If you haven't noticed, the majority of casualties from recent wars have been from *friendly* fire. Plus we stopped the draft, so every soldier out there ASKED to join the military.
We of the American Public couldn't give one rat's ass about what the military does, in a capitalisitc sense. We've got moral and fanboy caring, sure (I personally find a just war morally necessary sometimes, and the geek in me says "yeah!" whenever it hears about a new high-tech way we've waged a war), but not a capitalisitc measure--War does not, in any way aside from slightly higher taxes, affect our everyday lives.
Well, except for that NYC and DC thing 11 months back. If Pres. Bush had said "we need more soldiers, we're going to swarm the entire subcontinent and put and end to this" myself and most of the peopel I know would be in the military right now.
If this what a lawyer is telling us, then why can't he determine one way or the other what the bottom line is?
Because that's not what lawyers do. A presiding judge with the case in his court is the only one who can say that "The bottom line" is--and judges can STILL be appealed.
You're operating under a misconception about how lawyers work. A client goes to a lawyer, and says "I want to do X." The lawyer's job is then to determine if and how X is legally feasible--not sure, just feasible--and then argue it when and where necessary.
As for the IP problems... there are, at most, 10 years still to come for the patentable IP. An anti-MS strategy just needs to figure out how to wait out those ten years to have their absolute-worst-case scienrio.
My argument throughout has been that there is no absolute definition for "better UI", as it will always depend somewhat on a specific user's needs.
"Better" is always subjective, and there are few absolutes. Hence why my argument was for an *objective* measurement.
And as for your two hours in Word with Winamp on, I'm afraid that's hardly a heavy-duty system. Try running four simultaneous versions of Visual Studio for a living, and see how much the similar Intellisense bells and whistles slow down even today's fast machines.
Who brought up Visual Studio? We were discussing MS Word's spellcheck.
The bloatware of running several of MS's "heavy" apps in undeniable. But I suspect you'd get better results by switching to multiple PCs, or (*gasp*) running as few instances of the same program as possible.
Maybe not, but MS sure as hell have marketed it on such features in the past. BTW, re your full length books, we used Word at a place I used to work to write formal acceptance test schedules for large software. Nothing clever in the formatting, a few headings and automatic numbering, that's all. Word spewed at about the 300 page mark. You know what Microsoft support told us, when we contacted them on our super-expensive corporate support line? "Word isn't meant for such long documents; you need a DTP package for that."
How large (size or word count) was the document? "pages" is about the worst measure out there for file size.
As for your anecdote--I just took said book, pasted it thrice into a file (so it's about 748 pages, or 395,083 words) and it was able to handle the entire thing rather easilly. Seems like the file size limit has been raised in the newest version.
I have excellent writing habits. Amongst other things, I learned to spell at school, and don't rely on the services of a spelling checker to tell me whether I'm right or wrong. Spelling checkers rarely find a problem with my work (though the grammar checker is constantly telling me off because I write in English and it doesn't understand). As a result, I quite happily run my documents through the spelling checker once at the end of each editing session to pick up the odd mistake I've missed, and I feel no need to do any more. Hell, I write all my serious documents in LaTeX anyway, where I don't even have a spelling checker available. And you know what? They don't have spelling errors in them either, because I also proofread my work using good old eyes and brain power.
"one spellcheck through" and "no revisions" are not what I'd call good writing habits. But as long as your work gets done, have a blast.
I think this subthread has pretty much run its course at this point. You argued that it was worthwhile to have all the bells and whistles. I said that was subjective, and they cost too much for some people. Let's agree to disagree.
Acutually, we're not technically arguing.
I have not, once, said that it's always better to have the bells and whistles; for some people, it's not worth the effort to learn a new interface. But if we remove intertia and take an objective look at the interface, then I think the only conclusion is "yes, the UI is better in the latest version of Word than it was in 2.0."
It's like DVORAK being objectively a better layout; I know it's more efficient, and I know that my typing speed would probably improve if I switched. But it's not enticing enough for me to do so, so I follow the inertia and use the QWERTY keyboard I'm used to.
Sorry, but objective definition is your job if you're going to make the claim
Bullocks. This isn't a friggin courtroom, it's/. An argument by "not my job" ain't going to get anything done unless you get the moderators (people of authority) to come over and say what's what. Come up with a measurement of your own, or use mine, but don't bitch about it being "my job" to come up with one. (Sheesh)
Now you need to define "intended purpose". Personally, I could quite happily use the spell checker as it was, because I ran it once at the end of my work before saving the document. None of your squiggly lines, continuing edits and such have any value to me. Am I not using it for its intended purpose?
The intended purpose of the program--Microsoft Word--is to create documents. Be they business letters, homework assignments, or full length books. It's not a layout system, like Quark. It's the sort of super-feature-rich typewriter that got computers on everyone's desks in corporate america.
You, by your own omission, have poor writing habits. (Run spellcheck *once?* No revisions? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU NEED WORD FOR?!) But the indivudal habits, poor or worse (my writing habits are pretty bad sometimes, myself), are why we need an objective measuremnet.
Ok, writing habits aside, the "indended purpose" is defined. And it is "easier to use" for that purpose--or maybe "more useful" is a better way to say it.
And as for "extras"... I just spent two hours writing, with the lastest version of Word, with Winamp in the background, and not *once* did I have to wait for the computer to catch up to me. When I was using Word 2.0 years ago, I had to wait for it sometimes--and this was on a 486/33, not exactly the sort of luxurious computer that Word 2.0 assumed it would have. My current computer has some 21 times the raw clock speed of that 486--I would certainly HOPE that some of that could be used in helping me write, rather that just running idle.
and it provides no more power than the traditional version.
Sure it does. The Word 2.0 spellcheck freezes the entire program until you "cancel" out of it--and then you have to start all over again.
Post 95, the spellcheck allows you to stop, re-write a sentence that you messed up, and continue reviewing. Either with the squiggly lines or the "traditional" menu.
Now, please define an objective "better" measure if you're going to refute this. My measure: "is it easier to use for its intended purpose?"
And since being able to stop, make an edit, and then continue "spellchecking" makes reviewing easier, and on-the-fly spellchecking makes writing easier, my answer is "yes."
Got a good objective measure of how the different interface isn't "better" that's something other than "It's different from the old"? There IS a difference between "better" and "worth re-learning", y'know.
While it's being sold as Rowling's work, that is the only crime I see being committed, unless the publishers want to stamp out all original Harry fiction in the name of 'protecting their copyright'.
Not protecting their copyrights, but exercising their copyrights. The individual author of a novel creation (like Harry Potter and the various books he's in) has the lifelong right to decide who can and who can't "copy" that creation, including allowing a publisher to print the books in exchange for money, or allowing fans to "copy" parts as a derivitive work for PR benefits.
The sad part is, though, that J.K. Rowling's going to catch as much heat as Metallica did for trying to protect her IP rights. Thank you/., thank you Microsoft.
Personally, I write lots of technical documents, where every other word (ish) isn't in the dictionary. That "better interface" makes my screen unreadable, since it's littered with red.
Then *ADD THEM.* Check the spelling, then right click the word and select "add." You can even have Word autocorrect the new word when you type it wrong.
Besides which, you're not complaining about the UI; you're complaining about the spellchecker itself. The UI of the spellchecker has improved, from a box that takes over the entire program to a little red wavy line that shows up in the background.
And if you want to turn off the spellchecker in word, pull up the options menu (It's on the "Tools" menu), select the "Spelling & Grammar" tab, and then unlick the "Check Spelling as you Type" and/or the "Check Grammar as you type" options.
If, by chance, you want to run the spellchecker afterwards, you can still use the toolbar, menu command, or F7 key.
The UI for the spellchecker in Word XP *is* better than Word 2.0, by any measure you care to use with it. Sure, it's still a spellchecker that messes up a lot and doesn't know your jargon out of the box, but it *does* work better.
(And, since it's been copied so much, if I had an alternate word processor that correctly marked "em-dashes" [OpenOffice and Abiword don't] and used the "menu" key based on the cursor and not the mouse [Wordperfect, last time I checked], I'd gladly switch to tick MS off.)
Those are the same flaw; a difficult to work with, but usable, UI.
the other flaw is like the word "Start" on the windows menu button. There's no way to change it, at all, whatsoever... without getting a real bloody hack, that is.
I've yet to see a computer program that wouldn't do what it was meant to once the proper commands were inputed. I've seen plenty of programs that weren't designed to do things I think they should, and lots of others that require you to have the manual right there, in your hand or in your head, or they don't work, but not one that simply doesn't work at all even when told exactly what to do correctly.
There's a lot to be said for on-the-fly spellchecking. Having little red wavy lines is a much better interface for the "second set of eyes" that a spellchecker is.
Is WordXP much better than 95, where they introduced the darn feature? It depends on what you want to do with it. It *still* can't be told to use an access database as the default for all merge documents, so it can't be THAT good. (And the HTML export is getting worse again...)
Can you actually say that MS WordXP is much better than the non-WYSIWYG wordprocessor of yesteryear (itself a blast from the past) ?
Yes.
I've had firsthand experience with two non-WYSIWYG word processors, Wordstar 2000 and Wordperfect 5.1 The first one was clunky, clutzy, and there was no way to tell what the darn thing was going to look like without printing it out. The second suffered from the "external blind manual" syndrome, to the point where it was necessary to memorize commands just in case the "secret cheat sheet" for the F* keys was missing.
'course, I'd love it if the @!$@!#%ing thing acutally worked faster... but at least it gets em-dashes right.
To a very high degree, user friendlyness removes control from the user and uses "logic" to try to make assumptions about what the user really wants. Just look at MS-Word and "auto-correct" which changes "Teh" to "The". (I had a classmate in university with the last name "Teh"... in the end I used vi.)
The last version of Word I heard of that wouldn't let you add an exception for "Teh" (capitalized, even) was 6.
I've used on an extensive basis (it's my primary job function) 97, 2000, and XP. 97 & 2k (and possibly 95) allow you to just hit the backspace, or "undo", to remove an autocorrect. XP's "smark tags" show up after *every* autocorrect, and you can, right there in that menu, tell it to never autocorrect "Teh" again.
"User Friendly" does not mean "The user has no control." It means "The user doesn't have to wrestle with the computer," either through obscure commands that you need a manual to know, or options that you can't touch even with the manual.
Hmm. Interesting. Now think for a second, what would Jesus have to say about that remark?
"Hey, let me do that." Jesus is God, and God can punish people; heck, the whole imperetive to love thy enemy is because they need to be loved, especially once God gets angry at them.
For the record, I'm an agnostic-atheist pacifist, and I disagree. Morality can come from logic as easily as it can from religious teachings.
You're either Agnostic (don't know) or atheist (know that there's nothing.) Please pick one.
And you're right--in theory. Morality can be reasoned out by man. But I don't think God wanted to wait for us to figure out what was good and what wasn't on his own, so he spent several thousand years trying to teach us.
First off, I have nothing but repsect for veterans, Sir. Please don't take my questions as an attack at your honor, but rather as a simple intellectual discussion.
Write your own code, that's the american way. Anybody who is whining about the GPL is too lazy to do the work themselves and want to steal from other people.
Actually, I prefer to pay others to write my code, and to utilize the freely given efforts of others whenever possible when construcing something as utilitarian as a software project; were I a coder, I would follow the way of my friends who do code and use the GPL, as being the closest thing there is to a real software "community."
As a christian you ought to be the first one stand up and sing the virtues of working hard and not leeching off of other peoples labor. The is a cost to using GPLed code and that cost is steep. If you don't want to pay it stay away.
As I said above, I have no problem at all in paying the cost of using GPL'd code. But this discussion isn't about the GPL--it's about communism.
As a Christian, I have as much right as anyone else to dislike Communism (The second Fatima prophecy was about the evils of Communism.) But as a Chrisitian, I am compelled to love--and therefore attempt to undersand--the enemy.
In theory, Communism seems to be an ideal system; everyone works, and everyone benefits. But it is riddled with faults and corruption, from double standards to tyranny to religious oppression. It's also attached to an amazing system of FUD brought about partly by the less-than-perfect capitalists of the 20th century, and mostly by the countries that didn't take kindly to a new government calling for a worldwide revolution.
I think Bill Gates is a poster child for the USSR's anti-capitalist propaganda when he calls the GPL "Communist"--but I would hope that you sir, as an honored veteran, would know why you hate the defeated enemy, and not simply follow the unquestioned FUD that was necessary to win the Cold War.
I for one would like to punch them out just for calling me communist.
Why, exactly? The whole Cold War was fought with pure FUD on both sides; for what reasons, exactly, do you so dislike Communism?
The GPL does indeed work like a cancer. GPL'd code lives forever, instead of dying after a set time. GPL'd code gets close to other code, invades other code (mostly through developer work), and then it takes over the whole of the non-GPL'd project.
Even if the above doesn't happen, there's *nothing* in the GPL to prevent it. GNU.org could kill MS's FUD with one simple amendment to the GPL (codify what is and is not derivitive *in the license*, or for pete's sake at least require Clear Identification), but they don't.
The more insidious case is when they sneak in and make a copy, without depriving you of yours.
Who said anything about stealing my copy? Copyright is chiefly focused preventing *stealing ownership.*
When I create something, I have a right to (1) credit and (2) a greater-than-other-people fiscal benefit from it. (Thus, if I write a book, I should get more money from my book than anyone else.)
When that happens (and you catch them) you punish them. A different incentive system wouldn't eliminate the need to punish the wicked.
Copyright isn't an incentive system; it's a law. Without copyright law, someone who steals someone else's work *hasn't done anything illegal.* A publisher can view my work, publish it, make millions of dollars, and I haven't a leg to stand on without copyright.
Copyright law doesn't exist to prevent theft, it exists to prevent otherwise legitimate copies from being made.
No, it doesn't. The DMCA does. The overextenstion of copyright to cover a long dead man's works does. The twisting of copyright (the longest lived form of IP) to cover software does.
Copyright, in and of itself, *defines* what theft of someone's work is. That's all it does. If it wasn't for copyright, the most unfair and mean copying of someone's work would be just fine and dandy--even if it screws the creator out of their incentives.
Money is a powerful incentive, but copyright isn't the only way to get money into the hands of those that create.
The law doesn't give one white rat's ass about how much money a creator makes. Copyright--the law--just says "the creator of X has the right to decide who gets to make copies of X for Y time." That's it.
The profiteering lobby--most of who haven't done anything noteworthy and are where they are because artists and creators don't want to bother doing the job for themselves--care about making as much money as possible. Please attack them (RIAA / MPAA / Disney), and leave the poor law out of this.
Copyright also creates a strong belief in intellectual "property".
It's "intellectual property." As in, a legal embodiment of the sense of pride and parentage that a creator has upon looking at their finished work.
IP is a necessary beast in a capitalist society; nothing is worth anything unless it's worth money, and if most novelists were paid by the hour (time and goods being the two basic things traded for capital) they would be in violation of labor laws.
IP gives people who can do more than dross physical goods or rote labor the blind legal ability to barter their unique product in our market.
I'm all for switching the damn system, but first we got to figure out something better--and not just for "IP folks," but everyone.
There are plenty of ways to incentivize the creation of information. We can pay people to create stuff directly, grant them honors, extend special privilages. If copyright was the only incentive for creation, FreeBSD wouldn't exist. More to the point, copyright isn't very good at creating public works.
And what do we do when someone breaks into your house, takes your novel, and sells it under their name? (Insert *any* literary thing you want to get money or credit for.)
Copyright exists to stop this very thing, at its core. While triming it (Copyright term) down may be a good idea so as to encourage "public works" and reuse of ideas, eliminating it as an "incentive" angle isn't a good idea.
How many other alternate systems of incentives have been squashed by clinging to copyright?
Copyright does nothing to "squash" alternate forms of incentive. Heck, the whole Free Software movement works because of copyright, not in spite of it. Nothing in the world at all says that you have to take $ in exchange for copyright.
Give me enough incentive, and I'll give you that novel I've got tucked away at home.
I am a nerd. A married nerd (ok, that counts against me in 'nerdiness'), but I read/. and find most of the stories interesting.
More importantly, the *editors* and *story submitters* consider themselves to be nerds, and they consider these stories as something that "matters", in a "one story out of twenty daily stories" kind of way.
It's not like they're bitching about "One Life to Live" not getting an Emmy, after all. (Just a random soap opera name.)
If asked the question, "What is my life worth to you?", can you really respond to me with a dollar amount?
Yes. That's the nature of capitalism.
Your life--that is, the life of someone whom I have never met aside from on/., and who has never met me and with whom I have no relationship whatsoever--is worth zero US dollars (and 0 cents) to me. Were you to cease to exist this instant, I would not be fiscally hurt.
But, were you to ask "what would be the cost for me to kill you", well, now there's no dollar figure high enough. (Unless you've been convicted to die, or do something to myself or my kin that merits a lethal response [assume attempted murder]).
You mean that Shapesphere is no longer in the public domain!? Drat!
If anyone has a new idea that requires use of someone's ancient copyright and doesn't violate anyone's trademarks, please do so--I'll donate $1 per month to your legal fund, and encourage others to do so.
If, on the other hand, all we've got are "ideas."... well, tough nugget. Copyright doesn't protect ideas, and neither do unfiled patents.
It's because there are *more* small town auto mechanics than small-town "software developers." More people use their services, and more people even tinker at home with their cars.
I'd be willing to guess that the percentages of the relative populations (of computer users and car drivers) that do personal or semiprofessional maintenance is at least a few % in the car's favor.
every OSS word processor I've used has opened my MS word documents fine--until I turned on the spellchecker.
For some unknown reason, it treats *every* puncuation character that isn't on the keyboard as an alphanumeric character, not a space. Until this is fixed (or it learns how to deal with em-dashes and single-character elipsis properly), OpenOffice et al will simply be unusable.
Slashdot Mirror
If you haven't noticed, the majority of casualties from recent wars have been from *friendly* fire. Plus we stopped the draft, so every soldier out there ASKED to join the military.
We of the American Public couldn't give one rat's ass about what the military does, in a capitalisitc sense. We've got moral and fanboy caring, sure (I personally find a just war morally necessary sometimes, and the geek in me says "yeah!" whenever it hears about a new high-tech way we've waged a war), but not a capitalisitc measure--War does not, in any way aside from slightly higher taxes, affect our everyday lives.
Well, except for that NYC and DC thing 11 months back. If Pres. Bush had said "we need more soldiers, we're going to swarm the entire subcontinent and put and end to this" myself and most of the peopel I know would be in the military right now.
If this what a lawyer is telling us, then why can't he determine one way or the other what the bottom line is?
Because that's not what lawyers do. A presiding judge with the case in his court is the only one who can say that "The bottom line" is--and judges can STILL be appealed.
You're operating under a misconception about how lawyers work. A client goes to a lawyer, and says "I want to do X." The lawyer's job is then to determine if and how X is legally feasible--not sure, just feasible--and then argue it when and where necessary.
As for the IP problems... there are, at most, 10 years still to come for the patentable IP. An anti-MS strategy just needs to figure out how to wait out those ten years to have their absolute-worst-case scienrio.
My argument throughout has been that there is no absolute definition for "better UI", as it will always depend somewhat on a specific user's needs.
"Better" is always subjective, and there are few absolutes. Hence why my argument was for an *objective* measurement.
And as for your two hours in Word with Winamp on, I'm afraid that's hardly a heavy-duty system. Try running four simultaneous versions of Visual Studio for a living, and see how much the similar Intellisense bells and whistles slow down even today's fast machines.
Who brought up Visual Studio? We were discussing MS Word's spellcheck.
The bloatware of running several of MS's "heavy" apps in undeniable. But I suspect you'd get better results by switching to multiple PCs, or (*gasp*) running as few instances of the same program as possible.
Maybe not, but MS sure as hell have marketed it on such features in the past. BTW, re your full length books, we used Word at a place I used to work to write formal acceptance test schedules for large software. Nothing clever in the formatting, a few headings and automatic numbering, that's all. Word spewed at about the 300 page mark. You know what Microsoft support told us, when we contacted them on our super-expensive corporate support line? "Word isn't meant for such long documents; you need a DTP package for that."
How large (size or word count) was the document? "pages" is about the worst measure out there for file size.
As for your anecdote--I just took said book, pasted it thrice into a file (so it's about 748 pages, or 395,083 words) and it was able to handle the entire thing rather easilly. Seems like the file size limit has been raised in the newest version.
I have excellent writing habits. Amongst other things, I learned to spell at school, and don't rely on the services of a spelling checker to tell me whether I'm right or wrong. Spelling checkers rarely find a problem with my work (though the grammar checker is constantly telling me off because I write in English and it doesn't understand). As a result, I quite happily run my documents through the spelling checker once at the end of each editing session to pick up the odd mistake I've missed, and I feel no need to do any more. Hell, I write all my serious documents in LaTeX anyway, where I don't even have a spelling checker available. And you know what? They don't have spelling errors in them either, because I also proofread my work using good old eyes and brain power.
"one spellcheck through" and "no revisions" are not what I'd call good writing habits. But as long as your work gets done, have a blast.
I think this subthread has pretty much run its course at this point. You argued that it was worthwhile to have all the bells and whistles. I said that was subjective, and they cost too much for some people. Let's agree to disagree.
Acutually, we're not technically arguing.
I have not, once, said that it's always better to have the bells and whistles; for some people, it's not worth the effort to learn a new interface. But if we remove intertia and take an objective look at the interface, then I think the only conclusion is "yes, the UI is better in the latest version of Word than it was in 2.0."
It's like DVORAK being objectively a better layout; I know it's more efficient, and I know that my typing speed would probably improve if I switched. But it's not enticing enough for me to do so, so I follow the inertia and use the QWERTY keyboard I'm used to.
Well, that's interesting...
How, exactly, is the GPL a greater long-term threat? Most of the copyrights will last a bit longer, but they'll still expire.
Sorry, but objective definition is your job if you're going to make the claim
/. An argument by "not my job" ain't going to get anything done unless you get the moderators (people of authority) to come over and say what's what. Come up with a measurement of your own, or use mine, but don't bitch about it being "my job" to come up with one. (Sheesh)
Bullocks. This isn't a friggin courtroom, it's
Now you need to define "intended purpose". Personally, I could quite happily use the spell checker as it was, because I ran it once at the end of my work before saving the document. None of your squiggly lines, continuing edits and such have any value to me. Am I not using it for its intended purpose?
The intended purpose of the program--Microsoft Word--is to create documents. Be they business letters, homework assignments, or full length books. It's not a layout system, like Quark. It's the sort of super-feature-rich typewriter that got computers on everyone's desks in corporate america.
You, by your own omission, have poor writing habits. (Run spellcheck *once?* No revisions? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU NEED WORD FOR?!) But the indivudal habits, poor or worse (my writing habits are pretty bad sometimes, myself), are why we need an objective measuremnet.
Ok, writing habits aside, the "indended purpose" is defined. And it is "easier to use" for that purpose--or maybe "more useful" is a better way to say it.
And as for "extras"... I just spent two hours writing, with the lastest version of Word, with Winamp in the background, and not *once* did I have to wait for the computer to catch up to me. When I was using Word 2.0 years ago, I had to wait for it sometimes--and this was on a 486/33, not exactly the sort of luxurious computer that Word 2.0 assumed it would have. My current computer has some 21 times the raw clock speed of that 486--I would certainly HOPE that some of that could be used in helping me write, rather that just running idle.
and it provides no more power than the traditional version.
Sure it does. The Word 2.0 spellcheck freezes the entire program until you "cancel" out of it--and then you have to start all over again.
Post 95, the spellcheck allows you to stop, re-write a sentence that you messed up, and continue reviewing. Either with the squiggly lines or the "traditional" menu.
Now, please define an objective "better" measure if you're going to refute this. My measure: "is it easier to use for its intended purpose?"
And since being able to stop, make an edit, and then continue "spellchecking" makes reviewing easier, and on-the-fly spellchecking makes writing easier, my answer is "yes."
Got a good objective measure of how the different interface isn't "better" that's something other than "It's different from the old"? There IS a difference between "better" and "worth re-learning", y'know.
While it's being sold as Rowling's work, that is the only crime I see being committed, unless the publishers want to stamp out all original Harry fiction in the name of 'protecting their copyright'.
/., thank you Microsoft.
Not protecting their copyrights, but exercising their copyrights. The individual author of a novel creation (like Harry Potter and the various books he's in) has the lifelong right to decide who can and who can't "copy" that creation, including allowing a publisher to print the books in exchange for money, or allowing fans to "copy" parts as a derivitive work for PR benefits.
The sad part is, though, that J.K. Rowling's going to catch as much heat as Metallica did for trying to protect her IP rights. Thank you
Personally, I write lots of technical documents, where every other word (ish) isn't in the dictionary. That "better interface" makes my screen unreadable, since it's littered with red.
Then *ADD THEM.* Check the spelling, then right click the word and select "add." You can even have Word autocorrect the new word when you type it wrong.
Besides which, you're not complaining about the UI; you're complaining about the spellchecker itself. The UI of the spellchecker has improved, from a box that takes over the entire program to a little red wavy line that shows up in the background.
And if you want to turn off the spellchecker in word, pull up the options menu (It's on the "Tools" menu), select the "Spelling & Grammar" tab, and then unlick the "Check Spelling as you Type" and/or the "Check Grammar as you type" options.
If, by chance, you want to run the spellchecker afterwards, you can still use the toolbar, menu command, or F7 key.
The UI for the spellchecker in Word XP *is* better than Word 2.0, by any measure you care to use with it. Sure, it's still a spellchecker that messes up a lot and doesn't know your jargon out of the box, but it *does* work better.
(And, since it's been copied so much, if I had an alternate word processor that correctly marked "em-dashes" [OpenOffice and Abiword don't] and used the "menu" key based on the cursor and not the mouse [Wordperfect, last time I checked], I'd gladly switch to tick MS off.)
Those are the same flaw; a difficult to work with, but usable, UI.
the other flaw is like the word "Start" on the windows menu button. There's no way to change it, at all, whatsoever... without getting a real bloody hack, that is.
I've yet to see a computer program that wouldn't do what it was meant to once the proper commands were inputed. I've seen plenty of programs that weren't designed to do things I think they should, and lots of others that require you to have the manual right there, in your hand or in your head, or they don't work, but not one that simply doesn't work at all even when told exactly what to do correctly.
There's a lot to be said for on-the-fly spellchecking. Having little red wavy lines is a much better interface for the "second set of eyes" that a spellchecker is.
Is WordXP much better than 95, where they introduced the darn feature? It depends on what you want to do with it. It *still* can't be told to use an access database as the default for all merge documents, so it can't be THAT good. (And the HTML export is getting worse again...)
Can you actually say that MS WordXP is much better than the non-WYSIWYG wordprocessor of yesteryear (itself a blast from the past) ?
Yes.
I've had firsthand experience with two non-WYSIWYG word processors, Wordstar 2000 and Wordperfect 5.1 The first one was clunky, clutzy, and there was no way to tell what the darn thing was going to look like without printing it out. The second suffered from the "external blind manual" syndrome, to the point where it was necessary to memorize commands just in case the "secret cheat sheet" for the F* keys was missing.
'course, I'd love it if the @!$@!#%ing thing acutally worked faster... but at least it gets em-dashes right.
To a very high degree, user friendlyness removes control from the user and uses "logic" to try to make assumptions about what the user really wants. Just look at MS-Word and "auto-correct" which changes "Teh" to "The". (I had a classmate in university with the last name "Teh"... in the end I used vi.)
The last version of Word I heard of that wouldn't let you add an exception for "Teh" (capitalized, even) was 6.
I've used on an extensive basis (it's my primary job function) 97, 2000, and XP. 97 & 2k (and possibly 95) allow you to just hit the backspace, or "undo", to remove an autocorrect. XP's "smark tags" show up after *every* autocorrect, and you can, right there in that menu, tell it to never autocorrect "Teh" again.
"User Friendly" does not mean "The user has no control." It means "The user doesn't have to wrestle with the computer," either through obscure commands that you need a manual to know, or options that you can't touch even with the manual.
God yes, Jesus no. Am I wrong?
:) I respect people who admit that they don't know, honestly, even if they favor His nonexistance.
Same guy. Jesus can only forgive sins because he's part of God / empowered to act as God.
And it's possible to hate and love someone at the same time. It's easier to love someone and hate what they do.
As for the rest of the post: Cool.
It's the prostletyizing atheists who claim to have sure knowledge of His nonexistance that irk me.
Hmm. Interesting. Now think for a second, what would Jesus have to say about that remark?
"Hey, let me do that." Jesus is God, and God can punish people; heck, the whole imperetive to love thy enemy is because they need to be loved, especially once God gets angry at them.
For the record, I'm an agnostic-atheist pacifist, and I disagree. Morality can come from logic as easily as it can from religious teachings.
You're either Agnostic (don't know) or atheist (know that there's nothing.) Please pick one.
And you're right--in theory. Morality can be reasoned out by man. But I don't think God wanted to wait for us to figure out what was good and what wasn't on his own, so he spent several thousand years trying to teach us.
First off, I have nothing but repsect for veterans, Sir. Please don't take my questions as an attack at your honor, but rather as a simple intellectual discussion.
Write your own code, that's the american way. Anybody who is whining about the GPL is too lazy to do the work themselves and want to steal from other people.
Actually, I prefer to pay others to write my code, and to utilize the freely given efforts of others whenever possible when construcing something as utilitarian as a software project; were I a coder, I would follow the way of my friends who do code and use the GPL, as being the closest thing there is to a real software "community."
As a christian you ought to be the first one stand up and sing the virtues of working hard and not leeching off of other peoples labor. The is a cost to using GPLed code and that cost is steep. If you don't want to pay it stay away.
As I said above, I have no problem at all in paying the cost of using GPL'd code. But this discussion isn't about the GPL--it's about communism.
As a Christian, I have as much right as anyone else to dislike Communism (The second Fatima prophecy was about the evils of Communism.) But as a Chrisitian, I am compelled to love--and therefore attempt to undersand--the enemy.
In theory, Communism seems to be an ideal system; everyone works, and everyone benefits. But it is riddled with faults and corruption, from double standards to tyranny to religious oppression. It's also attached to an amazing system of FUD brought about partly by the less-than-perfect capitalists of the 20th century, and mostly by the countries that didn't take kindly to a new government calling for a worldwide revolution.
I think Bill Gates is a poster child for the USSR's anti-capitalist propaganda when he calls the GPL "Communist"--but I would hope that you sir, as an honored veteran, would know why you hate the defeated enemy, and not simply follow the unquestioned FUD that was necessary to win the Cold War.
I for one would like to punch them out just for calling me communist.
Why, exactly? The whole Cold War was fought with pure FUD on both sides; for what reasons, exactly, do you so dislike Communism?
The GPL does indeed work like a cancer. GPL'd code lives forever, instead of dying after a set time. GPL'd code gets close to other code, invades other code (mostly through developer work), and then it takes over the whole of the non-GPL'd project.
Even if the above doesn't happen, there's *nothing* in the GPL to prevent it. GNU.org could kill MS's FUD with one simple amendment to the GPL (codify what is and is not derivitive *in the license*, or for pete's sake at least require Clear Identification), but they don't.
The more insidious case is when they sneak in and make a copy, without depriving you of yours.
Who said anything about stealing my copy? Copyright is chiefly focused preventing *stealing ownership.*
When I create something, I have a right to (1) credit and (2) a greater-than-other-people fiscal benefit from it. (Thus, if I write a book, I should get more money from my book than anyone else.)
When that happens (and you catch them) you punish them.
A different incentive system wouldn't eliminate the need to punish the wicked.
Copyright isn't an incentive system; it's a law. Without copyright law, someone who steals someone else's work *hasn't done anything illegal.* A publisher can view my work, publish it, make millions of dollars, and I haven't a leg to stand on without copyright.
Copyright law doesn't exist to prevent theft, it exists to prevent otherwise legitimate copies from being made.
No, it doesn't. The DMCA does. The overextenstion of copyright to cover a long dead man's works does. The twisting of copyright (the longest lived form of IP) to cover software does.
Copyright, in and of itself, *defines* what theft of someone's work is. That's all it does. If it wasn't for copyright, the most unfair and mean copying of someone's work would be just fine and dandy--even if it screws the creator out of their incentives.
Money is a powerful incentive, but copyright isn't the only way to get money into the hands of those that create.
The law doesn't give one white rat's ass about how much money a creator makes. Copyright--the law--just says "the creator of X has the right to decide who gets to make copies of X for Y time." That's it.
The profiteering lobby--most of who haven't done anything noteworthy and are where they are because artists and creators don't want to bother doing the job for themselves--care about making as much money as possible. Please attack them (RIAA / MPAA / Disney), and leave the poor law out of this.
Copyright also creates a strong belief in intellectual "property".
It's "intellectual property." As in, a legal embodiment of the sense of pride and parentage that a creator has upon looking at their finished work.
IP is a necessary beast in a capitalist society; nothing is worth anything unless it's worth money, and if most novelists were paid by the hour (time and goods being the two basic things traded for capital) they would be in violation of labor laws.
IP gives people who can do more than dross physical goods or rote labor the blind legal ability to barter their unique product in our market.
I'm all for switching the damn system, but first we got to figure out something better--and not just for "IP folks," but everyone.
There are plenty of ways to incentivize the creation of information. We can pay people to create stuff directly, grant them honors, extend special privilages. If copyright was the only incentive for creation, FreeBSD wouldn't exist.
More to the point, copyright isn't very good at creating public works.
And what do we do when someone breaks into your house, takes your novel, and sells it under their name? (Insert *any* literary thing you want to get money or credit for.)
Copyright exists to stop this very thing, at its core. While triming it (Copyright term) down may be a good idea so as to encourage "public works" and reuse of ideas, eliminating it as an "incentive" angle isn't a good idea.
How many other alternate systems of incentives have been squashed by clinging to copyright?
Copyright does nothing to "squash" alternate forms of incentive. Heck, the whole Free Software movement works because of copyright, not in spite of it. Nothing in the world at all says that you have to take $ in exchange for copyright.
Give me enough incentive, and I'll give you that novel I've got tucked away at home.
:) Hot babes, woot!
I am a nerd. A married nerd (ok, that counts against me in 'nerdiness'), but I read /. and find most of the stories interesting.
More importantly, the *editors* and *story submitters* consider themselves to be nerds, and they consider these stories as something that "matters", in a "one story out of twenty daily stories" kind of way.
It's not like they're bitching about "One Life to Live" not getting an Emmy, after all. (Just a random soap opera name.)
If asked the question, "What is my life worth to you?", can you really respond to me with a dollar amount?
/., and who has never met me and with whom I have no relationship whatsoever--is worth zero US dollars (and 0 cents) to me. Were you to cease to exist this instant, I would not be fiscally hurt.
Yes. That's the nature of capitalism.
Your life--that is, the life of someone whom I have never met aside from on
But, were you to ask "what would be the cost for me to kill you", well, now there's no dollar figure high enough. (Unless you've been convicted to die, or do something to myself or my kin that merits a lethal response [assume attempted murder]).
So even were the copyright valid, wouldn't they have no legal leg to stand on, since they've in the past failed to defend this copyright?
Nope. You're thinking of Trademarks.
A copyright can't become not valid until it expires. Same with patents. But trademarks, which can last indefinitly, can be lost for nonenforcement.
IANAL, but this is pretty basic stuff...
What?
You mean that Shapesphere is no longer in the public domain!? Drat!
If anyone has a new idea that requires use of someone's ancient copyright and doesn't violate anyone's trademarks, please do so--I'll donate $1 per month to your legal fund, and encourage others to do so.
If, on the other hand, all we've got are "ideas."... well, tough nugget. Copyright doesn't protect ideas, and neither do unfiled patents.
Well, gee, that's simple.
It's because there are *more* small town auto mechanics than small-town "software developers." More people use their services, and more people even tinker at home with their cars.
I'd be willing to guess that the percentages of the relative populations (of computer users and car drivers) that do personal or semiprofessional maintenance is at least a few % in the car's favor.
every OSS word processor I've used has opened my MS word documents fine--until I turned on the spellchecker.
For some unknown reason, it treats *every* puncuation character that isn't on the keyboard as an alphanumeric character, not a space. Until this is fixed (or it learns how to deal with em-dashes and single-character elipsis properly), OpenOffice et al will simply be unusable.