Wow, that's so behind. In Norway, there's no way to charge an account without full ID. This means either approving a direct debit by showing up at the bank with your picture ID, or logging on through the (relatively) secure website.
Just allowing anyone to put a charge on a bank account number like that opens up for all sorts of abuse. Tiny transactions can go unnoticed for a long time.
Of course, debit cards in stores aren't really any safer. Nobody has ever checked the signature on one while I've used them. A signature is required when the system for some reason can't contact the bank and verify the PIN. I've used other people's cards just fine (with permission, of course, but the banks might find me signing my name a bit funky;).
I got a GeForce 8800GTS in March last year. It's still fine with everything I play (shooters, strategy..uhm..both things I play). Still getting very nice framerates in everything I'm throwing at it. I think I'll look into upgrading in a year if something major comes out that requires it.
(I'm using 64-bit Vista. It is, strangely, working.)
A system without PCI-e or AGP can't be from the past five years, so the CPU probably also sucks. Hence the 6200, which might help in both decoding and displaying video.
They've impressed with their service, though. An acquaintance had his laptop break down while in training somewhere, and Fujitsu-Siemens sent a guy over to pick up the laptop. It was fixed pretty quickly and returned in days. This was a TravelMate, a fairly rugged model.
I haven't seen any hardware problems with the latest cheaper models, or Packard Bell laptops. I'd get my ten foot pole for any of their desktop systems, though.
Yes, the 80GB and 160GB iPod classics have been replaced with a 120GB. But I haven't heard anything about this data-eating problem with Amarok on the previous ones, either.
Have you ever had a job at a place with a large Windows-based network? You'll understand when you do.
There can be all sorts of crap required by company policy, servers to wait on, user accounts to be replicated, login scripts to launch and the most bloated anti-virus because the management got a good deal on it. Company computers are often fairly old, especially in government facilities where I live. I've supported the ones for the social services, for example, and they were dreaming of upgrading to 512MB RAM on XP.
Windows only sometimes closing an app? If it's a document-based application, of course it leaves the app running! That's how it is supposed to work. Preferences is not, so it's OK to quit. It only ever has one instance of its window.
Maximise adjusts the window to allow the contents to fit. I hate that too.
Minimise puts it in the dock. If you're on a Mac, you use cmd-h to hide all of an app's windows, rather than individually minimising each.
Every OS has a different interface. Learn it:)
Filemaker sounds like seriously bad engineering. Makes me want to slap it. I'm glad I don't need it. Have you tried reporting it as a bug?
The average user uses e-mail, word processing and maybe spreadsheets and presentations. In many cases, an unholy blend of all of the above. The slightly above average user plays some games.
That's insane. If an OS is making special cases for specific pieces of software, it's no wonder it's bloated. All those special rules add up, and slow down things. I'd like to see an analysis of the 14 gigs of data in a regular Vista install.
Perian, Growl, Skype, Smultron, Scrivener, Firefox, Opera, Thunderbird, Cyberduck, Flip4Mac, GimmeSomeTune, Coda, FreeDMG, Himmelbar and PixelMator are all vital tools and plugins on my systems. The first six of those are on a lot of Macs used by people I know.
Then there are the little neat ones I use occasionally, but they're still not made by Apple. I use XCode (with most of its extra programs), Terminal, the address book and Safari most of Apple's own software. I also use a ton of widgets, some of them made for personal use, some from the net. Just the iCal and Calculator widgets remain from the original collection.
wxWidgets is a good alternative to Cocoa, since the programs look like proper native apps. An added benefit is easy porting to any other platforms they may use, and the only drawback is a few megs of library overhead.
But DO find a proven, open source-friendly developer.
Slashdot Mirror
King Ludd, is that you?
Wow, that's so behind. In Norway, there's no way to charge an account without full ID. This means either approving a direct debit by showing up at the bank with your picture ID, or logging on through the (relatively) secure website.
Just allowing anyone to put a charge on a bank account number like that opens up for all sorts of abuse. Tiny transactions can go unnoticed for a long time.
Of course, debit cards in stores aren't really any safer. Nobody has ever checked the signature on one while I've used them. A signature is required when the system for some reason can't contact the bank and verify the PIN. I've used other people's cards just fine (with permission, of course, but the banks might find me signing my name a bit funky ;).
Anything but cash is broken, obviously :(
Opera has built-in image/plug-in blocking, so it's a good number two in that respect.
I got a GeForce 8800GTS in March last year. It's still fine with everything I play (shooters, strategy..uhm..both things I play). Still getting very nice framerates in everything I'm throwing at it. I think I'll look into upgrading in a year if something major comes out that requires it.
(I'm using 64-bit Vista. It is, strangely, working.)
A system without PCI-e or AGP can't be from the past five years, so the CPU probably also sucks. Hence the 6200, which might help in both decoding and displaying video.
Argh, replace that instance of TravelMate with LifeBook. I am on an Indian spice high.
They've impressed with their service, though. An acquaintance had his laptop break down while in training somewhere, and Fujitsu-Siemens sent a guy over to pick up the laptop. It was fixed pretty quickly and returned in days. This was a TravelMate, a fairly rugged model.
I haven't seen any hardware problems with the latest cheaper models, or Packard Bell laptops. I'd get my ten foot pole for any of their desktop systems, though.
Yes, the 80GB and 160GB iPod classics have been replaced with a 120GB. But I haven't heard anything about this data-eating problem with Amarok on the previous ones, either.
PTD is good enough as a demo:
http://ptdef.com/
When the avatar creation pops up, press the guide button, then Y. No avatard!
The showcase channel can be switched off. I did that soon after not making an avatard.
You're an asshole, Mr. Coward, and I approve of this sort of behaviour :)
Have you ever had a job at a place with a large Windows-based network? You'll understand when you do.
There can be all sorts of crap required by company policy, servers to wait on, user accounts to be replicated, login scripts to launch and the most bloated anti-virus because the management got a good deal on it. Company computers are often fairly old, especially in government facilities where I live. I've supported the ones for the social services, for example, and they were dreaming of upgrading to 512MB RAM on XP.
Signatures can be switched off in your user preferences. Many have (obviously).
Windows only sometimes closing an app? If it's a document-based application, of course it leaves the app running! That's how it is supposed to work. Preferences is not, so it's OK to quit. It only ever has one instance of its window.
Maximise adjusts the window to allow the contents to fit. I hate that too.
Minimise puts it in the dock. If you're on a Mac, you use cmd-h to hide all of an app's windows, rather than individually minimising each.
Every OS has a different interface. Learn it :)
Filemaker sounds like seriously bad engineering. Makes me want to slap it. I'm glad I don't need it. Have you tried reporting it as a bug?
How is OS X based on Linux, exactly?
I've been to restaurants where splitting a pizza costs more than eating the same size pizza alone. I can laugh, because I was not paying.
The demo in the case of World of Goo is the whole first chapter. There should be enough game to form an opinion.
WAR battlegrounds, or scenarios as they call them, are more designed around DAoC battlegrounds, which are what WoW is imitating, badly.
Not just a stab at WoW (but it's all that and more!), but DAoC was first with functional PvP.
64-bit Vista, 64-bit Kubuntu on the gaming computer. Theoretically, all the Macs should also be 64-bit. 32-bit is dead to me :)
Spotlights and mirrors - the best way to have sex!
The average user uses e-mail, word processing and maybe spreadsheets and presentations. In many cases, an unholy blend of all of the above. The slightly above average user plays some games.
That's insane. If an OS is making special cases for specific pieces of software, it's no wonder it's bloated. All those special rules add up, and slow down things. I'd like to see an analysis of the 14 gigs of data in a regular Vista install.
Perian, Growl, Skype, Smultron, Scrivener, Firefox, Opera, Thunderbird, Cyberduck, Flip4Mac, GimmeSomeTune, Coda, FreeDMG, Himmelbar and PixelMator are all vital tools and plugins on my systems. The first six of those are on a lot of Macs used by people I know.
Then there are the little neat ones I use occasionally, but they're still not made by Apple. I use XCode (with most of its extra programs), Terminal, the address book and Safari most of Apple's own software. I also use a ton of widgets, some of them made for personal use, some from the net. Just the iCal and Calculator widgets remain from the original collection.
wxWidgets is a good alternative to Cocoa, since the programs look like proper native apps. An added benefit is easy porting to any other platforms they may use, and the only drawback is a few megs of library overhead.
But DO find a proven, open source-friendly developer.