I loathe the rude behaviour of some mobile phone users, but i tend to believe these people would be just as inconsiderate even if they did not have mobile phones. (I would advocate the use of mobile phone jammers if members of the Emergencey Services could still be gauranteed reliable communications).
But more to the point i like the notion of a head sup display embedded in a pair of sunglasses, and many people already carry around mobile phones which are in effect wearable Computers (more powereful than a Kray supercomputer from the 70s). If you are going to have a chunky digital watch it may as well be a Dick Tracey style Linux powered video camera (as featured in Linux Journal and featured on slashdot previously). The walkman/diskman/minidiskplayer/mp3players/hearing aids that people carry around can and will be adapted to have more features like supporting FM radio and dictation. On of those pen sized scanners (with dictionary and machine translation, nifty) might come in handy too.
The geeky stupid looking wearable computers might not catch on but the existing electronics many of use carry could become a lot more integrated and usable, i have little doubt this stuff will catch on just not in the cheesey and ugly implausible ways suggested by most Science Fiction.
you assert that developers "often run into is the myth of the pure non-user" but you do not back up this statement. It is an interesting point but i wished you had backed it up.
One of the follow up replies suggests you go to rural africa (rural anywhere for that matter), but i would also suggest you look to your family (particulary your grandparents if you are fortunate enough to still have them) look to the very young and the very old in any society.
Granted there are lots of Electronic Devices such as mobile phones, telephones, toasters, kettles, fridges, video recorders (even TiVo) that may contain microchips and could be considered computers but the users dont see it that way and they are designed to be used differently (i am loathe to use the word paradigm) they are generally focussed on a single task rather than multipurpose machines like PCs so i dont think it is fair to say that because some one is familiar with other modern technology they are not a blank slate when it comes to computers.
It usually makes sense to base your interface on real word interfaces that users can relate to but take a look at the criticisms of Quicktime 5 in the Interface Hall of Shame (google for it) and you will see a few examples when not to.
A Mature Denial of Service attack
on
RIAA Smacked by DoS
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
from http://www.vigilante.com/inetsecurity/hacktivism_1.htm
There is an important corresponding technical dimension that reinforces hacktivist claims of populist support. Hacktivist DoS attacks must be executed using client side or individual browser based tools. The prototypical Zapatista Floodnet tool, (which other groups have continued to develop) requires downloading and installing a Java applet. Moreover, these tools need to be consciously scheduled and aimed at a specific web address; actions that presumably demonstrate solidarity and commitment. To some hacktivists this distinction is all-important because it differentiates their activities from the nihilistic and anonymous February DDoS attacks on the CNN, Yahoo, and eBay e-commerce sites. During those assaults, allegedly orchestrated by "mafiaboy" and a few other apolitical participants, DoS "zombie" servers were surreptitiously placed on unwary host systems and triggered en masse. In fact, the utility programs used for swarming attacks, rooted in performance art, are far less powerful than hardcore "smurfing" weapons like Trin00, Stachaldraht and TFN2K.
Flood attacks can be used as a useful form of civil disobedience if used correctly in a *focussed and organised* way.
This is almost how vim works by default, showing the whole thing, but unfortunately, using the up and down arrows (or j and k) go up and down actual lines, not the virtual word-wrapped lines when in vim
Annoying isn't it?
but not as annoying as a machine where vi/vim/elvis/whatever is configured so you cannot use backspace or the arrow keys. Thank God for gVim, making the learning curve a whole lot smaller. if only there was a gMutt. of course it would probably deserver a better name than gMutt.
> So think about it. If MS released the full source for Windows XP, would it be a fantastic operating system that code-hackers flocked to?
> I myself think not.
Nice Interface, open source codebase. It is Mac OS X in a nutshell, and while developers may not exactly be flocking to it, it is certainly helping Apples reputation among the Techie crowd.
You can do most of the things you metion on a Mac, with the addition of relatively easy desktop Multimedia publishing.
The slightly more expensive hardware may be a sticking point for some people who have a room full of old x86 machines but even among developers how many people build machines from scratch nowadays and even then it is more for flexibilty and control than it is on cost basis.
The way i see it is if someone thinks they are a 'power user' they really should definately try Linux. If they have to ask me what kind of computer they should buy i tell them to buy a Mac. A lot can change in year.
Full disclosure: I dont own a Mac but i would like to.
i think he was reffering to spoken/written English
In written English prose you are usually advised to write numbers as one two three four, a fine example being the book nineteen eighty-four. Similarly dates should are generally written out as Thursday 4th of July (but i seem to be contradiction myself on the words instead of nubmers thing, but anyway). Abbrievations and acronyms, shorthand etc. (et cetera) should be avoided for clarity and understandability).
If you are doing science or something in mathematics it makes far more sense to use numbers 1 2 3 and standard notations 04/07/2002 that can be understood to Scientists irrespective of their their native language.
The British are more like to join the single European currency than America is to go metric.
It has already been explained several times in this discussion
Gnome is not just Ximian Gnome Foundation still not Ximian Ximian are one of the members of the Gnome foundation, Ximian contribute to Gnome.
The guy from Gnome Foundation handling the money has been provided with office space by Ximian, from the sounds of it he does not even work for Ximian.
Much as Miguel De Icaza might want it to be, Mono is not a part of Gnome. See the Gnome section of the Mono FAQ http://www.go-mono.com/faq.html#gnome
Sometimes Microsoft comes up with ideas worth pursueing, sometimes not (and sometimes they are just rehashing what i think would be better done using Java but it is as much about control as it is the technology). Mono is a competitor to.Net and although it may encourage the use of C# (aka D flat) it gives people an alternative implementation of the.Net framework that they are unlikely to be trapped by vendor lock in.
You still might not want to give to the Gnome Foundation, but many projects will accept donations directly and you could pay a few bucks to get that bug fix you really want or the feature request no one really has enough time to do, or you could try the other major linux desktop.
If you were to checkout some of the irc groups on irc.gnome.org or some of the mailing lists http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo (desktop devel list maybe) and could figure out what developer(s) are working on the feature you want and offer to pay them directly.
a search of Bugzilla http://bugzilla.gnome.org might turn up an exisiting bug report/request for the enhancements you want, and you could add the promised bounty to the bug report.
you should definately check out Gnome 2 it has imporved a lot.
I Kant gHelp gBut aGree with gnU on the annoying gnaming Konventions and poor Kommunition of ideas in *Freedom* gSoftware.
It is such bullshit that they are being sued for using the name FreeAmp but really they should seek legal help (from the EFF and possibly even AOL/Nullsoft who would not want any stupid precedant to be set) and probalby take it outside the USA. I know we should not judge a book by its cover but frankly we all do (most of the time) and the name is a real turn off.
I admire the fact that they are a project that runs on both windows and linux but i cannot help but wonder if there is redundant work being done here. Surely there are fundamentals that projects like XMMS and FreeAmp could share. I hope whoever does join this project joins or at least closes tracks several other similar projects rather than trying to work in on their own as if in a vacumn (nature abhors a vacumn).
There are a whole lot of Video/Music/Media players a bit of consolidation in the Open Source Market would be a good idea.
From a usability point of view Skinned interfaces bother me (this is not a criticism of FreeAmp specfically). While it is possible to have a good default interface and have a skinning system too, there is usually a badly flawed poorly thought out flawed default interface and a lot of engery is spent on specialised skins to compensate.
Best of luck if you do decide to join this project, but for my 2 cents worth maybe this project should be looking to join with someone else (be sponsors or another project, or earn themselves the place as default media player in a particular distribution or something) rather than hoping people join them.
It just goes to show is that the hardest thing for open source / freedom software to build is a lasting stable community.
People simply have unrealistic expectations, you should see some of the complicated crappy mobile phone interfaces young people put up with and want still more features, where as old fogeys like me are left trying to figure out how to just pick up the receiver and answer a call, or punch in a number and have it make the call and dont want a phone to do anything more than just make calls.
It is the marketing that builds their unrealistic expectations that it is easy. For to many years companies were trying to convince people that using a computer was really easier than handwriting a letter or that a slideshow was better than an intelligent focused well prepared spoken presentation.
Blame Canada, uh i mean blame Microsoft (and in this case probably Apple too:), blame the marketing.
The Trailer for MIB, have not watched it yet (ill wait until i next boot windows) probably contains more spoilers than this review. Interesting review by Katz, but this is a movie I was probably going to go and see anyway.
This post is just an excuse to say that CmdrTaco should post a comment like everyone else and let the moderators decide.
Skipjack->Valhalla, islands maybe (skipjack is also a fish) Valhalla->LIMBO At least this time i can see the connection, both are to do with the afterlife.
Valahalla, where Norse warriors go when they die.
Limbo, a kind of non-place where (some) Christians (used to) believe some go when they die. Neither Heaven nor Hell, Limbo was supposedly the place where good people who are not Christian (or babies who die before becoming Christian) go when they die, but that is the old ways and we are more progressive now and God loves you all (even aethists:) or something like that.
(Dont mod me down just because you dont appreciate my religion or are against organised religion on principle. I choose not reject my religion despite some of the misguided leadership and crazy zealots. Dont mod reply.)
I really love that expression "like trying to herd cats".
I would be right there ready to test binaries if you do something like this, but the idea of going off and starting yet another project worries me. You never know, diplomacy might actually work (especially if Phil Zimmerman was the diplomat). You might try doing a cross platform but different native toolkit kinda thing like Abiword does. The Mozilla plugin has potential, interesting.
My GUI design philosophy is if in doubt copy what everyone else is doing (in this case copy the official PGP). Do it differently only if you can demonstrate why your way is better (and even then it has to be substantial better to overcome the problem of inconsistancy+learnability).
Trying desperately to stay on topic and protect my meagre Karma...
(speaking of losing control of your baby) cool there seems to be GUIs for most platforms going, but are they consistant and easy to use?
Not invented Here, NIH and reinventing the wheel (or at least the fact the most projects waste time failing to invent a better wheel because they did not collaborate) seems like a curse of free software. if free software developers can play friendly together and communicate it would be a lot better for all of us.
-- "This is not Troll" Isn't that just what a troll would say
please do consider that getting Operating System is not always the right answer right now (a week is a very long time in politics, never is...)
keep in mind there is crossplatform software available most notably StarOffice/OpenOffice.org from Sun Microsystems. TheKompany.com do some QT based cross platform software. Abiword is also Cross Platform, the first and second points in this old FAQ say nicely what i mean. http://www.abisource.com/dev_faq.phtml#1.1
I like Linux and BSD too but I am not going to force anyone to use them but i aint gonna do free Windows Tech support, friends dont let friends hurt themselves (unless they are into that sort of thing which is a whole nuther story).
The funny thing is he has not landed yet (last time i heard the news at least) and strange as it might seem he is looking for trees to crash into, to help slow down his landing presumabley. Problem is he is currently flying over parts of Australia not likely to have many trees.
If you had millions in the bank what you spend it on? Assuming he is reasonably charitable this seems like as good a way as any to spend his disposable income.
I guess it is hard to say for sure without any specific evidence or case studies. (unless you have some easily found dont bother yourself researching)
And very few programs plan to be cross platform, so you will have a Mac program ported to windows that the Mac developers think is a pain in the ass waste of time or you will have a Windows program ported to the Mac then the windows developers would think it was a burden.
I read somewhere about Mac users being very dedicated to their system and far less likely to complain (where did i leave that link) so i suppose support costs might be lower. but then again the ease of use of the Mac attracts different users and there is the Windows userbase is just huge there are all types among it the rabble.
Your point about crappy PC hardware would be relevant for things like Audio applications but in other applications a consistant hardware platform is not really important.
I heard the toolkit Apple developed to get Quicktime working on windows works really well and the bulk of the porting was in the Interface tookit not the core.
I in many real life cases you would be right but i still dont think it is a simple your right i am wrong question i think the specifics of the project and the skills of the designers and developers could make a significant difference.
> PC version consumed 70% of their development and support costs
That seems unlikely.
Cross platform software means portable software and will/should mean that when the next major OS paradigm shift happens it will be easier to update your application. In a well architectured program the fixes will not be platform specific and the project would be generally forced to be better designed in the first place.
Support costs for windows could probably be dramatically reduced by no longer supporting the windows 9x versions (flakey crud that they are and i still use more than i would like)
I think it would make sense to offer a lesser/crippled/promotional version of Appple software for windows and using the same user interface for both. Apple are already provide windows versions of products like Claris aka AppleWorks and Quicktime for windows. http://www.apple.com/appleworks/
I feel much safer knowing that a program works on more than one platform and it increases my confidence that the program will find its niche and survive. Who knows what platform we wil be using in 10 years time, the less portable a program is the less likely it is to be ported to the latest and greatest Operating System (even then see how long it took befor Adobe ported apps to OS X).
> Well, if you like the music that a band puts out, you should buy the CD to support the band in the first place
In the current market yes, if you like the band the best way to show your support seems to be to buy the CD (and merchandise and concerts and...)
Ideally though the artists would be a little bit more technologically savvey they would allow fans to fund their music without there being so many middlemen skimming off profits. And Moby in particular will probably make more money selling his songs to advertisers than he will on record sales (and the advertisers often end up adversting Moby as much as their product).
The music industry is on crack, and Moby has fallen for their rhetoric. I think my subject sums it up neatly. Will they ever learn?
> It's OpenOffice.org, not OpenOffice, OpenOffice is trademarked. > From the faq: 8. Why should we say "OpenOffice.org" instead of simply "OpenOffice"? [openoffice.org]
You can reverse Engineer it if you really like but even better and far easier you can read the freely available file specification and if that is not enough you can look at the source code. Open source is great.
http://xml.openoffice.org/xml_specification_draf t. pdf
Be warned though the file format is HUGE, and does almost EVERYTHING. Great to have but a bit too complicated for my day to day needs.
[Obligatory mention of Abiword http://abisource.com for those of use who like a small sleek word processor and dont need all the bells and whistles]
I dont see why he should be allowed copyright "Light Saber". It unfair to copyright pre existing chunks of the Enlish language.
The Open Office spellchecker marks light saber as correctly spelled. This is because the Saber (a type of sword) could be either heavy or light.
On the other hand the compound word lightsaber, is not an already legitimate English phrase is is harder to confuse. Perhaps the distinction between "light saber" and the capitalized "Light Saber" is adequate for Copyright (capitalized in the Article but not in your post).
The life of the author plus 70 years? Seriously can you even imagine anyone wanting to use that movie Willow Lucas made, or Mcirosoft QDOS by that if the information actually manages to survive that long.
Slashdot Mirror
I loathe the rude behaviour of some mobile phone users, but i tend to believe these people would be just as inconsiderate even if they did not have mobile phones. (I would advocate the use of mobile phone jammers if members of the Emergencey Services could still be gauranteed reliable communications).
But more to the point i like the notion of a head sup display embedded in a pair of sunglasses, and many people already carry around mobile phones which are in effect wearable Computers (more powereful than a Kray supercomputer from the 70s). If you are going to have a chunky digital watch it may as well be a Dick Tracey style Linux powered video camera (as featured in Linux Journal and featured on slashdot previously).
The walkman/diskman/minidiskplayer/mp3players/hearing aids that people carry around can and will be adapted to have more features like supporting FM radio and dictation. On of those pen sized scanners (with dictionary and machine translation, nifty) might come in handy too.
The geeky stupid looking wearable computers might not catch on but the existing electronics many of use carry could become a lot more integrated and usable, i have little doubt this stuff will catch on just not in the cheesey and ugly implausible ways suggested by most Science Fiction.
you assert that developers "often run into is the myth of the pure non-user" but you do not back up this statement. It is an interesting point but i wished you had backed it up.
One of the follow up replies suggests you go to rural africa (rural anywhere for that matter), but i would also suggest you look to your family (particulary your grandparents if you are fortunate enough to still have them) look to the very young and the very old in any society.
Granted there are lots of Electronic Devices such as mobile phones, telephones, toasters, kettles, fridges, video recorders (even TiVo) that may contain microchips and could be considered computers but the users dont see it that way and they are designed to be used differently (i am loathe to use the word paradigm) they are generally focussed on a single task rather than multipurpose machines like PCs so i dont think it is fair to say that because some one is familiar with other modern technology they are not a blank slate when it comes to computers.
It usually makes sense to base your interface on real word interfaces that users can relate to but take a look at the criticisms of Quicktime 5 in the Interface Hall of Shame (google for it) and you will see a few examples when not to.
from http://www.vigilante.com/inetsecurity/hacktivism_1 .htm
There is an important corresponding technical dimension that reinforces hacktivist claims of populist support. Hacktivist DoS attacks must be executed using client side or individual browser based tools. The prototypical Zapatista Floodnet tool, (which other groups have continued to develop) requires downloading and installing a Java applet. Moreover, these tools need to be consciously scheduled and aimed at a specific web address; actions that presumably demonstrate solidarity and commitment. To some hacktivists this distinction is all-important because it differentiates their activities from the nihilistic and anonymous February DDoS attacks on the CNN, Yahoo, and eBay e-commerce sites. During those assaults, allegedly orchestrated by "mafiaboy" and a few other apolitical participants, DoS "zombie" servers were surreptitiously placed on unwary host systems and triggered en masse. In fact, the utility programs used for swarming attacks, rooted in performance art, are far less powerful than hardcore "smurfing" weapons like Trin00, Stachaldraht and TFN2K.
Flood attacks can be used as a useful form of civil disobedience if used correctly in a *focussed and organised* way.
Annoying isn't it? but not as annoying as a machine where vi/vim/elvis/whatever is configured so you cannot use backspace or the arrow keys.
Thank God for gVim, making the learning curve a whole lot smaller. if only there was a gMutt. of course it would probably deserver a better name than gMutt.
> So think about it. If MS released the full source for Windows XP, would it be a fantastic operating system that code-hackers flocked to?
> I myself think not.
Nice Interface, open source codebase.
It is Mac OS X in a nutshell, and while developers may not exactly be flocking to it, it is certainly helping Apples reputation among the Techie crowd.
You can do most of the things you metion on a Mac, with the addition of relatively easy desktop Multimedia publishing.
The slightly more expensive hardware may be a sticking point for some people who have a room full of old x86 machines but even among developers how many people build machines from scratch nowadays and even then it is more for flexibilty and control than it is on cost basis.
The way i see it is if someone thinks they are a 'power user' they really should definately try Linux. If they have to ask me what kind of computer they should buy i tell them to buy a Mac.
A lot can change in year.
Full disclosure: I dont own a Mac but i would like to.
Think Different learn to proper use adverbs good
i think he was reffering to spoken/written English
In written English prose you are usually advised to write numbers as one two three four, a fine example being the book nineteen eighty-four. Similarly dates should are generally written out as Thursday 4th of July (but i seem to be contradiction myself on the words instead of nubmers thing, but anyway). Abbrievations and acronyms, shorthand etc. (et cetera) should be avoided for clarity and understandability).
If you are doing science or something in mathematics it makes far more sense to use numbers 1 2 3 and standard notations 04/07/2002 that can be understood to Scientists irrespective of their their native language.
The British are more like to join the single European currency than America is to go metric.
It has already been explained several times in this discussion
.Net and although it may encourage the use of C# (aka D flat) it gives people an alternative implementation of the .Net framework that they are unlikely to be trapped by vendor lock in.
Gnome is not just Ximian
Gnome Foundation still not Ximian
Ximian are one of the members of the Gnome foundation, Ximian contribute to Gnome.
The guy from Gnome Foundation handling the money has been provided with office space by Ximian, from the sounds of it he does not even work for Ximian.
Much as Miguel De Icaza might want it to be, Mono is not a part of Gnome. See the Gnome section of the Mono FAQ
http://www.go-mono.com/faq.html#gnome
Sometimes Microsoft comes up with ideas worth pursueing, sometimes not (and sometimes they are just rehashing what i think would be better done using Java but it is as much about control as it is the technology). Mono is a competitor to
You still might not want to give to the Gnome Foundation, but many projects will accept donations directly and you could pay a few bucks to get that bug fix you really want or the feature request no one really has enough time to do,
or you could try the other major linux desktop.
enjoy!
If you were to checkout some of the irc groups on irc.gnome.org or some of the mailing lists
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo (desktop devel list maybe)
and could figure out what developer(s) are working on the feature you want and offer to pay them directly.
a search of Bugzilla
http://bugzilla.gnome.org
might turn up an exisiting bug report/request for the enhancements you want, and you could add the promised bounty to the bug report.
you should definately check out Gnome 2 it has imporved a lot.
Allegedly the KDE originally stood for Kool Desktop Enviroment but somewhere along the line someone decided that the K did not stand for anything.
Here is a copy of the original post that helped get the whole KDE project started.
http://freekde.org/neil/kdeannounce.html
both gnome and kde have a lot to answer for with their silly gnaming konventions.
I Kant gHelp gBut aGree with gnU on the annoying gnaming Konventions and poor Kommunition of ideas in *Freedom* gSoftware.
It is such bullshit that they are being sued for using the name FreeAmp but really they should seek legal help (from the EFF and possibly even AOL/Nullsoft who would not want any stupid precedant to be set) and probalby take it outside the USA.
I know we should not judge a book by its cover but frankly we all do (most of the time) and the name is a real turn off.
I admire the fact that they are a project that runs on both windows and linux but i cannot help but wonder if there is redundant work being done here.
Surely there are fundamentals that projects like XMMS and FreeAmp could share. I hope whoever does join this project joins or at least closes tracks several other similar projects rather than trying to work in on their own as if in a vacumn (nature abhors a vacumn).
There are a whole lot of Video/Music/Media players a bit of consolidation in the Open Source Market would be a good idea.
From a usability point of view Skinned interfaces bother me (this is not a criticism of FreeAmp specfically). While it is possible to have a good default interface and have a skinning system too, there is usually a badly flawed poorly thought out flawed default interface and a lot of engery is spent on specialised skins to compensate.
Best of luck if you do decide to join this project, but for my 2 cents worth maybe this project should be looking to join with someone else (be sponsors or another project, or earn themselves the place as default media player in a particular distribution or something) rather than hoping people join them.
It just goes to show is that the hardest thing for open source / freedom software to build is a lasting stable community.
People simply have unrealistic expectations, you should see some of the complicated crappy mobile phone interfaces young people put up with and want still more features, where as old fogeys like me are left trying to figure out how to just pick up the receiver and answer a call, or punch in a number and have it make the call and dont want a phone to do anything more than just make calls.
:), blame the marketing.
It is the marketing that builds their unrealistic expectations that it is easy. For to many years companies were trying to convince people that using a computer was really easier than handwriting a letter or that a slideshow was better than an intelligent focused well prepared spoken presentation.
Blame Canada, uh i mean blame Microsoft
(and in this case probably Apple too
http://www.apple.com/trailers/columbia/men_in_blac k_2/
The Trailer for MIB, have not watched it yet (ill wait until i next boot windows) probably contains more spoilers than this review.
Interesting review by Katz, but this is a movie I was probably going to go and see anyway.
This post is just an excuse to say that CmdrTaco should post a comment like everyone else and let the moderators decide.
Skipjack->Valhalla, islands maybe (skipjack is also a fish)
:) or something like that.
Valhalla->LIMBO
At least this time i can see the connection, both are to do with the afterlife.
Valahalla, where Norse warriors go when they die.
Limbo, a kind of non-place where (some) Christians (used to) believe some go when they die. Neither Heaven nor Hell, Limbo was supposedly the place where good people who are not Christian (or babies who die before becoming Christian) go when they die, but that is the old ways and we are more progressive now and God loves you all (even aethists
(Dont mod me down just because you dont appreciate my religion or are against organised religion on principle. I choose not reject my religion despite some of the misguided leadership and crazy zealots. Dont mod reply.)
Conspiracy theories on this topic over at newsforge.net ;)
TuxReports has "the scoop"
I really love that expression "like trying to herd cats".
...
I would be right there ready to test binaries if you do something like this, but the idea of going off and starting yet another project worries me. You never know, diplomacy might actually work (especially if Phil Zimmerman was the diplomat).
You might try doing a cross platform but different native toolkit kinda thing like Abiword does.
The Mozilla plugin has potential, interesting.
My GUI design philosophy is if in doubt copy what everyone else is doing (in this case copy the official PGP). Do it differently only if you can demonstrate why your way is better (and even then it has to be substantial better to overcome the problem of inconsistancy+learnability).
Trying desperately to stay on topic and protect my meagre Karma
It is not really Natalie Portman it is Queen Amidala. I feel cheated, Queen Amidal looks more like a bad set of curtains than Natlie Portman.
h tm
On his web page he even titles the sculpture.
Queen Amidala
"My apologies to Ms. Portman"
Now this page is more like it (no lego though)
http://www.natalie-portman.net/pictures.
--
"This isn't a Troll"
Of course a troll would say that
Anonymous Usability Nut Time (AUNT)
(speaking of losing control of your baby)
cool there seems to be GUIs for most platforms going, but are they consistant and easy to use?
Not invented Here, NIH and reinventing the wheel (or at least the fact the most projects waste time failing to invent a better wheel because they did not collaborate) seems like a curse of free software.
if free software developers can play friendly together and communicate it would be a lot better for all of us.
--
"This is not Troll"
Isn't that just what a troll would say
please do consider that getting Operating System is not always the right answer right now (a week is a very long time in politics, never is ...)
keep in mind there is crossplatform software available most notably StarOffice/OpenOffice.org from Sun Microsystems.
TheKompany.com do some QT based cross platform software.
Abiword is also Cross Platform, the first and second points in this old FAQ say nicely what i mean.
http://www.abisource.com/dev_faq.phtml#1.1
I like Linux and BSD too but I am not going to force anyone to use them but i aint gonna do free Windows Tech support, friends dont let friends hurt themselves (unless they are into that sort of thing which is a whole nuther story).
The funny thing is he has not landed yet (last time i heard the news at least) and strange as it might seem he is looking for trees to crash into, to help slow down his landing presumabley.
Problem is he is currently flying over parts of Australia not likely to have many trees.
If you had millions in the bank what you spend it on? Assuming he is reasonably charitable this seems like as good a way as any to spend his disposable income.
I guess it is hard to say for sure without any specific evidence or case studies. (unless you have some easily found dont bother yourself researching)
And very few programs plan to be cross platform, so you will have a Mac program ported to windows that the Mac developers think is a pain in the ass waste of time or you will have a Windows program ported to the Mac then the windows developers would think it was a burden.
I read somewhere about Mac users being very dedicated to their system and far less likely to complain (where did i leave that link) so i suppose support costs might be lower. but then again the ease of use of the Mac attracts different users and there is the Windows userbase is just huge there are all types among it the rabble.
Your point about crappy PC hardware would be relevant for things like Audio applications but in other applications a consistant hardware platform
is not really important.
I heard the toolkit Apple developed to get Quicktime working on windows works really well and the bulk of the porting was in the Interface tookit not the core.
I in many real life cases you would be right but i still dont think it is a simple your right i am wrong question i think the specifics of the project and the skills of the designers and developers could make a significant difference.
Later
> PC version consumed 70% of their development and support costs
That seems unlikely.
Cross platform software means portable software and will/should mean that when the next major OS paradigm shift happens it will be easier to update your application. In a well architectured program the fixes will not be platform specific and the project would be generally forced to be better designed in the first place.
Support costs for windows could probably be dramatically reduced by no longer supporting the windows 9x versions (flakey crud that they are and i still use more than i would like)
I think it would make sense to offer a lesser/crippled/promotional version of Appple software for windows and using the same user interface for both.
Apple are already provide windows versions of products like Claris aka AppleWorks and Quicktime for windows.
http://www.apple.com/appleworks/
I feel much safer knowing that a program works on more than one platform and it increases my confidence that the program will find its niche and survive. Who knows what platform we wil be using in 10 years time, the less portable a program is the less likely it is to be ported to the latest and greatest Operating System (even then see how long it took befor Adobe ported apps to OS X).
> Well, if you like the music that a band puts out, you should buy the CD to support the band in the first place
...)
In the current market yes, if you like the band the best way to show your support seems to be to buy the CD (and merchandise and concerts and
Ideally though the artists would be a little bit more technologically savvey they would allow fans to fund their music without there being so many middlemen skimming off profits.
And Moby in particular will probably make more money selling his songs to advertisers than he will on record sales (and the advertisers often end up adversting Moby as much as their product).
The music industry is on crack, and Moby has fallen for their rhetoric. I think my subject sums it up neatly. Will they ever learn?
--
wher eis the spllchkr when u need it...
> It's OpenOffice.org, not OpenOffice, OpenOffice is trademarked.
> From the faq: 8. Why should we say "OpenOffice.org" instead of simply "OpenOffice"? [openoffice.org]
Shouldn't that be Gnu/OpenOffice.org
:P
/me laughs in the face of silly gnaming pedantry
You can reverse Engineer it if you really like but even better and far easier you can read the freely available file specification and if that is not enough you can look at the source code. Open source is great.
f t. pdf
http://xml.openoffice.org/xml_specification_dra
Be warned though the file format is HUGE, and does almost EVERYTHING. Great to have but a bit too complicated for my day to day needs.
[Obligatory mention of Abiword http://abisource.com for those of use who like a small sleek word processor and dont need all the bells and whistles]
I dont see why he should be allowed copyright "Light Saber". It unfair to copyright pre existing chunks of the Enlish language.
The Open Office spellchecker marks light saber as correctly spelled. This is because the Saber (a type of sword) could be either heavy or light.
On the other hand the compound word lightsaber, is not an already legitimate English phrase is is harder to confuse. Perhaps the distinction between "light saber" and the capitalized "Light Saber" is adequate for Copyright (capitalized in the Article but not in your post).
The life of the author plus 70 years? Seriously can you even imagine anyone wanting to use that movie Willow Lucas made, or Mcirosoft QDOS by that if the information actually manages to survive that long.