What ever happened on drawing on someone else's experiences? What ever happened to learning new best practices? People spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars on usability, and you reject it because you refuse to give up file/edit/view out of what, fear of change? Are you still programming in level 1 basic? Still using that VCR?
I really do pre-emptively apologize for the flame, but just I can't help but think what an ignorant statement you've just made. I'm sure it seems all well and good to you, but you are, in effect, supporting a slippery slope. When the SS comes knocking on your door asking you for your papers, you won't be laughing then nor supporting state censorship. Good luck with the free market and such under those conditions.
Is that true? If so, that's insane. There are a lot of applications other than games that utilize DirectX. Certain 3D modeling tools, for starters. I don't see how they'll get away with that.
I think Google has singlehandedly undermined the idea of what a beta is to the vast majority of regular folks. That is, if they even had any notion of it to begin with.
I have to say I disagree with this entirely. It's commonplace to get a 20-25% raise when you switch jobs. No matter what you say to your employer, they're never going to give you anything close to that because their management would have their head on a platter. It sets a standard.
I graduated in 2001 and I just took my 3rd job back in November. Thanks to jumping ship I'm making more than twice as much than I was when I graduated from college. That's a big increase in 5 years. I highly recommend jumping early and often. Get yourself a couple recruiters and always have them on the lookout for mo' money.
Let's not forget that Sony is a Japanese company and they are so far ahead of us (America) in the CE market that it borders on the obscene... Japan cut the Aibo most likely because they don't realize that those of us in the States who even know what it is find it ridiculously fascinating. That said, ask 100 people what the Aibo is and I'm guessing maybe 10% wouldn't look at you funny.
You know, it's funny. A few months ago a colleague and I had an argument about which platform was being more prominently used, J2EE or.NET. I argued J2EE, he argued.NET. Each of us thought the other was nuts.
Then, we did a job search on Monster. He lives in LA, I live in Detroit. We started laughing pretty hard shortly thereafter, because the.NET-related jobs outnumbered the J2EE-related jobs over 2:1 in his area, and it was exactly the opposite in mine.
Of course the irony of this is that I recently took a job at a.NET shop two weeks ago.
I'm not so sure Linux desktop is "stuck on stupid," or that this is a GPL issue. If you ask me, there's only a couple problems that still exist with Linux becoming a desktop option--and this is coming from a life-long Windows user who evaluates the most popular Linux distribution once a year.
First of all, here are the misconceptions about why Linux isn't making it on the desktop:
1) Package Dependencies. Do you think 90% of Windows users understand this, or even understand DLLs? They're just as lost either way. Linux desktop actually has a STRENGTH in this area because it comes pre-loaded with 95% of everything the average user wants and needs, and the other 5% can get enough support or is smart enough to get past their problems.
2) Difficulty of Install. The average user can't even install Windows. Linux again has a strength here because frankly it installs much faster. The weakness here is hardware support, which is getting better with every release and really just needs a major investor with an interest in killing Microsoft behind it to remedy this problem. (see Google and Sun Office)
3) Legacy Software. Yes it's true that people have a lot of legacy windows software. But Wine is pretty darn good at what it does, and more importantly Windows isn't even good at running legacy Windows software. Have you ever tried to run a Win-98 game on Win-XP? Good luck. People are used to their software becoming obsolete (or breaking), and think it's par for the course. Christ, my neighbor threw away a 9 month old PC because it was so slow she thought it was broken. I saw it in the trash and asked her what she was doing, and she said "it's slow and broken." Turns out it was just a Windows problem and I picked it out of the trash and reloaded her P4 system from scratch for her. Legacy Software? Ha.
Now that we've covered that, let's look at the real usability barriers in Linux today.
1) Fonts. Oh god... goodness... fonts are horriffic. Windows makes Linux on the desktop look archaic because fonts continue to look so awful. Unless you really know how to tweak your system, fonts look just terrible to your spoiled truetype user. Out of the box fonts need to improve by an order of magnitude from a visual perspective. Bring them up to par with Apple and you can compete. Bring them up to par with Microsoft and then watch people switch.
2).Doc Culture. This is apparently starting already to wither away--at least I see the light at the end of the tunnel. The Google/Sun announcement today should start chipping away at this soon enough.
3) Advertising. How can you start a revolution if you don't push it to the ignorant public. Gnome? KDE? Ubuntu? Debian? Fedora? What does that mean to ANYONE outside of the Linux community? Nothing. Again, Linux needs a large entity to push Linux on the public through advertising. Show people how easy it can be, and how it's ready for prime time (which it ALMOST is--see Fonts). Google's the answer here--honest to god. Microsoft killed Netscape by giving their browser away for free. Google can kill Microsoft by giving away Office and the OS away for free. Yeah yeah, Linux is already free... I know, I know. But it's not in the public eye, and Google can put it there. How about it--a Google Linux distribution that looks as good as OSX and runs on anything.
This has been modded insightful?
What ever happened on drawing on someone else's experiences? What ever happened to learning new best practices? People spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars on usability, and you reject it because you refuse to give up file/edit/view out of what, fear of change? Are you still programming in level 1 basic? Still using that VCR?
I wouldn't be surprised if I see the death of commericials in my lifetime, wholly replaced with product placement in the shows themselves.
I'm not sure which is worse.
Now THAT was funny. If I could mod you up, oh the fun we'd have.
This week you made $71 with your computer!
Haven't you figured out yet that the missle defense program isn't for the mainland US but rather for our strategic asiprations in the Middle East?
Will that be before or after the soon to be famous "Four core and seven years ago..." speech?
I really do pre-emptively apologize for the flame, but just I can't help but think what an ignorant statement you've just made. I'm sure it seems all well and good to you, but you are, in effect, supporting a slippery slope. When the SS comes knocking on your door asking you for your papers, you won't be laughing then nor supporting state censorship. Good luck with the free market and such under those conditions.
You'll get about 20g/hour just doing SM graveyard over and over and over until you want to blow your brains out with a .45...
Prince Desmond Okotiebor Etete himself MUST account for at least 10% of all spam...
Is that true? If so, that's insane. There are a lot of applications other than games that utilize DirectX. Certain 3D modeling tools, for starters. I don't see how they'll get away with that.
One might even say their linking leaves a lot to be desired...
I think Google has singlehandedly undermined the idea of what a beta is to the vast majority of regular folks. That is, if they even had any notion of it to begin with.
I have to say I disagree with this entirely. It's commonplace to get a 20-25% raise when you switch jobs. No matter what you say to your employer, they're never going to give you anything close to that because their management would have their head on a platter. It sets a standard.
I graduated in 2001 and I just took my 3rd job back in November. Thanks to jumping ship I'm making more than twice as much than I was when I graduated from college. That's a big increase in 5 years. I highly recommend jumping early and often. Get yourself a couple recruiters and always have them on the lookout for mo' money.
Who the heck needs fiber when high-speed wireless technology is already upon us and getting better by the day?
Let's not forget that Sony is a Japanese company and they are so far ahead of us (America) in the CE market that it borders on the obscene... Japan cut the Aibo most likely because they don't realize that those of us in the States who even know what it is find it ridiculously fascinating. That said, ask 100 people what the Aibo is and I'm guessing maybe 10% wouldn't look at you funny.
Pssh, this is SO 1940's.
You know, it's funny. A few months ago a colleague and I had an argument about which platform was being more prominently used, J2EE or .NET. I argued J2EE, he argued .NET. Each of us thought the other was nuts.
.NET-related jobs outnumbered the J2EE-related jobs over 2:1 in his area, and it was exactly the opposite in mine.
.NET shop two weeks ago.
Then, we did a job search on Monster. He lives in LA, I live in Detroit. We started laughing pretty hard shortly thereafter, because the
Of course the irony of this is that I recently took a job at a
6. ??? ...right?
7. Profit
Year after year, it never loses suction.
Ford is actually in the black for the year. Bankruptcy isn't anywhere on the horizon despite their bond status.
Behold the power of porn!
:-P
Through desire we can accomplish great things.
I'm not so sure Linux desktop is "stuck on stupid," or that this is a GPL issue. If you ask me, there's only a couple problems that still exist with Linux becoming a desktop option--and this is coming from a life-long Windows user who evaluates the most popular Linux distribution once a year.
.Doc Culture. This is apparently starting already to wither away--at least I see the light at the end of the tunnel. The Google/Sun announcement today should start chipping away at this soon enough.
First of all, here are the misconceptions about why Linux isn't making it on the desktop:
1) Package Dependencies. Do you think 90% of Windows users understand this, or even understand DLLs? They're just as lost either way. Linux desktop actually has a STRENGTH in this area because it comes pre-loaded with 95% of everything the average user wants and needs, and the other 5% can get enough support or is smart enough to get past their problems.
2) Difficulty of Install. The average user can't even install Windows. Linux again has a strength here because frankly it installs much faster. The weakness here is hardware support, which is getting better with every release and really just needs a major investor with an interest in killing Microsoft behind it to remedy this problem. (see Google and Sun Office)
3) Legacy Software. Yes it's true that people have a lot of legacy windows software. But Wine is pretty darn good at what it does, and more importantly Windows isn't even good at running legacy Windows software. Have you ever tried to run a Win-98 game on Win-XP? Good luck. People are used to their software becoming obsolete (or breaking), and think it's par for the course. Christ, my neighbor threw away a 9 month old PC because it was so slow she thought it was broken. I saw it in the trash and asked her what she was doing, and she said "it's slow and broken." Turns out it was just a Windows problem and I picked it out of the trash and reloaded her P4 system from scratch for her. Legacy Software? Ha.
Now that we've covered that, let's look at the real usability barriers in Linux today.
1) Fonts. Oh god... goodness... fonts are horriffic. Windows makes Linux on the desktop look archaic because fonts continue to look so awful. Unless you really know how to tweak your system, fonts look just terrible to your spoiled truetype user. Out of the box fonts need to improve by an order of magnitude from a visual perspective. Bring them up to par with Apple and you can compete. Bring them up to par with Microsoft and then watch people switch.
2)
3) Advertising. How can you start a revolution if you don't push it to the ignorant public. Gnome? KDE? Ubuntu? Debian? Fedora? What does that mean to ANYONE outside of the Linux community? Nothing. Again, Linux needs a large entity to push Linux on the public through advertising. Show people how easy it can be, and how it's ready for prime time (which it ALMOST is--see Fonts). Google's the answer here--honest to god. Microsoft killed Netscape by giving their browser away for free. Google can kill Microsoft by giving away Office and the OS away for free. Yeah yeah, Linux is already free... I know, I know. But it's not in the public eye, and Google can put it there. How about it--a Google Linux distribution that looks as good as OSX and runs on anything.
All I know is that VW is taken.
For now.
If you can find a killer app for a portable device connected to a non-portable keyboard, consider me Miles Davis.