Let's get something straight here: I'm not exactly impressed by Linux on a regular basis. I think that the UIs you find on it typically suck. I think that the lack of It Just Works kind of sucks. But... This is ridiculous. I don't get the idea that Howard has the slightest idea what he's talking about. I can only assume that he was personally burned, or something, by some open source project. Maybe some MIS or IT underling pushed an OSS solution that burned his department... Weird. In any case, I think he needs to take a chill-pill. I'm amazed that something that vitriolic would be published in a mag. associated with such an august institution.
If he thinks installing Linux for home use is hard, try installing Windows for home use. First you install from the XP CD, then you'd better call MS to get it activated. Then you start installing all those patches from Windows Update. Then you start installing your apps... Don't forget to track down the driver CDs for those obscure bits of hardware - in this sense, "obscure" can mean things like digital cameras, scanners, etc. that are actually pretty common in home PCs.
Uhm, can we say FUD? Seriously, I've never had a Windows machine that was anything but a self-built box, and I've never had the problems you're describing with XP. XP will activate itself over the internet with basically no work on the user's part (you click a button and it's done). I do agree with you about the part on Windows Update, but the better solution (automagically installing everything from Windows Update) has everyone on Slashdot up in arms every time it's mentioned. Don't forget, you still have to run the Update utility on Mac OS X, or one on Linux (assuming you've got one) whenever you do a fresh install. Meanwhile, XP has never even asked me to put its install disc back in for drivers. I've plugged in everything from 4 year old ATI video cards, random USB scanners, my digital camera, a webcam, a firewire PCI card, and a ton of other stuff without any problems ever. You would have had problems like this with Windows 9x, but the implication here that linux doesn't suffer from uninstalled driver problems like those being described above makes zero sense.
you will be able to get Longhorn for a shipping and handling fee through MSDN within a couple weeks. It'll include WinFX, Avalon, Indigo, and all of the other stuff MSFT has been working on. So, no, it's not an Adam Osborne mistake. There's a lot of stuff in there that is going to take developers a while to get used to (that's kind of how life goes when you need to learn a ton of new APIs). Microsoft wants developers to start writing Longhorn apps. Now. In order to do that, they need to get their stuff into as many hands as possible.
you have it so right. I am in the process of releasing a beta of my shareware application (see the sig below). In the questionnaire that I had potential applicants for the beta fill out I asked why they liked my app. The top reason in virtually every case was that the application has a simple, easy-to-use, obvious user interface. The average computer user really does like simple (but not stupid. there is a difference there) applications. More developers should keep that in mind when they write software.
XBox Live already lets you do this in a form far more seamlessly than typing. For a slower-paced strategy game I think that IM'ing would work fine, but for fast-paced games (Halflife 2, Doom III, etc.) it seems like it would take far more energy than its worth to type. However, one really cool thing (that certainly won't exist for a while) would be integrated speech recognition, allowing a textual log of different users' voice comments to be made during gameplay. Leaving this on a HUD would definitely prove useful in a tactical, team-based sort of game.
Now::: Squad Leader: Take out that bunker! You: huh? I was busy and didn't hear what you said.
Then::: Squad Leader: Take out that bunker! You: gotcha.
Or conversely, if this was implemented today::: Squad Leader: Take out that bunker! You: wreck a nice beach? There aren't any beaches! This counterstrike scenario takes place in the desert!:-)
and then they could add a word processor in the background too, and then a web browser! And then we could all run HalfLife2 OS!
Basically, what we're talking about here is a vicious cycle. If you _really_ want to multitask while playing a game you're not going to want to do something silly like start bundling in frickin' IM protocols on your game just so some schmoe doesn't have to stop text messaging his friends while he's playing a game.
This is, perhaps, a bit off-topic, but I have yet to find anything like this on Mac OS X. Is there a VMWare (or VPC on Windows) sort of package available on Mac OS X that would let me run multiple, concurrent versions of OS X?
For example, I develop Mac software. If I could simultaneously test my product on 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 without having to reboot or use different computers it would save me a huge deal of time and money.
Please tell me this exists somewhere out there.
(and if not, someone should start such a project. open source or commercial.)
my personal guess, you silly canadian (silly and canadian, and a silly canadian;-) ), is that Keynote is the first of 1...2...3...4... Apple office apps. Appleworks hasn't really been upgraded in about a thousand years now, and the people working on that have to be doing something.
Keynote PPT ??? Word ??? Excel MySQL + Enterprise Objects Framework or something Access Mail+AddressBook Entourage/Outlook
Yeah, Slashdot is considered participatory journalism. This is, of course, despite the double postings, the terrible grammatical errors, the obvious bias, and, lest we forget, the goatse.cx guy....
Of course, I still look at Slashdot five or ten times a day, so I am being a hypocrite, but I still inclined to gripe.
After hitting an ATM earlier today the amount of money in my pocket went from $1 to $40, a 4000% improvement! Remember the old adage, "lies, damn lies, and statistics." besides, IE currently possesses a market share of about 95% (from the register earlier today, if I am not mistaken). It isn't quite time to break out the champagne for Thunderbird's usage. I want to see IE get beaten around as much as the next guy (for totally different reasons than most slashdot readers, mind you), but this doesn't count quite yet. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to seeing what happens. Congrats to the Thunderbird team, in any case.
yes, let's ask the US government to design useful file formats. Riiiiiight. I have to say that I am taken aback that anyone would advocate that the US government do something efficiently or effectively. Besides, saying that the US Gov't should handle something that is clearly an international issue is a tremendously unilateral action to take. I sincerely doubt that the Pacific Rim countries or the EU would find this sort of idea particularly favorable. Really, what you need is a standard agreed upon by the industry. Entertainingly enough, it is arguable that there are only two (useful) real standards in this respect, PDF and Doc. PDF is owned by Adobe, and Doc, of course, is Microsoft Word's native format. There aren't any really good solutions here.
reality check here: there is no word on if/when this thing is going to be released in the states. Also, you say that the PSX has more (stuff/features, I can only assume you meant). However, you qualify this by saying that, realistically, it's only a DVD burner.
And I can certainly wait until the PSX has an office suite. It still has next to no RAM, and a 300MHz CPU.
Camino does use Cocoa. It may have the XUL stuff under the hood somewhere, but all of the controls are Mac OS X native. Which is a good thing. Firebird oh-six on Mac OS X has really freaky looking buttons under the preferences. I downloaded it, spent 20 seconds admiring the simplicity (and non-brushed metal ui), and then went back to Safari. Oh well. I'll try again in 6 months.
please do bear in mind that each of those comments has been posted on my Powerbook G4 running Mac OS X.
I am just about as platform agnostic as you can get. I try to use the right tool for the job. The fact is that, typically speaking, I find that a version 3.0 product from MS is the right choice for the job.
And the reason I comment so much on MS stuff is because I happen to know a hell of a lot about it. I've spent the last year getting paid to know a hell of a lot about it. Slashdot has a bajillion people who know just about everything there is to know with Linux and BSD. There appears to be an unfortunate dearth of individuals who know a lot about MS tech. Those who do get whacked around for astroturfing or trolling.
Honestly, I hope that the OSS movement produces a desktop that is very usable (in the Nielsen/Raskin/Spolsky sense). I want to see Apple and Microsoft actually have competition that they can't undercut on price. It would make the computing world a much better place.
My primary interest in computer science is in HCI and usability. This is the lens I examine just about everything through. Typically, when I am critical of something it is for a usability reason (or because the thing in question is just stupid, but that's another story).
And I didn't crawl out from under a rock in Seattle. More like one in Minnesota (hence the U of Minnesota thing).
Fact: the average company cancels at least half of their projects.
A lot of projects are unsuccessful. This is true for Microsoft (Bob, Ultimate TV), Apple (G4 Cube, Newton, that weird Bandai video game system), and every other company out there.
How many open source projects get abandoned, or languish in obscurity?
Also, just for the record, COOL is C#. Thought you should know.
Just wait for version 3.0 to come out. That'll probably be good enough to whack Nokia and Qualcomm around. Think about it: Windows, Pocket PC, Tablet PC, etc. All of these products didn't really do well until version 3 rolled around. MS usually tries to get a product into a niche just to get experience there. They then spend the next few years figuring out means to really grab hold of the niche, and then they dominate it. That's how it works with them. Not a bad business strategy at all. In fact, it's really good one.
It's actually a bar halfway between the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains in British Columbia. You may recall that Windows XP's codename was Whistler. The version of Windows after XP was supposed to be Blackcomb, but it grew far too large, so MS slapped an interim release (Longhorn) in there. In other words, Longhorn is right between Whistler (XP) and Blackcomb (Probably Windows 2009).
Fun fact: the Windows group spent a while in the 90s naming everything after cities in Illinois. Chicago, Cairo, etc.
Fun fact 2: Last summer, you could see guys wandering around Redmond wearing Don't Mess With Texas t-shirts given out by their product group.
For most developers the issue of cross platform is irrelevant. In general I can support most biz needs via a web service anyway or in Windows. The rest of the world is Mac (and there WILL be a Mac implementation because Office on the Mac is a good cash source) or Linux - and Linux is irrelevant for this type of thing.
There is a mac port of.Net. It's called the SSCLI, or Rotor. However, just like Office for Windows is all C/C++, so is Office mac. It's written as a Carbon application under Mac OS X, which is the older not-so-much-legacy-but-definitely-not-as-cool-as-C ocoa framework for developing Mac applications. There is no reason why MS would throw millions of perfectly good LOC in the trash just because C# came along. Besides, Rotor (for now) is an MS Research product, regardless of whether it's on Mac OS X, FreeBSD, or Windows. Mac Office is a product of the Mac Business Unit.
Slashdot Mirror
funny, i've heard people saying that since before the ngage shipped. ha!
Let's get something straight here: I'm not exactly impressed by Linux on a regular basis. I think that the UIs you find on it typically suck. I think that the lack of It Just Works kind of sucks. But... This is ridiculous. I don't get the idea that Howard has the slightest idea what he's talking about. I can only assume that he was personally burned, or something, by some open source project. Maybe some MIS or IT underling pushed an OSS solution that burned his department... Weird. In any case, I think he needs to take a chill-pill. I'm amazed that something that vitriolic would be published in a mag. associated with such an august institution.
If he thinks installing Linux for home use is hard, try installing Windows for home use. First you install from the XP CD, then you'd better call MS to get it activated. Then you start installing all those patches from Windows Update. Then you start installing your apps ... Don't forget to track down the driver CDs for those obscure bits of hardware - in this sense, "obscure" can mean things like digital cameras, scanners, etc. that are actually pretty common in home PCs.
Uhm, can we say FUD? Seriously, I've never had a Windows machine that was anything but a self-built box, and I've never had the problems you're describing with XP. XP will activate itself over the internet with basically no work on the user's part (you click a button and it's done). I do agree with you about the part on Windows Update, but the better solution (automagically installing everything from Windows Update) has everyone on Slashdot up in arms every time it's mentioned. Don't forget, you still have to run the Update utility on Mac OS X, or one on Linux (assuming you've got one) whenever you do a fresh install. Meanwhile, XP has never even asked me to put its install disc back in for drivers. I've plugged in everything from 4 year old ATI video cards, random USB scanners, my digital camera, a webcam, a firewire PCI card, and a ton of other stuff without any problems ever. You would have had problems like this with Windows 9x, but the implication here that linux doesn't suffer from uninstalled driver problems like those being described above makes zero sense.
you will be able to get Longhorn for a shipping and handling fee through MSDN within a couple weeks. It'll include WinFX, Avalon, Indigo, and all of the other stuff MSFT has been working on. So, no, it's not an Adam Osborne mistake. There's a lot of stuff in there that is going to take developers a while to get used to (that's kind of how life goes when you need to learn a ton of new APIs). Microsoft wants developers to start writing Longhorn apps. Now. In order to do that, they need to get their stuff into as many hands as possible.
you have it so right. I am in the process of releasing a beta of my shareware application (see the sig below). In the questionnaire that I had potential applicants for the beta fill out I asked why they liked my app. The top reason in virtually every case was that the application has a simple, easy-to-use, obvious user interface. The average computer user really does like simple (but not stupid. there is a difference there) applications. More developers should keep that in mind when they write software.
XBox Live already lets you do this in a form far more seamlessly than typing. For a slower-paced strategy game I think that IM'ing would work fine, but for fast-paced games (Halflife 2, Doom III, etc.) it seems like it would take far more energy than its worth to type. However, one really cool thing (that certainly won't exist for a while) would be integrated speech recognition, allowing a textual log of different users' voice comments to be made during gameplay. Leaving this on a HUD would definitely prove useful in a tactical, team-based sort of game.
:-)
Now:::
Squad Leader: Take out that bunker!
You: huh? I was busy and didn't hear what you said.
Then:::
Squad Leader: Take out that bunker!
You: gotcha.
Or conversely, if this was implemented today:::
Squad Leader: Take out that bunker!
You: wreck a nice beach? There aren't any beaches! This counterstrike scenario takes place in the desert!
and then they could add a word processor in the background too, and then a web browser! And then we could all run HalfLife2 OS!
Basically, what we're talking about here is a vicious cycle. If you _really_ want to multitask while playing a game you're not going to want to do something silly like start bundling in frickin' IM protocols on your game just so some schmoe doesn't have to stop text messaging his friends while he's playing a game.
This is, perhaps, a bit off-topic, but I have yet to find anything like this on Mac OS X. Is there a VMWare (or VPC on Windows) sort of package available on Mac OS X that would let me run multiple, concurrent versions of OS X?
For example, I develop Mac software. If I could simultaneously test my product on 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 without having to reboot or use different computers it would save me a huge deal of time and money.
Please tell me this exists somewhere out there.
(and if not, someone should start such a project. open source or commercial.)
and the sad thing is that I'm a minnesotan. Half of the U.S. thinks I'm Canadian :-).
yeah, but at least our toothpaste only comes in english!
Also, Jean Poutine? I thought the Canadian PM was Jean Chretien (sic?).
my personal guess, you silly canadian (silly and canadian, and a silly canadian ;-) ), is that Keynote is the first of 1...2...3...4... Apple office apps. Appleworks hasn't really been upgraded in about a thousand years now, and the people working on that have to be doing something.
Keynote PPT
??? Word
??? Excel
MySQL + Enterprise Objects Framework or something Access
Mail+AddressBook Entourage/Outlook
that is a fabulous idea. goooooooooooooooogle 10 kajillion results found.
yeah, you would say that... damned canadians.
(cheers! aaron from wwdc)
Yeah, Slashdot is considered participatory journalism. This is, of course, despite the double postings, the terrible grammatical errors, the obvious bias, and, lest we forget, the goatse.cx guy.... Of course, I still look at Slashdot five or ten times a day, so I am being a hypocrite, but I still inclined to gripe.
lies, damn lies, and statistics ;-).
After hitting an ATM earlier today the amount of money in my pocket went from $1 to $40, a 4000% improvement! Remember the old adage, "lies, damn lies, and statistics." besides, IE currently possesses a market share of about 95% (from the register earlier today, if I am not mistaken). It isn't quite time to break out the champagne for Thunderbird's usage. I want to see IE get beaten around as much as the next guy (for totally different reasons than most slashdot readers, mind you), but this doesn't count quite yet. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to seeing what happens. Congrats to the Thunderbird team, in any case.
yes, let's ask the US government to design useful file formats. Riiiiiight. I have to say that I am taken aback that anyone would advocate that the US government do something efficiently or effectively. Besides, saying that the US Gov't should handle something that is clearly an international issue is a tremendously unilateral action to take. I sincerely doubt that the Pacific Rim countries or the EU would find this sort of idea particularly favorable. Really, what you need is a standard agreed upon by the industry. Entertainingly enough, it is arguable that there are only two (useful) real standards in this respect, PDF and Doc. PDF is owned by Adobe, and Doc, of course, is Microsoft Word's native format. There aren't any really good solutions here.
reality check here: there is no word on if/when this thing is going to be released in the states. Also, you say that the PSX has more (stuff/features, I can only assume you meant). However, you qualify this by saying that, realistically, it's only a DVD burner.
And I can certainly wait until the PSX has an office suite. It still has next to no RAM, and a 300MHz CPU.
Camino does use Cocoa. It may have the XUL stuff under the hood somewhere, but all of the controls are Mac OS X native. Which is a good thing. Firebird oh-six on Mac OS X has really freaky looking buttons under the preferences. I downloaded it, spent 20 seconds admiring the simplicity (and non-brushed metal ui), and then went back to Safari. Oh well. I'll try again in 6 months.
please do bear in mind that each of those comments has been posted on my Powerbook G4 running Mac OS X.
I am just about as platform agnostic as you can get. I try to use the right tool for the job. The fact is that, typically speaking, I find that a version 3.0 product from MS is the right choice for the job.
And the reason I comment so much on MS stuff is because I happen to know a hell of a lot about it. I've spent the last year getting paid to know a hell of a lot about it. Slashdot has a bajillion people who know just about everything there is to know with Linux and BSD. There appears to be an unfortunate dearth of individuals who know a lot about MS tech. Those who do get whacked around for astroturfing or trolling.
Honestly, I hope that the OSS movement produces a desktop that is very usable (in the Nielsen/Raskin/Spolsky sense). I want to see Apple and Microsoft actually have competition that they can't undercut on price. It would make the computing world a much better place.
My primary interest in computer science is in HCI and usability. This is the lens I examine just about everything through. Typically, when I am critical of something it is for a usability reason (or because the thing in question is just stupid, but that's another story).
And I didn't crawl out from under a rock in Seattle. More like one in Minnesota (hence the U of Minnesota thing).
Cheers,
Aaron
Fact: the average company cancels at least half of their projects.
A lot of projects are unsuccessful. This is true for Microsoft (Bob, Ultimate TV), Apple (G4 Cube, Newton, that weird Bandai video game system), and every other company out there.
How many open source projects get abandoned, or languish in obscurity?
Also, just for the record, COOL is C#. Thought you should know.
Just wait for version 3.0 to come out. That'll probably be good enough to whack Nokia and Qualcomm around. Think about it: Windows, Pocket PC, Tablet PC, etc. All of these products didn't really do well until version 3 rolled around. MS usually tries to get a product into a niche just to get experience there. They then spend the next few years figuring out means to really grab hold of the niche, and then they dominate it. That's how it works with them. Not a bad business strategy at all. In fact, it's really good one.
That's almost correct.
It's actually a bar halfway between the Whistler and Blackcomb mountains in British Columbia. You may recall that Windows XP's codename was Whistler. The version of Windows after XP was supposed to be Blackcomb, but it grew far too large, so MS slapped an interim release (Longhorn) in there. In other words, Longhorn is right between Whistler (XP) and Blackcomb (Probably Windows 2009).
Fun fact: the Windows group spent a while in the 90s naming everything after cities in Illinois. Chicago, Cairo, etc.
Fun fact 2: Last summer, you could see guys wandering around Redmond wearing Don't Mess With Texas t-shirts given out by their product group.
For most developers the issue of cross platform is irrelevant. In general I can support most biz needs via a web service anyway or in Windows. The rest of the world is Mac (and there WILL be a Mac implementation because Office on the Mac is a good cash source) or Linux - and Linux is irrelevant for this type of thing.
.Net. It's called the SSCLI, or Rotor. However, just like Office for Windows is all C/C++, so is Office mac. It's written as a Carbon application under Mac OS X, which is the older not-so-much-legacy-but-definitely-not-as-cool-as-C ocoa framework for developing Mac applications. There is no reason why MS would throw millions of perfectly good LOC in the trash just because C# came along. Besides, Rotor (for now) is an MS Research product, regardless of whether it's on Mac OS X, FreeBSD, or Windows. Mac Office is a product of the Mac Business Unit.
There is a mac port of
"Will there be DirectX for .Net?"
Yeah, I'm staring at my sdk cd right now. It's called DirectX 9.0. You can get it off msdn.microsoft.com.