The only things a mobile phone or tablet are better at than a PC are reading e-books and playing music. The web on a mobile device is awful. The battery life is awful. The software is awful. The UI is clumsy, slow and imprecise. The graphics are slow and crammed into crappy little screens.
Not to mention the fact that every mobile device is 100% owned by some corporate shithole.
Mobile devices will forever be dependent on PCs because mobile devices can't be used to write their own software. You can't do shit on a mobile device creatively.
If you're plugging a hardware keyboard into a mobile phone, you're just trading one set of PC hardware for another.
My PC is literally one billion times more powerful than my tablet. If you're in IT and you are prepared to dump the PC overboard after we've invested 30 years in developing it into a massively useful tool, without putting too fine a point on it, you're an idiot.
The PC will never be supplanted by tablets or phones. It's here to stay. Get used to it.
Windows, with certain exceptions, has always been a train wreck. Microsoft is likely to abandon it in favor of some hype-drenched adventure with mobile devices, which will fail because all mobile device development is hype-coated hype with no substance at all, and because Microsoft has always been a badly run company that got a lucky break.
Mobile devices are at best, awful, underpowered, fiddly, expensive toys. They are useful for listening to music, reading ebooks and various niche tasks.
My desktop is literally a billion times more powerful than my tablet. The screen is 20x larger, the UI is excellent, the software is fast, well-tested and standardized.
I think it is a huge wealth-destroying mistake for the tech industry to heave the PC overboard and start over.
Good old PC Magazine, where if you don't have a 27" monitor, your computer system is worthless. Sometimes having all that free evaluation hardware and top-of-the-line enterprise-class software causes a reality-free zone where everyone spends $18,000 a year on brightly colored new icons to click.
Quite surprising they didn't use the word "clunky" at least once.
So, -5 points (10% of my karma) over one message that a couple of people disagreed with. Yeah, that's exactly what moderation is supposed to do. (And I'll lose two more on this message, but only because I'm posting without the bonus).
Been contributing here for years (five digit UID). If karma wasn't capped, I'd have over 100. Any chance of addressing or fixing this? Are people supposed to lose karma in bunches like this? Should all future messages just *agree*?
Again, rapidly losing interest in this, and it needs to be addressed. Three offtopic mods for one message on a 50-karma account is unnecessary.
Are we not allowed to comment on the moderation system? (Does this not bring to mind the YRO icon?) Is this written down somewhere? (It's not immediately apparent in the FAQ).
"Internet Explorer is the best browser currently available and is the standard by which all other browsers should be measured. The IE user interface *in Windows* (where IE has every advantage possible) is also the standard by which all other applications' GUIs should be measured."
First noted in this sentence, where the authors "touched up" on IE for the umpty-eleventeenth time like a runner trying to lead off first base:
Navigator does offer some compelling features and enhancements to previous Netscape code, some of which are alien to IE and some which aren't.
then, confirmed in all its Blue-Screened glory as if endorsed by His Billness himself:
"For people used to the customization options of IE windows, it's a step backwards in functionality"
Reads exactly like a Dr. GUI article from your latest issue of MSDN (coffee graphic included, $2300 please)
Translation: It is different from Windows, therefore inferior.
"The disregard for accessibility in the user interface is shocking given the amount of work that went into implementing web standards."
Shocking? I have a better word: exaggerated.
"As it stands, Navigator breaks many Windows User Interface (UI) standards."
Standards like mouse-freeze(tm), GPF(R) and Crashed Explorer(C)(R)(C)(TM).
WHAT standards? (Notice how these are never named? No, I really don't care either.)
Let me guess, Java breaks the standards too, right? As does WxWindows, Perl/Tk, GTK and everything else without a new colorful icon on our very expensive(tm) desktop.
"Rather than use the default "widgets" (menu bars, pop-up menus, drop downs and the like), Navigator comes complete with its own set of widgets. For some spectators,"
Read: Windows-only users
"this is yet another example of how cross-platform ideals don't always play out in practice: a Windows application should have Windows' look and feel."
Hint: Mozilla is not a Windows application. We have some lovely parting gifts, however.
Plugin management is not intuitive.
Uninstall and reinstall an OCX control which is installed (and registered) in two directories and being used in Windows 9x, then explain what is and is not intuitive.
Here is another glaring example of bias:
"Aside from the few aforementioned problems, Gecko's standards compliance and its ability to handle less-than-compliant pages well is laudable."
Laudable? Gecko's standards compliance is the finest expression of excellence yet seen in any browser ever written. It puts IE to crying, sobbing shame. Laudable is a left-handed compliment at best, and a cynical remark at worst.
The Mozilla project has been nothing less than a resounding success.
Wow, four pages to get to this. About time. Begrudging, however. A poor, biased incomplete review.
It can, but it is the "community" that starts griping at *every attempt* to recover even the slightest portion of the non-trivial costs of running a popular web site.
Ads: won't look at 'em Merchandise: won't buy it Donations: won't pay Subscriptions: not interested Products: eh, I'll get the free one...and so on. Then the "community" gripes when the sites say "forget it" and go do something else. Want to see quality? BUY SOMETHING.
That is why you go to work from 8-5....make the money.
And then do another shift at home for free...
Sounds like people just don't believe that developing and maintaining a web site should be worth something, no matter how much time or effort is put into it.
Having someone else do it ensures that your interests are not always #1.
Your interests are not very likely to be #1 anyway.
What is good for a developer is not necessarily good for the middle-man, and vice versa.
But it's always good for the publisher. That's usually most of the problem. What's good for a developer is to involve publishers only when it is absolutely necessary.
Our market insists that we should be able to run our business with no income whatsoever. Therefore, our market will not pay us any money under any circumstances. They will not buy our product, no matter how reasonably priced. They will not donate. They will not buy merchandise. They will not buy services.
If you're interested in making a lot of money in this community, you should be up front about it by providing some sort of way to make income other than the pledge drive method.
So people can then complain that it's "for profit" instead of "community-based?"
Slashdot Mirror
To be more accurate, there were other philosophers alleged to have been on the planet.
If you plug a mouse, keyboard and two monitors into a phone, it's a shitty underpowered un-upgradeable PC.
Wins the thread. Drive safely everyone.
This is complete crap.
The only things a mobile phone or tablet are better at than a PC are reading e-books and playing music. The web on a mobile device is awful. The battery life is awful. The software is awful. The UI is clumsy, slow and imprecise. The graphics are slow and crammed into crappy little screens.
Not to mention the fact that every mobile device is 100% owned by some corporate shithole.
Mobile devices will forever be dependent on PCs because mobile devices can't be used to write their own software. You can't do shit on a mobile device creatively.
If you're plugging a hardware keyboard into a mobile phone, you're just trading one set of PC hardware for another.
My PC is literally one billion times more powerful than my tablet. If you're in IT and you are prepared to dump the PC overboard after we've invested 30 years in developing it into a massively useful tool, without putting too fine a point on it, you're an idiot.
The PC will never be supplanted by tablets or phones. It's here to stay. Get used to it.
Windows, with certain exceptions, has always been a train wreck. Microsoft is likely to abandon it in favor of some hype-drenched adventure with mobile devices, which will fail because all mobile device development is hype-coated hype with no substance at all, and because Microsoft has always been a badly run company that got a lucky break.
Mobile devices are at best, awful, underpowered, fiddly, expensive toys. They are useful for listening to music, reading ebooks and various niche tasks.
My desktop is literally a billion times more powerful than my tablet. The screen is 20x larger, the UI is excellent, the software is fast, well-tested and standardized.
I think it is a huge wealth-destroying mistake for the tech industry to heave the PC overboard and start over.
Sometimes I wonder why we are so quick to discard the PC. I certainly hope it won't become a symbol of lost opportunity.
Good old PC Magazine, where if you don't have a 27" monitor, your computer system is worthless. Sometimes having all that free evaluation hardware and top-of-the-line enterprise-class software causes a reality-free zone where everyone spends $18,000 a year on brightly colored new icons to click.
Quite surprising they didn't use the word "clunky" at least once.
Farmers have been selling oranges for centuries while at the same time anyone equipped with a single orange could grow their own tree.
Water comes out of the sky for free. When it's bottled it's a $5 billion industry.
Piracy will have very little effect on the market.
The web was designed for user control of presentation. Technologies that attempt to subvert this paradigm are *evil*.
Oh, bullshit.
What, you're going to write a replacement for the style sheet we spent eight months developing? Give it up.
But the fact remains none of us has a long term crystal ball.
This has to be a first. A red herring, straw man and non-sequitor all in the same sentence.
Common sense says that long-term planning is more valuable and less expensive than short-term. Managers who don't agree are idiots.
Offtopic? Ok.
So long Slashdot. Thanks for all the mod points.
(-8 karma in two days... ridiculous)
An MS Visual Studio Ad???????????????
on Slashdot?????????????
o.O
(where's Rod Serling?)
Yes, yes, but have the shrubberies moved? ;)
So I wrote an opinion and was marked a Troll.
I commented on it, and lost three mod points (three seperate offtopic mods)
Then I commented on that, and lost another point.
So, -5 points (10% of my karma) over one message that a couple of people disagreed with. Yeah, that's exactly what moderation is supposed to do. (And I'll lose two more on this message, but only because I'm posting without the bonus).
Been contributing here for years (five digit UID). If karma wasn't capped, I'd have over 100. Any chance of addressing or fixing this? Are people supposed to lose karma in bunches like this? Should all future messages just *agree*?
Again, rapidly losing interest in this, and it needs to be addressed. Three offtopic mods for one message on a 50-karma account is unnecessary.
Are we not allowed to comment on the moderation system? (Does this not bring to mind the YRO icon?) Is this written down somewhere? (It's not immediately apparent in the FAQ).
and THERE IT IS!!!! Only TWELVE MINUTES too. TWO offtopic mods (in case you missed the first one, apparently. wouldn't that be "redundant?")
sigh...
It'll be marked "troll" or "redundant" or "overrated" at least once, and twice for every point added.
Of course, what do I care? I've had 48-50 karma for well over a year now.
And this will be marked "offtopic" or "flamebait," so read it while you can.
Between this, and "Slow Down Cowboy," I'm rapidly losing interest in Slashdot anymore. YAWN.
"Internet Explorer is the best browser currently available and is the standard by which all other browsers should be measured. The IE user interface *in Windows* (where IE has every advantage possible) is also the standard by which all other applications' GUIs should be measured."
First noted in this sentence, where the authors "touched up" on IE for the umpty-eleventeenth time like a runner trying to lead off first base:
Navigator does offer some compelling features and enhancements to previous Netscape code, some of which are alien to IE and some which aren't.
then, confirmed in all its Blue-Screened glory as if endorsed by His Billness himself:
"For people used to the customization options of IE windows, it's a step backwards in functionality"
Reads exactly like a Dr. GUI article from your latest issue of MSDN (coffee graphic included, $2300 please)
Translation: It is different from Windows, therefore inferior.
"The disregard for accessibility in the user interface is shocking given the amount of work that went into implementing web standards."
Shocking? I have a better word: exaggerated.
"As it stands, Navigator breaks many Windows User Interface (UI) standards."
Standards like mouse-freeze(tm), GPF(R) and Crashed Explorer(C)(R)(C)(TM).
WHAT standards? (Notice how these are never named? No, I really don't care either.)
Let me guess, Java breaks the standards too, right? As does WxWindows, Perl/Tk, GTK and everything else without a new colorful icon on our very expensive(tm) desktop.
"Rather than use the default "widgets" (menu bars, pop-up menus, drop downs and the like), Navigator comes complete with its own set of widgets. For some spectators,"
Read: Windows-only users
"this is yet another example of how cross-platform ideals don't always play out in practice: a Windows application should have Windows' look and feel."
Hint: Mozilla is not a Windows application. We have some lovely parting gifts, however.
Plugin management is not intuitive.
Uninstall and reinstall an OCX control which is installed (and registered) in two directories and being used in Windows 9x, then explain what is and is not intuitive.
Here is another glaring example of bias:
"Aside from the few aforementioned problems, Gecko's standards compliance and its ability to handle less-than-compliant pages well is laudable."
Laudable? Gecko's standards compliance is the finest expression of excellence yet seen in any browser ever written. It puts IE to crying, sobbing shame. Laudable is a left-handed compliment at best, and a cynical remark at worst.
The Mozilla project has been nothing less than a resounding success.
Wow, four pages to get to this. About time. Begrudging, however. A poor, biased incomplete review.
I'll give it a 2.
It can, but it is the "community" that starts griping at *every attempt* to recover even the slightest portion of the non-trivial costs of running a popular web site.
...and so on. Then the "community" gripes when the sites say "forget it" and go do something else. Want to see quality? BUY SOMETHING.
Ads: won't look at 'em
Merchandise: won't buy it
Donations: won't pay
Subscriptions: not interested
Products: eh, I'll get the free one
That is why you go to work from 8-5....make the money.
And then do another shift at home for free...
Sounds like people just don't believe that developing and maintaining a web site should be worth something, no matter how much time or effort is put into it.
"Something for nothing" is the applicable phrase.
Having someone else do it ensures that your interests are not always #1.
Your interests are not very likely to be #1 anyway.
What is good for a developer is not necessarily good for the middle-man, and vice versa.
But it's always good for the publisher. That's usually most of the problem. What's good for a developer is to involve publishers only when it is absolutely necessary.
these are all things most development teams are very capable of doing on their own.
Pitching to publishers? Oh no. If there's anything I'd rather have someone else do, it's pitch to publishers.
Modern Definition of a Broken Business Plan:
Our market insists that we should be able to run our business with no income whatsoever. Therefore, our market will not pay us any money under any circumstances. They will not buy our product, no matter how reasonably priced. They will not donate. They will not buy merchandise. They will not buy services.
why is it nowdays that everyone running a website thinks they have to make a living from it.
Time is money.
However, most people won't subscribe even if they feel the content is worth it.
Myth. Salon sold tens of thousands of subscriptions for something that was formerly free.
There is plenty of material out there for free.
There are a number of cliches that would apply here, but I'm sure everyone has heard them.
If you're interested in making a lot of money in this community, you should be up front about it by providing some sort of way to make income other than the pledge drive method.
So people can then complain that it's "for profit" instead of "community-based?"