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User: gigaherz

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  1. Re:New UI? on Firefox 29 Beta Arrives With UI Overhaul And CSS3 Variables · · Score: 1

    That may be an option. I will have to test it before I give up on Firefox completely, although I fear an add-on that changes so much may break things in the long run.

    I did test it some months ago, when I first discovered Australis. Back then it lacked many details that made me prefer to downgrade to a more stable channel, but I will try it before I completely dismiss Firefox. If it even really happens, because as much as I dislike getting things shoved down my throat, the alternatives feel even worse. In them, there's no customization at all.

  2. Re:New UI? on Firefox 29 Beta Arrives With UI Overhaul And CSS3 Variables · · Score: 1

    I don't know why people take my comment so badly. I dislike Australis, not Firefox.

    I have been using nightly builds of Firefox for years, with some short breaks when an unwanted change was being introduced. Sometimes the change was discarded, other times I decided to embrace it. I got used to the new downloads panel, for example.

    Up until now, I have been able to revert all the changes they made, where I didn't want them. A big example of this is they keyhole back/forward button. I keep the Home button in between back/forward and the addressbar, so that they don't merge. In contrast, I did like the stop/refresh being combined, and I was ok with them being put into the addressbar. I use F5 to refresh anyhow.

    But above all, I value customization. That's why I use Firefox, and why I choose to use it instead of Chrome or IE11. I like to see things the way I want them, and they don't usually match the designer's choice. As I said, up until now, the changes were either positive, or they did not affect me enough to reject them. Australis is something else.

    With Australis, they are removing customization, in favor of a more unified UI across all devices. This has two issues, in my eyes, which are both based on one simple fact: I have a very large monitor, at 2560x1440px. And it could still be bigger. I have enough space in my screen to hold a webpage, multiple addressbars, and in those, keep all the buttons I would ever use.

    I don't want an UI optimized to reduce space. I don't want an UI that looks the same in my desktop and my tablet -- they are very different devices with very different purposes. I want to put things where I like them. And they are taking that away from me.

    By my principle, I want to use the closest thing I can get to the Firefox I Used To Love. So yes, PaleMoon is my top alternative so far. And don't you dare talk about chickening while posting as AC.

  3. Re:New UI? on Firefox 29 Beta Arrives With UI Overhaul And CSS3 Variables · · Score: 0

    I was using Nightly, until Australis was added. I used Aurora, until Australis was included. I used Beta, until today. Now I'm at the Release 28, and I guess I have 6 weeks left to decide what to do when I uninstall Firefox from my pc.

  4. I'm in Spain on Who's On WhatsApp, and Why? · · Score: 1

    And every single person I know who has a smartphone, or any other kind of phone capable of running Whatsapp, uses it.

  5. Indie games... on Ask Slashdot: What Games Are You Playing? · · Score: 1

    ... and EverQuest Next Landmark, and World of Warcraft. One does not simply quit WoW.

  6. That would be nice... on Windows 8 Metro: The Good Kind of Market Segmentation? · · Score: 1

    ... if they have made Metro OPTIONAL, and they hadn't removed features from the desktop... such as the start menu.

  7. Re:Yes, but have they fixed the crashes? on Firefox 27 Released: TLS 1.2 Support, SPDY 3.1, SocialAPI Improvements · · Score: 2

    I have only had one single crash while running Firefox Aurora (the alphas) in years. Are you using any misbehaving Extension or plugin?

  8. Re:Generic? on First New Generic Top Level Domains Opening · · Score: 1

    Intern... I18n is the process of making an application aware of different ways to display text (such as LTR vs. RTL), different number formats, different currency formats, etc. Since usually applications are designed for the formats used in the developers' culture, adding other cultures to an application means opening it up to other nations, thus the application becomes international. You are probably thinking of localization (l10n), which is the process of taking an internationalized application, and making it actually support a concrete culture (language, reading order, numeric formats, ....).

  9. "I already promised my friends they will get the job, so IT HAS TO BE DONE."

  10. Re:I'll vote for him on Reports Say Satya Nadella Is Microsoft's Next CEO · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... the start button has been in 8.1 since it was released some months ago. I'd prefer if he brought back also the start MENU, and Aero. My computer is not a tablet, it does not need features designed for touch-screen, or removed to "improve battery life", so I will not install an OS that treats it like one.

  11. Re:Translation... on Short Notice: LogMeIn To Discontinue Free Access · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Assuming that number wasn't bullshit, that means even if just 1% of the free user base becomes paying customers, they would have doubled their paying user base.

  12. Re:Torrents are your friend on Short Notice: LogMeIn To Discontinue Free Access · · Score: 0

    I don't endorse copyright infringement (I refuse to call it piracy), but "added malware" is only a problem if you get the files from untrusted sources, or at least without checking the comments to see if anyone complains about it. But, of course, that applies anywhere. Some seemingly legitimate websites that offer free downloads of software, include bloated adware-loaded "downloaders" that can be bigger than the file you intended to get.

  13. Re:This sucks on Short Notice: LogMeIn To Discontinue Free Access · · Score: 3, Informative

    Firewall is not the problem, NAT is.

  14. Re:Perhaps... on Romanian Bitcoin Entrepreneur Steps In To Pay OpenBSD Shortfall · · Score: 0

    Unless you assume the bitcoins to grow in value over time, as the general trend is, in which case keeping those bitcoins may give you a better benefit than the interest a bank may give you for keeping the real money in it.

  15. Re:Dear Nvidia... on Intel Releases 5,000 Pages of Open-Source Haswell Documentation · · Score: 1

    Not necessarily: if all they were concerned about was hacking around model "locks", they could still release the documentation on the "public" registers, protocols, etc. and still require a special undocumented binary blob to be transferred into the gpu at boot.

  16. Re:Dear Nvidia... on Intel Releases 5,000 Pages of Open-Source Haswell Documentation · · Score: 2

    I doubt that. The firmware, maybe, but probably not drivers. Normally the difference between high-priced and low-priced models is that the low-priced models have some internal fuses blown, so that some of the cores are disabled. Sometimes those cores were defective, other times they disable cores just to meet the demand. It could be that they disable the cores with firmware instead of fuses, and somehow the drivers could reenable cores in the latter cases, but my guess is that the people who give the orders simply think of their precious architecture details as information that needs to be kept secret, in case the competition gets too many ideas from those details.

  17. Re:Screen resolution for laptops? on PC Plus Packs Windows and Android Into Same Machine · · Score: 1

    ... 8 bits per component == 24 bits total.

  18. Re:Screen resolution for laptops? on PC Plus Packs Windows and Android Into Same Machine · · Score: 2

    IPS panel technology can display true 8bit color just fine. Most professional grade screens are some kind of IPS (S-IPS,P-IPS,...), with the rest being some kind of VA (MVA,PVA), and for professinal use, 8bit is only just barely enough.

    If you are thinking about OLED (or any buzzword derived from it), they have the main advantages of being more visible under sunlight while using less power -- with supposedly wider viewing angles, although since modern IPS/VA screens look fine regardless of the angle, I'm not convinced that it's any better in that area.

  19. Re:So upgrade already on Microsoft's Ticking Time Bomb Is Windows XP · · Score: 1

    I was trying to write some other better analogy to explain why you shouldn't expect new software to be written from scratch, but then I thought it was just pointless. Almost all subsequent versions of ANY product (software or not) are "refurbished" design-wise. The sticker is not necessary because it should be your expectation that they reused most of the code or part designs. That's what it being a new version implies. They revised the old design, polished some aspects, changed other parts, assembled it, and then put it in a store so you can buy it. This is not just Microsoft, it's not even just software. This applies to EVERYTHING.

    You want discounted price because you already own part of the same software? No problem! Simply buy an upgrade license instead of a new one. Microsoft has been offering them all this time. At launch Windows 7 Pro was $240 for the full edition, or $140 for the upgrade edition. Windows 8 had a special offer at launch, where they offered upgrade copies of Windows 8 for $40. The offer ended so it's now $100 instead.

    I'm not a car owner so I don't have experience with buying cars, but I'd expect a car dealer to laugh at me if I tell him to give me a discount simply because my old car already had 4 wheels and a front engine. And as far as I know, car makers stop making parts for old models after a certain amount of time, so you have to buy them from 3rd parties. But you don't expect them to keep supporting your very old car just because you feel like buying a new one is unnecessary, do you?

    By the way, Google Shopping Search found me a Windows 7 Pro license for just $26: http://www.dealscube.com/detail.asp?id=32580#page=description

  20. Re:"So who needs native code now?" on Asm.js Gets Faster · · Score: 1

    I know about dynamic structures and the stl well enough, thanks. I was referring exclusively to arrays. High-level implementation of vectors, lists, queues, or any other linear sequence of items were not part of what I said.

  21. Re:So upgrade already on Microsoft's Ticking Time Bomb Is Windows XP · · Score: 1

    You are comparing apples to trees. A new car will not use old parts, but it WILL reuse the same design of the engine and the transmission, and possibly the same door locking mechanism. If you find a bug in the way the doors are locked that lets you bypass the lock and enter the car, chances are the same bug also exists in older models. You don't reinvent the wheel with every single model of a car. You may improve it, but the design is pretty much the same now as it was 15 years ago.

  22. Re:"So who needs native code now?" on Asm.js Gets Faster · · Score: 1

    That is not how most programming languages manage the memory, though. If you have such specialized needs, then yes, managed languages are out of the question.

  23. Re:So upgrade already on Microsoft's Ticking Time Bomb Is Windows XP · · Score: 1

    Why not?! Reusing existing code is a perfectly valid option! Heck it's the whole idea behind posix: to be able to reuse most existing code by providing a stable API. Of course if you reuse old code you also reuse old bugs.

    On the other hand, you are right: freeing themselves from XP doesn't mean they will build a better OS afterwards. They might, but if their goals have changed to "devices and services" for good...

  24. Re:"So who needs native code now?" on Asm.js Gets Faster · · Score: 1

    Given that the concept behind Javascript is "hash tables as objects", your claim sounds weird. You must have been misusing it somehow, although I couldn't guess.

  25. Re:"So who needs native code now?" on Asm.js Gets Faster · · Score: 1

    If "as data grows" you mean the array itself is growing, then that will happen with any language: resizing an array requires allocating a new memory area, and copying the data over to the new one. No clue if javascript has any other limitation regarding big arrays.