idea (happy Visor owner), so perhaps I will be able to put off more spending a little longer until they come out with a next-gen handheld.
Having larger coffee cup sizes is better than a trend of smaller sizes. As long as the price per volume remains about the same (accounting for inflation), there's nothing to complain about. Besides, this sort of thing is determined largely by economics - the smaller cups must not have been selling as well.
Of course, one could argue that the coffee shops are forcing people to buy more coffee than they want, but I think there is enough competition so that if people really wanted a small cup, they'd get it (even from Starbucks, which just doesn't advertise it).
Slashdot Mirror
The other reply is correct - I use virtual desktops for _everything_, basically one for each major app, and the behavior is that of switching desktops. I don't know if it would "focus" the app if I had them all in one desktop.
Apologies for any confusion.
I used the unofficial debs from kde.org to upgrade from 3.1.4 to 3.2. Some of my favorite changes:
- Konqueror now has sane tabs - before they would have a scroll bar of sorts. I still sometimes instinctively keep only 3 or 4 tabs in Konqueror, while I'm used to several times that many in Mozilla.
- KDEwallet, once I get it properly set up, could prove quite useful for managing passwords.
- The ability to make one's taskbar transparent (I don't use this at the moment) and not the entire width of the screen (I do use this). Kicker as a whole is becoming more and more refined
- The debs I got have some nice icons, making me want to keep my taskbar bigger instead of ~Win2k sized
- I seem to notice a marginal speed increase. It's a nice trend that continues for recent KDE releases.
And now for the bad news. Some things that appear broken with my Debian setup, but I will wait to confirm with a Fedora-based install to determine if it's a packaging or KDE problem.
- One website that formerly rendered fine in Konqueror now doesn't use its pull down menus correctly. Probably a javascript issue that I haven't looked too closely at
- KMail has been a little flakey with one of my higher-traffic POP accounts, but this may not be KMails fault, just a coincidence.
- For whatever reason, my desktop occasionally gets switched to a Firefox virtual desktop I often keep open. Probably due to some javascript/focus thing with Firefox, but I hadn't noticed it before. Of course, somewhere along the line I upgraded Firefox, but I don't have the problem on a RH 8 system.
- I was really looking forward to Juk. Unfortunately, while it appears to work fine for mp3/ogg files, my install will simply not play FLACs until I try playing an OGG or mp3 first. Even then the application has crashed on me, and I stopped trying to use it and went back to xmms. I'm _really_ trying to be rid of xmms (and use something semi-full screen, preferably qt based). noatun has also been somewhat unstable for me, but that's true of every version (I think it was a problem with one of the "skins" this time). I haven't spent enough time with these to really track things down, so YMMV.
For me, the tabs in konqueror alone were worth the upgrade. The problems I listed above may very well be other applications or the packages, and none are showstoppers. After I get my new desktop set up (still haven't finalized a distro, could be Debian, Fedora, or Gentoo), I hope to be able to report any reproducible bugs.
Then take it apart, hand the baggie and instructions to another group, and see how they do.
High School Science Olympiad competitions have something similar, except they give you a prebuilt model (which often includes but is not limited to LEGOs), and you have to describe it in detail. You're given 15 minutes to do this. Then you pass it off to your partner who gets 15 minutes to reconstruct it. Since the rules are known beforehand good teams will practice a few times, and the winner (as our team was one year) is usually perfect or quite close.
Wesnoth It's a turn-based strategy game that is simplistic but very, very addictive.
The scenarios are hard (in 0.5.1, I heard they're easier in 0.6), and the game is being developed quite quickly.
It all depends on your definition of "close substitute". I argue that Linux is not a close substitute for Windows (though I use it as my primary OS), because it cannot run most Windows applications natively (and those it can are slower and sometimes less stable - I'm thinking of wine here). That's why many people aren't using alternatives - they want Windows games or Windows specific apps, etc. Even the availability for employees trained in MS software is a factor.
Substitute implies low cost in switching - and that's simply not the case - it's called "differentiated products" and it allows oligopolies and other more-competitive markets to make more profit.
The issue is not bundling but rather abusing a monopoly position to gain ground in a new market. That's why few people mind Apple release iTunes, etc. for OS X. Though the media player market is more difficult to analyze (because the player is free and profit is made by licensing the server, so money is made if you can command a decent market share), the browser market is a clear example of monopoly abuse. Netscape sold its browser many years ago, and was the dominant player in its industry. Since Microsoft could afford it, they gave away Internet Explorer, driving down Netscape (since it was their primary product, they could not make much money by giving away their browser) before it was purchased by AOL.
First of all, a monopoly is "the only supplier of a product for which there is no close substitute." (according to my Modern Industrial Organization textbook, by Carlton and Perloff.) This definition, and most others, have nothing to do with "market rights from the government". Those are simply government-established monopolies.
Now, from a practical standpoint, a company is a monopoly if it exerts too much influence in one market (basically a company that is close to a textbook monopoly). They have the ability to manipulate price to increase profits for themselves and by doing so create a deadweight loss to market (consumers lose a lot, monopoly gains some, some "welfare" just goes away).
Monopolies can be "natural" in some markets, usually those where fixed costs are high (think electrical companies with massive grids and expensive power plants). Many monopolies are left alone as long as they don't (overly) abuse their market power, usually by using that market influence to gain influence in a new market. This brings about anti-trust actions. With Microsoft, they leveraged their operating system "monopoly" to make their Internet Explorer the dominant browser in the market (by giving it away and tying it to the OS). They have been found guilty of this, but it's easy to see them using their market power in other areas as well.
Even if you were to define a "monopoly" as a company given that power by the government, one can make an argument for that with Microsoft as well. Copyrights and patents are what allows Microsoft to produce products that others could not simply resell at a lower price, decompile/disassemble and release the modified code, etc. (legally). However, most people see a need for copyrights and patents to encourage people to produce "intellectual property" and be able to make some money off of it.
In general, the function of government is to try to improve the welfare of its citizens, and reducing a monopoly's power has that effect.
That's why it didn't show up in apt-cache searches, it's not part of Debian (even unstable) yet. Just a source line away though.
Funny, sometimes it seems that if it's not in the unstable package set I never hear about it =), or maybe the unstable package set is just that large.
Thanks. I heard about mythtv but checked it out long ago when it wasn't as developed. Strange that it didn't show up in my apt-cache searches. I will check it out.
I, for one, appreciate more alternative music players on the *nix side of the world. While setting up my music server (with video output to the TV), I tested a variety of applications to see what might work best. My requirements included:
- The ability to be controlled from an LIRC remote control
- The ability to interface to an LCD screen for song info (haven't set this up yet, but it was a consideration)
- Large, easy to read playlist
- Large buttons that are easy to manipulate by the somewhat awkward mouse on my wireless keyboard
I tried xine (along with derivatives like the gtk version), and found the playlists difficult to manipulate easily. xmms works decently, but I had to double size the top screen and those unfamiliar with it's interface (or winamp) would have a more difficult time adding songs because the "add" and "remove" buttons are practically unreadable on the TV. Though I found a decent theme, xmms is not designed for full screen usage with large buttons. Because of this, screen real estate is not devoted to things like easy-to-find switching of playlists along with other features I'm sure could be incorporated.
I would love for Juk to become a full featured sound program which could perform a variety of functions seamlessly:
- Ability to manipulate playlists on any other computer given appropriate access (without using remote X or VNC). Sharing of music between clients is not important to me, I have my music mounted from a central location within the network
- creating playlists by the meta data (like "smart" playlists on iTunes).
- Pop in a CD, have it show up as a separate playlist, and preferably be able to rip the tracks into OGG or FLAC on command
- Burn mix CDs based off the playlist (not as important, but shouldn't be too hard if code is shared with koncd)
- Interface doesn't need to be skinnable but should be usable at a variety of resolutions. Keyboard shortcuts should be available for just about everything.
Looks like some of those features already exist in Juk, and I look forward to using it once it's released with 3.2 stable.
Just think about that as you upgrade your redhate box.
Of course, as others have pointed out, Red Hat intelligently backported fixes to 3.1 (RH 7.x), 3.4, and 3.5, and they are not vulnerable to this issue, at least according to Red Hat.
Course, I run Debian at home so upgrades are easy and fast.
Though other bootable CDs like morphix look promising, I'm impressed with the rate at which Knoppix moves forward. Knoppix has consistently displayed nice polish visually and in terms of usability.
As it's debian-based, I'm hoping some more of the hardware-detection, auto-setup, and visual polish can make it to stock Debian (yes, I know you can "upgrade" to full Debian after booting knoppix). The boot process is cleaned up and functional for new users to Linux, and the speed is remarkable for loading a compressed image off a CD (so long as you have 128+ megs of RAM).
Kudos to those who work and contribute to Knoppix for producing such a quality assembly of open source software in such a useful form.
Well, 64kbps is a good rate for streaming and low-capacity situations (like flash-based mp3 players). If ogg can manage to become more popular in hardware, it would make an excellent alternative to standard mp3 encoding.
That said, I've fallen down the quality slope - with hard drives so large now I've decided just to encode all my music with FLAC and have absolutely no quality loss (lossless compression; flac is to ogg as PNG is to JIF). Granted, I don't know if I can tell the difference between ~256kbps ogg (what I used to use) and what ends up being 900+kbps flac, but it's nice to know I can generate a practically perfect audio CD if I ever lose the originals.
WIth a decent pair ($30 and up) of headphones or a good system, some songs sound tremendously better going from 128 -> 192, and even 192 -> 256. Check out The Cranberries' "Time is Ticking Out" as a good example - the beeping at the beginning of the song is lost at 128 kbps mp3, it's poor at 192 kbps mp3, but the song sounds great compared to the wav at ~256kbps ogg (no, I didn't try 256 kbps mp3 for comparison).
Now, if NPR would start streaming programs in ogg, I could finally be rid of real player at work.
Pop Goes the Hamster and Other Fun Microwave Games.
The player itself looks great, and just might be worthy of my money in the next year or so.
The site, though, works like crap in mozilla. Can anyone post links to the menu-driven pages that we mozilla users can't access? I'd like to know if they're planning on making it OS-agnostic with the ethernet interface. Maybe a crappy web-based upload thing to be hacked into a little FTP server or something would be terrific.
IIRC, TiVo has provided source for their GPL-based software from the beginning, or very near it. In any case, they did long before Linksys fessed up to all its usage.
I gave a few bucks to Mandrake before MandrakeClub existed, and they gave me a free entry subscription for about a year I think (it's just about to expire). Thing is, it isn't quite worth the $5/month to us (yet). I'll keep my eye on it, and if they provide a fast update server (like Red Hat), they'll probably see at least $60/yr from us.
Because my g/f enjoys using Mandrake on her laptop, we decided to buy the 9.0 standard edition for the following reasons:
1.) At the time our internet connection was having issues and 3 isos were not easy to quickly get
2.) We wanted to support Mandrake since they've created an excellent desktop distribution.
We got our copy just fine in mid-November, but then about three weeks later we got another copy. I e-mailed them and they said it was a mistake but in the end we cost Mandrake more money than I would've liked. Both packages were sent to a U.S. from Europe - not cheap. One would think they'd have a warehouse here, but maybe it's for tax purposes. They mentioned in their e-mail that they've had some shipping problems, so I'm probably not the only one.
I'm not sure how we'll support Mandrake in the future...for her, I think a small subscription fee for a dedicated update server would work well. She'd be getting value-added software (because it's faster to download), and Mandrake would get money that was a bandwidth + server cost, not shipping + packaging.
At the end of the day, I am a happy Debian user.
I don't think every cable company hates PVRs. In fact, Time Warner Cable is rolling out their own PVR, called iControl. It has basic PVR functionality, but it's main purpose for the cable company is pushing on-demand movings that you can pause, etc. as if you rented it.
Ironic that Time Warner Cable would do this, as it's part of the much larger AOL Time Warner which seems torn between the content provider and the content producer mode - the company owns lots of record companies and movie studios. Yet AOL and Time Warner Cable seem to be doing things the content part of the company doesn't like. It's like watching Sony make mp3 players and yet be distributing copy-restricted CDs.
So, to say the KDE people doesn't copy Windows, good or bad, is just plain wrong.
Please re-read my post. I didn't say that KDE people don't copy Windows. In fact, I said, "In the end, every UI uses common good ideas from the others."
My main point was that to say KDE is a clone of Windows is an incorrect simplification. I've seen innovative things come from KDE and things that have originated from Windows, Mac, etc. All UIs take ideas from others - but that's because these things work. You'll notice that some (not quite there yet) dialogs in KDE use verbs for their buttons instead of "OK" and "cancel" - that's good UI design that probably appeared first in Mac OS. Windows would be wise to implement the same.
What you call a clone I call a more enjoyable desktop experience. I've used KDE since the 1.x days, and I've been pleased to see several features implemented in KDE well before I saw it in the latest Windows version.
Take, for example, grouped tasks on the taskbar; I don't know at what point it became part of KDE or Windows exactly, but I distinctly remember using it in KDE for some time before seeing it in the latest Windows beta.
Another example would be built-in theme support that actually significantly changes the way the desktop looks. I'm talking widgets, borders, icons, etc. I agree that this feature is mere fluff and even unwanted in certain environments, but the ability for KDE to look and act like several environments is a strong feature in my view. As an example, for about the past month I tried out the "Mac OS" style menu - all my KDE menus showed up at the top of the screen. This is supposedly better for ergonomics because one can fling his/her mouse towards the top of the screen and hit the menu more quickly than hunting it out. In addition, some people like the focus to move with the mouse, and most X wms support this easily.
In the end, every UI uses common good ideas from the others. Mac OS X, Windows, KDE, GNOME, etc. all share a fair amount in common - to call any of them simply a "clone" of the other is oversimplified. To me, KDE makes a desktop experience that's relatively easy to learn, yet packs an incredible system for customization.
The biggest risk of Linux being branded as "cheap" is offering it as a "Windows replacement" on the cheapest of computers (like Walmart is doing). Putting it on cheap computers is fine, but I'd like to see some Linux ready mid level and high end machines be more advertised to the masses.
When we're dealing with a monopoly, the rules are different.
Did you ever stop to think about that statement. Really think about it?
Yes, I have. At first glance, it may make sense that government should treat all companies alike. However, monopolies are considered bad for capitalism by most economists. Inevitably monopolies form; markets which operate best with monopolies are called natural monopolies (like water, electricity, etc).
In order to keep markets competitive, governments put greater restrictions on monopolies. Your electric company can't move into the light bulb business and charge you more for electricity if you don't buy their light bulbs.
Whether or not the operating system and office suite markets naturally create monopolies is irrelevant. Economically speaking, it's bad for competition and a free market to have Microsoft use its monopoly power to enter new markets. Giving away free products, anticompetitive licensing agreements to OEMs, and simply underpricing other competition are examples of this.
So yes, the rules are different for a monopoly. This is good for every consumer and every firm except Microsoft.
This is an interesting idea, but a quick Google search pulled up nothing to support your claims. Have your read this anywhere?
I promised myself I would avoid the first model of the cool Sharp Zaurus. I've been burned by jumping on first generation devices too many times (like WinCE 1.0, first gen mp3 CD player, etc). Even if the first generation was good (like the reviews seem to be saying), the second generation is usually worth waiting for.
Here I thought it would take several more months before we heard the first bits about the new model...now I'm going to have to (well, not really have to..but want to) figure out how to buy one.
I don't know if I really like the whole subnotebook thing. I just picked up a $200 Thinkpad off Ebay that's all of 4 lbs at 233 Mhz...it works great. I'm rather sold on the whole PDA idea (happy Visor owner), so perhaps I will be able to put off more spending a little longer until they come out with a next-gen handheld.
Having larger coffee cup sizes is better than a trend of smaller sizes. As long as the price per volume remains about the same (accounting for inflation), there's nothing to complain about. Besides, this sort of thing is determined largely by economics - the smaller cups must not have been selling as well.
Of course, one could argue that the coffee shops are forcing people to buy more coffee than they want, but I think there is enough competition so that if people really wanted a small cup, they'd get it (even from Starbucks, which just doesn't advertise it).