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  1. Re:Windows 8 problems weren't the UI on Windows 9 Already? Apparently, Yes. · · Score: 1

    What I was trying to say was that the problem is more fundamental than a bad UI.

  2. Windows 8 problems weren't the UI on Windows 9 Already? Apparently, Yes. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Windows failed to learn a lot of the lessons that iOS and Android could have taught it. It failed to learn the lessons it should have from GNOME 3. It failed to bring the Internet to the desktop in a way which hadn't been tried in Windows since Windows 98.

    Windows 8 finally brought us a managed application repository with automatic updates, monetization features, etc but only for modern UI. The Desktop apps were still their own special snowflakes stuck in "Don't accidentally a toolbar" install and update hell.

    Windows 8 has tight integration with cloud services, but those are limited to only services and features hand picked by Microsoft and (last I checked) has no openness for third parties to integrate in the same way. GNOME 3 on the other hand, has lots of integration with various social and cloud services. Sign into Google for instance and your Google Docs are available in your Docs folder, your contacts show up in your Contacts app, your Google handouts get routed therough Empathy etc. Windows 8 does this for Facebook and Sky Drive but, again, only in the Modern UI.

    Windows 8 Modern apps are firewalled from Windows 8 Desktop apps. Do you have Skype? You have two Skype apps. Do you have a chat client? You have two apps again. The same app on Android can run on everything from a wrist watch to a Television supporting tons of different input paradigms ALMOST natively (the developer has to do some basic UI legwork of course).

    As a consequence of the previous point, lots of services (push notifications, application lifecycle management, etc) are available ONLY in Modern and not on the Desktop. Desktop apps still need to manage their own networking state and messaging. Many of the native applications were rebuilt as Modern full screen apps and their desktop equavalents were removed. The most galling is the Photo Viewer. If you open a picture in Explorer in the Desktop, all your windows go away and the image takes up the full screen.

    In conclusion, Windows 8 problems don't stop at the Start Screen and framing the Start Screen as the biggest and only problem fundamentally misses what Microsoft did very, very wrong. Microsoft did not TRY to bring modern cloud technologies to the desktop. They ported their tablet OS to the desktop and stopped there.

  3. Lock Android down? on HTC Unlocks Its Own Phones · · Score: 2

    Other than Honeycomb and GoogleTV being not open sourced (which Google admits is a one off which will be fixed in Ice Cream Sandwich), what other evidence of them locking Android down is there? It really felt like a throw away line.

    Meanwhile, HTC makes rather awesome phones and this makes it much easier to suggest phones to other developers.

  4. $0.02 on Ask Slashdot: How Do You Choose a Windows Laptop? · · Score: 1

    I would suggest a Thinkpad T series or X series as her primary machine. The 420, 520, 220 series are quite modern but still rolling out. For a little less money you can get the yesteryear model which offer more choices of features. Dell Latitudes are also solid machines in my experience and I have heard good things about HP's Elite book line but lack first hand experience. As a rule of thumb if you see it in a big box store stay away; the build quality is often compromised for cost, and the Windows install is often full of crapware.

    To the /. crowd who can't understand why someone would not like Windows on Mac hardware, Windows 7 on Macs as of November is a hit or miss affair (two finger mouse press sends both a right AND left click, audio is always turned down, and one other issue which eludes me). The touch pad is the best I have ever used, but it doesn't replace a touch point and three buttons. Home, del, insert, page up, page down are sorely missed. Chicklet keyboards don't feel right to me, and finally, Macs tend to have a lower screen resolution for their size than what you can find on Windows laptops.

  5. Re:Where's Gingerbread? on Google To Merge Honeycomb and Gingerbread · · Score: 1

    OP was referring to the Nexus One (Google's phone). Gingerbread hasn't OTAed to the Nexus One yet. In December they said it would be in a few weeks and it has turned into in a few months.

  6. Spring DM is dead and OSGi is overkill on Spring Dynamic Modules In Action · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I happen to be someone who actually likes Spring. A few months ago, I was asked to do a proof of concept project; it was basically a event organizing system with a plug-in architecture.

    A little google fu later and I found out Eclipse used OSGi for its plug in systems, Netbeans was going to support OSGi for their plugins, and Spring had an OSGi container solution called Spring DM AND Manning had this book in MEAP. I downloaded the earliest copy, ran through the "Hello World!"s and was on my way.

    Then I actually had to implement OSGi. Packages wouldn't load, they would load in the wrong order, jars weren't OSGi aware, etc etc etc. After two weeks of long nights of frustration I gave up. The next morning I wrote a classloader and was up and running in about 2 hours.

    To add insult to injury, SpringSource gave Spring DM to the Eclipse foundation and washed their hands of future development.

    TL;DR; If you want to use OSGi + Spring DM: Don't, Spring gave DM to Eclipse and OSGi is a shitstorm waiting to rain itself out. Write your own classloader and in two hours and 200 lines of Java you will have 80% of OSGi and 99% of what you care about.

  7. Re:how come on Smart Trash Carts Tell If You Haven't Been Recycling · · Score: 1

    The trashcans just tell if they have been rolled out to be picked up. If they haven't recorded a roll out then you get fined if your trash has more than 10% recyclable material.

  8. Re:They suck at math too on BBC Lowers HDTV Bitrate; Users Notice · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To one significant figure, they are.

  9. The nexus one is probably the ADP3 on Ads To Offset Cost of Unlocked Google Phone? · · Score: 1

    The Nexus one is most likely the ADP 3. IE the third generation developer phone. IE Purchasable on Google's developer site. IE Not marketed to fucking consumers.

    What makes me think this is that Google has given out the ADP1 at their Christmas party last year, the ADP2 at IO, and the Nexus-One (presumed ADP3) at their Christmas party this year.
    There is no more or less magic to this.

  10. Better Headphones on EU Recommends Noise Limits On MP3 Players · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Since we are going the consumer protect route, wouldn't it be better for headphones/ear buds to require noise cancelling technologies so the music doesn't have to be turned up as high?

    That would make it harder to hear things while driving, but you shouldn't have headphones in while driving.

  11. Re:wxDev-C++ extended that project on What Free IDE Do You Use? · · Score: 1

    Because tools, methodologies, and technologies are always being updated.

  12. Re:Who cares? on Court Reinstates Proof-of-Age Requirement For Nude Ads · · Score: 3, Funny

    What is the purpose of government?

    I always thought it was to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".

    But I could be wrong.

  13. A new feature on Senate Votes To Empower Parents As Censors · · Score: 2, Funny

    I recently discovered that there was a really cool filtering tool that came on all my game consoles, dvd players, televisions, computers, and music players. It is a button that says "on". When pressed, the filter activates then the picture and sound stop. I thought it was new, but it has only been relabeled. Previously this feature had been marked as a "O" or a "I" on a giant toggle.

  14. Re:The awesome part about this on SCO's McBride Testifies "Linux Is a copy of UNIX" · · Score: 1

    I may be misremembering, but Sun's involvement turned out to be Sun buying the IP they had licensed for Java from SCO so the JDK could be legally and unquestionably GPL'd.

  15. Nightwish Crownless on Guitar Hero 2 Official Set List Released · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't mind having a crack at Nightwish's Crownless myself. /me crosses his fingers for it to appear in bonus tracks.

  16. Re:Redacting right is HARD on More PDF Blackout Follies · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a killer feature for OpenOffice.

  17. Re:Good on you google! on Google News, Censorship or Responsible Journalism? · · Score: 1

    Would you rather have the pump and dump schemes that crawl across digg every few days?

  18. What is it now? on Classic Star Wars Trilogy Finally on DVD · · Score: 4, Funny

    So wouldn't this be the re-re-re-re-re-rerelease?

  19. Sounds familiar on Cleaner Air Adds To Global Warming · · Score: 1

    Is it time to set off a few nukes and see if nuclear winter can cool things down?

    Wasn't this the plot of the Dinosaurs series finale?

  20. What will keep IE out of devs love on Will Internet Explorer 7 Have Any Impact? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Will IE 7 keep Microsofts brain damaged event model?
    Will IE 7 implement standard HTML dom methods?
    Will IE 7 implement standard HTML dom methods to the spec?

    The answer to this is a loud no from the IE team. They have already said that they know their scripting engine is woefully out of date and have no intention of fixing it in this release cycle. Something to look foward to in IE 9 then (since IE 8 will probably be a fix release like 2 was for 1 and 5 was for 4).

  21. Re:Link to clip on FCC Levies Record Indecency Fine · · Score: 1

    You say broadcast like we pick the shit up in our heads.

    You need a tuner and a tv.

    You need a tv to be turned "ON".

    You need the balls of an ox to say something you voluntarily subject yourself to is someone else's problem.

  22. Woo hoo on Interview with Microsoft Exec on IE7 and RSS · · Score: 5, Funny

    MS Guy: We added tabbed browsing and upped our CSS support to what was published in 2000.

    Every web dev on earth: Good for you, now how about DOM2?

    MS Guy: But... but... tabbed browsing!

  23. Re:Well THAT skews your results. on Asynchronous Requests with JavaScript and Ajax · · Score: 1

    We used to do everything as a link.
    We found out that it was silly because noone had JS turned off. Therefore we made our app better by taking advantage of this fact.

  24. Re:IBM articles; Security with Javascript on Asynchronous Requests with JavaScript and Ajax · · Score: 1

    No it does not require IE.

    It does require Javascript to use the application since we began logging.

  25. Re:IBM articles; Security with Javascript on Asynchronous Requests with JavaScript and Ajax · · Score: 1, Informative

    I work for a company that makes a virtual office web-app. We log some interesting statistics about the end users.

    1% don't use IE, and all have javascript enabled.

    So no, we have not run into the problem with people having javascript disabled.