Isn't Microsoft notorious for keeping cruft around and being really backwards compatible? The only thing I could think of that's staying the same is definitely NTFS. WinFS is just an abstraction above NTFS, but the core is still NTFS. So if Linux/etc can interact with NTFS, then I bet they can still work with Longhorn.
That doesn't make any sense. A well-designed system is a transparent one, so Google would have no reason to let you know that they're running out of IDs.
By the way, for supplemental result... By doing a quick keyword search on Google using my domain name, I'm led to believe that pages marked "Supplemental Result" are pages that look like search results. That is, they aren't filled with any real content, other than search results from other engines. Results that could "supplement" your "result" from Google.
fast forward - If you liked Alvin and the Chipmunks, then try this. A friend of mine watches all of his anime at double speed. I think he's nuts, but it works for him.
I agree with the fast forward concept. I read somewhere (NPR? Slashdot?) that college kidswere using a speed modifier on their audio player to digest long lectures in a shorter amount of time. 1:30 becomes 45 minutes, easy. Informal studies show that the comprehension of the sped of material is the same if not better than listening to it at regular speed. At regular speed, one might get bored or zone out. At increased speed, other parts of the brain are used to help focus on the material, since it's a little faster than normal speech, but still slow enough to comprehend normally. I tried it for a while, it's pretty awesome.
Broadcasters wanted to use that technique for TV, too. Microslicing I believe... Cuts out really small slices of video frames that add up to just one more advertisement at the end of the broadcast. I think radio does this too. Sometimes I feel like songs on the radio are played faster than songs on my MP3 player...
So to solve the wedding photo problem you could make a drawing similar to your photos and search for similar images.
Doesn't sound like quite a solution to me.
Provided you have pictures of your wedding and you want to find them, you have to:
1. Use KDE 2. Index your images using GIFT 3. Make a drawing similar enough to your wedding photos for GIFT to pick up on it 4. Try and find your images from the results
The above post was so badly written... Apologies. It should read something like:
After a bit of Googling, I was startled at something the article mentioned. Then again, this
is the new issue of Weird. =)
On the last page/section of the article, you'll see "Will Wright's Grand Unified Theory". Wasn't Will Wright the guy who designed SimCity? Someone named Robert Wright occurs way more frequently next to "grand unified theory" on Google than Will Wright does...
After a bit of Googling, I was a bit startling at something the article mentioned. Then again, this is the new issue of Weird. =)
On the last page/section of the article, you'll see "Will Wright's Grand Unified Theory". Wasn't Will Wright the guy that designed SimCity? Someone named Robert Wright occurs way more frequently next to "grand unified theory" on Google...
How do piles and stacking relate to the quote below, as found in the Slashdot summary?
The company "also unveiled 'WinFX,' which it described as a new application programming model for Windows that is the evolution of its.NET programming framework.
One of the greatest advances Microsoft is going to offer in Longhorn is the abstraction of data storage. In the future (which should be now), you won't have to categorize files into folders. They will either categorize themselves and/or be categorized with some higher order meta data (i.e. "These are my pictures from Cancun"). This implies more hiding of the guts (like the way Windows "hid" DOS), guts meaning terms like C-Drive and D-Drive. Harddrives won't really exist, they'll just be techie references to an amorphous box of storage. Another implication of this is enhanced search abilities, where everything is about searching and finding files you want, instead of you sifting through folders. It could be like... I want to play all of the Pink Floyd mp3s on my computer and all the network shares. That's an intelligent request. Rummaging through folders looking for these files is not.
OSX is doing that with integrated search in FileOpen dialogs, but it isn't enough. This has to be a complete overhaul of the data storage metaphor. And I know that in itself, against the UNIX-type everything-is-a-file philosophy, will never fly. This new philosophy is everything-is-information that I can access.
I'm positive there would be an uproar in the open source/NIX community when you start saying things like there should be no/usr and no/bin, it should just work. Crazy, radical, non-traditional thoughts like that are needed for the future of computing, but will never be accepted by old timers who insist that a well-organized hierarchy-based file system is the way to go (which I read in replies many times when people mention this type of abstraction).
I expect this thing to outsell the iPod in a week or two.
You can't be serious. That's a completely unrealistic goal. Apple's iPod reeks of great design and simplicity. By the looks of it, that device doesn't.
The mere aura of the iPod which I'm having great difficulty describing is a great marketing challenge to overcome for rival devices.
Come to think of it, last time I looked at WinZip or PhotoShop, they didn't look that native to Windows.
Wow I guess you haven't looked at either in a long time. The latest versions WinZip and Photoshop both go out of their way to emulate XP-style widgets. This includes skinning and visual feedback on mouse-overs.
Everything posters have suggested so far can be summed up in an online resource called Cyborg 101. (Google it, its original source has vanished, but many copies exist.) Written by a one Angus Wong, it reviews various "extreme" studying methods, especially if you're in some kind of academic jeopardy. It's a good, geeky read.
Even though I agree with you when it comes to projects that fail, you have to give it up for those few projects that do work, invented by those who dared to go where no blah blah has gone before. Inventions and innovations are only made by "pushing the envelope"... So, someone had to try eventually. Even if it is a failure.
Why can't Ximain and Red Hat's paid designers copy what WORKS, instead of revving new skins?
Like I tried saying before, it's not just about skins. It's about philosophies that run throughout the entire OS. The response rate of certain applications, keyboard access, auxilary keys, drag and drop, interoperability, etc. I'm not sure what else there is, but there's way more to an OS than just its skin. Apple could have gone w/o Aqua and still made a usable system. Those are the parts that, without a little dictator ship, Linux may have a little trouble getting at par with.
WHAT do Apple's programmers and designers have that Linux/GNOME programmers do not?
You answered your own question. Apple has dedicated designers and the Linux community does not. Companies like Apple and Microsoft spend a lot of their time and money on usability research. While Linux may be a functional equivalent of any other OS, it will never be called "sexy" by desktop consumers any time soon... That feeling that Mac users talk about is years and years of usability search hidden behind a shiny Aqua button. Skins do not a usable OS make.
I'm not really sure how useful of an attribute that is. It's like the Jack of All Trades, Master of None argument. The competition is usually available on relatively few platforms but performs very well on them. Sure Linux can run everywhere, but is it good everywhere? That kind of generic... osity... may detract from the ability to be an expert type of system.
No, I haven't used Linux, but a great many argument I've read and agree with have to be usability and nativity to the platform. If Linux isn't native to anything, then who uses it on what? When will standards be developed?
One day I'd like to learn enough about Linux to contribute to the community on a usability level... But I'm afraid that I'll just end up as one of the many people that thinks their view of how Linux should be is better than everyone elses (hence distributions) and create my own not-so-great distro of Linux or desktop environment. Sometimes you need that One For All or Dictator attitude to get stuff done.
This is functionality, not design. Yeah, this would be a nice thing, but it has nothing to do with the interface design. You have to wait for the hardware behind the curtain to catch up to this idea. So you want a big, embedded computer. We'll probably get there some day, but it has nothing to do with UI design.
Of course it has everything to do with interface design. Who said software design and hardware design have to be exclusive of each other? That's one reason Macs seem cooler than other PCs is their tight integration with hardware and software. It's about the experience with the entire product, not just the little screen.
Gee, anything else? Maybe we could fit them on the head of a pin too. How about infinite storage?
Sure, maybe it sounds like the parent poster is being unreasonable. But I think that in itself isn't unreasonable at all. There should always be people to challenge the limits of technology and push the envelope. I mean, we should never settle for technology that doesn't work well or to our liking. Technology is a tool, and we use it, it doesn't use us. So to make outrageous demands out of devices that are supposed to make our lives easier is completely justified. The challenge then becomes can we deliver. And there's the innovation part.
After reading a little bit of Joe Clark's Building Accessible Websites, I think the main point of building for accessibility is redundancy. That is, make multiple points of entry or interaction for your content/device.
By the way, no one is saying the experiences will be equal. They can't be. So of course an hand-based input device (keyboard) will not serve those who are, uhh, manually challenged...?
I guess you could just think of accessibility as another dimension to the design phase. "Change your paradigum" and think outside the box.
A lot less thought is required to click on the one and only search box when compared to choosing a text box and then typing what you want. I think the first poster is right, in that you really shouldn't have to choose, just do. Sure, it may seem trivial, but small things like this make up the whole user interaction concept. So here, we want to minimize the choices and maximize the power. Why have two text areas that do two individually different things? Why not have one text area that is capable of multiple functions...
PS - I haven't used Firebird much but I do use Mozilla often.
Apple will always have a niche market, but I expect Linux use to grow proportionally to the available commercial titles that support linux and proportional to the ease of use of linux.
As another poster mentioned, what niche market? Their OS appeals to everyone, geeks, power-users, and Joe Average alike. And yes, I agree with you, that Linux will grow in proportion to its ease of use. But that's the problem, it isn't easy to use. Therefore, it won't grow any time soon.
Slashdot Mirror
For those of you who had no idea what Godwin's Law was... Definition, courtesy of The Jargon Dictionary.
Isn't Microsoft notorious for keeping cruft around and being really backwards compatible? The only thing I could think of that's staying the same is definitely NTFS. WinFS is just an abstraction above NTFS, but the core is still NTFS. So if Linux/etc can interact with NTFS, then I bet they can still work with Longhorn.
That doesn't make any sense. A well-designed system is a transparent one, so Google would have no reason to let you know that they're running out of IDs.
By the way, for supplemental result... By doing a quick keyword search on Google using my domain name, I'm led to believe that pages marked "Supplemental Result" are pages that look like search results. That is, they aren't filled with any real content, other than search results from other engines. Results that could "supplement" your "result" from Google.
fast forward - If you liked Alvin and the Chipmunks, then try this. A friend of mine watches all of his anime at double speed. I think he's nuts, but it works for him.
I agree with the fast forward concept. I read somewhere (NPR? Slashdot?) that college kidswere using a speed modifier on their audio player to digest long lectures in a shorter amount of time. 1:30 becomes 45 minutes, easy. Informal studies show that the comprehension of the sped of material is the same if not better than listening to it at regular speed. At regular speed, one might get bored or zone out. At increased speed, other parts of the brain are used to help focus on the material, since it's a little faster than normal speech, but still slow enough to comprehend normally. I tried it for a while, it's pretty awesome.
Broadcasters wanted to use that technique for TV, too. Microslicing I believe... Cuts out really small slices of video frames that add up to just one more advertisement at the end of the broadcast. I think radio does this too. Sometimes I feel like songs on the radio are played faster than songs on my MP3 player...
So to solve the wedding photo problem you could make a drawing similar to your photos and search for similar images.
Doesn't sound like quite a solution to me.
Provided you have pictures of your wedding and you want to find them, you have to:
1. Use KDE
2. Index your images using GIFT
3. Make a drawing similar enough to your wedding photos for GIFT to pick up on it
4. Try and find your images from the results
Aren't solutions supposed to be easy and simple?
After a bit of Googling, I was a bit startling at something the article mentioned. Then again, this is the new issue of Weird. =)
On the last page/section of the article, you'll see "Will Wright's Grand Unified Theory". Wasn't Will Wright the guy that designed SimCity? Someone named Robert Wright occurs way more frequently next to "grand unified theory" on Google...
He was referring to the first versions of Word, not Outlook...
One of the greatest advances Microsoft is going to offer in Longhorn is the abstraction of data storage. In the future (which should be now), you won't have to categorize files into folders. They will either categorize themselves and/or be categorized with some higher order meta data (i.e. "These are my pictures from Cancun"). This implies more hiding of the guts (like the way Windows "hid" DOS), guts meaning terms like C-Drive and D-Drive. Harddrives won't really exist, they'll just be techie references to an amorphous box of storage. Another implication of this is enhanced search abilities, where everything is about searching and finding files you want, instead of you sifting through folders. It could be like... I want to play all of the Pink Floyd mp3s on my computer and all the network shares. That's an intelligent request. Rummaging through folders looking for these files is not.
/usr and no /bin, it should just work. Crazy, radical, non-traditional thoughts like that are needed for the future of computing, but will never be accepted by old timers who insist that a well-organized hierarchy-based file system is the way to go (which I read in replies many times when people mention this type of abstraction).
OSX is doing that with integrated search in FileOpen dialogs, but it isn't enough. This has to be a complete overhaul of the data storage metaphor. And I know that in itself, against the UNIX-type everything-is-a-file philosophy, will never fly. This new philosophy is everything-is-information that I can access.
I'm positive there would be an uproar in the open source/NIX community when you start saying things like there should be no
How do you run Visual Studio on Linux?
I expect this thing to outsell the iPod in a week or two.
You can't be serious. That's a completely unrealistic goal. Apple's iPod reeks of great design and simplicity. By the looks of it, that device doesn't.
The mere aura of the iPod which I'm having great difficulty describing is a great marketing challenge to overcome for rival devices.
Come to think of it, last time I looked at WinZip or PhotoShop, they didn't look that native to Windows.
Wow I guess you haven't looked at either in a long time. The latest versions WinZip and Photoshop both go out of their way to emulate XP-style widgets. This includes skinning and visual feedback on mouse-overs.
I want a customized car to match my customized computer.
Well, at least we know where to get a customized computer case for a customized car... Check out the "gallery of Exotix examples".
Everything posters have suggested so far can be summed up in an online resource called Cyborg 101. (Google it, its original source has vanished, but many copies exist.) Written by a one Angus Wong, it reviews various "extreme" studying methods, especially if you're in some kind of academic jeopardy. It's a good, geeky read.
Even though I agree with you when it comes to projects that fail, you have to give it up for those few projects that do work, invented by those who dared to go where no blah blah has gone before. Inventions and innovations are only made by "pushing the envelope" ... So, someone had to try eventually. Even if it is a failure.
Why can't Ximain and Red Hat's paid designers copy what WORKS, instead of revving new skins?
Like I tried saying before, it's not just about skins. It's about philosophies that run throughout the entire OS. The response rate of certain applications, keyboard access, auxilary keys, drag and drop, interoperability, etc. I'm not sure what else there is, but there's way more to an OS than just its skin. Apple could have gone w/o Aqua and still made a usable system. Those are the parts that, without a little dictator ship, Linux may have a little trouble getting at par with.
WHAT do Apple's programmers and designers have that Linux/GNOME programmers do not?
You answered your own question. Apple has dedicated designers and the Linux community does not. Companies like Apple and Microsoft spend a lot of their time and money on usability research. While Linux may be a functional equivalent of any other OS, it will never be called "sexy" by desktop consumers any time soon... That feeling that Mac users talk about is years and years of usability search hidden behind a shiny Aqua button. Skins do not a usable OS make.
Former Nintendo Boss Talks
Did anyone else get an image of Bowser growling at Nintendo executives?
Puyo Pop is a rehash of games like Kirby's Avalanche and Dr. Robotnik's Bean Machine. Does anyone happen to know what the original game was?
I'm not really sure how useful of an attribute that is. It's like the Jack of All Trades, Master of None argument. The competition is usually available on relatively few platforms but performs very well on them. Sure Linux can run everywhere, but is it good everywhere? That kind of generic... osity... may detract from the ability to be an expert type of system.
No, I haven't used Linux, but a great many argument I've read and agree with have to be usability and nativity to the platform. If Linux isn't native to anything, then who uses it on what? When will standards be developed?
One day I'd like to learn enough about Linux to contribute to the community on a usability level... But I'm afraid that I'll just end up as one of the many people that thinks their view of how Linux should be is better than everyone elses (hence distributions) and create my own not-so-great distro of Linux or desktop environment. Sometimes you need that One For All or Dictator attitude to get stuff done.
So you have diversity. And?
This is functionality, not design. Yeah, this would be a nice thing, but it has nothing to do with the interface design. You have to wait for the hardware behind the curtain to catch up to this idea. So you want a big, embedded computer. We'll probably get there some day, but it has nothing to do with UI design.
Of course it has everything to do with interface design. Who said software design and hardware design have to be exclusive of each other? That's one reason Macs seem cooler than other PCs is their tight integration with hardware and software. It's about the experience with the entire product, not just the little screen.
Gee, anything else? Maybe we could fit them on the head of a pin too. How about infinite storage?
Sure, maybe it sounds like the parent poster is being unreasonable. But I think that in itself isn't unreasonable at all. There should always be people to challenge the limits of technology and push the envelope. I mean, we should never settle for technology that doesn't work well or to our liking. Technology is a tool, and we use it, it doesn't use us. So to make outrageous demands out of devices that are supposed to make our lives easier is completely justified. The challenge then becomes can we deliver. And there's the innovation part.
After reading a little bit of Joe Clark's Building Accessible Websites, I think the main point of building for accessibility is redundancy. That is, make multiple points of entry or interaction for your content/device.
By the way, no one is saying the experiences will be equal. They can't be. So of course an hand-based input device (keyboard) will not serve those who are, uhh, manually challenged...?
I guess you could just think of accessibility as another dimension to the design phase. "Change your paradigum" and think outside the box.
A lot less thought is required to click on the one and only search box when compared to choosing a text box and then typing what you want. I think the first poster is right, in that you really shouldn't have to choose, just do. Sure, it may seem trivial, but small things like this make up the whole user interaction concept. So here, we want to minimize the choices and maximize the power. Why have two text areas that do two individually different things? Why not have one text area that is capable of multiple functions...
PS - I haven't used Firebird much but I do use Mozilla often.
As another poster mentioned, what niche market? Their OS appeals to everyone, geeks, power-users, and Joe Average alike. And yes, I agree with you, that Linux will grow in proportion to its ease of use. But that's the problem, it isn't easy to use. Therefore, it won't grow any time soon.