A better alternative is to put shortcuts to your favorite programs in the C:\windows\system32 directory (or any directory in your path environmental variable). Then you can hit Windows Key + R, type your shortcut, and press enter.
"Gnome and KDE made the extremely boneheaded decision to mimic Windows even when it really doesn't make sense; when the X way of doing things is vastly better. Click to focus as a default? Ugh! Windows-style cut-and-paste? An affront to humankind."
And England decides to drive on the left when most of the rest of the world drives on the right side of the road.
And the US uses 120V when most of the rest of the world uses 220V.
Why is this? Do we see a pattern?
Change is hard. Sometimes, it is better to accept an inferior system and live with it than to force people to adjust to your "superior" system.
Most people who work with computers are familiar and comfortable with Windows. That's why KDE and GNOME both have taskbar and start menu equivelents. That's why they ship with a theme that has the familiar "minimize/maximize/close" buttons. That's why KDE's file open/save dialogs look exactly like those in Windows. Windows took many of these concepts from Mac, and now KDE and GNOME take them from Windows. Why? Because change is hard.
We already have 12 of these "targets". In addition to being nuclear powered, they also offer the platform from which all air operations are run. And they have 5,000 people on them. And they run in the middle of a big battle group.
A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
In this statement, note that the first clause does not restrict the second clause. *Because* a well regulated malitia is necessary for the security of a free state, the people *must* be allowed to bear arms. It does not say that one must be in a militia to bear arms.
Imagine if the First Amendment were worded as follows:
Public gatherings being necessary for the preservation of a free state, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Who would honestly think that such a statement would restrict the Frist Amendment rights to "Public Gatherings"?
In the Second Amendment, the "well regulated malitia" clause is *justification* for the rights. It does not restrict the right to malitias.
Your wife has a Pocket PC Phone, not a Windows Powered Smartphone. The Windows Powered Smartphone:
- Has no touch-screen - Has hard buttons like a regular phone - Operates similarly to other phones
Some Pocket PC Phones:
- Do have hard buttons - Have a door that covers the screen to prevent unwanted taps
Has your wife considered: - Assigning a hard-button to launch the phone application? Most Pocket PC Phones (e.g. the XDA) have a button specifically for this purpose; on other phones you can assign one of the application buttons (e.g. the contacts button) to do this - Getting a headset? Most combination devices are rather large (because of the large screen and battery, among other things), and an earpiece can often be the best way to use them.
"DRM is not "Digital Rights Management"--it does nothing to protect anyone's rights"
Digital Rights Managment is indeed a fair evaluation of DRM. It is a technology which *manages* (e.g. restricts in specific ways) the rights you have to play and distribute media.
Whether or not you agree with DRM, saying that it does not "manage rights" is simply not true. The fact that the word "rights" is used does not imply that the technology grants you any new rights. For example, a document marked "limitation of rights" would likely not grant any rights whatsoever.
But, don't you see, most people WILL NEVER INSTALL AN OPERATING SYSTEM. Windows came with their computer. It works out of the box. All of the hardware is configured. There is no repartitioning. No hacking your X configuration.
You went and installed XP Professional. It likely did not have the drivers to support your hardware. What you failed to realize, however, is that most people never even install Windows. Your eMachines laptop came with a restore CD for a reason - it can fix a "dead" computer with less work and hassle than an install CD.
Listen to yourself. You had to "change a line" in your/etc/XF86Config. Yeah, most people know how to that. You had to "futz with.../etc/sysconfig/powermanagement". Again, something that few people could do.
Now compare to XP: You couldn't get "wireless working". Hmmm... did you consider installing the proper drivers for your card? Oh, and your screen resolution was messed up. Did you consider installing the proper drivers?
So, when Linux requires you to futz with configuration files to get things to work, it's "loaded fine". When a copy of XP, not the copy that came with your laptop, mind you, but a copy that you decided to acquire and install, requires you to install the drivers for your hardware, which likely came out after XP, it's somehow "barfing all over the place".
What do processed foods generally contain a lot of? Sugar/Corn Syrup and simple carbohydrates. Many children (and adults) are hyper simply because they have a sugar buzz. A natural diet has more complex carbohydrates and protein, preventing the "energy roller coaster" associated with consuming large quantities of sugar and simple carbohydrates.
- If you stay in cities, any service should do. IS-136 "TDMA" (AT&T and Cingular's "Old" network), GSM (T-Mobile, AT&T/Cingular's "New Network"), CDMA (Sprint, Verizon, Virgin Mobile), and iDEN (Nextel) should all work fine. - Virgin mobile seems to have a very nice service with free domestic long-distance and roaming (useful if you intend to travel very far). T-Mobile also offers free roaming and LD. - Keep in mind that with T-Mobile (And posibly AT&T), your phone is a standard GSM phone (in many cases a triband phone) so you may have better luck selling it. - You will pay for incoming calls. On the upside, other people don't pay to call you. - If you plan to go out of major cities (20,000+), off of Interstate highways, you will likely not get service with GSM. Your best bet is Verizon. They have excellent coverage throughout the country, even in the great barren land we call "Wyoming".
And, finally some travel tips: - Gas is cheap, even more so now that the dollar is weaker. You can probably rent a big car and it won't be too expensive. - Don't depend on mass transit. Amtrak isn't exactly the most efficent company. - Gas station bathrooms range from awful to pretty decent. Tip: If you have to go outside the building to get to the bathroom, it's probably pretty dirty.
Seeing as they weren't the people who wrote those whitepapers (just the people that paid for them), the fact that they are hosted on the Microsoft website only signafies that the document was delivered in PDF form and Microsoft was not interested enough to force the independent company to do it in Word.
Yes. With software 1.1, there is an application called "terminal monkey", which is a surprisingly capable SSH implementation. Also, the web browser is reasonably fast and comes in handy when you need directions. The keyboard is the best of any portable device; I can actually type at 30WPM which makes responding to Slashdot articles or replying to email easy. The best part is that all of your info gets synchronized to their backend servers so you can access it on your desktop - and if you have to change phones, you keep all of your preferences/contacts/etc.
Upsides: - Good color screen - Very nice keyboard - Not too bulky - Easy navigation - Good interface - Full multitasking - Nice email client - Nice web browser - Continuous sync - Always connected - Excellent Java development environment - Usable SSH client
Downsides: - Not too many 3rd party apps, require devkit to install - No MP3 playback - No Outlook sync - Some quality control problems - Battery life only 1-2 days - 600ms latency makes SSH somewhat painful (line entry helps) - Can have signal strength issues (depends on your locale)
Right. So, what you are saying is that if you buy a car and fall behind on the payments, you should hide the car so that the finance company cannot reposess what is legally their property?
If you want to use OnStar to track down deadbeats who buy a car and then fail to pay for it, what's the problem?
Moreover, if the finance company knows where you live (which they do), they will simply haul you into court and force you to disclose the location of the vehicle or pay for the rest of your loan.
"Where onStar can lock you out of your car because your late on your payment."
While you are making payments, it's not really your car, and if you stop making payments, they *can* and *will* reposess it. They don't need OnStar to lock you out of your car - they will simply come for it and take it away.
On the Danger Hiptop (T-Mobile Sidekick), there is an easter egg game called "snowbored". Inside this game is a meta easter egg - the trees turn into Christmas trees in the month of December.
"meaning that you're using an old crappy analog cell phone most of you americans use"
Wow. You are so ignorant of the US cellular market.
Nearly 100% of US cellular subscribers use digital technology. Most are on CDMA2000 (Sprint/Verizon), IS-95 CDMA (Sprint/Verizon), or GSM (T-Mobile/AT&T/Cingular). Many subscribers are still on IS-136 "TDMA", although AT&T and Cingular, the main users of IS-136, migrated to GSM a few years back. Some users use IDEN, Nextel's system.
AMPS, the old analog system, is used primarily in rural areas (e.g. Wyoming) where its range and compatibility are primary concerns.
Some more interesting facts:
- The US has the largest number of "3G" towers, primarily because CDMA2000 is considered a "3G" technology (even though it only peaks at ~150kbps)
- Verizon Wireless just rolled out CDMA EVDO in Washington DC and San Diego. They will be pursuing an agressive rollout strategy throughout 2004.
- GSM towers are limited to 16km in radius. This is a hard limit caused by the time-sensitive nature of the protocol. Thus, after 16km, the technology stops working. This is why GSM coverage is far from universal in the US. Imagine Wyoming - 200,000 people in a state 75% as big as France. Now imagine trying to cover it with GSM - there would be plenty of towers that would rarely have users.
showdocvw.dll, along with many other libraries, make up the Microsoft HTML rendering engine. This engine is used by, among other things, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and the HTML help engine.
Windows doesn't work without showdocvw.dll because so many applications depend on it.
Internet Explorer: - Runs in user space - Is an application that references the Microsoft HTML engine (also running in user space) - Cannot override file permissions or other settings, or otherwise do more damage than any other application (excluding a flaw in the kernel or a service running with more permissions).
Note that in Windows, file permissions apply to *everything*. Even the OS obeys its own permissions (try changing permissions to deny everyone on some critical DLLs and see if your system will still boot)
Slashdot Mirror
IIS, however, is not necessarily representitive of Windows, Office, or any other Microsoft product.
I have also heard that IIS 6 is far more secure than IIS 5.
A better alternative is to put shortcuts to your favorite programs in the C:\windows\system32 directory (or any directory in your path environmental variable). Then you can hit Windows Key + R, type your shortcut, and press enter.
"Gnome and KDE made the extremely boneheaded decision to mimic Windows even when it really doesn't make sense; when the X way of doing things is vastly better. Click to focus as a default? Ugh! Windows-style cut-and-paste? An affront to humankind."
And England decides to drive on the left when most of the rest of the world drives on the right side of the road.
And the US uses 120V when most of the rest of the world uses 220V.
Why is this? Do we see a pattern?
Change is hard. Sometimes, it is better to accept an inferior system and live with it than to force people to adjust to your "superior" system.
Most people who work with computers are familiar and comfortable with Windows. That's why KDE and GNOME both have taskbar and start menu equivelents. That's why they ship with a theme that has the familiar "minimize/maximize/close" buttons. That's why KDE's file open/save dialogs look exactly like those in Windows. Windows took many of these concepts from Mac, and now KDE and GNOME take them from Windows. Why? Because change is hard.
We already have 12 of these "targets". In addition to being nuclear powered, they also offer the platform from which all air operations are run. And they have 5,000 people on them. And they run in the middle of a big battle group.
We call them "supercarriers".
Look at the following statement:
A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
In this statement, note that the first clause does not restrict the second clause. *Because* a well regulated malitia is necessary for the security of a free state, the people *must* be allowed to bear arms. It does not say that one must be in a militia to bear arms.
Imagine if the First Amendment were worded as follows:
Public gatherings being necessary for the preservation of a free state, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Who would honestly think that such a statement would restrict the Frist Amendment rights to "Public Gatherings"?
In the Second Amendment, the "well regulated malitia" clause is *justification* for the rights. It does not restrict the right to malitias.
Your wife has a Pocket PC Phone, not a Windows Powered Smartphone. The Windows Powered Smartphone:
- Has no touch-screen
- Has hard buttons like a regular phone
- Operates similarly to other phones
Some Pocket PC Phones:
- Do have hard buttons
- Have a door that covers the screen to prevent unwanted taps
Has your wife considered:
- Assigning a hard-button to launch the phone application? Most Pocket PC Phones (e.g. the XDA) have a button specifically for this purpose; on other phones you can assign one of the application buttons (e.g. the contacts button) to do this
- Getting a headset? Most combination devices are rather large (because of the large screen and battery, among other things), and an earpiece can often be the best way to use them.
Try again. 1 Gigabit = 1024 Megabits. Divide by eight and you get 128 Megabytes.
"DRM is not "Digital Rights Management"--it does nothing to protect anyone's rights"
Digital Rights Managment is indeed a fair evaluation of DRM. It is a technology which *manages* (e.g. restricts in specific ways) the rights you have to play and distribute media.
Whether or not you agree with DRM, saying that it does not "manage rights" is simply not true. The fact that the word "rights" is used does not imply that the technology grants you any new rights. For example, a document marked "limitation of rights" would likely not grant any rights whatsoever.
But, don't you see, most people WILL NEVER INSTALL AN OPERATING SYSTEM. Windows came with their computer. It works out of the box. All of the hardware is configured. There is no repartitioning. No hacking your X configuration.
/etc/XF86Config. Yeah, most people know how to that. You had to "futz with.../etc/sysconfig/powermanagement". Again, something that few people could do.
You went and installed XP Professional. It likely did not have the drivers to support your hardware. What you failed to realize, however, is that most people never even install Windows. Your eMachines laptop came with a restore CD for a reason - it can fix a "dead" computer with less work and hassle than an install CD.
Listen to yourself. You had to "change a line" in your
Now compare to XP: You couldn't get "wireless working". Hmmm... did you consider installing the proper drivers for your card? Oh, and your screen resolution was messed up. Did you consider installing the proper drivers?
So, when Linux requires you to futz with configuration files to get things to work, it's "loaded fine". When a copy of XP, not the copy that came with your laptop, mind you, but a copy that you decided to acquire and install, requires you to install the drivers for your hardware, which likely came out after XP, it's somehow "barfing all over the place".
Welcome to Slashdot.
Think about this:
What do processed foods generally contain a lot of? Sugar/Corn Syrup and simple carbohydrates. Many children (and adults) are hyper simply because they have a sugar buzz. A natural diet has more complex carbohydrates and protein, preventing the "energy roller coaster" associated with consuming large quantities of sugar and simple carbohydrates.
(there are very few gaming cafes here in the US for example)
There are 3 in my city of 100,000.
- If you stay in cities, any service should do. IS-136 "TDMA" (AT&T and Cingular's "Old" network), GSM (T-Mobile, AT&T/Cingular's "New Network"), CDMA (Sprint, Verizon, Virgin Mobile), and iDEN (Nextel) should all work fine.
- Virgin mobile seems to have a very nice service with free domestic long-distance and roaming (useful if you intend to travel very far). T-Mobile also offers free roaming and LD.
- Keep in mind that with T-Mobile (And posibly AT&T), your phone is a standard GSM phone (in many cases a triband phone) so you may have better luck selling it.
- You will pay for incoming calls. On the upside, other people don't pay to call you.
- If you plan to go out of major cities (20,000+), off of Interstate highways, you will likely not get service with GSM. Your best bet is Verizon. They have excellent coverage throughout the country, even in the great barren land we call "Wyoming".
And, finally some travel tips:
- Gas is cheap, even more so now that the dollar is weaker. You can probably rent a big car and it won't be too expensive.
- Don't depend on mass transit. Amtrak isn't exactly the most efficent company.
- Gas station bathrooms range from awful to pretty decent. Tip: If you have to go outside the building to get to the bathroom, it's probably pretty dirty.
Here (Fort Collins, CO, USA).
Service is uncapped.
Comcast Cable Internet:
3m Down/256k Up
$55 a month
Qwest DSL (Business-Class; Includes ISP):
256K-640k Down/256k Up
$26.50
With the ~30 minutes lag, your finger-twitching reflexes "ain't gonna mean shit".
Seeing as they weren't the people who wrote those whitepapers (just the people that paid for them), the fact that they are hosted on the Microsoft website only signafies that the document was delivered in PDF form and Microsoft was not interested enough to force the independent company to do it in Word.
You can configure the sidebar shortcuts. You can edit the registry manually or use Microsoft's TweakUI.
"Did you know there's a secret "administrator" account and password on every machine? You didn't? Every hacker does"
This guy is clueless.
Sure, Windows has a hidden Administrator account. And Mac OS X has a hidden root account. And every Linux/Unix system has a root account.
Yes. With software 1.1, there is an application called "terminal monkey", which is a surprisingly capable SSH implementation. Also, the web browser is reasonably fast and comes in handy when you need directions. The keyboard is the best of any portable device; I can actually type at 30WPM which makes responding to Slashdot articles or replying to email easy. The best part is that all of your info gets synchronized to their backend servers so you can access it on your desktop - and if you have to change phones, you keep all of your preferences/contacts/etc.
Upsides:
- Good color screen
- Very nice keyboard
- Not too bulky
- Easy navigation
- Good interface
- Full multitasking
- Nice email client
- Nice web browser
- Continuous sync
- Always connected
- Excellent Java development environment
- Usable SSH client
Downsides:
- Not too many 3rd party apps, require devkit to install
- No MP3 playback
- No Outlook sync
- Some quality control problems
- Battery life only 1-2 days
- 600ms latency makes SSH somewhat painful (line entry helps)
- Can have signal strength issues (depends on your locale)
Right. So, what you are saying is that if you buy a car and fall behind on the payments, you should hide the car so that the finance company cannot reposess what is legally their property?
If you want to use OnStar to track down deadbeats who buy a car and then fail to pay for it, what's the problem?
Moreover, if the finance company knows where you live (which they do), they will simply haul you into court and force you to disclose the location of the vehicle or pay for the rest of your loan.
"Where onStar can lock you out of your car because your late on your payment."
While you are making payments, it's not really your car, and if you stop making payments, they *can* and *will* reposess it. They don't need OnStar to lock you out of your car - they will simply come for it and take it away.
On the Danger Hiptop (T-Mobile Sidekick), there is an easter egg game called "snowbored". Inside this game is a meta easter egg - the trees turn into Christmas trees in the month of December.
"meaning that you're using
an old crappy analog cell phone most of you americans use"
Wow. You are so ignorant of the US cellular market.
Nearly 100% of US cellular subscribers use digital technology. Most are on CDMA2000 (Sprint/Verizon), IS-95 CDMA (Sprint/Verizon), or GSM (T-Mobile/AT&T/Cingular). Many subscribers are still on IS-136 "TDMA", although AT&T and Cingular, the main users of IS-136, migrated to GSM a few years back. Some users use IDEN, Nextel's system.
AMPS, the old analog system, is used primarily in rural areas (e.g. Wyoming) where its range and compatibility are primary concerns.
Some more interesting facts:
- The US has the largest number of "3G" towers, primarily because CDMA2000 is considered a "3G" technology (even though it only peaks at ~150kbps)
- Verizon Wireless just rolled out CDMA EVDO in Washington DC and San Diego. They will be pursuing an agressive rollout strategy throughout 2004.
- GSM towers are limited to 16km in radius. This is a hard limit caused by the time-sensitive nature of the protocol. Thus, after 16km, the technology stops working. This is why GSM coverage is far from universal in the US. Imagine Wyoming - 200,000 people in a state 75% as big as France. Now imagine trying to cover it with GSM - there would be plenty of towers that would rarely have users.
Right. Because, as we all know, iTunes is compatible with Linux.
Right. So you would never download from a DRM protected service... like iTunes. And you'd never watch a DRM encumbered format... like DVD.
The ignorance on Slashdot is astounding.
showdocvw.dll, along with many other libraries, make up the Microsoft HTML rendering engine. This engine is used by, among other things, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, and the HTML help engine.
Windows doesn't work without showdocvw.dll because so many applications depend on it.
Internet Explorer:
- Runs in user space
- Is an application that references the Microsoft HTML engine (also running in user space)
- Cannot override file permissions or other settings, or otherwise do more damage than any other application (excluding a flaw in the kernel or a service running with more permissions).
Note that in Windows, file permissions apply to *everything*. Even the OS obeys its own permissions (try changing permissions to deny everyone on some critical DLLs and see if your system will still boot)