Before being able to voice my opinion on the software I need to try it. From what I can tell there is no demo, so that make it a little harder. I would only be willing to shell out that money if I feel it is worth the expense. Currently I have tried MS Office, AppleWorks (previously ClarisWorks), Think Free and Open Office. MS Office, despite what many here may think of it, is still a reference for completness, functionality and interface design (the Mac version at least). I am willing to try another solution, but first I need to get a feel for it. Until an 'EIOffice 2004' demo is available, all I will say 'nice to see another contender, but it is worth the case?'.
Judging from these photos (please mirror), it looks like the plastic dinosour is on site. I base this on the varying lighting on the thing, and the shadow on the rock.
Looks like Dino, but is he really there? Looking at the picture and the fact no one has been there to remove it, whether Dino hasn't just been added digitally, like the overlay text?
Reading up on the feature that causes the problem, it looks like something in normal situations to be very useful. Rather than simply disabling this functionality, it would certainly seem better to find a solution the security issue. Maybe one would be to require admin permission before activating the URL helper, with a warning of what it would do?
I had thought about requiring applications to be signed, and non-signed applications requiring extra permission, but since this issue is likey to arise from unsigned applications that the user would accept anyhow, would we just be gaining a false sense of security?
It does, but it also shows the importance of community. This is one thing that I feel should be taken into account when creating a product. If you can create a community around your product then people will dicuss what they like, what they don't like and generally people will talk about your product. All this needs be, to start with, is a help forum will provision for generalised discussion. If people are part of the community then they are likely to help push the product.
It seem to me more and more patents are being ruled as invalid, If this is indeed the case why are they being assigned in the first place ?
With the number of patent applications coming in, it is hard to validate every single one of them completly, not to mention costly. Also remember that things that shouldn't be patentable, IMO, such as software and business models are. The patent clerks don't know everything that is going on in the world, so won't always find prior art in the time allocated.
For the government it is cheaper to let the patentee and the 'infringing' party to fight over it in court.
Even Apple, whose original macs were microkernels, eventually switched over to a macrokernel because of the difficulties of updating the original one.
They took something that worked and had a provem track record. In fact, from what I understand the orginal OS that makes up MacOS X actually had drivers running in protected memory, but this was done away with for performance reasons - maybe we will see this come back when computers are fast enough?
Having hung around some of the development lists I get the general feeling that it is far less headache to develop things for user space unless you really have a good reason to write in kernal space. For example, anything that is can only be used by one program at a time is best found in user space. One of the problems with writing kernel space drivers is having to put up with constant reboots until you have the bugs out of the code. Developing in user space you only have to put up with crashing applications. For example, almost all USB drivers only need to be user space.
Don't buy this product. The Alexis de Tongueville Institute has released an independent, objective, un-biased, and totally honest study which concludes that you should only buy Xbox video game hardware, and that video game products from Sony and Nintendo are directly responsible for terrorism and the collapse of the global economy.
Don't forget that they weren't orginal ideas, so we shouldn't even be giving them any points for that either.
But anyone who thinks this is a stupid thing to have to hold the pump the whole damn time knows that shoving your gas cap into the handle will hold the valve open for you, allowing you to clean your windshield/windscreen and/or do other things than get your hand smelling like gasoline.
The problem with this is that the trigger won't release when the tank is full. In pump handles with catches they will release when the tank is full.
From what I understand they are, but its scarier than you think. The US is not, in many instances, allowed to spy on its own citizens, so it makes use of any ally to do it for them. This means they get round any privacy issues. In return the US spies on the UK to give the UK information on their own citizens.
This based on what I have been told. If anyone has anything to prove or disprove this, please share here.
I have also heard that Windows NT was called what it was because it is an offset of the acronym VMS. WNT is VMS, but with each character shifted one. I don't know whether this is an urban legend or true?
Yes. But knowing 5 letters are in a word doesn't narrow it down nearly as much as knowing the word is 46 pixels long.
Maybe its just me, but the way I see it, is if you know that a word is 5 letters long, then you know its x pixels long (knowing the width of one character and you them all with monospaced). With a variable width font you know the length, but you don't know the number of characters. This means you go from 26^5 permuations, for the previous example, (26^n generally), to how ever many different letters fit in that space. For example 'will' with take up as much space as 'iiill', so you have a combination of multiple powers, in this case (26^4 + 26^5). For longer words you have more possible variations.
except that a huge number of people dont pay for windows separately; they get it packaged...or pirate it. in either case, the total cost of windows is zero the the end user.
This is true if you are talking about your average home user. When it comes to companies, then it is another matter. Many companies are so locked into a Microsoft based workspace that they will pay the extra buck. I have worked for a few companies that are in this sort of situation. At the same time, Microsoft provides an easy solution for the office, since managers know that they can get everything they need for doing day to day business from the same place and it works. Until someone can offer an Exchange like solution that can appeal to managers then the move won't happen. Heck, not using outlook is starting to cause me frowns from my boss, since Mozilla can't work with the meeting requests - I hate to admit but I will cave, for work at least.
If you want to sell a product to management, then it has to make their life easier. In many ways viruses and security issues seems like non-issues when compared to the seemingly complexity of Linux systems. Microsoft manages to offer this simplicity to the office, Apple for the sciences and the arts. Linux is great for server side solutions which are managed by techies. Now if Linux is ever to penetrate the desktops of big business, then it has to be designed for both the manager type users and also ensure that each incremental kernel upgrade won't break their printer driver.
Remember users want something that makes their life easier, without adding complexity in the meantime. Not everyone has time to tinker.
Just did a quick search on the Canadian Staples web site for A4 and after entering my postal code (you can try 'H2Y 1V7' if you are outside of Canada and don't know of one), quickly found a few entries listing A4 related products, including a box of A4 paper. The US Staples web site also list some (I specified 68000 as the zip code).
Looks like the results you get just depend on how you go about your search.
This is one thing that scares me. In a number of countries (think of the old USSR and China) there is no freedom of information and that the information that is available is tightly controlled. These are societies that have been painted with lack of freedom and oppressive. If current USA policy is allowed to evolve in the direction it is going then there is danger that its citizens will lose their freedoms and being a free-thinking academic would be badly thought of. Also, with what we have seen happening in Iraq, can we really trust the government on human rights, be it for nationals, foreigners or prisoners of war - the latter is more a question of the Geneva convention.
Today's USA is no longer perceived as the land of the free, despite what the slogan might be. The terrorists won in the USA, and the media just feeds them even more.
Freedom is about a state of being and not slogans.
(this guy worked miracles in Flash, I've gotta say, and we ended up having him do all our corporate web design stuff).
Pet peeve warning:
Please no! Flash is the worst thing that could have ever happened to the web. The number of unnavigable sites, pages you can't bookmark, long download times, yet another flash upgrade to install, you can't be guaranteed to have it working on every computer you are running on and forget about having your site indexed properly by search engines. It just goes against the philosphy of the web, which is 'write once, view anywhere' - I really feel Flash is about fanzy jazz first and information accessibility last.
Judging by the layout it looks like Nitendo got inspiration from its old 'Game & Watch' game systems. For Nintendo the concept of a dual screen game system is certainly nothing new, though this time you aren't limited to one game. I see it as a fusion of Gambeboy and 'Game and Watch'.
Regardless of patents etc. it doesn't matter that there is something as good as a Microsoft codec. Unless there is a perceived advantage, unfortunately it isn't going to become widely adopted because the huge mass marketing machine that is Microsoft is pushing its technology and making it the easy to use default.
Agreed. Also, unless it is bundled with Quicktime, Real or Windows Media, then it will also be a hard sell. At the same time remember we are talking about a video codec here, so it still needs some sort of container. In order to get the codec out to as many people as possible, then the codec has to be made to work with AVI, Quicktime and possibly even MPEG 4 (it specifies a container too I believe).
Also, maybe getting it working with some of the professional encoding software would be good.
Above all to make it work it has to be easy for all the interested parties. One hint at a techie installation and you are sunk - most people just want to use it, they don't want to think about it.
From what I can tell the only thing that 'taking advantage of WinFS' could mean is the metadata aspect, or hooks allowing Firefox to render the preview images of files. Both these features could easily by added to Firefox and would not necessarily break cross-platform support. For example with metadata, you provide the option to write it, but if the underlying system API does not support it, then it just gets ignored. Since there are continual hints that MacOS X may one day get metadata, that we know Longhorn definetly will and that this is always a possibility for Linux and other OSs, I would feel this would be a good move. For example, imagine you download a file and as part of that meta data the URL where it orginated from was stored with the file, then that could be handy for the day that you decide to organise your HD and want to return to the source.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the link. It is for the 2003 edition, but it should get me started.
Before being able to voice my opinion on the software I need to try it. From what I can tell there is no demo, so that make it a little harder. I would only be willing to shell out that money if I feel it is worth the expense. Currently I have tried MS Office, AppleWorks (previously ClarisWorks), Think Free and Open Office. MS Office, despite what many here may think of it, is still a reference for completness, functionality and interface design (the Mac version at least). I am willing to try another solution, but first I need to get a feel for it. Until an 'EIOffice 2004' demo is available, all I will say 'nice to see another contender, but it is worth the case?'.
Now we hunt him down and execute him, right?
:-/
Or maybe we could execute the virus. Hmm, on the other hand that's not want we want to do
Now we hunt him down and execute him, right?
:-/
Or maybe would could execute the virus. Hmm, on the other hand that's not want we want to do
Judging from these photos (please mirror), it looks like the plastic dinosour is on site. I base this on the varying lighting on the thing, and the shadow on the rock.
Looks like Dino, but is he really there? Looking at the picture and the fact no one has been there to remove it, whether Dino hasn't just been added digitally, like the overlay text?
Reading up on the feature that causes the problem, it looks like something in normal situations to be very useful. Rather than simply disabling this functionality, it would certainly seem better to find a solution the security issue. Maybe one would be to require admin permission before activating the URL helper, with a warning of what it would do?
I had thought about requiring applications to be signed, and non-signed applications requiring extra permission, but since this issue is likey to arise from unsigned applications that the user would accept anyhow, would we just be gaining a false sense of security?
I would be curious to read your ideas.
this just shows how strong the community actually
It does, but it also shows the importance of community. This is one thing that I feel should be taken into account when creating a product. If you can create a community around your product then people will dicuss what they like, what they don't like and generally people will talk about your product. All this needs be, to start with, is a help forum will provision for generalised discussion. If people are part of the community then they are likely to help push the product.
It seem to me more and more patents are being ruled as invalid, If this is indeed the case why are they being assigned in the first place ?
With the number of patent applications coming in, it is hard to validate every single one of them completly, not to mention costly. Also remember that things that shouldn't be patentable, IMO, such as software and business models are. The patent clerks don't know everything that is going on in the world, so won't always find prior art in the time allocated.
For the government it is cheaper to let the patentee and the 'infringing' party to fight over it in court.
Even Apple, whose original macs were microkernels, eventually switched over to a macrokernel because of the difficulties of updating the original one.
They took something that worked and had a provem track record. In fact, from what I understand the orginal OS that makes up MacOS X actually had drivers running in protected memory, but this was done away with for performance reasons - maybe we will see this come back when computers are fast enough?
Having hung around some of the development lists I get the general feeling that it is far less headache to develop things for user space unless you really have a good reason to write in kernal space. For example, anything that is can only be used by one program at a time is best found in user space. One of the problems with writing kernel space drivers is having to put up with constant reboots until you have the bugs out of the code. Developing in user space you only have to put up with crashing applications. For example, almost all USB drivers only need to be user space.
# Green GBA SP = Lime
# Red GBA SP = Cherry
# Black GBA SP = Licorice
# Blue GBA SP = Blueberry
# Pink GBA SP = Strawberry
# Platnium GBA SP = ?????
I think the platinum will just stick to your tongue when its cold - you wouldn't notice any flavour.
Don't buy this product. The Alexis de Tongueville Institute has released an independent, objective, un-biased, and totally honest study which concludes that you should only buy Xbox video game hardware, and that video game products from Sony and Nintendo are directly responsible for terrorism and the collapse of the global economy.
Don't forget that they weren't orginal ideas, so we shouldn't even be giving them any points for that either.
But anyone who thinks this is a stupid thing to have to hold the pump the whole damn time knows that shoving your gas cap into the handle will hold the valve open for you, allowing you to clean your windshield/windscreen and/or do other things than get your hand smelling like gasoline.
The problem with this is that the trigger won't release when the tank is full. In pump handles with catches they will release when the tank is full.
And the UK isn't spying on us?
From what I understand they are, but its scarier than you think. The US is not, in many instances, allowed to spy on its own citizens, so it makes use of any ally to do it for them. This means they get round any privacy issues. In return the US spies on the UK to give the UK information on their own citizens.
This based on what I have been told. If anyone has anything to prove or disprove this, please share here.
I have also heard that Windows NT was called what it was because it is an offset of the acronym VMS. WNT is VMS, but with each character shifted one. I don't know whether this is an urban legend or true?
Yes. But knowing 5 letters are in a word doesn't narrow it down nearly as much as knowing the word is 46 pixels long.
Maybe its just me, but the way I see it, is if you know that a word is 5 letters long, then you know its x pixels long (knowing the width of one character and you them all with monospaced). With a variable width font you know the length, but you don't know the number of characters. This means you go from 26^5 permuations, for the previous example, (26^n generally), to how ever many different letters fit in that space. For example 'will' with take up as much space as 'iiill', so you have a combination of multiple powers, in this case (26^4 + 26^5). For longer words you have more possible variations.
except that a huge number of people dont pay for windows separately; they get it packaged...or pirate it. in either case, the total cost of windows is zero the the end user.
This is true if you are talking about your average home user. When it comes to companies, then it is another matter. Many companies are so locked into a Microsoft based workspace that they will pay the extra buck. I have worked for a few companies that are in this sort of situation. At the same time, Microsoft provides an easy solution for the office, since managers know that they can get everything they need for doing day to day business from the same place and it works. Until someone can offer an Exchange like solution that can appeal to managers then the move won't happen. Heck, not using outlook is starting to cause me frowns from my boss, since Mozilla can't work with the meeting requests - I hate to admit but I will cave, for work at least.
If you want to sell a product to management, then it has to make their life easier. In many ways viruses and security issues seems like non-issues when compared to the seemingly complexity of Linux systems. Microsoft manages to offer this simplicity to the office, Apple for the sciences and the arts. Linux is great for server side solutions which are managed by techies. Now if Linux is ever to penetrate the desktops of big business, then it has to be designed for both the manager type users and also ensure that each incremental kernel upgrade won't break their printer driver.
Remember users want something that makes their life easier, without adding complexity in the meantime. Not everyone has time to tinker.
Just did a quick search on the Canadian Staples web site for A4 and after entering my postal code (you can try 'H2Y 1V7' if you are outside of Canada and don't know of one), quickly found a few entries listing A4 related products, including a box of A4 paper. The US Staples web site also list some (I specified 68000 as the zip code).
Looks like the results you get just depend on how you go about your search.
This is one thing that scares me. In a number of countries (think of the old USSR and China) there is no freedom of information and that the information that is available is tightly controlled. These are societies that have been painted with lack of freedom and oppressive. If current USA policy is allowed to evolve in the direction it is going then there is danger that its citizens will lose their freedoms and being a free-thinking academic would be badly thought of. Also, with what we have seen happening in Iraq, can we really trust the government on human rights, be it for nationals, foreigners or prisoners of war - the latter is more a question of the Geneva convention.
Today's USA is no longer perceived as the land of the free, despite what the slogan might be. The terrorists won in the USA, and the media just feeds them even more.
Freedom is about a state of being and not slogans.
(this guy worked miracles in Flash, I've gotta say, and we ended up having him do all our corporate web design stuff).
Pet peeve warning:
Please no! Flash is the worst thing that could have ever happened to the web. The number of unnavigable sites, pages you can't bookmark, long download times, yet another flash upgrade to install, you can't be guaranteed to have it working on every computer you are running on and forget about having your site indexed properly by search engines. It just goes against the philosphy of the web, which is 'write once, view anywhere' - I really feel Flash is about fanzy jazz first and information accessibility last.
Judging by the layout it looks like Nitendo got inspiration from its old 'Game & Watch' game systems. For Nintendo the concept of a dual screen game system is certainly nothing new, though this time you aren't limited to one game. I see it as a fusion of Gambeboy and 'Game and Watch'.
Add the above info to the headline, the last thing we want to do is annoy people with a legitimate business.
Regardless of patents etc. it doesn't matter that there is something as good as a Microsoft codec. Unless there is a perceived advantage, unfortunately it isn't going to become widely adopted because the huge mass marketing machine that is Microsoft is pushing its technology and making it the easy to use default.
Agreed. Also, unless it is bundled with Quicktime, Real or Windows Media, then it will also be a hard sell. At the same time remember we are talking about a video codec here, so it still needs some sort of container. In order to get the codec out to as many people as possible, then the codec has to be made to work with AVI, Quicktime and possibly even MPEG 4 (it specifies a container too I believe).
Also, maybe getting it working with some of the professional encoding software would be good.
Above all to make it work it has to be easy for all the interested parties. One hint at a techie installation and you are sunk - most people just want to use it, they don't want to think about it.
Pablo Picasso is alive and well ... and working as an architect.
When I saw it all I could imagine was 'Welcome Alice, may your wonderland adventures begin'. Then again maybe Dali got involved too?
From what I can tell the only thing that 'taking advantage of WinFS' could mean is the metadata aspect, or hooks allowing Firefox to render the preview images of files. Both these features could easily by added to Firefox and would not necessarily break cross-platform support. For example with metadata, you provide the option to write it, but if the underlying system API does not support it, then it just gets ignored. Since there are continual hints that MacOS X may one day get metadata, that we know Longhorn definetly will and that this is always a possibility for Linux and other OSs, I would feel this would be a good move. For example, imagine you download a file and as part of that meta data the URL where it orginated from was stored with the file, then that could be handy for the day that you decide to organise your HD and want to return to the source.