Given that the doomed partnership between motorola and psion to produce the first smartphone was often cited as the reason for the demise of psion in the consumer market.
Me too. My Psion 5mx sits next to my bed with CF card in, and I use it as an alarm clock. Nothing has come close to it in terms of a 'personal organiser' - the Agenda program is the clearest and most reliable calendar application short of a filofax.
The only problem is I can't sync it with my google calendar, which is a real problem nowadays (my wife and I share calendars so we can plan things without having to ring each other up all the time).
I would also appreciate a modern psion 5mx. A device not designed for consumption, but rather for creation. A mono lcd screen would be fine, and nowadays it could all be made a bit slimmer, with a similar keyboard. It could be marketed to those who like writing and appreciate a silent, non-flashing, non-connected device with 1 week battery life.
I paid £1500 for my Thinkpad T40. It has given me 8.5 yrs of typing and computing pleasure as my main (and current) device for £165/year*. At the time, others bought consumer grade laptops for £1000 (they were, back then!), which gave them 1 year of computing misery for £1000/year.
*ok, I'll confess I've upgraded the RAM to 1Gb (~£100), the harddrive to 160Gb (~£80) and replaced the fan (£25), and the OS (10.04-£free).
I saw a world-expert who was invited to a plenary lecture at an international conference giving his talk (which was meant to be the highlight of the conference) - when he was rudely interrupted by a pop-up which caused the fullscreen presentation to lose focus. The pop-up was indicating that it was about to shut down to complete the updates, and had a timer from 15s. An embarrassed projectionist quickly clicked on the 'delay' 15min button in a panic. He would have had to have selected another option from the dropdown menu to have chosen a longer time. But of course 15min later, the same thing happened again. This time the projectionist was prepared and quickly selected an option to bother it an hour later.
In 2005, before people realised the enormity of the pending financial crisis, having a blackberry in the city gave you the look of a soon-to-be rich cityboy/girl. Afterall, these people had had RIM's pager's since the late 90's - issued to them so that they could be on-call for their respective banks 24/7. Back then, they were expensive, and generally, only people who needed them, had them.
Fast-forward to 2010, and suddenly every kid seemed to sport a cheap plastic phone with a qwerty keyboard. Suddenly, the city-types didn't look quite so good with their company-issued ball-and-chains, and asked for iphones instead.
Blackberry have taken a step in the right direction by returning to the their old market - as long as their image isn't permanently tarnished and they get the blackberries off the children, I can see them becoming a small, but important mobile manufacturer catering for city/business/enterprise types.
As people have mentioned before, simply creating the product and making it available isn't going to miraculously rejuvenate computer programming in the UK amongst children. After all, many children already have access to computers capable of running python as it is - and so do schools. If schools want to teach computer programming, it doesn't actually need a raspberry pi.
I think the next step is to create tutorials for the raspberry pi, and to ensure that schools aren't penalised for teaching computer programming (as in it won't detract from teaching time and achieving targets in other subjects), and I think the only way to do that is to make computer programming a new GCSE, with a curriculum, exams, and formal teaching time.
On my 8 year old thinkpad, the animations are pretty jerky on both chrome and firefox, but firefox's font is wrong. On a recent dell, the animations are nice and smooth, but the writing is unreadable on chrome, and some words are missing on firefox.
I really like the idea of this, and if you ignore the flashy presentations above, you could see how it might be useful to present an overview of something complex, but requiring discussion of certain parts of it in detail. However, I also agree that 'flashiness' needs to be avoided in presentations (NB flashiness is the better of the two evils when compared with speakers using their slides as their own notes).
The best presentations I've seen have come as a well thought-through narrative from the speaker, with graphics there only to illustrate their points.
I like this answer - many thanks. I might try running a headless T40 with emacs and org-mode (I use this already for my todo list). If it fails, I think I'll stick to pen and paper!
I agree that people toe-in there mirrors too much - I have mine set so that I can see a slither of body work. However, it's dangerous to think that you do not have a blind spot - an entire car can fit into it if they are two lanes to the right of you, and slightly behind. Usually you can see the car if you physically turn your head to the right, but with largish central-pillars you can completely miss this.
The way to deal with it is to always ensure you keeping track of cars in your mirrors, so that you can predict when people will go into that blind spot. But sometimes you can lose count, and other times you will be concentrating on something else. For that reason I ALWAYS use my signals on the motorway, and keep an eye out the corner of my eye whenever I move out.
I want to know "Where is the Evidence-Base" for this monitoring? There is no use measuring people's driving characteristics for car insurance unless these is a body of statistical evidence linking that to 'average insurance claim cost/per year'.
I believe (note, no evidence) that better drivers are decisive and use acceleration (including braking/steering) to remain safe on the roads. Acceleration in itself is, after all, not dangerous, as long as you do not exceed the the safe speed for that area of road and you are using the car within it's capable limits. In the UK the most accident-prone cars include the Honda Jazz and various MPVs and 4x4s (http://www.confused.com/car-insurance/articles/are-you-driving-an-accident-prone-car), and those of us who drive in the UK know that these cars are rarely driven hard. (in fact, Honda Jazz drivers appear to be some of the slowest and indecisive drivers out there).
Oddly, the Nissan Skyline and Ford Focus RS are at the bottom of the list for the lowest claim rate, and I wonder what sort of G-forces you would get if you measured these cars?!
Yep - I would agree with you. A family doctor/GP should be able to interpret an ECG themselves - in that they should be able to recognise if it is abnormal or not, and most of the common or dangerous abnormal ECGs. If they're not sure, of course they should seek to refer it to someone more experienced.
Totally disagree regarding your ECG example - but it depends WHY you are having the ECG. Most computer software is able to tell you now whether an ECG is normal or abnormal, and if it is done as a screening test, this may be all you need.
However, if you have the ECG as part of an investigation into a particular symptom, you need someone who has interpreted your symptoms, your risk factors, and your clinical examination, in order to put your ECG into context. This is why cardiologists will always look at the ECG themselves, and not rely on a report (ha!) or their junior's interpretation.
I have no problem in training up someone who hasn't been through the formal training system - but they will need to be trained to take the whole clinical picture into account, not just the ECG. This can take many years of training, but at the end of it, they will make a similar decision to the consultant in 99% of cases. On the downside, they will not be able to interpret the cardiological problem in the context of other diseases, as they will not have experience in dealing with them. None-the-less they are often a crucial part of the clinical team at most hospitals in the UK (chest pain is the reason for admission of at least 25% of patients), but they won't be replacing cardiologists at the moment.
The GGP posted about histologists - I won't go into the details, but their work is not simply 'looking at a slide and deciding whether it's cancer or not'. That can even be the perception from doctors. But we should know better - no area of biology is black and white, and neither is this. Histologists work closely with doctors in MDT (multidisciplinary) meetings - as the clinical picture strongly influences how the histology is interpreted. It is also important to know the context of what you are reporting on, and what consequences this will have for the management of the patient.
In medicine the 'clinical context' is probably the most important part of interpreting any test, and to understand that, I think you need to be a doctor.
(Disclaimer : I am a training haematologist - I speak to the patient, examine them, take bone marrow samples, and interpret some of these myself, but rely heavily on our histologists to interpret the biopsy)
I was a bit of an Amiga Format fan at the time - they had some terrifice coverdisks. When they sadly ended, with the demise of the Amiga, I joined the hoards of miserable people and moved over to Windows. If only I'd known at the time that most of these guys then went on to new ground - Linux. Nick Veitch, the editor at the time at Amiga Format went on to start Linux Format (another terrific magazine going strong), and much of the current writers were Amiga stalwarts...
Thankfully I found my way again almost 10 years later!
I think I'm with you on this. I've used a few OS's*, and so far, I find Gnome 2 to be the most productive. I'm not saying it's perfect, and there are some great features in Gnome 3 and Unity which I would dearly like in Gnome 2 (type to open application, shortcuts for running applications, snap to top/sides) and I like Ubuntu's idea for application-specific menu searching, too.
But, for me, there are reasons that gnome 2 remains better. I can move the mouse around the whole screen without any surprises. No pop-out bars, nor will the application suddenly fade out and minimise. I like that! Maybe it's just me, but I tend to throw the mouse up to various corners to get to menus and close buttons - I thought that was idea of having these things in these places.
Then there is multiple workspace working. When I'm working on a project, I have my 4th workspace with the application and the soon-to-be-completed final product (maybe impress or scribus), then on the 1st workspace I have my sources (files, firefox, pdfs). On the 2nd and 3rd workspaces I have the software which acts as an intermediary (i.e. gimp, libreoffice writer/calc). The workspace switcher is key to being able to move files between workspaces, and I find this very broken in gnome-shell.
And what about the 'places menu'? When I switched from XP to Gnome 2, I loved how organised, uncluttered and easy it was to access the entire system. I think gnome 3 has taken 'uncluttered' too far - like the Win XP start menu, which nested menus within menus within menues, requiring actually a decent amount of effort to successfully navigate without having to start over. 'Places' is where I often go when starting work - after all, unless I complete the work in one sitting, the actual incomplete work is where I will want to look when my OS loads up.
Handheld computing has gone the same way. The Psion 3a and 5mx understood that files are key to people who want to use their machines for actual work. Applications and files held a similar importance on the desktop. When it came to replacing these machines, I naiveley thought that a computer with a keyboard and screen would do. But my Nokia E90 (based on the same OS) didn't get this, and I always needed to go via applications to get to the files. My N900 needs me to bookmark my files in the web-browser in order for me to be able to place a shortcut on the desktop!
When did files become so dirty?
I'm not sure if cinnamon will address my needs - but it looks promising.
D
*Just for fun...SIBO, EPOC, symbian, Workbench 3.0, RiscOS, DOS, Win 3.1/95/98/Me/XP/7, Mac OS 9, X, Gnome 2 & 3, Unity. I've yet to give KDE a fair chance, after booting up PClinuxOS, and not understanding why an OS would want to ape Windows to the point of even fading to monochrome when selecting shutdown, and then oddly returning all the colour when you actually click on the shutdown button.
You must have retained some of your sanity, because I had to re-read it several times trying my hardest to see what it would mean if I wasn't a linux-geek.
let them produce craptastic cameras instead of partnering with a camera maker
You're right that someone let them produce craptastic cameras, but wrong on the partnering front - kodak and nikon were there at the very start of the digital slr revolution, using top-of-the-line nikon bodies and kodak sensors. This was before Nikon made their first dslr (D1 I think).
The problem was - they were priced in the tens of thousands, and weren't that good. One of their last dslrs was the '14n' - a 14 megapixel full-frame camera released ahead of it's time in 2002. Unfortunately, it was very expensive and not very good, with noise at almost all ISOs.
If I were to put a reason on why Kodak have failed it's because they only achieved mediocrity. Their compact digital cameras were not especially desirable, nor especially cheap. Their photo printers didn't match canon/epson quality. Their DSLRs were outclassed and undercut by thousands of pounds by Nikon's D1 and Canon's later offerings. Their film had the famous, but expensive and difficult-to-process, kodachrome. Fuji were extremely competitive, and Kodak still can't come up with an anwser to Fuji's velvia.
Things might have been completely different if they were able to compete in any of these areas.
I'm not one for shunning the new, and certainly kept an open mind when I switched from WinXP to Gnome 2 those years ago. I appreciated the quick and direct access to various folders, and the multiple desktops, not to mention all the other benefits of using linux apart from gnome 2 (repositories, updating, stability etc..)
However, I've given quite a bit of time to gnome 3 and unity, and I really think these two desktops have lost a lot of the functionality I originally enjoyed when I switched to gnome 2 - that loss of functionality combined with the increased graphics requirements of gnome 3 is a real setback.
Specifically, try dragging and dropping files from a file browser on one workspace to a program on another workspace. In gnome 2 it is easy to use the workspace switcher to perform this task, but in gnome 3 it requires something like twice the time and fuss. The other problem I have with gnome 3 is the lack of 'places'. Unity's problem is I just don't get on with the slide-out dock - I find it interferes with any content I'm working with on the left side of the screen.
I haven't given KDE4 a proper test, but it looks like it might be worth my while!
at my hospital we use webapps for 99% of access to results/radiography etc... with office365, isn't linux becoming the obvious answer? (ok, no outlook replacement maybe... - but all anyone uses it for is email!)
I guess it's still early days for Gnome 3, and like KDE4, hopefully a lot of the previous functionality will return. If it's the places menu that I already have installed - it's not ideal as it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the system. A simple extra tab would do the trick - with a list of the main folders and bookmarked ones.
Well I've been using Fedora 15 alongside Ubuntu 10.04, and I can say that despite getting used to Gnome 3 (and recognising its advantages), I find Gnome 2 more functional. I can give three reasons:
I like my workspaces - I have four arranged horizontally, and switch between them using Alt-1/2/3/4, and I like being able to move applications between windows just by pushing it off the side of it, and then picking up the window on the next workspace. This isn't possible with vertically arranged workspaces. You have already mentioned that if you use the mouse to switch workspaces in Gnome 3, you would probably go mad and give up. But... there's more - I often work with a directory of image files open fullscreen in nautilus on workspace 1. I have GIMP open on workspace 2. I select the photo I wish to edit on workspace 1, move it to the workspace switcher's workspace 2, wait til it brings up workspace 2, and then drop it into gimp. Try doing that in Gnome 3! (Drag the file to the top left, drag to the right over the appropriate workspace, wait, drag back to the centre of the window and wait until the application comes to the fore, then release).
Secondly - 'places'. Why was this dumped??!! This is what sold me about Gnome 2 when I switched from XP. I always had direct access to my files and folders, and later learnt I could bookmark particular folders so it appeared in the menu. In gnome 3 I find a real step backwards to launch nautilus, and then navigate within it. I've also tried pressing the windows key and typing, which admittedly is a bit better, but I miss the direct option. I have also installed the 'places' extension for Gnome 3, but the button is small to press, and works in the opposite way to the rest of gnome 3 (in the shell-view, selecting a folder will open it minimised onto the workspace, whereas searching for the folder and opening it will take you out of gnome shell).
Thirdly - I'm not sure I like the idea of the 'hot edges' or corners. I'm used to throwing the pointer up to the top left to reach a menu item, and frequently overshoot. In Gnome 3 this means irritatingly activating the gnome shell, and requiring an extra bosh into the corner. I have the same problem with Unity - viewing webpages I often place the mouse to the left side of the screen before scrolling in order to ensure the mouse isn't over flash or a text box before I do it - and activating the Unity menu is really irritating. It reminds me of times when using WinXP and auto-hiding the bottom bar, but quickly finding it too irritating to work with. I'm starting to believe that important parts of the desktop should have it's own area, and not share it with others - so that you can guarantee that moving your pointer to that area will do a specific thing, and not require you to consider the context. By 'important parts' I mean launching applications, select between applications, opening folders, and viewing content.
I'll admit there are good points of gnome 3. There is more screen real-estate (though I believe there is a cost to this in the paragraph above). The 'windows button and type' is well-implemented for launching applications (though I find slightly less good at opening folders). Alt-tab switching between applications is improved with being able to switch to apps on other workspaces.
It would be easy to improve gnome 3 by adding a 'places' tab in the shell - that would please me, but I can't see how the workspace switching could be fixed. Also I can't see how the 'hot corner' can never be an irritation (maybe if I could disable it and only activate it with the windows key? or clicking on it).
"...there's a market for cheaper and less complex phones that still beat boring old feature phones, especially in emerging economies. And, unlike Symbian and the heavily tweaked Meego, Linux can be quickly and cheaply brought to market as a low-end smartphone OS."
2 points:
1. Other little-known fact seems to be that linux is good for the high-end as well (as demonstrated by various android devices and the N9)
2. How is linux unlike meego? Given that two telephony devices have already been brought to market with the Nokia linux maemo base, I would say that is 'quicker than quickly'.
I think people need to stop discussing Nokia's recent decisions as if they were logical or rational, and nothing to do with other weighty factors.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that the doomed partnership between motorola and psion to produce the first smartphone was often cited as the reason for the demise of psion in the consumer market.
http://stevelitchfield.com/historyofpsion.htm - see the paragraph 'the fall'
and this is was the machine that never was...
http://mobileopera.com/odin
D
Me too. My Psion 5mx sits next to my bed with CF card in, and I use it as an alarm clock. Nothing has come close to it in terms of a 'personal organiser' - the Agenda program is the clearest and most reliable calendar application short of a filofax.
The only problem is I can't sync it with my google calendar, which is a real problem nowadays (my wife and I share calendars so we can plan things without having to ring each other up all the time).
I would also appreciate a modern psion 5mx. A device not designed for consumption, but rather for creation. A mono lcd screen would be fine, and nowadays it could all be made a bit slimmer, with a similar keyboard. It could be marketed to those who like writing and appreciate a silent, non-flashing, non-connected device with 1 week battery life.
I paid £1500 for my Thinkpad T40. It has given me 8.5 yrs of typing and computing pleasure as my main (and current) device for £165/year*. At the time, others bought consumer grade laptops for £1000 (they were, back then!), which gave them 1 year of computing misery for £1000/year.
*ok, I'll confess I've upgraded the RAM to 1Gb (~£100), the harddrive to 160Gb (~£80) and replaced the fan (£25), and the OS (10.04-£free).
True story that many have seen.
I saw a world-expert who was invited to a plenary lecture at an international conference giving his talk (which was meant to be the highlight of the conference) - when he was rudely interrupted by a pop-up which caused the fullscreen presentation to lose focus. The pop-up was indicating that it was about to shut down to complete the updates, and had a timer from 15s. An embarrassed projectionist quickly clicked on the 'delay' 15min button in a panic. He would have had to have selected another option from the dropdown menu to have chosen a longer time. But of course 15min later, the same thing happened again. This time the projectionist was prepared and quickly selected an option to bother it an hour later.
What a f***ing joke piece of s*** software!
I wonder if this will be a problem for linux, if linux on the desktop really takes off. Looking at android, I guess so.
In 2005, before people realised the enormity of the pending financial crisis, having a blackberry in the city gave you the look of a soon-to-be rich cityboy/girl. Afterall, these people had had RIM's pager's since the late 90's - issued to them so that they could be on-call for their respective banks 24/7. Back then, they were expensive, and generally, only people who needed them, had them.
Fast-forward to 2010, and suddenly every kid seemed to sport a cheap plastic phone with a qwerty keyboard. Suddenly, the city-types didn't look quite so good with their company-issued ball-and-chains, and asked for iphones instead.
Blackberry have taken a step in the right direction by returning to the their old market - as long as their image isn't permanently tarnished and they get the blackberries off the children, I can see them becoming a small, but important mobile manufacturer catering for city/business/enterprise types.
As people have mentioned before, simply creating the product and making it available isn't going to miraculously rejuvenate computer programming in the UK amongst children. After all, many children already have access to computers capable of running python as it is - and so do schools. If schools want to teach computer programming, it doesn't actually need a raspberry pi.
I think the next step is to create tutorials for the raspberry pi, and to ensure that schools aren't penalised for teaching computer programming (as in it won't detract from teaching time and achieving targets in other subjects), and I think the only way to do that is to make computer programming a new GCSE, with a curriculum, exams, and formal teaching time.
...depending on your browser, OS and graphics.
On my 8 year old thinkpad, the animations are pretty jerky on both chrome and firefox, but firefox's font is wrong. On a recent dell, the animations are nice and smooth, but the writing is unreadable on chrome, and some words are missing on firefox.
I really like the idea of this, and if you ignore the flashy presentations above, you could see how it might be useful to present an overview of something complex, but requiring discussion of certain parts of it in detail. However, I also agree that 'flashiness' needs to be avoided in presentations (NB flashiness is the better of the two evils when compared with speakers using their slides as their own notes).
The best presentations I've seen have come as a well thought-through narrative from the speaker, with graphics there only to illustrate their points.
I like this answer - many thanks. I might try running a headless T40 with emacs and org-mode (I use this already for my todo list). If it fails, I think I'll stick to pen and paper!
D
I agree that people toe-in there mirrors too much - I have mine set so that I can see a slither of body work. However, it's dangerous to think that you do not have a blind spot - an entire car can fit into it if they are two lanes to the right of you, and slightly behind. Usually you can see the car if you physically turn your head to the right, but with largish central-pillars you can completely miss this.
The way to deal with it is to always ensure you keeping track of cars in your mirrors, so that you can predict when people will go into that blind spot. But sometimes you can lose count, and other times you will be concentrating on something else. For that reason I ALWAYS use my signals on the motorway, and keep an eye out the corner of my eye whenever I move out.
Yes, I think you're right, and I also think GPS data won't discriminate enough (I guess we'll find out in 5 years time).
The whole idea horrifies me, though. Though it shouldn't horrify me any more than TomTom collecting data on your movements.
D
This exactly.
I want to know "Where is the Evidence-Base" for this monitoring? There is no use measuring people's driving characteristics for car insurance unless these is a body of statistical evidence linking that to 'average insurance claim cost/per year'.
I believe (note, no evidence) that better drivers are decisive and use acceleration (including braking/steering) to remain safe on the roads. Acceleration in itself is, after all, not dangerous, as long as you do not exceed the the safe speed for that area of road and you are using the car within it's capable limits. In the UK the most accident-prone cars include the Honda Jazz and various MPVs and 4x4s (http://www.confused.com/car-insurance/articles/are-you-driving-an-accident-prone-car), and those of us who drive in the UK know that these cars are rarely driven hard. (in fact, Honda Jazz drivers appear to be some of the slowest and indecisive drivers out there).
Oddly, the Nissan Skyline and Ford Focus RS are at the bottom of the list for the lowest claim rate, and I wonder what sort of G-forces you would get if you measured these cars?!
Totally! And what is with the splurge of films about some fat guy getting some hot girl?
I'm just trying to remember the names of these films - there have been a splurge of them recently. Is it an american phenomena?
D
Yep - I would agree with you. A family doctor/GP should be able to interpret an ECG themselves - in that they should be able to recognise if it is abnormal or not, and most of the common or dangerous abnormal ECGs. If they're not sure, of course they should seek to refer it to someone more experienced.
Jane Silber, CEO of canonical.
I think it's news.
Totally disagree regarding your ECG example - but it depends WHY you are having the ECG. Most computer software is able to tell you now whether an ECG is normal or abnormal, and if it is done as a screening test, this may be all you need.
However, if you have the ECG as part of an investigation into a particular symptom, you need someone who has interpreted your symptoms, your risk factors, and your clinical examination, in order to put your ECG into context. This is why cardiologists will always look at the ECG themselves, and not rely on a report (ha!) or their junior's interpretation.
I have no problem in training up someone who hasn't been through the formal training system - but they will need to be trained to take the whole clinical picture into account, not just the ECG. This can take many years of training, but at the end of it, they will make a similar decision to the consultant in 99% of cases. On the downside, they will not be able to interpret the cardiological problem in the context of other diseases, as they will not have experience in dealing with them. None-the-less they are often a crucial part of the clinical team at most hospitals in the UK (chest pain is the reason for admission of at least 25% of patients), but they won't be replacing cardiologists at the moment.
The GGP posted about histologists - I won't go into the details, but their work is not simply 'looking at a slide and deciding whether it's cancer or not'. That can even be the perception from doctors. But we should know better - no area of biology is black and white, and neither is this. Histologists work closely with doctors in MDT (multidisciplinary) meetings - as the clinical picture strongly influences how the histology is interpreted. It is also important to know the context of what you are reporting on, and what consequences this will have for the management of the patient.
In medicine the 'clinical context' is probably the most important part of interpreting any test, and to understand that, I think you need to be a doctor.
(Disclaimer : I am a training haematologist - I speak to the patient, examine them, take bone marrow samples, and interpret some of these myself, but rely heavily on our histologists to interpret the biopsy)
I was a bit of an Amiga Format fan at the time - they had some terrifice coverdisks. When they sadly ended, with the demise of the Amiga, I joined the hoards of miserable people and moved over to Windows. If only I'd known at the time that most of these guys then went on to new ground - Linux. Nick Veitch, the editor at the time at Amiga Format went on to start Linux Format (another terrific magazine going strong), and much of the current writers were Amiga stalwarts...
Thankfully I found my way again almost 10 years later!
D
I think I'm with you on this. I've used a few OS's*, and so far, I find Gnome 2 to be the most productive. I'm not saying it's perfect, and there are some great features in Gnome 3 and Unity which I would dearly like in Gnome 2 (type to open application, shortcuts for running applications, snap to top/sides) and I like Ubuntu's idea for application-specific menu searching, too.
But, for me, there are reasons that gnome 2 remains better. I can move the mouse around the whole screen without any surprises. No pop-out bars, nor will the application suddenly fade out and minimise. I like that! Maybe it's just me, but I tend to throw the mouse up to various corners to get to menus and close buttons - I thought that was idea of having these things in these places.
Then there is multiple workspace working. When I'm working on a project, I have my 4th workspace with the application and the soon-to-be-completed final product (maybe impress or scribus), then on the 1st workspace I have my sources (files, firefox, pdfs). On the 2nd and 3rd workspaces I have the software which acts as an intermediary (i.e. gimp, libreoffice writer/calc). The workspace switcher is key to being able to move files between workspaces, and I find this very broken in gnome-shell.
And what about the 'places menu'? When I switched from XP to Gnome 2, I loved how organised, uncluttered and easy it was to access the entire system. I think gnome 3 has taken 'uncluttered' too far - like the Win XP start menu, which nested menus within menus within menues, requiring actually a decent amount of effort to successfully navigate without having to start over. 'Places' is where I often go when starting work - after all, unless I complete the work in one sitting, the actual incomplete work is where I will want to look when my OS loads up.
Handheld computing has gone the same way. The Psion 3a and 5mx understood that files are key to people who want to use their machines for actual work. Applications and files held a similar importance on the desktop. When it came to replacing these machines, I naiveley thought that a computer with a keyboard and screen would do. But my Nokia E90 (based on the same OS) didn't get this, and I always needed to go via applications to get to the files. My N900 needs me to bookmark my files in the web-browser in order for me to be able to place a shortcut on the desktop!
When did files become so dirty?
I'm not sure if cinnamon will address my needs - but it looks promising.
D
*Just for fun...SIBO, EPOC, symbian, Workbench 3.0, RiscOS, DOS, Win 3.1/95/98/Me/XP/7, Mac OS 9, X, Gnome 2 & 3, Unity. I've yet to give KDE a fair chance, after booting up PClinuxOS, and not understanding why an OS would want to ape Windows to the point of even fading to monochrome when selecting shutdown, and then oddly returning all the colour when you actually click on the shutdown button.
You must have retained some of your sanity, because I had to re-read it several times trying my hardest to see what it would mean if I wasn't a linux-geek.
Oh dear.
let them produce craptastic cameras instead of partnering with a camera maker
You're right that someone let them produce craptastic cameras, but wrong on the partnering front - kodak and nikon were there at the very start of the digital slr revolution, using top-of-the-line nikon bodies and kodak sensors. This was before Nikon made their first dslr (D1 I think).
The problem was - they were priced in the tens of thousands, and weren't that good. One of their last dslrs was the '14n' - a 14 megapixel full-frame camera released ahead of it's time in 2002. Unfortunately, it was very expensive and not very good, with noise at almost all ISOs.
If I were to put a reason on why Kodak have failed it's because they only achieved mediocrity. Their compact digital cameras were not especially desirable, nor especially cheap. Their photo printers didn't match canon/epson quality. Their DSLRs were outclassed and undercut by thousands of pounds by Nikon's D1 and Canon's later offerings. Their film had the famous, but expensive and difficult-to-process, kodachrome. Fuji were extremely competitive, and Kodak still can't come up with an anwser to Fuji's velvia.
Things might have been completely different if they were able to compete in any of these areas.
I'm not one for shunning the new, and certainly kept an open mind when I switched from WinXP to Gnome 2 those years ago. I appreciated the quick and direct access to various folders, and the multiple desktops, not to mention all the other benefits of using linux apart from gnome 2 (repositories, updating, stability etc..)
However, I've given quite a bit of time to gnome 3 and unity, and I really think these two desktops have lost a lot of the functionality I originally enjoyed when I switched to gnome 2 - that loss of functionality combined with the increased graphics requirements of gnome 3 is a real setback.
Specifically, try dragging and dropping files from a file browser on one workspace to a program on another workspace. In gnome 2 it is easy to use the workspace switcher to perform this task, but in gnome 3 it requires something like twice the time and fuss. The other problem I have with gnome 3 is the lack of 'places'. Unity's problem is I just don't get on with the slide-out dock - I find it interferes with any content I'm working with on the left side of the screen.
I haven't given KDE4 a proper test, but it looks like it might be worth my while!
at my hospital we use webapps for 99% of access to results/radiography etc... with office365, isn't linux becoming the obvious answer? (ok, no outlook replacement maybe... - but all anyone uses it for is email!)
I guess it's still early days for Gnome 3, and like KDE4, hopefully a lot of the previous functionality will return. If it's the places menu that I already have installed - it's not ideal as it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the system. A simple extra tab would do the trick - with a list of the main folders and bookmarked ones.
Well I've been using Fedora 15 alongside Ubuntu 10.04, and I can say that despite getting used to Gnome 3 (and recognising its advantages), I find Gnome 2 more functional. I can give three reasons:
I like my workspaces - I have four arranged horizontally, and switch between them using Alt-1/2/3/4, and I like being able to move applications between windows just by pushing it off the side of it, and then picking up the window on the next workspace. This isn't possible with vertically arranged workspaces. You have already mentioned that if you use the mouse to switch workspaces in Gnome 3, you would probably go mad and give up. But... there's more - I often work with a directory of image files open fullscreen in nautilus on workspace 1. I have GIMP open on workspace 2. I select the photo I wish to edit on workspace 1, move it to the workspace switcher's workspace 2, wait til it brings up workspace 2, and then drop it into gimp. Try doing that in Gnome 3! (Drag the file to the top left, drag to the right over the appropriate workspace, wait, drag back to the centre of the window and wait until the application comes to the fore, then release).
Secondly - 'places'. Why was this dumped??!! This is what sold me about Gnome 2 when I switched from XP. I always had direct access to my files and folders, and later learnt I could bookmark particular folders so it appeared in the menu. In gnome 3 I find a real step backwards to launch nautilus, and then navigate within it. I've also tried pressing the windows key and typing, which admittedly is a bit better, but I miss the direct option. I have also installed the 'places' extension for Gnome 3, but the button is small to press, and works in the opposite way to the rest of gnome 3 (in the shell-view, selecting a folder will open it minimised onto the workspace, whereas searching for the folder and opening it will take you out of gnome shell).
Thirdly - I'm not sure I like the idea of the 'hot edges' or corners. I'm used to throwing the pointer up to the top left to reach a menu item, and frequently overshoot. In Gnome 3 this means irritatingly activating the gnome shell, and requiring an extra bosh into the corner. I have the same problem with Unity - viewing webpages I often place the mouse to the left side of the screen before scrolling in order to ensure the mouse isn't over flash or a text box before I do it - and activating the Unity menu is really irritating. It reminds me of times when using WinXP and auto-hiding the bottom bar, but quickly finding it too irritating to work with. I'm starting to believe that important parts of the desktop should have it's own area, and not share it with others - so that you can guarantee that moving your pointer to that area will do a specific thing, and not require you to consider the context. By 'important parts' I mean launching applications, select between applications, opening folders, and viewing content.
I'll admit there are good points of gnome 3. There is more screen real-estate (though I believe there is a cost to this in the paragraph above). The 'windows button and type' is well-implemented for launching applications (though I find slightly less good at opening folders). Alt-tab switching between applications is improved with being able to switch to apps on other workspaces.
It would be easy to improve gnome 3 by adding a 'places' tab in the shell - that would please me, but I can't see how the workspace switching could be fixed. Also I can't see how the 'hot corner' can never be an irritation (maybe if I could disable it and only activate it with the windows key? or clicking on it).
"...there's a market for cheaper and less complex phones that still beat boring old feature phones, especially in emerging economies. And, unlike Symbian and the heavily tweaked Meego, Linux can be quickly and cheaply brought to market as a low-end smartphone OS."
2 points:
1. Other little-known fact seems to be that linux is good for the high-end as well (as demonstrated by various android devices and the N9)
2. How is linux unlike meego? Given that two telephony devices have already been brought to market with the Nokia linux maemo base, I would say that is 'quicker than quickly'.
I think people need to stop discussing Nokia's recent decisions as if they were logical or rational, and nothing to do with other weighty factors.