"Bugzilla needs an easier way to search for duplicate bugs.
I reported a Mozilla bug once. I tried to search for duplicates, but have you seen that god-awful search form that Bugzilla has? I must have done the search wrong, because it turns out there were several duplicates."
I agree. I've reported about 5 bugs (after searching for previous reports) and 3 of them still ended up being dupes. It's either that or we don't know how to use the bugzilla search engine.
"It's more than 2^16, which proves that the mozilla project's bug tracking code is able to deal with numbers that large. Unlike Micro$oft, which never have more than 65535 open bugs, because else the counter overflows..."
I guess this proves that they are using excel as a bug tracking database -- it can only suppot 2^16 rows.
"It's a major comfort issue for them. I think that your typical switcher is going to be one of the people that's less technical than a Windows user NOT making the switch, so things like background photos are a big deal in keeping the new computer comfortable and nonthreatening. It's pretty smart of them to have that feature in the migration software."
That is why images like this (non-pr0n, you can safely click this at work) image exist.:-)
"If apple had the sense god gave a marshmallow, it would make the migration software free."
Free?!? Think about it... if a person does not know how to tranfer files from one machine to another using CD-Rw or Zip disks, they probably won't be able to find the download site, download the file, find the file they downloaded on their hard drive, run it, and get it to work.
No, they need a shiny boxed package with a CD that they put into the machine and run. And they need a thick manual with pretty pictures that tells them how to plug the usb cable into both machines.
"What about my mouse settings? Acceleration, double-click speed, button assignm...er, nevermind."
I actually use doubleclick speed as a way to keep people from messing with my machine. I turn it up waaay high and most people just don't click that fast and get frustrated. Kind of like a poor man's dvorak keyboard.
"The single most important element in computer use is.... fear and comfort."
I think those might be the two most important, but clearly they can't be the single most important;-)
I agree that fear is an important factor because too many people are terrified to click on some button on a computer because it might mess up or they don't really know what it will do. Because of this, they will never do anything unless they are babysat.
The main reason that I never learned to be afraid of computers is because back when I was 7 years old my dad actually encouraged me to enter the autoexec.bat and remove the remark line before the command to load the mouse driver. Then I started noticing these lines about emm386.exe and reading those readme.txt that came with shareware and finding out about memory management.
I think that once a person in afraid of computers, it is very hard to make them un-afraid of them. I have been working on my mother for some years now and she is finally coming into her own with realising that you need a generalised knowledge of how things work, not a specific knowledge of every button, keystroke, etc., to be able to understand the machine.
It doesn't seem like there's anything special here. Look at the picture! It looks just like an ergonomic plastic thingy with wheels and a bicycle style handlebar. Someone with some machine shop expertise could probably make a poor man's version of this.
"I don't think it takes a supercomputer to predict the weather in Canada."
It does. Seriously. The computing power necessary to accurately predict the weather is several orders of magnitude greater than that needed to calculate the necessary space vehicle trajectories to put a person on the moon. Try a massive vector mechanics + thermodynamics problem scaled up to the size of the planet earth. You'll see what I mean.
Remember: Today, we can't even predict the weather accurately for the next couple of weeks, but we can predict if a distant asteroid will hit the earth in the next few thousand years.
"Further, I think MS will hang themselves. No, I'm serious here."
I also think that Microsoft will die, but not at their own hands. There are dozens of upcoming private lawsuits against the company and more and more will come, given the state of their DRM and licensing plans.
I say that MSFT will die at the hands of their lawyers. The very people that helped them maintain supremacy will suck them dry. How much does a top rank corporate lawyer charge? A damn lot of money, probably several million dollars per case, hundreds of millions of big cases. And even MSFT can't sustain that forever. (Ironic, no?)
"Lately, the biggest obstacle is not file size, but attachment filters. Almost nobody can recieve an.EXE file directly (which all of our installers are), and our own incoming filter will delete.EXE files from *inside* a zip file! To send me an.EXE, you have to not only zip it, but password the zip file!
Thank you, MS Outlook, for these innovations in the use of email."
I had similar problems at my last job. I ended up renaming the.exe to.exe.jpg whenever I had to send something to myself from home to work. It turns out that outlook didn't actually examine the true file type, it only looked at the extension. When it got too big, I used a CD-R.
"Then again, we also have a new building to house the computer science department... called... the William Gates building. I kid ye not. Paid for in its entirety by Microsoft, in return for which they got to name it, and that's it."
Correction: It was paid for by you and your colleages, professors, parents, etc. (At least that's how it will be paid for since Microsoft will get a big tax break and you'll fill that void with your tax dollars.)
"Not that the school officials care too much about how much the students pay for Office XP, I'm sure the deal saved at least a few thousand dollars for the administrative offices."
I think that today, it's a foregone assumption from schools that each student has a pirated copy of Microsoft Office and can easily get pirated copies of Matlab, Maple, etc. They depend on it.
"SUVs are safer? Not at all. Tell that to the families of the 150+ people who died when their "safe" Wilderness AT equiped Ford Explorer rolled over. The perception that SUV's are somehow more rugged and safer than smaller cars has been debunked many times, dipshit."
Try reading my post again. "The least safe" means that they are less safe than all the others.
Greatly disliking Microsoft is one thing, but posting blatant propaganda that looks like it was written by a 12 year old on a 'news' site is not helping anything. The best they can do is make the entire anti-Microsoft cause look like it's run by a bunch of snivelling brats addicted to counterstrike.
This is an actual line from the article: "Now imagine the disappointment of learning that accepting the 'gift' would entail outlays of money in the range of fifteen times the value of the M$ Trojan horse."
Slashdot editors: In the interest of maintaining the integrity of the slashdot community (if there's any left...) please don't post propaganda as 'news.' It erodes the value of the community. It makes us no better than Microsoft and in the end. It is counterproductive. The Register should be spanked badly for this.
"Except that when you take into account the "hidden" costs of owning a gas guzzler -- the damage to the environment, the resultant healthcare costs, the reliance on foreign oil and the resulant miliary campaigns to secure it, etc. -- then SUVs and their ilk *are* more expensive."
"All that your post showed is that apparently the only TRUE Americans are the dumb, uneducated, V8 driving, RWD morons (or FWD morons who try to race me from the stoplights in their Saturns..ha ha ha) that everyone else in the world still laughs at."
When looking at statements like this, it would probably be beneficial to differentiate between 'True American,' 'Stereotypical American,' and 'Average American.'
That description from you that I quoted definitely fits the Stereotypical American. It probably fits the Average American's idea of the Stereotypical American but probably isn't a description of the Average American himself. (And I do deliberately say himself.) And the 'True' American? The definition of that shifts depending on who is the President, what their agenda is, etc.
This is a pretty old concept. Back in 1993 the police came to my school and had everyone (each student) walk across the floor and say their name. This was all videotaped for the purpose of helping identify any of us if we ever went missing. They say it's far more helpful than having a kidnapee's fingerprints.
"Okay, Trillian is just swell, with the exception that AOL constantly tries to block it. Why? I don't have a friggin' clue."
That was months ago. I have been using Trillian Pro to access AIM and ICQ and there hasn't been a service outage since... I can't remember! Definitely not within the last few months.
For some reason when I log onto the brak site, it says I have one new message but in fact there are no new messages! And for some reason, a tab for user number 178529 shows up in my account page in addition to my own information. All of this seems to have infested my account on the old server too. (This is real, I am not trying to make a lame joke.)
Could this be a newly identified issue with the server move?
"in other news, i also have THIRTY moderator points..."
Same here! Something like that only happens once in a blue moon so I took a screenshot to save it. I can use it to scare Cowboyneal at some point if he gets uppity.
"Every time I call in I start out by saying that I have a Unix box connected and they go into this spiel about how they don't support it and thanks for calling. I can usually catch them in time to say "oh wait, I have a Windows box too.." and then after they walk me through "reinstalling the TCP stack" I eventually get to talk to a real tech (generally 45 minutes to an hour later)."
I do believe that you are taking a backwards approach to getting your problems solved. Your goal is to get past the first line support monkeys who can only read from a script. You can accomplish this by lying.
This means that you have a Compaq Presario with Windows ME. You run Interent Explorer to browse and Outhouse Express to e-mail. The DSL bridge is plugged directly into the NIC. You don't know what linux is. You have never heard of linux. You need to be told that Control Panel is under start > settings. Just follow their lead and fit the mold of a clueless luser. This will allow them to get through their script as fast as possible and pass you along to the more senior techs who have a clue.
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Apple would never have used such a title. Speed bumps (used in parking lots) are something that slow you down when you are driving over them!
I agree. I've reported about 5 bugs (after searching for previous reports) and 3 of them still ended up being dupes. It's either that or we don't know how to use the bugzilla search engine.
I guess this proves that they are using excel as a bug tracking database -- it can only suppot 2^16 rows.
And a massive pile of duplicate reports to boot.
That is why images like this (non-pr0n, you can safely click this at work) image exist. :-)
Free?!? Think about it ... if a person does not know how to tranfer files from one machine to another using CD-Rw or Zip disks, they probably won't be able to find the download site, download the file, find the file they downloaded on their hard drive, run it, and get it to work.
No, they need a shiny boxed package with a CD that they put into the machine and run. And they need a thick manual with pretty pictures that tells them how to plug the usb cable into both machines.
I actually use doubleclick speed as a way to keep people from messing with my machine. I turn it up waaay high and most people just don't click that fast and get frustrated. Kind of like a poor man's dvorak keyboard.
I think those might be the two most important, but clearly they can't be the single most important ;-)
I agree that fear is an important factor because too many people are terrified to click on some button on a computer because it might mess up or they don't really know what it will do. Because of this, they will never do anything unless they are babysat.
The main reason that I never learned to be afraid of computers is because back when I was 7 years old my dad actually encouraged me to enter the autoexec.bat and remove the remark line before the command to load the mouse driver. Then I started noticing these lines about emm386.exe and reading those readme.txt that came with shareware and finding out about memory management.
I think that once a person in afraid of computers, it is very hard to make them un-afraid of them. I have been working on my mother for some years now and she is finally coming into her own with realising that you need a generalised knowledge of how things work, not a specific knowledge of every button, keystroke, etc., to be able to understand the machine.
It doesn't seem like there's anything special here. Look at the picture! It looks just like an ergonomic plastic thingy with wheels and a bicycle style handlebar. Someone with some machine shop expertise could probably make a poor man's version of this.
It does. Seriously. The computing power necessary to accurately predict the weather is several orders of magnitude greater than that needed to calculate the necessary space vehicle trajectories to put a person on the moon. Try a massive vector mechanics + thermodynamics problem scaled up to the size of the planet earth. You'll see what I mean.
Remember: Today, we can't even predict the weather accurately for the next couple of weeks, but we can predict if a distant asteroid will hit the earth in the next few thousand years.
I also think that Microsoft will die, but not at their own hands. There are dozens of upcoming private lawsuits against the company and more and more will come, given the state of their DRM and licensing plans.
I say that MSFT will die at the hands of their lawyers. The very people that helped them maintain supremacy will suck them dry. How much does a top rank corporate lawyer charge? A damn lot of money, probably several million dollars per case, hundreds of millions of big cases. And even MSFT can't sustain that forever. (Ironic, no?)
I had similar problems at my last job. I ended up renaming the .exe to .exe.jpg whenever I had to send something to myself from home to work. It turns out that outlook didn't actually examine the true file type, it only looked at the extension. When it got too big, I used a CD-R.
Correction: It was paid for by you and your colleages, professors, parents, etc. (At least that's how it will be paid for since Microsoft will get a big tax break and you'll fill that void with your tax dollars.)
I think that today, it's a foregone assumption from schools that each student has a pirated copy of Microsoft Office and can easily get pirated copies of Matlab, Maple, etc. They depend on it.
Maybe they learned something from observing the Microsoft trial -- you can't control a Monopoly once it's reached critical mass.
Try reading my post again. "The least safe" means that they are less safe than all the others.
Greatly disliking Microsoft is one thing, but posting blatant propaganda that looks like it was written by a 12 year old on a 'news' site is not helping anything. The best they can do is make the entire anti-Microsoft cause look like it's run by a bunch of snivelling brats addicted to counterstrike.
This is an actual line from the article: "Now imagine the disappointment of learning that accepting the 'gift' would entail outlays of money in the range of fifteen times the value of the M$ Trojan horse."
Slashdot editors: In the interest of maintaining the integrity of the slashdot community (if there's any left...) please don't post propaganda as 'news.' It erodes the value of the community. It makes us no better than Microsoft and in the end. It is counterproductive. The Register should be spanked badly for this.
And the least safe.
When looking at statements like this, it would probably be beneficial to differentiate between 'True American,' 'Stereotypical American,' and 'Average American.'
That description from you that I quoted definitely fits the Stereotypical American. It probably fits the Average American's idea of the Stereotypical American but probably isn't a description of the Average American himself. (And I do deliberately say himself.) And the 'True' American? The definition of that shifts depending on who is the President, what their agenda is, etc.
This is a pretty old concept. Back in 1993 the police came to my school and had everyone (each student) walk across the floor and say their name. This was all videotaped for the purpose of helping identify any of us if we ever went missing. They say it's far more helpful than having a kidnapee's fingerprints.
Yeah, but MSFT was already found guilty of being a monopoly.
That was months ago. I have been using Trillian Pro to access AIM and ICQ and there hasn't been a service outage since ... I can't remember! Definitely not within the last few months.
For some reason when I log onto the brak site, it says I have one new message but in fact there are no new messages! And for some reason, a tab for user number 178529 shows up in my account page in addition to my own information. All of this seems to have infested my account on the old server too. (This is real, I am not trying to make a lame joke.)
Could this be a newly identified issue with the server move?
Same here! Something like that only happens once in a blue moon so I took a screenshot to save it. I can use it to scare Cowboyneal at some point if he gets uppity.
I do believe that you are taking a backwards approach to getting your problems solved. Your goal is to get past the first line support monkeys who can only read from a script. You can accomplish this by lying.
This means that you have a Compaq Presario with Windows ME. You run Interent Explorer to browse and Outhouse Express to e-mail. The DSL bridge is plugged directly into the NIC. You don't know what linux is. You have never heard of linux. You need to be told that Control Panel is under start > settings. Just follow their lead and fit the mold of a clueless luser. This will allow them to get through their script as fast as possible and pass you along to the more senior techs who have a clue.