PDF's are common, but I never see CSV's in the wild. Anyway, the real problem is the stuff like Sage products, or other industry-specific software like Lexis Nexus or Time Matters, or medical records stuff. There's basically zero Linux support with the big players.
My clients range from property management to law firms to multi-million dollar construction contractors. Every single one of them has one or more bits of software that won't run on Linux. Quickbooks, Sage products, Office (to properly open files their clients send), medical software, etc, all depends on Windows. "More than adequate" simply doesn't cut it.
I'm just amazed that no matter how horrible Microsoft handles their Windows dominance, there is literally no competitor ready to pick up the slack. Open Source is largely a joke when it comes to most businesses, and Apple seems more interested in the hipster and grandma crowd than actual networks.
Where is the competition? It's like Microsoft has managed to reach a natural position of "too big to fail." Is it just because the young startups are more interested in creating the next Cloud Service (tm) or Flappy Birds? Is it a funding issue, where you can't get VC support on something that won't show a massive return in under a year? What's the deal?
So obviously you have special reason for wanting to use a mapper program. Most people don't, which is why you're "patently stupid" remark makes no sense.
It's a loss when it's doing nothing, but the device is supposed to be ready to do something at a moments notice. It has to be able to listen for voice commands and watch for certain movements and stuff. More importantly, it has to be able to do that without suddenly dropping performance in game because you decided to tell it to throw a grenade. Basically, even when you think it's doing nothing, it's still doing a lot of stuff. Of course, without Kinect being mandatory, games will start using those GPU cycles, and then the Kinect really will be doing nothing.
And I can just plug an Xbox 360 controller into my computer, and it works. I don't need a key mapper or anything, and most games come with controller support anyway, so the correct prompts and stuff show up in-game.
You could consider it unofficially cancelled. See, if developers know that only a small percentage of the user-base has a Kinect, then they won't spend a lot of time coming up with creative ways to use the hardware. And then without compelling reason to buy a Kinect, new customers will continue to choose the XBox without one and save $100.
So it will effectively cancel the project.
First, you can't simply plug a mouse and keyboard into an xbox (any version) and get "PC-style" controls. Aside from the fact that the hardware won't allow it unless the unit is modded, the games are designed for analog input which doesn't translate very well to mouse and keys. IF they are somehow doing that, then they are actually putting themselves at a disadvantage.
Second, people generally don't use controllers on a PC for competitive games like FPS's (although fighters are an exception). I personally use them any time a game is obviously just a bad console port, and things like the UI and menus weren't designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind. It's a lot more common than I'd like.
You're missing the point: People weren't using the start menu. Maybe you were. But most people really weren't. At best, they were using the "recently opened" part of the start menu, if the program wasn't already on the task bar. That's not years of reflex.
You have a homepage dedicated to programming. You are not MS's target audience. Hell, I'm not the target audience either. I'm only using Win 8 for the admin tools on 2012 R2. I just happen to not get my panties in a wad about something changing in an industry that's constantly changing.
What's really funny to me is that Win 8 does have a lot of legitimate problems, particularly in the hybrid app/program handling department, yet people still just get stuck on the start menu thing.
On a side note, I actually think the new start menu offers a lot more than 20% productivity for me. I just hit the Windows key and type a few letters. No more expanding folders and subfolder looking for something.
I made a post like this last year, but got modded down to hell for it. I agree though.
Anyway, what gets me is it seems like a lot of people reflexively insist on a start menu like a toddler insists on his blanky. You have six year old's walking around clutching a blanket that they don't even use for anything other than its familiarity. The start menu thing feels the same. I work in IT and 95% of the people just open things from their desktop or taskbar. They use the start menu to log off, and that's it. And then they bitch about it being missing from Win 8.
The thing is, Microsoft did actually research the start menu thing years ago, and found that most people truly don't use it much at all.
Maybe it's a problem because when some female high school student is making a decision on what career field to go into, she might just pass up anything in the tech industry because of statistics like these.
They are also one of the most anonymous. I wouldn't be surprised if we never hear from them on it, because the cat's already out of the bag. There will now always be a cloud of doubt hanging over the project, regardless of WHY this happened. No amount of PR is going to fix that, and I'm sure they know it.
Nah, the consoles get their own specific drivers and stuff. Now, you are correct in that you could build a basic game for the x86/x64 platform, and have it working on a console with little trouble. However, the big studios are looking to do a lot more with that hardware, to eek out that extra 3 FPS, or hit the 1080p mark, or to enable the nicer shadows, etc..
Plus, they have to build the games for both DirectX and OpenGL, matching performance and fidelity as evenly as possible.
Developers have always had to handle consoles differently than PC's because the parts are all highly customized for the hardware. Besides, consoles are never really on the edge of graphics anyway. At least, not on the good edge.
It wouldn't be odd if the whole point was for someone to show they had access to the whole project. Sort of a passive-aggressive way of saying "not as secure as you think!"
I'm just going off of what Zenimax is claiming. Plus, they seem to be backing up those claims quite a bit. At least enough that people should stop just assuming this is an troll suite and that the big bad company is out to get little old Oculus Rift.
For example, here's a copy of an NDA that Luckey signed two years ago that seems to back up Zenimax's claims a bit. Zenimax also claims that they were investing "tens of millions of dollars" in VR tech before Carmack was even part of the picture. I think the general idea is that they brought him in, where he worked primarily on their VR tech, and then left last year to join OR to work on their VR tech.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that people need to stop just assuming Zenimax is trolling here. From what I've seen and read, they have a pretty good case.
They did. Luckey has put in writing that Zenimax owns the IP behind the tech, and that it can't be shared or used with third parties without Zenimax's involvement. Both sides have spent the last year doing the offer/counter-offer thing to work out terms, but that all crashed when Facebook got involved.
I imagine Facebook basically took the stance of "we can afford to fight it if we have to, and since we're bigger than Zenimax, we'll have the advantage." To them, the worst case scenario is probably nothing more than an out of court settlement for some shares in Facebook or something.
Unfortunately, Luckey has put in writing to Zenimax that Zenimax owns the IP used in OR, and that the tech can't be shared or used with third parties without Zenimax's involvement. That agreement is apparently well-documented and in place. They tried to work out an agreement where Zeni was given equity stake in the OR company, but when Facebook bought them, that became impossible.
Believe it or not, just because a company sues, doesn't mean they are the bad guy.
Zenimax also claims there are signed agreements or contracts or something in place that give them rights to work related to what he did with them. I don't know specifics, but the fact that OR has made previous offers in the last year (offers that Zeni felt were inadequate), it kind of feels like there must be something solid here. Otherwise, OR would have said screw off a year ago.
Slashdot Mirror
PDF's are common, but I never see CSV's in the wild. Anyway, the real problem is the stuff like Sage products, or other industry-specific software like Lexis Nexus or Time Matters, or medical records stuff. There's basically zero Linux support with the big players.
My clients range from property management to law firms to multi-million dollar construction contractors. Every single one of them has one or more bits of software that won't run on Linux. Quickbooks, Sage products, Office (to properly open files their clients send), medical software, etc, all depends on Windows. "More than adequate" simply doesn't cut it.
Probably best that you didn't bother upgrading if it would have taken you 2 to 3 days to learn the differences between XP and 7...
I'm just amazed that no matter how horrible Microsoft handles their Windows dominance, there is literally no competitor ready to pick up the slack. Open Source is largely a joke when it comes to most businesses, and Apple seems more interested in the hipster and grandma crowd than actual networks. Where is the competition? It's like Microsoft has managed to reach a natural position of "too big to fail." Is it just because the young startups are more interested in creating the next Cloud Service (tm) or Flappy Birds? Is it a funding issue, where you can't get VC support on something that won't show a massive return in under a year? What's the deal?
Did I e-hurt your iFeelings?
Right, well I guess I'll stand corrected in a year when the market is loaded with games taking advantage of Kinect in amazing and creative ways.
Again, that doesn't solve the problem of poor mouse support in console games where the input is setup for analog speeds.
So obviously you have special reason for wanting to use a mapper program. Most people don't, which is why you're "patently stupid" remark makes no sense.
It's a loss when it's doing nothing, but the device is supposed to be ready to do something at a moments notice. It has to be able to listen for voice commands and watch for certain movements and stuff. More importantly, it has to be able to do that without suddenly dropping performance in game because you decided to tell it to throw a grenade. Basically, even when you think it's doing nothing, it's still doing a lot of stuff. Of course, without Kinect being mandatory, games will start using those GPU cycles, and then the Kinect really will be doing nothing.
And I can just plug an Xbox 360 controller into my computer, and it works. I don't need a key mapper or anything, and most games come with controller support anyway, so the correct prompts and stuff show up in-game.
You could consider it unofficially cancelled. See, if developers know that only a small percentage of the user-base has a Kinect, then they won't spend a lot of time coming up with creative ways to use the hardware. And then without compelling reason to buy a Kinect, new customers will continue to choose the XBox without one and save $100. So it will effectively cancel the project.
First, you can't simply plug a mouse and keyboard into an xbox (any version) and get "PC-style" controls. Aside from the fact that the hardware won't allow it unless the unit is modded, the games are designed for analog input which doesn't translate very well to mouse and keys. IF they are somehow doing that, then they are actually putting themselves at a disadvantage. Second, people generally don't use controllers on a PC for competitive games like FPS's (although fighters are an exception). I personally use them any time a game is obviously just a bad console port, and things like the UI and menus weren't designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind. It's a lot more common than I'd like.
Which is exactly what he was pointing out...
You're missing the point: People weren't using the start menu. Maybe you were. But most people really weren't. At best, they were using the "recently opened" part of the start menu, if the program wasn't already on the task bar. That's not years of reflex. You have a homepage dedicated to programming. You are not MS's target audience. Hell, I'm not the target audience either. I'm only using Win 8 for the admin tools on 2012 R2. I just happen to not get my panties in a wad about something changing in an industry that's constantly changing. What's really funny to me is that Win 8 does have a lot of legitimate problems, particularly in the hybrid app/program handling department, yet people still just get stuck on the start menu thing. On a side note, I actually think the new start menu offers a lot more than 20% productivity for me. I just hit the Windows key and type a few letters. No more expanding folders and subfolder looking for something.
I made a post like this last year, but got modded down to hell for it. I agree though. Anyway, what gets me is it seems like a lot of people reflexively insist on a start menu like a toddler insists on his blanky. You have six year old's walking around clutching a blanket that they don't even use for anything other than its familiarity. The start menu thing feels the same. I work in IT and 95% of the people just open things from their desktop or taskbar. They use the start menu to log off, and that's it. And then they bitch about it being missing from Win 8. The thing is, Microsoft did actually research the start menu thing years ago, and found that most people truly don't use it much at all.
You mean the "diversity quotas" that obviously aren't resulting in more diversity?
Maybe it's a problem because when some female high school student is making a decision on what career field to go into, she might just pass up anything in the tech industry because of statistics like these.
They are also one of the most anonymous. I wouldn't be surprised if we never hear from them on it, because the cat's already out of the bag. There will now always be a cloud of doubt hanging over the project, regardless of WHY this happened. No amount of PR is going to fix that, and I'm sure they know it.
Nah, the consoles get their own specific drivers and stuff. Now, you are correct in that you could build a basic game for the x86/x64 platform, and have it working on a console with little trouble. However, the big studios are looking to do a lot more with that hardware, to eek out that extra 3 FPS, or hit the 1080p mark, or to enable the nicer shadows, etc.. Plus, they have to build the games for both DirectX and OpenGL, matching performance and fidelity as evenly as possible.
Developers have always had to handle consoles differently than PC's because the parts are all highly customized for the hardware. Besides, consoles are never really on the edge of graphics anyway. At least, not on the good edge.
It wouldn't be odd if the whole point was for someone to show they had access to the whole project. Sort of a passive-aggressive way of saying "not as secure as you think!"
For example, here's a copy of an NDA that Luckey signed two years ago that seems to back up Zenimax's claims a bit. Zenimax also claims that they were investing "tens of millions of dollars" in VR tech before Carmack was even part of the picture. I think the general idea is that they brought him in, where he worked primarily on their VR tech, and then left last year to join OR to work on their VR tech.
Anyway, all I'm saying is that people need to stop just assuming Zenimax is trolling here. From what I've seen and read, they have a pretty good case.
They did. Luckey has put in writing that Zenimax owns the IP behind the tech, and that it can't be shared or used with third parties without Zenimax's involvement. Both sides have spent the last year doing the offer/counter-offer thing to work out terms, but that all crashed when Facebook got involved. I imagine Facebook basically took the stance of "we can afford to fight it if we have to, and since we're bigger than Zenimax, we'll have the advantage." To them, the worst case scenario is probably nothing more than an out of court settlement for some shares in Facebook or something.
Unfortunately, Luckey has put in writing to Zenimax that Zenimax owns the IP used in OR, and that the tech can't be shared or used with third parties without Zenimax's involvement. That agreement is apparently well-documented and in place. They tried to work out an agreement where Zeni was given equity stake in the OR company, but when Facebook bought them, that became impossible. Believe it or not, just because a company sues, doesn't mean they are the bad guy.
Zenimax also claims there are signed agreements or contracts or something in place that give them rights to work related to what he did with them. I don't know specifics, but the fact that OR has made previous offers in the last year (offers that Zeni felt were inadequate), it kind of feels like there must be something solid here. Otherwise, OR would have said screw off a year ago.