WordPerfect 7.0 is, IMHO, one of the better-designed X word processors out there. I purchased 8.0, but in the end went back to 7.0 as it seemed tighter code.
The ApplixWare version I own--4.4.1--is very poor code. It takes large amounts of processing power (sluggish on my Dual PII333, still not a speed demon on my PIII500) and is not terribly X- or installation-friendly. Bugs are frequent, and the presentation software is totally useless on my P166 laptop due to speed issues. Something is wrong when PowerPoint requires fewer resources.
I can't comment on the newest WordPerfect or ApplixWare packages, but based on my previous experience the choice for me would be WP.
Regarding Memory, a previous poster recommended 32MB RAM. I would strongly disagree. Today's users expect instant gratification, and I would not settle for anything less than 64MB. I would push hard for 128MB.
If you want a really stable machine, buying the next-grade hardware is a Good Thing.
But I am also a long-time hardware hacker...longer than most of you. I got the money to upgrade to a 1200 baud modem doing 256K memory upgrades on the Atari 800 computers. That's back when you had to glue a bunch of chips "dead bug" onto the PC cards and solder jumper wires around to the address bus. Plus cut the extra voltage traces.
My computer is a lot more powerful now, but it was a lot more fun back then. Everybody had the same basic machine (so the software was compatible), but the experts tweaked their machines in different ways.
Within the limits of sanity, HW hacking is great fun.
His closing argument appears to be that since OS X is an improved GUI on top of BSD, it is the wave of the future.
Does anybody else remember a custom GUI, not compatible with X, that ran on top of a Unix you could not get a handle on. In fact, the machines were sold without a floppy drive.
Sound familiar? The NeXT was a very sexy machine, but it was so restrictive it was hard to use. Later on Steve Jobs had to break down and add a floppy and X-compatibility.
I would love to see the Mac turn into a new NeXT, but let's not carry on the tradition of closed systems--both software and hardware--that drove his last product into the ground.
Use them to take data to work (and thus avoid the damn proxy server), move a copy of the network card module from one machine to another, backup my personal letters for safe keeping, move my presentation to the laptop without having to plug in the PCMCIA card, store almost any non-Windows card drivers in a compact format that can be put inside the manual and stored...I'm tired of typing, but could go on for days.
So if you want to move 1Mb of data to a machine that does not have network access, you burn a CD? That is incredibly wasteful. I bet you had a $70-per-cartridge WORM drive on your NeXT, right? There are still a lot of uses for floppy disks and a lot of devices that ONLY come with a floppy. I suppose the disposable camera crowd likes getting three CDROMS in the mail from AOL every month, but I don't. And I find even a trained hippo is smart enough to split a file over three floppies. I know a lot of people who use ZIP disks and when I look on the disk they have 4MB worth of files...what a waste.
Your speed argument makes little sense. True, CDROMS are faster. But I use the floppy medium like CDs--to store and move data. Not to run it. I can't use CDs for this either. They are too slow and as a RO device pretty silly. It takes me time to find a CD or floppy and load it in the drive, why not just sit tight while waiting a couple seconds for the data to copy off.
There was certainly a lot of general stupidity in this case. Anyone who "used to" or "works secretly" for the NSA/CIA/BlackHelicopter.gov should rase major suspicions. Of course, con men are very good at convincing you that this is "okay". But still, somebody should have looked into the product to see if he actually owned it--or if it even existed. Come the time of the mandatory prayer meetings and bizzare PA announcements I think I would have been very worried. I might argue that it is an internet con, as it was a streaming media format. There are more to come, with the IPO for the latest "BuySomeThingOnline.com" making Martha a fortune when all the company really owns is a couple workstations.
I'm amazed that people are debating if this news should be covered on Slashdot. In fact, I also submitted the story last night...but I did not have the link to Sanccob that makes things easier.
First of all, yes we should care about everything. But we can't. Humans are messing up the world too fast for us to work on it all, but what we can do is pick one thing and concentrate on it. And the penguin (or perhaps all seabirds) is a good place to start.
Was the penguin chosen because it is our logo? Of course. If you want to support something else, that's fine...but why not start with our little Tux friends. If you want to support Gnus that's fine as well. The sonoran toad? No problem. But a Penguin seems a logical choice.
This subject is topical 'cause it is a call for Linux community action. Note that even Billy Gates has a cause.
Is Billy a nicer guy than the Linux crowd? We know that is not true, and here is a way to prove it.
I am saddened by the number of people who say "Hey, who cares". I hope that many of those posters are kids and suffer from the foolishness of youth. Because who fails to see the importance of a balanced environment and diversity of life on the planet is a poorly educated individual. I'm not some environmental wacko; I eat meat and support controlled hunting. But I also support our planet.
My point is that there is little reason to use 650M of CDROM to release drivers that take 1M of space. I just installed 24 network cards. Each card came with a floppy containing the drivers. Had each one come with a CDROM, I would have thrown 23 pieces of polycarbonate into the trash. With floppy disks, I get 23 free floppies (keeping one, you see) and I can load the drivers on to any system with ease.
I don't quite understand your point here...except that you are arguing for the limitations of Si. We have reached and surpassed the "theoretical maximum" of Si several times before. And there are people working on how to do it now. Si is one of the most abundant materials on the planet. GaAs or GaN are neat, but veryvery expensive now both to produce and process, plus they have a high failure (infant mortality) rate. A better way to use Si seems the cheapest route to me.
But those other schemes were in software, and slow...and therefore usless for high-performance machines. This will be in hardware, therefore a lot faster...but still useless for high-performance machines.
Software compression in RAM, or on disk? Software compression on disk is, of course, unchanged. Compressed data structures in RAM will now bloat...so you will be penalized for using them. That is why I hate forced compression.
The problem with junking Si is the base of manufacturing lines and manhours in tacit knowledge. I think Si still has a way to go (with some of the new technologies), but this old capacitor-RAM has GOT to go.
Any real-time compression technology tends to make me want to run screaming down the hallway
This product does not promise to double your RAM, but "up to" doubling. Note that it says storage was doubled for "most applications".
On MicroSloth machines where 3/4 of the memory seems to store arrays of zeros, this could be useful. But the more memory-concious the programmer, the poorer the performance of the technology. In other words, I'm not impressed.
A case of trollism. BUT, from a serious level, the whole theory of PCMCIA is a kludge. I know...I've worked with it from a hardware level. Both my PCMCIA cards work fine with Linux...worked out of the box with Slackware. Although I am always amazed that PCMCIA products work at all.
Unlike many stockhausian works, this one is actually pleasant to listen to. Reminds me more of Kraftwerk than minimalist composers. BTW, I still have my Star NX-10 and a DEC DM printer online 24/7. Pretty decent technology even today, IMHO.
Floppy disks are still a handy way of transporting 5M of data. I use them all the time. There is some information I cannot transmit over a network (or don't want to wait for modem delays) and floppies are the easiest way. If you don't like your floppy, remove it. Good luck loading the configuration program for your network card.
Assuming you still have to create these things yourself, there are several disk duplicators available that take a stack of floppy disks in through a magazine, automatically load the data, verify and spit 'em out.
Here are a couple I found on the web: copypro makes a professional duplicator, and this is a cheaper model from Tops-Mate. I would also check magazines like Nuts and Volts. Once upon a time Computer Shopper was full ads for products like this as well, but it is just PC stuff anymore.
The problem with Freon (or whatever the latest version is called) is that you still need fans...now you also need a compressor and a fan for the evaporator. I've used water cooling for one of my computers; I purchased a (new) heater core from an auto parts store and mounted it at the fan intake for one of my computers in a toasty room. It worked pretty well; the cool water broght the temp down. But I was always worried about condensation on the coils. This would be a problem with Freon-cooled units as well.
I am an Electrical Engineer...which does not mean that I know what I am talking about, although in this case I actually do.
I would strongly suggest the use of quality components in the PC, in particular the power supply. Another user suggested using a UL-listed power supply. This is certainly true, but there is more you should look for than just a UL sticker. Buy one of the more-expensive PC supplies...and buy a supply rated for significantly more current than you need...don't "cut it close". As a sysadmin, I have had many cheap PC power supplies fry their fans or blow capacitors. In one case a supply melted its fan and literally burst into flame.
When in doubt, buy a supply made in the US or Europe (or overseas for a US/European company). With a company name and phone number. While this is no guarantee of quality, these companies are liable for a poorly made product and less-likely to leave out a $0.39 thermal fuse. Better power supplies will also have overcurrent protection, and shut themselves off when things go past the breaking point. Cheap supplies keep humming away until they or your motherboard starts to smoke.
There are still many quality PC power supplies made in Asia, but the components in a particular model tend to vary from unit to unit, so it pays to be careful. I have also seen a UL sticker on supplies that were clearly manufactured with no quality control (bits of stripped wire rolling around in the enclosure, parts not fully soldered on boards) so I suspect the UL marking on some of the imported supplies to be counterfit. And never, ever buy a supply that cannot even manage to get a UL mark. If there is a fire, your insurance may be invalidated.
Still, a PC is very unlikely to catch fire. I have four PCs (one with a cheap power supply) running 24/7 at home with no worries. But poor supplies run a much higher risk of frying components. And like another poster said, Vacuum that PC! Keep dust to a minimum for a long product life
Yeah. Like a manual in a 3-ring binder. And the manual had words! Not just reproductions of dialog boxes. And some had programming infomation. My Atari Word Processor ($500, circa 1981) manual was a full-sized 1.5" three ring binder with an easel back. Now that is documentation.
But what would Microsoft put inside the package? They could not even manage to get substance in their software; how could they get it in "doo-dads"?? Although, perhaps a tiny package of Bill Gates' pocket fluff (probably wadded up $500 bills). Or an envelope of smarties along with a corpus delecti for an officer of the court (I figure that is Microsoft's next move). Or some peril-sensitive Microsoft(tm) Windows(reg US pat off) CrashPrufe(R) sunglasses that turn black when Windows is about to crash. They could use the same black cardboard as Infocom.
I am whiter than FFFFFF, but this is the first thing that popped into my mind. How on earth do you detect or define "skintone". If all possible skintones are detected, if I look at an image of a forest will it be censored? How about earth? At what shade does it become porn? If I look at dark earth, is it less pornagraphic than sandstone? What a stupid idea.
Actually, the processors in the older shuttles (without the glass cockpits) date from the 1970s. An 80386 would blow them out of the water; they are pre-6502 era parts. A friend at JPL grumbled that the replacement for Challenger still had the huge rack, but now each box contained a small board that emulated the ancient TTL hardware.
Slashdot Mirror
WordPerfect 7.0 is, IMHO, one of the better-designed X word processors out there. I purchased 8.0, but in the end went back to 7.0 as it seemed tighter code.
The ApplixWare version I own--4.4.1--is very poor code. It takes large amounts of processing power (sluggish on my Dual PII333, still not a speed demon on my PIII500) and is not terribly X- or installation-friendly. Bugs are frequent, and the presentation software is totally useless on my P166 laptop due to speed issues. Something is wrong when PowerPoint requires fewer resources.
I can't comment on the newest WordPerfect or ApplixWare packages, but based on my previous experience the choice for me would be WP.
Regarding Memory, a previous poster recommended 32MB RAM. I would strongly disagree. Today's users expect instant gratification, and I would not settle for anything less than 64MB. I would push hard for 128MB.
If you want a really stable machine, buying the next-grade hardware is a Good Thing.
But I am also a long-time hardware hacker...longer than most of you. I got the money to upgrade to a 1200 baud modem doing 256K memory upgrades on the Atari 800 computers. That's back when you had to glue a bunch of chips "dead bug" onto the PC cards and solder jumper wires around to the address bus. Plus cut the extra voltage traces.
My computer is a lot more powerful now, but it was a lot more fun back then. Everybody had the same basic machine (so the software was compatible), but the experts tweaked their machines in different ways.
Within the limits of sanity, HW hacking is great fun.
His closing argument appears to be that since OS X is an improved GUI on top of BSD, it is the wave of the future.
Does anybody else remember a custom GUI, not compatible with X, that ran on top of a Unix you could not get a handle on. In fact, the machines were sold without a floppy drive.
Sound familiar? The NeXT was a very sexy machine, but it was so restrictive it was hard to use. Later on Steve Jobs had to break down and add a floppy and X-compatibility.
I would love to see the Mac turn into a new NeXT, but let's not carry on the tradition of closed systems--both software and hardware--that drove his last product into the ground.
And pure H2O2 is pretty dangerous. I've used it in a semiconductor lab.
The stuff you buy at the drugstore is 3%, BTW.
Use them to take data to work (and thus avoid the damn proxy server), move a copy of the network card module from one machine to another, backup my personal letters for safe keeping, move my presentation to the laptop without having to plug in the PCMCIA card, store almost any non-Windows card drivers in a compact format that can be put inside the manual and stored...I'm tired of typing, but could go on for days.
So if you want to move 1Mb of data to a machine that does not have network access, you burn a CD? That is incredibly wasteful. I bet you had a $70-per-cartridge WORM drive on your NeXT, right? There are still a lot of uses for floppy disks and a lot of devices that ONLY come with a floppy. I suppose the disposable camera crowd likes getting three CDROMS in the mail from AOL every month, but I don't. And I find even a trained hippo is smart enough to split a file over three floppies. I know a lot of people who use ZIP disks and when I look on the disk they have 4MB worth of files...what a waste.
Your speed argument makes little sense. True, CDROMS are faster. But I use the floppy medium like CDs--to store and move data. Not to run it. I can't use CDs for this either. They are too slow and as a RO device pretty silly. It takes me time to find a CD or floppy and load it in the drive, why not just sit tight while waiting a couple seconds for the data to copy off.
There was certainly a lot of general stupidity in this case. Anyone who "used to" or "works secretly" for the NSA/CIA/BlackHelicopter.gov should rase major suspicions. Of course, con men are very good at convincing you that this is "okay". But still, somebody should have looked into the product to see if he actually owned it--or if it even existed. Come the time of the mandatory prayer meetings and bizzare PA announcements I think I would have been very worried. I might argue that it is an internet con, as it was a streaming media format. There are more to come, with the IPO for the latest "BuySomeThingOnline.com" making Martha a fortune when all the company really owns is a couple workstations.
I'm amazed that people are debating if this news should be covered on Slashdot. In fact, I also submitted the story last night...but I did not have the link to Sanccob that makes things easier.
First of all, yes we should care about everything. But we can't. Humans are messing up the world too fast for us to work on it all, but what we can do is pick one thing and concentrate on it. And the penguin (or perhaps all seabirds) is a good place to start.
Was the penguin chosen because it is our logo? Of course. If you want to support something else, that's fine...but why not start with our little Tux friends. If you want to support Gnus that's fine as well. The sonoran toad? No problem. But a Penguin seems a logical choice.
This subject is topical 'cause it is a call for Linux community action. Note that even Billy Gates has a cause.
Is Billy a nicer guy than the Linux crowd? We know that is not true, and here is a way to prove it.
I am saddened by the number of people who say "Hey, who cares". I hope that many of those posters are kids and suffer from the foolishness of youth. Because who fails to see the importance of a balanced environment and diversity of life on the planet is a poorly educated individual. I'm not some environmental wacko; I eat meat and support controlled hunting. But I also support our planet.
It has been done before
One man was nailed to a tree
When he said be nice.
My point is that there is little reason to use 650M of CDROM to release drivers that take 1M of space. I just installed 24 network cards. Each card came with a floppy containing the drivers. Had each one come with a CDROM, I would have thrown 23 pieces of polycarbonate into the trash. With floppy disks, I get 23 free floppies (keeping one, you see) and I can load the drivers on to any system with ease.
I don't quite understand your point here...except that you are arguing for the limitations of Si. We have reached and surpassed the "theoretical maximum" of Si several times before. And there are people working on how to do it now. Si is one of the most abundant materials on the planet. GaAs or GaN are neat, but veryvery expensive now both to produce and process, plus they have a high failure (infant mortality) rate. A better way to use Si seems the cheapest route to me.
But those other schemes were in software, and slow...and therefore usless for high-performance machines. This will be in hardware, therefore a lot faster...but still useless for high-performance machines.
Software compression in RAM, or on disk? Software compression on disk is, of course, unchanged. Compressed data structures in RAM will now bloat...so you will be penalized for using them. That is why I hate forced compression.
The problem with junking Si is the base of manufacturing lines and manhours in tacit knowledge. I think Si still has a way to go (with some of the new technologies), but this old capacitor-RAM has GOT to go.
Any real-time compression technology tends to make me want to run screaming down the hallway
This product does not promise to double your RAM, but "up to" doubling. Note that it says storage was doubled for "most applications".
On MicroSloth machines where 3/4 of the memory seems to store arrays of zeros, this could be useful. But the more memory-concious the programmer, the poorer the performance of the technology. In other words, I'm not impressed.
A case of trollism. BUT, from a serious level, the whole theory of PCMCIA is a kludge. I know...I've worked with it from a hardware level. Both my PCMCIA cards work fine with Linux...worked out of the box with Slackware. Although I am always amazed that PCMCIA products work at all.
Unlike many stockhausian works, this one is actually pleasant to listen to. Reminds me more of Kraftwerk than minimalist composers. BTW, I still have my Star NX-10 and a DEC DM printer online 24/7. Pretty decent technology even today, IMHO.
Floppy disks are still a handy way of transporting 5M of data. I use them all the time. There is some information I cannot transmit over a network (or don't want to wait for modem delays) and floppies are the easiest way. If you don't like your floppy, remove it. Good luck loading the configuration program for your network card.
Assuming you still have to create these things yourself, there are several disk duplicators available that take a stack of floppy disks in through a magazine, automatically load the data, verify and spit 'em out.
Here are a couple I found on the web:copypro makes a professional duplicator, and this is a cheaper model from Tops-Mate. I would also check magazines like Nuts and Volts. Once upon a time Computer Shopper was full ads for products like this as well, but it is just PC stuff anymore.
"Fireproof"? No. But less-flammable, yes. Try the all-metal cases from CaliforniaPC (www.calpc.com) or integrand research (www.tri-mag.com).
The problem with Freon (or whatever the latest version is called) is that you still need fans...now you also need a compressor and a fan for the evaporator. I've used water cooling for one of my computers; I purchased a (new) heater core from an auto parts store and mounted it at the fan intake for one of my computers in a toasty room. It worked pretty well; the cool water broght the temp down. But I was always worried about condensation on the coils. This would be a problem with Freon-cooled units as well.
I am an Electrical Engineer...which does not mean that I know what I am talking about, although in this case I actually do.
I would strongly suggest the use of quality components in the PC, in particular the power supply. Another user suggested using a UL-listed power supply. This is certainly true, but there is more you should look for than just a UL sticker. Buy one of the more-expensive PC supplies...and buy a supply rated for significantly more current than you need...don't "cut it close". As a sysadmin, I have had many cheap PC power supplies fry their fans or blow capacitors. In one case a supply melted its fan and literally burst into flame.
When in doubt, buy a supply made in the US or Europe (or overseas for a US/European company). With a company name and phone number. While this is no guarantee of quality, these companies are liable for a poorly made product and less-likely to leave out a $0.39 thermal fuse. Better power supplies will also have overcurrent protection, and shut themselves off when things go past the breaking point. Cheap supplies keep humming away until they or your motherboard starts to smoke.
There are still many quality PC power supplies made in Asia, but the components in a particular model tend to vary from unit to unit, so it pays to be careful. I have also seen a UL sticker on supplies that were clearly manufactured with no quality control (bits of stripped wire rolling around in the enclosure, parts not fully soldered on boards) so I suspect the UL marking on some of the imported supplies to be counterfit. And never, ever buy a supply that cannot even manage to get a UL mark. If there is a fire, your insurance may be invalidated.
Still, a PC is very unlikely to catch fire. I have four PCs (one with a cheap power supply) running 24/7 at home with no worries. But poor supplies run a much higher risk of frying components. And like another poster said, Vacuum that PC! Keep dust to a minimum for a long product life
Yeah. Like a manual in a 3-ring binder. And the manual had words! Not just reproductions of dialog boxes. And some had programming infomation. My Atari Word Processor ($500, circa 1981) manual was a full-sized 1.5" three ring binder with an easel back. Now that is documentation.
But what would Microsoft put inside the package? They could not even manage to get substance in their software; how could they get it in "doo-dads"?? Although, perhaps a tiny package of Bill Gates' pocket fluff (probably wadded up $500 bills). Or an envelope of smarties along with a corpus delecti for an officer of the court (I figure that is Microsoft's next move). Or some peril-sensitive Microsoft(tm) Windows(reg US pat off) CrashPrufe(R) sunglasses that turn black when Windows is about to crash. They could use the same black cardboard as Infocom.
I am whiter than FFFFFF, but this is the first thing that popped into my mind. How on earth do you detect or define "skintone". If all possible skintones are detected, if I look at an image of a forest will it be censored? How about earth? At what shade does it become porn? If I look at dark earth, is it less pornagraphic than sandstone? What a stupid idea.
Actually, the processors in the older shuttles (without the glass cockpits) date from the 1970s. An 80386 would blow them out of the water; they are pre-6502 era parts. A friend at JPL grumbled that the replacement for Challenger still had the huge rack, but now each box contained a small board that emulated the ancient TTL hardware.