Why bother modifying KDE to do that when you can already do it with some very basic tweaks in XFCE, which uses less memory than KDE in the first place?
Even Apple OS had a simple listing of windows under the Apple menu. The menu bar at the top of the screen had the program's menu (file, edit, view, etc.), and still does for most Apple software, but the Apple menu is the OS menu and has always been there. You could use it to choose between different programs were open if you couldn't see the window you wanted to switch to and click on it directly.
Apple had that in 1986 with OS 1.0.
To be fair, Microsoft had very similar functionality with alt-tab, which was present in Windows 2.1 and above, from about the same time frame. (well, it was in earlier versions of the operating system, but prior to 386 mode Windows, it wasn't a multi-tasking operating system, so I don't really count it). Also, when you minimized a program, it disappeared to the bottom of the screen as an icon. Unless you were running full screen, you could always click on that icon to change to a different program that was open.
There have been *many* ways to manage different programs open which don't rely on having a taskbar. When I am running a Linux system, I use the lil star icon box, which is part of XFCE (which itself is related to the CDE that the parent was using). Many of them are very functional. And honestly, with a sufficiently big/high resolution screen, you don't even need a taskbar, as you rarely run with windows running full screen. Right now, I've got Firefox running in a portrait-format window, and next to it I've got a couple of MSN windows running, slightly cascaded, with Thunderbird off in the corner, beeping at me if I get any e-mail. The last time I clicked on the taskbar was to open the programs in the first place. And that's under Windows 7 (RTM version, MSDN).
So in response to the GP, when asking whether I'd even consider running an OS that didn't have a task bar? Absolutely. If somebody found a way to do everything I wanted to do without the need of one, then I'd certainly consider using it... as it is now, it's a bit of a waste of space most of the time.
I bought almost everything from Logic Supply. I found the staff there was very helpful in answering my questions, and made suggestions for issues that I might run into, and how to engineer around it.
and insert hard drive/memory of your choice. I went with 4GB of generic SO-DIMM DDR2 memory (that, about a month later, got swapped into my laptop, with the laptop's 2GB put into the HTPC, still plenty for Windows Vista x32 Ultimate... I do love MSDN...:P)
I had to drill a hole in the case to mount the pigtail antenna, but other than that, I didn't have to modify anything in the case. It's surprisingly easy to work with, actually... first computer build I had fun with in a long time.
As far as the TV tuner, insert tuner of your choice. I went with a rebranded ATi TV Wonder 650HD, made by Diamond Multimedia, because it came with a media center remote control... I later bought a Pinnacle USB remote control because it came with an IR blaster for controlling my set-top box. The Diamond remote also has very small buttons that are mashed together, and I was finding it very difficult to hit the right button in the dark... the Pinnacle remote control has fewer buttons, they have different shapes, and the remote is more ergonomically comfortable... it's not quite as good as the old Microsoft Windows XP remote, but it's still better than anything else I've tried.
For the optical drive, I'm using a USB Blu-Ray drive made by LG that I picked up from the Dell website back in January, and couldn't tell you the model number. It's main selling feature, aside from being USB, is that it's not a burner, so it only cost me $100. Not bad for a blu-ray drive ^_^. If you're planning on running Linux, you wouldn't need to worry about that, and can pick up a USB DVD drive anywhere. I'm connecting to the display via HDMI cable (with audio as well), but the motherboard has DVI and VGA display as well. AFAIK, Linux doesn't properly support HDMI (and that, along with Blu-Ray support was the main reason I went with Vista on it), but if you're planning on using VGA or DVI, you shouldn't have that problem.
About the only weird part that I had to MacGyver was an adapter plate... my TV has VESA 600x400mm mounts, and the mounting plate for the case has VESA 100x100mm holes. That, I actually found at Best Buy, of all places... I'm in Canada, but you can find the plate I used on both the US and Canadian sites by product name... I went with Best Buy because they had the best price on that kind of thing.
The VESA adapter plate. It comes in a kit with two, but you only need one of them... if you were near here, I'd give you the one I have left over, when you need it. That screws directly to the TV's mounting holes, and the mounting plate for the case connects to the VESA 100x100 holes that the adapter has. (the adapter also has 200x200 holes, if you go with a different case)
Finding screws that were short enough to use while keeping the heads and ends flush (so as to not scratch the TV's case, and so that the computer can actually sit on the mounting plate in the first place) was a bit of a chore... there, I'm afraid I can't help. I went to a local store called Ottawa Fastener Supply where I was able to find the M6 screws that my TV's VESA mount wanted, as well as the 4mm long pan head screws and appropriate nuts to fasten the computer's m
It isn't the bios. Windows has power settings specific to on-battery or on-wallpower. You can set the dim level for each, how long until screensaver, when to turn the cpu/hdd off, etc.
It could be the BIOS, too. My Dell laptop (Inspiron 1520) has settings in the BIOS for LCD brightness when on battery and when on mains. I also have a Mini 9 running Ubuntu that dims the screen when on battery, and that's also a BIOS setting.
*mutters something not repeatable about the anti-flood filter and it not being friendly to people who can type >70wpm*
Truth is: Linux is not specifically intended to have laptops as end target, think how bad is the experience with suspend/hibernate in Linux, look how horribly bad the wireless is supported (ok, also Intel's fault, but ever tried get the wireless up and running after your basic installation of many distributions?!). Then what to say of early laptops 'burning' with Linux? And lack of support for proper FAN regulation that makes them tenfolds noisy (ok, because the vendors exchanged their fan specs just with M$ sometimes), and so forth.
Wireless works out of the box in Zenwalk... you have to click through a license agreement on first boot, accepting the use of non-GPL drivers (specifically, the Intel WLAN microcode, and a few others, but all done in one license screen), but other than that it all works right out of the box.
But you're right, Linux doesn't seem to be going after the laptop market as a whole, which is seriously bad juju considering that I, like most of the people I know, haven't actually owned a desktop computer that wasn't purpose-built in a long time. Everything I do these days is on a laptop. It just makes more sense for what I'm using it for.
And heck, the last "desktop" computer I bult is a Mini-ITX-based HTPC that mounts to the back of my TV. It's basically a laptop... Laptop Core2Duo CPU, laptop memory, laptop hard drive, laptop wireless card, USB-connected TV and FM Radio tuner... about the only non-laptop hardware in the system is the display, which is a 42" plasma display connected by HDMI. And no, Linux is completely unsuitable for that system as well, as it doesn't support HDMI, and it doesn't fully/properly support Blu-Ray playback. It's been several years since the last time I built a system using proper, off-the-shelf, desktop hardware without it being a server.
As tepples said, it's pretty clear that the OP is trying power management. Also, to be fair, a lot of BIOSes have unsupported and undocumented quirks that break ACPI. These can be worked around by providing an ACPI or motherboard driver for Windows, but Linux has no such joy. Having power management working properly and extending battery life in Linux relies on having a BIOS that is ACPI compliant, among several other factors.
The crux of the problem is that Linux is *rarely* the "intended OS" for any of these platforms, so the hardware manufacturer never invests any effort to make sure Linux power management drivers work correctly on them.
When it *is* the intended OS, it's usually a highly customized version/distribution that's optimized perfectly for the hardware, too. My Dell Mini 9, for example, gets about 5.5h of battery life with the Dell-branded Ubuntu installation. When I wiped it and installed another distro of my choice, the battery life dropped to 3h. While I loathe Ubuntu, I ended up going back to their Ubuntu installation because a netbook needs that kind of battery life.
They have those things in Sacramento California also, they suck! I hate them! They're the worst! I heard in some cities though that they place sensors under the parking spots that reset the meter whenever somebody removes their car, as another way of making sure nobody gets any free time.
To be fair, the way TFS describes it is definitely not how it works in Montreal or any of the cities in Europe where I've used them.... The central reader has some kind of wifi/rfid in it, and they're all networked. You can add time at *any* of the pay stations as long as you remember which parking spot you were in, and you don't have to walk back to your car to put the piece of paper on the dash.. that's a receipt and proof for your records. Unless you find a parking spot that's immediately in front of where you're going (and how often does that happen?) you won't have to change direction and go back to your car after you've paid at the meter. There's enough of them that you have a reasonable guarantee of passing one on your way from your car to your destination, sometimes several.
To check who's paid up, the meter maids just have to drive past a pay station. That will update their computer with the list of local parking spots, and will flag any parking spots where you're over time. In Montreal, I've seen the meter maids drive up a street, passing dozens of cars without stopping to check that your ticket is up to date. I've also seen them stop, get out, write a single ticket, and drive off. And yes, I've seen them stop, write half a dozen tickets, then drive off. All of this without ever looking at the dashboard of the car to see if the ticket is on display, let alone reading whether it's paid up.
Eh - to each his own. With my optical mouse I can sit it on the leg of my jeans (even on the side if I feel like it) and use my mouse wherever I want. Or on the actual surface of my couch. Ball mice tend to not work so well on fabrics.
And with my trackball, I can do all of the above, and not have to move the mouse around physically to do it. Plus, because the ball is a fixed entity, the lasers/pickups can be optimized for it (and it can be designed for most efficiency too). So not only do I not have to move the damned thing, meaning that I've got that much more desk space available for notes and such, it's much more accurate.
Or perhaps we could stop with the pissing match and saying how mine's better than yours, and agree that it's a question of personal preference, and that people will choose what they want to choose?
IIRC, MS eventually came around to the same conclusion and Win7 will emulate DX9 on the CPU for certain chipsets.
No, it'll disable Aero if you don't have 3D-accelerated graphics that're capable of running it. Running Aero on the CPU would take up way too much CPU time, and would hurt performance of the system.
Oddly enough, when I installed 7 on my HTPC, it didn't need me to go download a driver for the Intel 4500 MHD graphics card.... it actually didn't need me to find drivers for anything on that system, even the Intel 5100 802.11a/b/g/n wireless card. But it did want me to find video drivers for my laptop (everything else worked out of the box, but the NVidia GeForce 8600M GT needed me to find drivers). When I installed it on the laptop, then, I was presented with a fairly plain non-aero interface with no special effects going on.
That said.. the HTPC is an embedded system. It's basically a headless laptop... Mini ITX form factor, laptop CPU, completely passive cooling, with integrated everything, all built into a case that bolts on to the back of my TV. (optical drive is a USB Blu-Ray that also didn't need me to install any special software to play the movies).
I would have called it XP Pro, SP7 - but who's counting, right?
You'd be wrong, though... XP is NT5 kernel, vista is NT6, 7 is NT6.1... aside from the numbering changes, though, Vista/7 make some pretty significant changes to the way that drivers talk to the hardware/operating system that mean that, aside from the UI changes, it's not really fair to call either Vista or 7 an extension of XP. Vista really is a complete rewrite, and 7 is more of a bugfix and new UI for Vista (which, incidentally, is a huge upgrade over Vista... they've fixed all of the reasons I ended up going back to XP on that system).
Specifically... drivers now run in userspace, with no direct access to the system, and without being run with kernel level or privileges. This means that if a subsystem crashes, it can be restarted without having to restart the computer, and in fact, that's happened a few times with the graphics subsystem on my laptop (my primary gaming system), which is now running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (from MSDN). Also, user accounts/userspace is limited. That's the main reason that people kept running afoul of the UAC, actually... it's not that the UAC was so invasive (though it is pretty annoying in Vista), it's that their software/drivers were all expecting to be run in a lower ring, with greater access, and the OS was asking the user's permission because that's not what software is supposed to be doing.
Incidentally, since installing Windows 7 x64 on my laptop, I've installed Office 2007, World of Warcraft, Civilization IV, Jade Empire, and both of the KOTOR games, without running into the UAC even once. It's there, I've seen it while installing drivers and when I first installed antivirus. But it's nowhere near as invasive as it was in Vista. I am a Linux user on anything where I have a choice, but for my experience with 7, it really is a *huge* improvement over Vista, and I think enough of an improvement over XP to make switching worthwhile.
It's not that I won't use it. There's almost little to no information on it with no demo or purchasing information.
The product is now defunct. Perhaps there's no purchasing information because there's now no point in buying the software, the functionality is now built into their main product. Ditto for demo software, though if you pay attention to commercial software that's sold for profit, you'll realize that the overwhelming majority of it doesn't have a demo version in the first place.
How do you know they're making money from it? Or do you mean the vast sums of money they're about to be awarded because of their patent abuse?
How do you know they weren't making money from it? In fact, elsewhere in this topic you can find people who've posted links to articles written six years ago talking about this company and their software. If you'd bother to pull your head out of your ass for a minute and actually research what you're talking about before you open your mouth, you'd probably be able to figure out that these folks aren't patent trolls.
I wouldn't be stupid enough to pour effort into something Microsoft could replicate in a day [joelonsoftware.com]. When you're a bottom feeder the more success just means the bigger likelihood you'll be out of business. The fact that they didn't see this coming (and this is of course assuming they're legit) brings no sympathy.
Your lack of sympathy aside, the fact is that they had patented the methods, Microsoft infringed on the patent, and put them out of business.
$40 million is a little excessive? Do you honestly believe this company is capable of selling even 1% of that much within it's life time?
I have no idea how much they could have made in their lifetime, if Microsoft had actually bothered to pay the appropriate royalties for implementing their patent in their software.
and you've completely ignored that fact that this Canadian company is filing suit in Texas.
Did it occur to you that any damages awarded in a Canadian court against a US-based company would be unenforceable? The US government has a long history of thumbing its nose at foreign governments who try to levy fines against US-based companies. File the suit in a US-based court, be awarded damages, and there's actually a chance of receiving payment.
Just face facts, unless some new ones come out, it's a patent troll.
I will not feed the trolls... but... it's like a train wreck...
Even its "product" is just some crapware which plugs into word and it's suspect that there is even a product, it looks like they made that page simply for the court case.
Just because you wouldn't use the product doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. You can call it Crapware all you like, but if they were making money off it, then that's all that matters. They were granted a patent on it, then Microsoft chose to implement it natively into Word, which invalidated their product. They did this without paying for the privileges. My guess is that some MS developper took it as a given that this was a good idea, and threw it into Word. The execs liked it, and they didn't bother to research whether there was competition or a patent on it.
If you were a developper on some widget for a program, you'd patented the methods and technology, and were making your livelihood off it, you'd be screaming bloody murder. The damages are a little excessive, but this is a company that's been put out of business by a developper with significantly more resources available to them deciding to ignore its patents. That's kind of why patents exist in the first place.
But then what would the idiots do with their lives?
Anybody who's been taught to think for themselves, and to critically analyze what they're presented with in order to come up with their own conclusions is most emphatically not an idiot.
It doesn't matter one whit that you can remember something that can be looked up. What matters is that you know how to look it up, and that you know how to separate the information from the opinion, that you're equipped to come up with your own opinions based on the facts, and that you're equipped to express them rationally. Rote memorization doesn't make sense in a world where information is as readily available as it is today.
Somebody moderate the parent insightful... he's absolutely correct. It doesn't really matter if they're posting on the 'net because they have to for class requirements, and all it really does is open them up to attacks on the fact that they're still students, or attacks on their school.
It's up to the person themselves whether they're going to listen to opposing viewpoints. To a large extent that's dependant on their upbringing and their education. If the school isn't teaching them to listen to what their opponents are saying so that they can understand where they're coming from, then no amount of disclosure is going to improve things for anybody. The problem really comes when people decide that listening to what the opposition says is lending credence to their argument, when the reality is simple: I don't have to agree with what you're saying, but you have a right to say it, and I will show you the same courtesy that I'd expect when I'm expressing my opinions.
It doesn't really matter if you don't convince the ID people that they're wrong. Strictly speaking, we can't actually know whether they're wrong or not, that's why it's a non-theory. But it could still be correct. I don't have to believe it to recognize that as a possibility. But there's far too many people, on both sides of the argument, who refuse to accept even the remotest possiblity that the other side might be right, and that their beliefs might be wrong. When that happens, it stops being about expanding our knowledge, and starts being about dogma and fanatical devotion. And quite frankly, the atheists are just as guilty as the ID people.
Going off on a rant, but I think the problem lies in the education system. No, I don't think you should be teaching religion in schools. Actually, I don't think you should be teaching "knowledge" at all in schools, for the first bit. Teach basic maths and literacy, because you need them to function in contemporary society, but leave history, geography, and such out of it at first. Teach the kids how to think critically, and how to examine every viewpoint they're presented with so that they're capable of producing the truth on their own. Then, and only then, should you present them with the facts and historical details, as such materials are *always* written with a bias.
old-school amiga demos had a fixed resolution and aspect ratio, as well audio that was essentially midi with several channels, whereas the audio in this one is an mp3 with a beat analyzer. amiga demos were compiled, and usually written in assembly, sometimes even that was too heavy and they were written in machine code.
this, however, being done in a programming language that's notoriously kludgy... if this was written in C and compiled, it'd probably use a fraction of the cpu time. but it's written in JavaScript, and it's not compiled, it's interpreted.
Yep 60% total load on a core2duo 6400. 1080p video uses less than that so I don't know what the hell they are doing.
1080p is playback of pre-rendered images. All it's doing is decoding the image from a source and displaying it.
Judging by what the circles were doing in reaction to my mouse, and in reaction to the music, in time with the music, I'll bet you anything that what they're doing differently is that they're actually rendering the image on the fly, in much the same way that the demoscene doesn't simply record a video, they write the code that renders the video on the host's PC.
If you want to complain about its CPU load, then you need to compare it against the CPU load of something that does the same thing. It's about on a par with the original Unreal Tournament using 100% software rendering (not using the graphics card at all).
I'm not so sure. You have some circles of various sizes and colours that rotate in a cool way.
You didn't have sound turned on, or your browser doesn't support the audio tag, does it?
It was more than circles of various sizes/colours rotating. They were pulsing, there was music in the background, and the patterns that the dots were taking was changing. The pulses were in sync with the music, and the circles often took on different shapes as well, the most popular seemed to be a big circle and a heart. Oh, and your mouse cursor had gravity and affected the pattern that the circles moved in.
Did I mention that it seemed to be in sync with the music, and reminded me of the old school demos?
I've got a laptop that's closer to his spec (Inspiron 1520, T5450 processor (1.66GHz C2D), 2GB of RAM, XP MCE 2005, FF 3.5.2, and a 256MB GeForce 8600M GT powering a 1680x1050 display). The graphics card is probably irrelevant, since this is JavaScript we're talking about, but it runs very smoothly full screen for me. Reminded me of the old demo scene, as the shape changes/direction changes seemed to be timed to the music, as well as some of the flares.
Impressive, I thought. Looked really smooth, and was very cool. Watched it to the end.
I'd agree that it's probably got more to do with Ubuntu than it does his computer, because it wasn't even close to maxing out my CPU.
It could be even worse... the Rogers version of the same shows a mockup of the Internet Explorer page, complete with broken images (if you're using something other than IE), regardless of the browser you're using. At least Bell is trying to admit that there's people who use something other than IE...
And to add insult to injury, it's the IE6 error page, which is different from the IE7 and IE8 error pages....
Just to add an example that might make more sense to people, checking whether the originating domain has a DNS entry is one of the easiest and simplest ways to filter spam, and will probably catch 75-80% of it. By having a DNS server that hijacks the response and sends a false answer, they are breaking that method of spam filtering, which causes an awful lot of unneeded processor time on mail that wouldn't have gotten onto the server in the first place, which in turn slows things down for the legitimate mail getting through.
While it's not quite so important to somebody who's on a home connection, it is an example that might be more tangible to the casual reader, and which might make it easier for them to understand why DNS hijacking is a bad thing.
Gods. I shouldn't have to write to the regulatory board to get my ISP to follow standards.... >. Somebody moderate that reply up, I don't want to see it get buried in poor moderation-land.
I did write a letter to the CRTC about Rogers' practices, and CC'd Rogers. If enough people do it, they'll do something about it... When I called Rogers to complain, they suggested I use OpenDNS, but OpenDNS does the same thing. Does anybody know a free/open DNS server that doesn't do that kind of crap?
*sighs* for now, I've taken some clock cycles on my internal fileserver, and set up a DNS server. Not happy with Rogers at all. But don't have any alternatives where I live.
Readers want to see characters fail and overcome; players ARE the characters, and don't want the hit on their ego. We're fascinated by characters in books, but rarely would want to _be_ that character.
You've got it exactly... but some games do a pretty good job with it, though... they can, for example, play a couple of prologue/training levels and then take over in cutscene, depicting the fall, and then you give control back to the player so they can pick themselves up again. The real problem with adapting books to games is that books follow a linear story, where gamers these days expect a go-anywhere-do-anything environment. They expect to be given the choices, where they're made for you in a book.
Perhaps the answer is to take the setting/universe of a book, and set a game there? That might work for MMO-type stories. The alternative is to tell a story/adventure based on a minor side character in a major literary work... the action is an aside from the main storyline depicted in the work it's based on. The story revolves around the one we all know, and events in the one we all know are referenced, but the main storyline in the game itself is different. In a sense, we get told two different stories at the same time... I'm thinking of the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as a perfect example of the kind of meta-story I'm talking about.
They could also set the game in either the epilogue or the prologue surrounding the events described in the book we all know. American McGee's Alice is a perfect example of that kind of storytelling.
You can't install just a small portion of the software... that clause has more to do with things like mp3 and dvd distribution... It's legal for your film studies prof to rip a scene from a movie so that you can analyze the symbolism therein, because it's only a small part of the whole product. It's not, however, legal for him to provide you with the whole movie under the guise of only studying the scene from 1:31-1:34 for symbolism, regardless of whether it's for academic purposes or not.
You can't install just a small portion of most software and have it still be functional, so you're left looking at the other clause, which asks whether you can acquire the software through proper channels. As the software is commercially available and supported, it can't be provided like that.
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Why bother modifying KDE to do that when you can already do it with some very basic tweaks in XFCE, which uses less memory than KDE in the first place?
Even Apple OS had a simple listing of windows under the Apple menu. The menu bar at the top of the screen had the program's menu (file, edit, view, etc.), and still does for most Apple software, but the Apple menu is the OS menu and has always been there. You could use it to choose between different programs were open if you couldn't see the window you wanted to switch to and click on it directly.
Apple had that in 1986 with OS 1.0.
To be fair, Microsoft had very similar functionality with alt-tab, which was present in Windows 2.1 and above, from about the same time frame. (well, it was in earlier versions of the operating system, but prior to 386 mode Windows, it wasn't a multi-tasking operating system, so I don't really count it). Also, when you minimized a program, it disappeared to the bottom of the screen as an icon. Unless you were running full screen, you could always click on that icon to change to a different program that was open.
There have been *many* ways to manage different programs open which don't rely on having a taskbar. When I am running a Linux system, I use the lil star icon box, which is part of XFCE (which itself is related to the CDE that the parent was using). Many of them are very functional. And honestly, with a sufficiently big/high resolution screen, you don't even need a taskbar, as you rarely run with windows running full screen. Right now, I've got Firefox running in a portrait-format window, and next to it I've got a couple of MSN windows running, slightly cascaded, with Thunderbird off in the corner, beeping at me if I get any e-mail. The last time I clicked on the taskbar was to open the programs in the first place. And that's under Windows 7 (RTM version, MSDN).
So in response to the GP, when asking whether I'd even consider running an OS that didn't have a task bar? Absolutely. If somebody found a way to do everything I wanted to do without the need of one, then I'd certainly consider using it... as it is now, it's a bit of a waste of space most of the time.
*shrugs* I have karma to burn...
I bought almost everything from Logic Supply. I found the staff there was very helpful in answering my questions, and made suggestions for issues that I might run into, and how to engineer around it.
Specific links to the hardware I chose are:
The Case - Morex model 5689, with 80W A/C brick
The Motherboard - MSI IM-GM45
The Processor - Intel P8400
The WLAN - Intel 5100 802.11a/b/g/n, with 4" 2.4/5.8GHz pigtail antenna
and insert hard drive/memory of your choice. I went with 4GB of generic SO-DIMM DDR2 memory (that, about a month later, got swapped into my laptop, with the laptop's 2GB put into the HTPC, still plenty for Windows Vista x32 Ultimate... I do love MSDN... :P)
I had to drill a hole in the case to mount the pigtail antenna, but other than that, I didn't have to modify anything in the case. It's surprisingly easy to work with, actually... first computer build I had fun with in a long time.
As far as the TV tuner, insert tuner of your choice. I went with a rebranded ATi TV Wonder 650HD, made by Diamond Multimedia, because it came with a media center remote control... I later bought a Pinnacle USB remote control because it came with an IR blaster for controlling my set-top box. The Diamond remote also has very small buttons that are mashed together, and I was finding it very difficult to hit the right button in the dark... the Pinnacle remote control has fewer buttons, they have different shapes, and the remote is more ergonomically comfortable... it's not quite as good as the old Microsoft Windows XP remote, but it's still better than anything else I've tried.
For the optical drive, I'm using a USB Blu-Ray drive made by LG that I picked up from the Dell website back in January, and couldn't tell you the model number. It's main selling feature, aside from being USB, is that it's not a burner, so it only cost me $100. Not bad for a blu-ray drive ^_^. If you're planning on running Linux, you wouldn't need to worry about that, and can pick up a USB DVD drive anywhere. I'm connecting to the display via HDMI cable (with audio as well), but the motherboard has DVI and VGA display as well. AFAIK, Linux doesn't properly support HDMI (and that, along with Blu-Ray support was the main reason I went with Vista on it), but if you're planning on using VGA or DVI, you shouldn't have that problem.
About the only weird part that I had to MacGyver was an adapter plate... my TV has VESA 600x400mm mounts, and the mounting plate for the case has VESA 100x100mm holes. That, I actually found at Best Buy, of all places... I'm in Canada, but you can find the plate I used on both the US and Canadian sites by product name... I went with Best Buy because they had the best price on that kind of thing.
The VESA adapter plate. It comes in a kit with two, but you only need one of them... if you were near here, I'd give you the one I have left over, when you need it. That screws directly to the TV's mounting holes, and the mounting plate for the case connects to the VESA 100x100 holes that the adapter has. (the adapter also has 200x200 holes, if you go with a different case)
Finding screws that were short enough to use while keeping the heads and ends flush (so as to not scratch the TV's case, and so that the computer can actually sit on the mounting plate in the first place) was a bit of a chore... there, I'm afraid I can't help. I went to a local store called Ottawa Fastener Supply where I was able to find the M6 screws that my TV's VESA mount wanted, as well as the 4mm long pan head screws and appropriate nuts to fasten the computer's m
It could be the BIOS, too. My Dell laptop (Inspiron 1520) has settings in the BIOS for LCD brightness when on battery and when on mains. I also have a Mini 9 running Ubuntu that dims the screen when on battery, and that's also a BIOS setting.
*mutters something not repeatable about the anti-flood filter and it not being friendly to people who can type >70wpm*
Wireless works out of the box in Zenwalk... you have to click through a license agreement on first boot, accepting the use of non-GPL drivers (specifically, the Intel WLAN microcode, and a few others, but all done in one license screen), but other than that it all works right out of the box.
But you're right, Linux doesn't seem to be going after the laptop market as a whole, which is seriously bad juju considering that I, like most of the people I know, haven't actually owned a desktop computer that wasn't purpose-built in a long time. Everything I do these days is on a laptop. It just makes more sense for what I'm using it for.
And heck, the last "desktop" computer I bult is a Mini-ITX-based HTPC that mounts to the back of my TV. It's basically a laptop... Laptop Core2Duo CPU, laptop memory, laptop hard drive, laptop wireless card, USB-connected TV and FM Radio tuner... about the only non-laptop hardware in the system is the display, which is a 42" plasma display connected by HDMI. And no, Linux is completely unsuitable for that system as well, as it doesn't support HDMI, and it doesn't fully/properly support Blu-Ray playback. It's been several years since the last time I built a system using proper, off-the-shelf, desktop hardware without it being a server.
As tepples said, it's pretty clear that the OP is trying power management. Also, to be fair, a lot of BIOSes have unsupported and undocumented quirks that break ACPI. These can be worked around by providing an ACPI or motherboard driver for Windows, but Linux has no such joy. Having power management working properly and extending battery life in Linux relies on having a BIOS that is ACPI compliant, among several other factors.
When it *is* the intended OS, it's usually a highly customized version/distribution that's optimized perfectly for the hardware, too. My Dell Mini 9, for example, gets about 5.5h of battery life with the Dell-branded Ubuntu installation. When I wiped it and installed another distro of my choice, the battery life dropped to 3h. While I loathe Ubuntu, I ended up going back to their Ubuntu installation because a netbook needs that kind of battery life.
To be fair, the way TFS describes it is definitely not how it works in Montreal or any of the cities in Europe where I've used them.... The central reader has some kind of wifi/rfid in it, and they're all networked. You can add time at *any* of the pay stations as long as you remember which parking spot you were in, and you don't have to walk back to your car to put the piece of paper on the dash.. that's a receipt and proof for your records. Unless you find a parking spot that's immediately in front of where you're going (and how often does that happen?) you won't have to change direction and go back to your car after you've paid at the meter. There's enough of them that you have a reasonable guarantee of passing one on your way from your car to your destination, sometimes several.
To check who's paid up, the meter maids just have to drive past a pay station. That will update their computer with the list of local parking spots, and will flag any parking spots where you're over time. In Montreal, I've seen the meter maids drive up a street, passing dozens of cars without stopping to check that your ticket is up to date. I've also seen them stop, get out, write a single ticket, and drive off. And yes, I've seen them stop, write half a dozen tickets, then drive off. All of this without ever looking at the dashboard of the car to see if the ticket is on display, let alone reading whether it's paid up.
Pay & Display is so last century.
And with my trackball, I can do all of the above, and not have to move the mouse around physically to do it. Plus, because the ball is a fixed entity, the lasers/pickups can be optimized for it (and it can be designed for most efficiency too). So not only do I not have to move the damned thing, meaning that I've got that much more desk space available for notes and such, it's much more accurate.
Or perhaps we could stop with the pissing match and saying how mine's better than yours, and agree that it's a question of personal preference, and that people will choose what they want to choose?
No, it'll disable Aero if you don't have 3D-accelerated graphics that're capable of running it. Running Aero on the CPU would take up way too much CPU time, and would hurt performance of the system.
Oddly enough, when I installed 7 on my HTPC, it didn't need me to go download a driver for the Intel 4500 MHD graphics card.... it actually didn't need me to find drivers for anything on that system, even the Intel 5100 802.11a/b/g/n wireless card. But it did want me to find video drivers for my laptop (everything else worked out of the box, but the NVidia GeForce 8600M GT needed me to find drivers). When I installed it on the laptop, then, I was presented with a fairly plain non-aero interface with no special effects going on.
That said.. the HTPC is an embedded system. It's basically a headless laptop... Mini ITX form factor, laptop CPU, completely passive cooling, with integrated everything, all built into a case that bolts on to the back of my TV. (optical drive is a USB Blu-Ray that also didn't need me to install any special software to play the movies).
You'd be wrong, though... XP is NT5 kernel, vista is NT6, 7 is NT6.1... aside from the numbering changes, though, Vista/7 make some pretty significant changes to the way that drivers talk to the hardware/operating system that mean that, aside from the UI changes, it's not really fair to call either Vista or 7 an extension of XP. Vista really is a complete rewrite, and 7 is more of a bugfix and new UI for Vista (which, incidentally, is a huge upgrade over Vista... they've fixed all of the reasons I ended up going back to XP on that system).
Specifically... drivers now run in userspace, with no direct access to the system, and without being run with kernel level or privileges. This means that if a subsystem crashes, it can be restarted without having to restart the computer, and in fact, that's happened a few times with the graphics subsystem on my laptop (my primary gaming system), which is now running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (from MSDN). Also, user accounts/userspace is limited. That's the main reason that people kept running afoul of the UAC, actually... it's not that the UAC was so invasive (though it is pretty annoying in Vista), it's that their software/drivers were all expecting to be run in a lower ring, with greater access, and the OS was asking the user's permission because that's not what software is supposed to be doing.
Incidentally, since installing Windows 7 x64 on my laptop, I've installed Office 2007, World of Warcraft, Civilization IV, Jade Empire, and both of the KOTOR games, without running into the UAC even once. It's there, I've seen it while installing drivers and when I first installed antivirus. But it's nowhere near as invasive as it was in Vista. I am a Linux user on anything where I have a choice, but for my experience with 7, it really is a *huge* improvement over Vista, and I think enough of an improvement over XP to make switching worthwhile.
The product is now defunct. Perhaps there's no purchasing information because there's now no point in buying the software, the functionality is now built into their main product. Ditto for demo software, though if you pay attention to commercial software that's sold for profit, you'll realize that the overwhelming majority of it doesn't have a demo version in the first place.
How do you know they weren't making money from it? In fact, elsewhere in this topic you can find people who've posted links to articles written six years ago talking about this company and their software. If you'd bother to pull your head out of your ass for a minute and actually research what you're talking about before you open your mouth, you'd probably be able to figure out that these folks aren't patent trolls.
Your lack of sympathy aside, the fact is that they had patented the methods, Microsoft infringed on the patent, and put them out of business.
I have no idea how much they could have made in their lifetime, if Microsoft had actually bothered to pay the appropriate royalties for implementing their patent in their software.
Did it occur to you that any damages awarded in a Canadian court against a US-based company would be unenforceable? The US government has a long history of thumbing its nose at foreign governments who try to levy fines against US-based companies. File the suit in a US-based court, be awarded damages, and there's actually a chance of receiving payment.
I'm not the one who's reality-impaired here....
I will not feed the trolls... but... it's like a train wreck...
Just because you wouldn't use the product doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. You can call it Crapware all you like, but if they were making money off it, then that's all that matters. They were granted a patent on it, then Microsoft chose to implement it natively into Word, which invalidated their product. They did this without paying for the privileges. My guess is that some MS developper took it as a given that this was a good idea, and threw it into Word. The execs liked it, and they didn't bother to research whether there was competition or a patent on it.
If you were a developper on some widget for a program, you'd patented the methods and technology, and were making your livelihood off it, you'd be screaming bloody murder. The damages are a little excessive, but this is a company that's been put out of business by a developper with significantly more resources available to them deciding to ignore its patents. That's kind of why patents exist in the first place.
Anybody who's been taught to think for themselves, and to critically analyze what they're presented with in order to come up with their own conclusions is most emphatically not an idiot.
It doesn't matter one whit that you can remember something that can be looked up. What matters is that you know how to look it up, and that you know how to separate the information from the opinion, that you're equipped to come up with your own opinions based on the facts, and that you're equipped to express them rationally. Rote memorization doesn't make sense in a world where information is as readily available as it is today.
Somebody moderate the parent insightful... he's absolutely correct. It doesn't really matter if they're posting on the 'net because they have to for class requirements, and all it really does is open them up to attacks on the fact that they're still students, or attacks on their school.
It's up to the person themselves whether they're going to listen to opposing viewpoints. To a large extent that's dependant on their upbringing and their education. If the school isn't teaching them to listen to what their opponents are saying so that they can understand where they're coming from, then no amount of disclosure is going to improve things for anybody. The problem really comes when people decide that listening to what the opposition says is lending credence to their argument, when the reality is simple: I don't have to agree with what you're saying, but you have a right to say it, and I will show you the same courtesy that I'd expect when I'm expressing my opinions.
It doesn't really matter if you don't convince the ID people that they're wrong. Strictly speaking, we can't actually know whether they're wrong or not, that's why it's a non-theory. But it could still be correct. I don't have to believe it to recognize that as a possibility. But there's far too many people, on both sides of the argument, who refuse to accept even the remotest possiblity that the other side might be right, and that their beliefs might be wrong. When that happens, it stops being about expanding our knowledge, and starts being about dogma and fanatical devotion. And quite frankly, the atheists are just as guilty as the ID people.
Going off on a rant, but I think the problem lies in the education system. No, I don't think you should be teaching religion in schools. Actually, I don't think you should be teaching "knowledge" at all in schools, for the first bit. Teach basic maths and literacy, because you need them to function in contemporary society, but leave history, geography, and such out of it at first. Teach the kids how to think critically, and how to examine every viewpoint they're presented with so that they're capable of producing the truth on their own. Then, and only then, should you present them with the facts and historical details, as such materials are *always* written with a bias.
old-school amiga demos had a fixed resolution and aspect ratio, as well audio that was essentially midi with several channels, whereas the audio in this one is an mp3 with a beat analyzer. amiga demos were compiled, and usually written in assembly, sometimes even that was too heavy and they were written in machine code.
this, however, being done in a programming language that's notoriously kludgy... if this was written in C and compiled, it'd probably use a fraction of the cpu time. but it's written in JavaScript, and it's not compiled, it's interpreted.
1080p is playback of pre-rendered images. All it's doing is decoding the image from a source and displaying it.
Judging by what the circles were doing in reaction to my mouse, and in reaction to the music, in time with the music, I'll bet you anything that what they're doing differently is that they're actually rendering the image on the fly, in much the same way that the demoscene doesn't simply record a video, they write the code that renders the video on the host's PC.
If you want to complain about its CPU load, then you need to compare it against the CPU load of something that does the same thing. It's about on a par with the original Unreal Tournament using 100% software rendering (not using the graphics card at all).
You didn't have sound turned on, or your browser doesn't support the audio tag, does it?
It was more than circles of various sizes/colours rotating. They were pulsing, there was music in the background, and the patterns that the dots were taking was changing. The pulses were in sync with the music, and the circles often took on different shapes as well, the most popular seemed to be a big circle and a heart. Oh, and your mouse cursor had gravity and affected the pattern that the circles moved in.
Did I mention that it seemed to be in sync with the music, and reminded me of the old school demos?
I've got a laptop that's closer to his spec (Inspiron 1520, T5450 processor (1.66GHz C2D), 2GB of RAM, XP MCE 2005, FF 3.5.2, and a 256MB GeForce 8600M GT powering a 1680x1050 display). The graphics card is probably irrelevant, since this is JavaScript we're talking about, but it runs very smoothly full screen for me. Reminded me of the old demo scene, as the shape changes/direction changes seemed to be timed to the music, as well as some of the flares.
Impressive, I thought. Looked really smooth, and was very cool. Watched it to the end.
I'd agree that it's probably got more to do with Ubuntu than it does his computer, because it wasn't even close to maxing out my CPU.
It could be even worse... the Rogers version of the same shows a mockup of the Internet Explorer page, complete with broken images (if you're using something other than IE), regardless of the browser you're using. At least Bell is trying to admit that there's people who use something other than IE...
And to add insult to injury, it's the IE6 error page, which is different from the IE7 and IE8 error pages....
Just to add an example that might make more sense to people, checking whether the originating domain has a DNS entry is one of the easiest and simplest ways to filter spam, and will probably catch 75-80% of it. By having a DNS server that hijacks the response and sends a false answer, they are breaking that method of spam filtering, which causes an awful lot of unneeded processor time on mail that wouldn't have gotten onto the server in the first place, which in turn slows things down for the legitimate mail getting through.
While it's not quite so important to somebody who's on a home connection, it is an example that might be more tangible to the casual reader, and which might make it easier for them to understand why DNS hijacking is a bad thing.
Thank you *SOOOO* much! That fixed it.
Gods. I shouldn't have to write to the regulatory board to get my ISP to follow standards.... >. Somebody moderate that reply up, I don't want to see it get buried in poor moderation-land.
I did write a letter to the CRTC about Rogers' practices, and CC'd Rogers. If enough people do it, they'll do something about it... When I called Rogers to complain, they suggested I use OpenDNS, but OpenDNS does the same thing. Does anybody know a free/open DNS server that doesn't do that kind of crap?
*sighs* for now, I've taken some clock cycles on my internal fileserver, and set up a DNS server. Not happy with Rogers at all. But don't have any alternatives where I live.
You've got it exactly... but some games do a pretty good job with it, though... they can, for example, play a couple of prologue/training levels and then take over in cutscene, depicting the fall, and then you give control back to the player so they can pick themselves up again. The real problem with adapting books to games is that books follow a linear story, where gamers these days expect a go-anywhere-do-anything environment. They expect to be given the choices, where they're made for you in a book.
Perhaps the answer is to take the setting/universe of a book, and set a game there? That might work for MMO-type stories. The alternative is to tell a story/adventure based on a minor side character in a major literary work... the action is an aside from the main storyline depicted in the work it's based on. The story revolves around the one we all know, and events in the one we all know are referenced, but the main storyline in the game itself is different. In a sense, we get told two different stories at the same time... I'm thinking of the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead as a perfect example of the kind of meta-story I'm talking about.
They could also set the game in either the epilogue or the prologue surrounding the events described in the book we all know. American McGee's Alice is a perfect example of that kind of storytelling.
You can't install just a small portion of the software... that clause has more to do with things like mp3 and dvd distribution... It's legal for your film studies prof to rip a scene from a movie so that you can analyze the symbolism therein, because it's only a small part of the whole product. It's not, however, legal for him to provide you with the whole movie under the guise of only studying the scene from 1:31-1:34 for symbolism, regardless of whether it's for academic purposes or not.
You can't install just a small portion of most software and have it still be functional, so you're left looking at the other clause, which asks whether you can acquire the software through proper channels. As the software is commercially available and supported, it can't be provided like that.