how long will it take people to shrug off this death grip of MS and realize that it's costing billions in productivity? I received an XLS file of contacts yesterday and I figured I'd try using Outlook to import it into an address book so I could then sync to other things like Gmail. Outlook choked and recommended assigning values to the columns using another MS product - MS Excel. SO, I saved the file as CSV, and imported using Thunderbird which gave me an easy dialog to match up name,email, phone, website..and so on. Worked great! then I used thunderbird to open the second file and it remembered the previous adjustments and everything was already lined up! Awesome stuff and I wasn't prompted to buy any other products!
I'm seriously considering wiping all the PC's in my office and advising the staff to just learn Ubuntu to avoid this whole MS deathgrip. None of the staff are advanced users except my web guy who codes in a text editor anyhow. FMS.
A big part of antitrust is windows overrides default browsers and such, and forces it's own bundled applications on the user by making it difficult to discover how to make your software run well on the OS when it's not clearly documented (secret hooks only available to MS).
If windows media player is able to achieve better performance through some type of black magic that other media players don't have access to, how will this be tested on a pre-release secret platform? Same with browsers, office suites, or any other MS application.
Have these copies been distributed with the complete source code so secrets can be uncovered? Even if that was the case, who would pay for the man hours to sift through millions of lines of code? Even with a full source code audit, the released binaries could be completely different anyhow.
I think the only solution to restore fair competition is massive fines that go directly to marketing and development of competing platforms. Paying consumers who have been locked into the MS trap still leaves them trapped.
have the seat mounted on a sliding chassis. get everyone who arrives at the gate to "board" in their seat complete with overhead and below deck luggage meals, and perhaps even fuel. Have the ticket agents walk through and verify tickets while passengers are already seated. With everyone verified and locked in wait for the plane to land. Once the plane arrives have it "dock" with the terminal and slide one passenger module out and the next passenger module in. Boarding would in theory only take about 2 minutes, perhaps even less. Once everyone is seated force them to endure programing laced with advertising so as not to waste a captive audience and maximize profits by using idle time to create up-sales.
Now you keep your plane flying more, sell more crap, and make more money.
if anyone patents this idea let it be known that it was posted on Slashdot first and as such is no longer an original concept.
I know I know, but it is the disk I used and I'm in disbelief that I've never had to boot back to the dark side. Others in our office have had all kinds of issues with the crippleware on their systems (the add-ons that do something for free like open certain image formats, but nag you to upgrade to do everything you need like save in other formats). The other common issue is loosing connection with the networked printer and MSOffice complaining that it doesn't know how to open OpenOffice documents (makes me angry at MS for that one) I understand there is a plugin available but MS won't reference it for obvious reasons. The Folder sharing between vista and XP is also troublesome, but ubuntu/vista and Ubuntu/XP works fine.
Honestly, Ignorance of these issues and the alternatives is the only thing that perpetuates MS market dominance at this point.
not only solving puzzles and eye hand coordination, but also in memory and spatial cognition. think of the translation the mind has to make to make sense of a 3d world through a 2d window remembering what they saw when it's already out of view. What about remembering where your save house in in GTA by reading the map or recognizing buildings and intersections.
I know adults that get directions mixed up but my children know the directions of the compass and that heading south going left means that you'll be headed east.
Of course video games aren't a be all end all for learning, but I think that they require a quickening of the senses and logic processes that few other activities can stimulate effectively. To me this is very obvious, why others don't see this is disturbing to me. It's almost like racism or bigotry where opinions are formed devoid of rational thinking.
That being said, my children have been playing video games from the age of 2 when they could just start to understand what was going on and hold the controllers in their tiny hands. Seeing violence in video games has given us opportunities to discuss the difference between fantasy and reality and what type of real world consequences would arise from the actions played out in video games. Many of these conversations wouldn't have happened had it not been for violence in video games. How many parents talk to their children about car jacking before they are old enough to drive much less ever?
Sure my kids (now 8 and 9 years old) know all the swear words and even understand the meanings and origins behind them. I'm not offended by the words and better yet my kids understand who not to swear around and the religious stigma that distorts mere words into something that makes people offended. No we're not a religious household and we view religions as something that poisons rational thinking. I had to pull my kids out of boy/cub scouts to keep them away from the Christian programming that takes place in that organization which although it's discouraging that they don't get to do that stuff it's better than having them assimilated.
anyhow, anyone who thinks video games don't stretch the imagination obviously doesn't have an imagination themselves.
it's a Gen 6 Ipod, rythmbox didn't work, I'll try Amarok, who would've thought your Itunes/Mac/Ipod wouldn't work though, at least the copyright people, well it must be working for them!
my wife got an IPOD and last night we hooked it up to her EMAC, it told us it wasn't going to work on OSX 10.3.9, that we'd need 10.4.3..... $129.00 upgrade sure to just fly with 256 M of outdated SDRAM.
a 3 cylinder engine is smoother than a 4 cylinder, a 5 cylinder engine is smoother than a 6 (or an 8 for that matter). with an even number of cylinders, 1 is on a power stroke lined up with one on an intake stroke. with odd numbers, no 2 cylinders move at the same time.
don't give in to MS on this one, some states in the US have already and it's no better than standard word format because it's owned by a private entity. use the Open Office format if you want to be sure that you won't get the rug pulled out from under you some years down the road.
you're right, it's not a democracy over here like people want to think it is. government follows the golden rule "He who has all the gold makes all the rules" and politicians are nothing but corporate puppets. George Bush is the biggest puppet of all, the Bush empire is all oil money and war in the middle east has served to bring the price of gas up at the pump not because of lack of supply but because of FUD propagated by the political powers who use fear to win votes. It's no surprise that I've heard different unrelated people talking about revolution recently (older people who've been around for awhile) because of the widening gap of those who have and those who have not in our society. Foreclosures on homes are at an all time high and when housing becomes out of reach of the common man who works 60 hours a week something has got to give. I have hopes that advancing technology will change the equation and level the field between individuals and large companies, and erase centuries old programming that religion has placed on a large portion of otherwise free thinking people. It's a strange time we live in.
there's way to many feature lock downs from not letting you use your MP3 files as ring tones so you'd have to buy ring tones from your cell provider (thus also needing to pay for the data access plans), to the stupid Itunes music phones which won't show up as a removable storage device when you plug into your USB and require you to use Itunes to transfer music files to the phone. Bluetooth mostly only lets you use a headset but not share or transfer photos to another phone or your computer (requiring the data plan to get your photos off the phone)
buy an unlocked phone and have the freedom to use your hardware. I got a Motorola A780 from celluloco.com and nothing is locked down like the Iphone or the other offerings from various providers. It cost more initially but 2 years later there still isn't a phone available that does those things that I'm aware of from a cell provider (wish it had WiFi though)
F Apple, F Microsloth, long live Linux, down with the greedy evil cell companies. Sooner or later, someone will bring unlocked service to the masses and only then will they have to adapt to the demands of a liberated consumer.
of course this makes sense now, get the Microsoft windows source code, encourage your citizens to use Red Flag Linux instead, gain a competitive edge when cyber-warefare erupts.
last time I read about doing this kind of thing (20 years ago) it cost more energy to run the actuators (there's a lot of force involved opening the valves against the springs) than was saved through better efficiency of the improved valve timing. This article to me sounds like a group looking for funding to find a way to get past the additional energy draw. I wish they would've at least said how they were operating the vales in their test rig, that information was missing.
If the valves are not controlled by mechanically linking them to the crankshaft, how do you move them? Ideally, small electrical actuators would provide computerized control but then where does the electricity come from to run these actuators? this is an obvious concept with no practical application, as the power used to drive the valves creates more drag on the alternator which in turn saps power back from the engine anyhow. many systems already exist to alter valve timing relative to piston movement but none remove the link from the crankshaft because of the losses in power.
really, I'm now a bit pissed that I had to read the article to find out there's nothing new here.
Slashdot Mirror
MS made their own standards with IE6, many corporations fell for it, and now they're stuck with IE6.
this is a big tell tale of how the righteous standards compliant open source products based on real open source standards will eventually rule.
those who surf the PCpro website and are savvy enough to understand have embraced the truth, and followed the path of the righteous, MS be damned!
that's how I stay current.
walk away from it until someone else picks it up, and then join the effort.
you do mean the problem exists between keyboard and chair PEBKAC.... right?
similar to an I Dee 10 T error (ID10T).
users are so 404.
how long will it take people to shrug off this death grip of MS and realize that it's costing billions in productivity? I received an XLS file of contacts yesterday and I figured I'd try using Outlook to import it into an address book so I could then sync to other things like Gmail. Outlook choked and recommended assigning values to the columns using another MS product - MS Excel. SO, I saved the file as CSV, and imported using Thunderbird which gave me an easy dialog to match up name,email, phone, website..and so on. Worked great! then I used thunderbird to open the second file and it remembered the previous adjustments and everything was already lined up! Awesome stuff and I wasn't prompted to buy any other products!
I'm seriously considering wiping all the PC's in my office and advising the staff to just learn Ubuntu to avoid this whole MS deathgrip. None of the staff are advanced users except my web guy who codes in a text editor anyhow. FMS.
A big part of antitrust is windows overrides default browsers and such, and forces it's own bundled applications on the user by making it difficult to discover how to make your software run well on the OS when it's not clearly documented (secret hooks only available to MS).
If windows media player is able to achieve better performance through some type of black magic that other media players don't have access to, how will this be tested on a pre-release secret platform? Same with browsers, office suites, or any other MS application.
Have these copies been distributed with the complete source code so secrets can be uncovered? Even if that was the case, who would pay for the man hours to sift through millions of lines of code? Even with a full source code audit, the released binaries could be completely different anyhow.
I think the only solution to restore fair competition is massive fines that go directly to marketing and development of competing platforms. Paying consumers who have been locked into the MS trap still leaves them trapped.
have the seat mounted on a sliding chassis. get everyone who arrives at the gate to "board" in their seat complete with overhead and below deck luggage meals, and perhaps even fuel. Have the ticket agents walk through and verify tickets while passengers are already seated. With everyone verified and locked in wait for the plane to land. Once the plane arrives have it "dock" with the terminal and slide one passenger module out and the next passenger module in. Boarding would in theory only take about 2 minutes, perhaps even less. Once everyone is seated force them to endure programing laced with advertising so as not to waste a captive audience and maximize profits by using idle time to create up-sales.
Now you keep your plane flying more, sell more crap, and make more money.
if anyone patents this idea let it be known that it was posted on Slashdot first and as such is no longer an original concept.
Add this to your list of challenges:
Get the voting page http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/ to render properly in Firefox!
I know I know, but it is the disk I used and I'm in disbelief that I've never had to boot back to the dark side. Others in our office have had all kinds of issues with the crippleware on their systems (the add-ons that do something for free like open certain image formats, but nag you to upgrade to do everything you need like save in other formats). The other common issue is loosing connection with the networked printer and MSOffice complaining that it doesn't know how to open OpenOffice documents (makes me angry at MS for that one) I understand there is a plugin available but MS won't reference it for obvious reasons. The Folder sharing between vista and XP is also troublesome, but ubuntu/vista and Ubuntu/XP works fine.
Honestly, Ignorance of these issues and the alternatives is the only thing that perpetuates MS market dominance at this point.
you can download a disk image, boot from the disk, and start being productive. It's a proven fix that worked for me.
Vista Repair Disk
I used it as soon as I started having problems with Vista on a new work computer and it's been smooth sailing ever since.
will it run Linux?
not only solving puzzles and eye hand coordination, but also in memory and spatial cognition. think of the translation the mind has to make to make sense of a 3d world through a 2d window remembering what they saw when it's already out of view. What about remembering where your save house in in GTA by reading the map or recognizing buildings and intersections.
I know adults that get directions mixed up but my children know the directions of the compass and that heading south going left means that you'll be headed east.
Of course video games aren't a be all end all for learning, but I think that they require a quickening of the senses and logic processes that few other activities can stimulate effectively. To me this is very obvious, why others don't see this is disturbing to me. It's almost like racism or bigotry where opinions are formed devoid of rational thinking.
That being said, my children have been playing video games from the age of 2 when they could just start to understand what was going on and hold the controllers in their tiny hands. Seeing violence in video games has given us opportunities to discuss the difference between fantasy and reality and what type of real world consequences would arise from the actions played out in video games. Many of these conversations wouldn't have happened had it not been for violence in video games. How many parents talk to their children about car jacking before they are old enough to drive much less ever?
Sure my kids (now 8 and 9 years old) know all the swear words and even understand the meanings and origins behind them. I'm not offended by the words and better yet my kids understand who not to swear around and the religious stigma that distorts mere words into something that makes people offended. No we're not a religious household and we view religions as something that poisons rational thinking. I had to pull my kids out of boy/cub scouts to keep them away from the Christian programming that takes place in that organization which although it's discouraging that they don't get to do that stuff it's better than having them assimilated.
anyhow, anyone who thinks video games don't stretch the imagination obviously doesn't have an imagination themselves.
http://audio.textfiles.com/shows/storiesandstuff/
oh well, is this the year of desktop linux yet?
it's a Gen 6 Ipod, rythmbox didn't work, I'll try Amarok, who would've thought your Itunes/Mac/Ipod wouldn't work though, at least the copyright people, well it must be working for them!
my wife got an IPOD and last night we hooked it up to her EMAC, it told us it wasn't going to work on OSX 10.3.9, that we'd need 10.4.3.....
$129.00 upgrade sure to just fly with 256 M of outdated SDRAM.
I guess we should have bought an EPOD.
a 3 cylinder engine is smoother than a 4 cylinder, a 5 cylinder engine is smoother than a 6 (or an 8 for that matter). with an even number of cylinders, 1 is on a power stroke lined up with one on an intake stroke. with odd numbers, no 2 cylinders move at the same time.
don't give in to MS on this one, some states in the US have already and it's no better than standard word format because it's owned by a private entity. use the Open Office format if you want to be sure that you won't get the rug pulled out from under you some years down the road.
you're right, it's not a democracy over here like people want to think it is. government follows the golden rule "He who has all the gold makes all the rules" and politicians are nothing but corporate puppets. George Bush is the biggest puppet of all, the Bush empire is all oil money and war in the middle east has served to bring the price of gas up at the pump not because of lack of supply but because of FUD propagated by the political powers who use fear to win votes.
It's no surprise that I've heard different unrelated people talking about revolution recently (older people who've been around for awhile) because of the widening gap of those who have and those who have not in our society. Foreclosures on homes are at an all time high and when housing becomes out of reach of the common man who works 60 hours a week something has got to give. I have hopes that advancing technology will change the equation and level the field between individuals and large companies, and erase centuries old programming that religion has placed on a large portion of otherwise free thinking people. It's a strange time we live in.
there's way to many feature lock downs from not letting you use your MP3 files as ring tones so you'd have to buy ring tones from your cell provider (thus also needing to pay for the data access plans), to the stupid Itunes music phones which won't show up as a removable storage device when you plug into your USB and require you to use Itunes to transfer music files to the phone. Bluetooth mostly only lets you use a headset but not share or transfer photos to another phone or your computer (requiring the data plan to get your photos off the phone)
buy an unlocked phone and have the freedom to use your hardware. I got a Motorola A780 from celluloco.com and nothing is locked down like the Iphone or the other offerings from various providers. It cost more initially but 2 years later there still isn't a phone available that does those things that I'm aware of from a cell provider (wish it had WiFi though)
F Apple, F Microsloth, long live Linux, down with the greedy evil cell companies. Sooner or later, someone will bring unlocked service to the masses and only then will they have to adapt to the demands of a liberated consumer.
who knows what modified genes may spread into other plants and animals? this is scary to think we might eat these crops and become sterile.
of course this makes sense now, get the Microsoft windows source code, encourage your citizens to use Red Flag Linux instead, gain a competitive edge when cyber-warefare erupts.
last time I read about doing this kind of thing (20 years ago) it cost more energy to run the actuators (there's a lot of force involved opening the valves against the springs) than was saved through better efficiency of the improved valve timing. This article to me sounds like a group looking for funding to find a way to get past the additional energy draw. I wish they would've at least said how they were operating the vales in their test rig, that information was missing.
If the valves are not controlled by mechanically linking them to the crankshaft, how do you move them? Ideally, small electrical actuators would provide computerized control but then where does the electricity come from to run these actuators? this is an obvious concept with no practical application, as the power used to drive the valves creates more drag on the alternator which in turn saps power back from the engine anyhow. many systems already exist to alter valve timing relative to piston movement but none remove the link from the crankshaft because of the losses in power.
really, I'm now a bit pissed that I had to read the article to find out there's nothing new here.
alt+Tab
there you have it, a simple keyboard shortcut and you've increased your productivity.