We all know that George Lucas kinda like ignores his actors for the larger part. He gives them Freedom, he gives some advice, but he's not the Director that goes into Character bulding very much. He's all more of the 'visual poetry' type. One gets the impression, that he would just like to make a long sequence of stills, pans and enviro shot of a variety of Space Opera Worlds (Bespin, Mos Aisly (dunno how thats spelled), Endor, Deathstar Interior) - all that is his visual style and it fits the Space Opera genre he's into so very much. Having Actors being something like Posers and not much more really doesn't bother in such a setting. On the contrary, it actualy goes along quite well. Spielberg on the other hand - with his own distinct visual handwriting (that 80s Kiddy Candy Movie look - that's all his - even AI had it!) would spoil the esprit of SW totally!!! He's a good director, no doupt, but keeping Spielbarg away from SW is just what I would do if I where a producer.
KDE != good usability / cooperation(users,coders)
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KDEvelopers on KDE Users
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
When it boils down to usabilty, KDE/KWin is nothing much more than a silly rippoff of the crappy Windoze CUA model. It's so much Windows in it's inflexability and "user-railroading" that it quite often just plain SUXX0RS!. The KDE/KWin Enviroment is closer to Windows than to a well configurated Linux/Enlightenment enviroment.
And for users and coders working togther: It's ALL about communication. If at all, we need a quick and easy way for controling usability and getting users and coders together to discuss the issues arising. Special usability mailinglists of forums for every project would kinda be the thing. But a former Windoze user to lazy to switch to an enviroment that is so usable he can't even imagine it is NOT the right person to judge usability.
You definitely need something to project a hologram on to. It doesn't just work with thin air. (Air's invisible, remember?) The only solution for a real walkaround 3D hologram I could think of would be some kind of plexiglas bubble filled with smoke of something other half translucent (to let the lasers through)/half "lightable" (to catch the light and reflect it for the eyes). Am I making sense or what?
As you see, both walls, the one showing left and the right one, are lit by the sun. Also the sky seems somewhat blurry and apears to have something one might call an 'intense twighlight'. That's because he exposed the "Film" over the entire day in order to actually make a picture, thus tracking every daylight condition and them changing with the path of the sun. This is indeed an amazing inovative feat. I would have liked to meet this guy.
Just last night I set up the last parts of a PC including CD burner and burning software for friends of mine. Onc again I noticed how far away in knowlege about computers I am from "mere mortals". The task of installing hard and software to burn CDs is a straitforward and simple task to us. We know what steps to follow, and if where stuck and the manual is nonexistant we know there should be a thing called "readme" which explains special details we ought to know. They gave me 50$ for setting up the CD-RW (and the internet connection) - at first I refused it, but they insisted and I mercyfully gave in;-). On the way home it occured to me that I have 15 years of computer expierience and that 50$ was actually a bargain for people who have other stuff to do than learn about stuff like the fact that Webpages are made of "sourcecode" and that that looks like something one can read and understand fairly well or that installing ISDN Capi under Win98SE sux big time and it usually takes 3-4 calls on the Hotline to get the message across to them where the actual problem is.
Bottom line: If I wouldn't have done it and explained the use of the software to them, they wouldn't have a burner set up. Evidently, people who are tech savy can ripp a CD considerebly easyier that other people and are much more likely to put up with the 'hassle' of doing so. This is a good arguement to make CD's cheaper.
In the 'olden days' it often wasn't worthwhile looking for somebody with the Vinil to make a cassette. The Albums where cheap anough and the Artwork often was a great bonus. Ergo: Make CD's cheaper again and include added value - then ripping won't be the big thing anymore.
"Should I by a piece of computer equipment now or wait another 6 months?"
Honestly know: What kind of answer do you expect on a question like that? In other words: A friend of mine has a saying: "The sky is blue, computers get cheaper." If a DVD-R is worth the money for you now, you need it and can afford it - then buy it. If not, don't. It's that simple.
My Boss is a lousy developer. He's often nagging about "wouldn't just a threeliner workaround do the job?" and stuff like that. But when things get tight and I'm willing to stand a fight, he shuts up and listens and usally keeps the customers of our back - our argues with them. The other side is of course that if he hadn't promised "the blue from the sky" - as we say in germany - we wouldn't have gotten into the corner in the first place. Bosses are that way. Their sellers, and if they stay fair with me and pay my roll, I'm the last one complaining about them being lousy developers. A PM has to be a bit of bouth. Pushy to the devdept., but ready to listen to a well prepared (not only the PMs and CEOs doing rubbish, mind you...) argument from R&D - if marketing and R&D work the slightest bit together in that way, things usually turn out well in the end. If not, companys usually go belly up when VC runs out the latest.
Think about what category yours belongs to (and what category of developer you are!!!) and act acordingly.
Usability becoming an issue / we need newer CUAS
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Version Fatigue
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· Score: 1
With Software bloated beyond all sanity and every thinkable feature built in, the only way vendors can seperate themselves from he pack is by issueing usability. The major improvements in the recent Micros~1 Office and in the new Macromedia Dreamteam release-cycle are usability improvements. Good, no wait, lets say: successfull software companies know how important it is to keep a certain amount of usability consistency, also, not only, but also because they want to seperate themselves from others. That's the reason why I'm having such a hard time switching from Freehand to Corel Draw:-(.
My opinion is that version fatique only realy happens with crappy software or users who aren't really up to using it the right way. Any software vendor changing the behaviour only for the sake of changing the behaviour and being able to put a new version number on the box regularly have their salenumbers blow up in their face. Exceptions are, of course, marketing monsters like Mickeysoft, that, within certain bounds, really don't need to give a damn.
Then again: With the computer invading every day live more and more, the industry needs an updated common user access standard (cuas) covering all those countless new features. Maybe even the OSS community would have a look at it then;;-).
I wouldn't be surprised if five years from now, Microsoft will end up chucking Windows and joining the party. (Or putting things into Linux that previously only Windows could do. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing...)
Aaaahh, finaly... Somebody else sees this the same way. I've been saying that for more than a year now and have been thorowly ignored on/.whenever I did. I most certain that you are right on. M$ is only milking the last bit they can take out of their classical inhouse-software-only strategy. As soon as the marketing dept. gives down word that it's over, and time to switch to a mutple OS and service strategy - they're gonna do it. And their Linux distro and subscription service is gonna kick RH, SuSE and Mandrake up and down the street - and all people are gonna think M$ invented Linux.
I wonder why people - especially IT Pros - often just don't get it: The gap between now and an age where computing is a subtatial part of cultural techniques in a way that we can't do without anymore is about as big as the gap between the stone age and the industrial revolution. Aside from the fact that technology evolves "a little faster" now, that is. In 100 years people will remember those awkward times when people fought for "Browser Standards" or some other stuff - just like when Tesla and Edison fighting over which type of current is best. Nobody would even consider rasing the debate nowadays - because it would seem (and be) utterly silly.
We have Zillions of Standards and Platforms that have such a short lifetime that they will be considered something like experimental sidesteps in 50 years from now. Considering the fact that IT is redefining itself every odd year - just like, lets say, the railroads in the beginning (anybody know how many trackwidths they had back then?) - the discussion about why "Software is bad" or if it's not, is somewhat pointless.
Everybody knows ILM and George Lucas. Them saying that Linux is 5 times faster than some other extra special plattform they've used up 'till now - without even wasting a breath on 'doze - is what convinces Execs and Deciders that Linux is a top notch OS and really cool. This article is one hell of a drumming for Linux (and Python for that matter)- I'm gonna translate it into german and show it to the people who aren't convinced yet.:-)
I'm using the m105 for something like 8 weeks now and am quite happy with it. I've got the KeyBoard and use it mostly for writing longer articles and for "offline" reading (just yesterday I took it out onto our backyard to read some man pages I had copy and pasted to text and tranfered to the palm) It saves weight, paper and most of all printing time. Only a few seconds to make your workstation docs portable - very practical. However, it's all far from ideal. Here's what I want - based on everyday use of a palm, a cellphone and all that:
1. Cellphone w. modem built in on the backside - want it to fit my ear and dont want my display all messed up and spat on:-) 2. Hardware accelerated asymetric crypto module - for text and speech (long way to go till that one - I know) 3. UHF pager built in (Skyper, Scall (german telco pager standard) - good enough for short msg. fast and high power (reaches people where Cellphones fail - in cellars, deep inside buildings, etc.) 4. Display switchable from selflit to relective as to be readable in very bright light conditions. 5. Rechargeble Cells with with minimum of +50 hrs. of juice under full throttle. 6. Shock and (spray)water resitant. 7. easy switchable outer snap-on frame (it breaks? replace it) - basically I've come to like this seemingly unimportant option on the Palm m105. 8. Good pocket/pouch available (I also like the palm-glove) 9. spare cell carger with second cell and rocksolid cellcharging management (one is getting charged - on is in the PDA) 10. Optimized screen space usage, (see Handaera) switchable alignment (also Handaera) 11. Good OS (Palm is quite ok actually) with a solid HTML 4 reader - doesn't have to display everything as intended, but it should do a good work at simulatin/substituting the stuff.
That's kinda what I would like just now. Of course one could say: "Gimme an Octane 8 Workstation the size of a bar of chocolate that runs 200 hrs on a teaspoon of saltwater", but I kinda guessed you wanted a more realistic aproach.:-) The features I listed above (ecept maybe the crypto module) are pretty much realistic and ould make for a distinct PDA on todays market.
In the "OSS War" against Mickeysoft and proprietary software it's a quite shure guess that germany is gonna fall first. Since the german parlament in Berlin has decided to migrate a substancial part of their IT infrastructure to Linux (Note: Linux - not BSD or something else) and just know larger cities and regions - like that of Munich - are about to ditch 'doze for cost saving, safety and perfomrance reasons there's a good chance of a domino effect building up enough momentum to cause the one or other OSS rupture across the IT globe. IT and especially Linux is hip and 'leet in "Krautland" - traditonally a country that relies on technology and it's know-how as main source of export - and nobody in germany wants to give himself away as somebody who isn't up to date with the latest. Thus so many german polititians and officials mentioning Linux.
Supprisingly the current conservative canditate for Cancelorship Edmund Stoiber - normaly the kind of guy who wants to forbid "Killergames" like Counterstrike (yepp, we've got better quality german alloy blockheads too:-) ) - likes to celebrate himself as a technology guru of his o-so-advanced bavaria and seems to support the movement himself. Verbaly that is.
There was something like that that REALLY happend some 50 Years ago. The War was over, germans where way past their reserves and the Marshal plan was due and germany (west) was to be brought to strength again to serve as a good buffer to the commies. The american headquaters gave word across the atlantic to ask what the germans would need (food of course). The germans back then ordered some x-hundred thousand tons of corn. (Korn) And got x-hundred thousand tons of what AMERICANS call corn. For more than a year then the germans ate corn-bread, corn-cereal, corn-soup, canned corn... corn everything, you name it. The british and the german (and a lot of other peolple) call it mais. The german word "Korn" is a word used to describe any type of grain. I guess they should have ordered grain or something like "x of wheat and y of barley".
Anyhow, most certainly one of the funniest missunderstandings in recent history.:-)
The (seemingly) eternal OSS vs. Micros~1 Talk wasn't a minutes conversation worth of an issue 5 1/2 years ago when Linux was some real freaky lowlevel stuff and the (by then small) IT professional scene was involved in a OS/2 vs. Windows95 debate with the n00bs (the ones on the Win95 side). And it will be out of fashion in the same amount of time from now on the latest.
It's kinda like Tesla and Edisons fight over the right kind of elctro currency in the rise of electricity times. The debate is over the world has moved on now that electricity has grown up since then and become a common thing. A debate like back then (something like a hundred years ago) would today just be plain pointless. Just as pointless as it would have been 70 years ago, when lightbulbs where starting to become commonplace.
And yes, this is still the very first steps of information technology, no matter what you think, and what is yet to come even M$ can keep under control completely. Does Ford build all the cars nowadays just because he invented the assembly line? See?
I really wonder why people just don't get it. Linux has reached desktop parity with other OSes barely half a year ago - and for that it's kicking serious ass. How long does anyone think Micros~1 can keep up with the 2 year get-and-pay-our-new-OS cycle that ensued with the upcoming of the then bizarely sized Win95? Especially in such mega-fast living times of today.
When the tide has turned against them M$ will go away from inhouse-only all by themselves. And certainly a solid Linux distro is also gonna be part of their package aswell - not only, but also. As i've said here on/. time and time again. But go ahead, mod me down again and fall for the legend that Mickeysoft can f*ck around for ever without nobody noticing. And fall for the illusion that Linux just now is so super easy to use for anybody and it's all evil Mickeysoft keeping the people from converting this very instant and without hesitation.
Well, I lost you somewhere in the middle... No, wait, actually I got bored - on one side that is. On the other however, I must admit that the sheer volume of your essay overwelmed me in it's might and glory and that I am very impressed of what you can make of a difference in box office throughput of two blockbuster movies currently out. As I just said I couldn't last all the way through (shame on me - I never was good on critical idealism and other philosophical stuff) but I'm shure you've gotten a serious curve from Enkidu/Gilgamesh over Plato, Moses, past Nietzsche, straight up to Timothy Leary.
I really don't understand how people allways bash you whenever you post a story (also because the bottom line being that it's actually a hideos waste of time), yet I somehow really do feel the urge to punch a pillow hard and make gnarling noises and then eventually tear it apart with a loud neandertal scream so that the stuffing goes flying all over the place whenever - yes I guess that is so - whenever I read stuff you wrote. I don't know if that is do to the fact that I'm sitting in front of a bloodless screen when I expierience (guess that's the right word) one of your articles or I get itches I can't really make out from reading it or... I just don't know...I can't..stand...*GASP*
*jumps to feet* *moves over to bed* *grabs pillow* *YAAARGH!* *OOOMPH!* *PUNCH!* *POUNDER!* etc...
BTW: For a number five in a serial of feature movies - and one that is considered especially dense with stuff that only people who are familiar with the series can grasp - I think E2 did fairly well. *cough*
BTW2: Maybe you just like to hear yourself talk/ read yourself writing a little more than others. That wouldn't be half bad if you'd work on your style a little more if it only where that it wouldn't show all that obvious anymore. I'm actually quite honest with this here.
Leaving the simple fact aside that a certain few aspects of weapon combat/massacres ARE simulated/trained by playing Egoshooters - the largest portion of skill Robert Steinhauser used in the Effurt massacre he trained in action shooting training Sessions in the local "Schuetzenverein" (the tradtional german musketeers clubs). The only place in germany where civilians can optain the right to legaly own and handle such heavy weapons as a pumpgun.
Conservative german politicians in the now-all-present pre-election phase like to leave this little detail aside nowadays whilst demanding prohibition of "Killergames". For the simple reason that a large portion of conservative voters actually come from these "traditionalists" parts.
I dont know about you folks (i've seen/smelled some incredibliy dirty geeks across the time)but I clean my Keyboard 3x a year. Not so much the bacteria but hairs/dust/grease/plain old dirt are what bothers me. (remove keys, wash, brush dirt out of frame (*bleech*), etc.) I once picked up a KB from Fleamarket. It was incredibly filthy - kinda in the sticky goo stage, specially around the keys (JUCK!). Anyway, I took it home, removed the Keycaps (IBM Model M build 1985), stuffed them in a clothbag, put that in the washing machine (50 degrees centigrade will do fine), cleaned the frame with dishwash and a scrubbing sponge (no,not the electronics), dried it with the hairdryer, assembled it back together and - wammo - had myself a top notch, shiny as new IBM Model M KB. Armor plating and all:-). Without the M$ Key (they where build way befor that time). He!
Moral: If that guy would have cleaned his KB only ONCE, he would have noticed WHAT KIND it was - and wouldn't have sold it to me for 2$:-))).
Just imagine PC games in 5 years from now. Gasp. I dig 3D grafics and stuff, and as someone doing that semi-professional I must say that that HW accelarated Displacement Mapping really got me curious. If this isn't just a hoax it could really put Matrox foot on serious 3D ground again. Even though Matrox kinda messed up for good with me as they just couldn't get OpenGL to work properly for 3 GFXCard generations in a row. (not to speak of their non-existant Linux support)
This one's slightly OT but what the heck, the switch was on VERY big iron....
A collegue of mine (who is a top notch programmer) did his service in the Bundeswehr (german military) in the early eighties. His afinity with computers lead him to request asignment as Fernmelder (the people who operate the radio). Turns out it was the dullest job he could have ever chosen. He got asigned to the bridgehead for all military communications in northern german. A tight room suffed with the latest military communication/cryptography equip one could imagine - and they weren't alowed to have a chair to sit on in there whilst reading the telex from one machine and typing it into the other for hours on end and doing nothing else than manually routing the stuff.
Anyhow, the space under the desks was crammed with rows of big, featureless boxes - some hypersecret obviously f*cking expensive electronic cryptodevices manufactured by Nixdorf/Elekluft. Featureless but for two things: Some ominous comcords would go in and out of the back and the front featured THE SWITCH. And I mean a big fat hairy dark red german Bundeswehr SWITCH - covered with a steel latch screwed tight with a M8 Bolt (that's metric threading in case you've wondered).
The Fernmelder where advised to be carefull whilst polishing the floor with that heavy polishing machine, as to NOT come against that SWITCH. Nope, they he was not told what it was for - even though he had the highest clearance for the job. Anyhow - his boredom and frustration culminated all the way to his last month on duty. He,the living router, was all by him self once again. He took out his pocket knife, losened the bolt, flicked THE SWITCH forth and back and screwed the bolt tight again. He kept a strait face whilst insisting that he'd just done his job when the commlinks went haywire. Communications where down for a week north of Muenster (kinda a third of west germany), the whole crew got that week off for homestay ("..but stay available..") and my collegue NEVER got pulled in for reserve until today. The entire Bundeswehr communication was migrated to elektronic routing that very season.
We both have concluded that it probably must have been some security mechanisim to fry the cryptodevices beyond recognition just in case the commies march in...:-)
Moral to the story: Do tell the geek what the switch is for - or he'll try it out.:-)))
Honestly now: Up your's, RH! I never really believed that your all-in-one Pro package with a two-game-demo bonus could in any way really stand up to it's price of 249,- Euro(!!!) The first time I saw that pricetag I couldn't believe my eyes! (And I had thought that recent raise of SuSE Pro from 50$ to 80$ was much) Crappy dead-tree docs (by SuSE standards anyway), less options during the easy n00by install, and not a dimes worth more on apps on their CDs/DVD.
No f*ckin' way are they gonna talk me into thinking that their measily10$ rebate is a bargain. Because it just plain isn't..
Get real, RH, you must be kiddin'.
BTW: Let's also not forget the hilarious pricing of their Red Hat Certified Engineer Training and Certification. 5000 Euro??? - Yeah, shure....
That's not the real problem with the last election in the US. The problem is that the election system sucks. The amount of votes was against Doubleyou. Period. Close or not, that's not the question.
The even bigger problem is, that the established partys don't want to fix it, because that would ask for fixage on other ends of the election system aswell. Resulting in a gain of democracy and a general loss of power for the big established partys. That's why it will stay just as crappy as it is.
BTW, the german system has simular (albeit not so extreme) issues which are gratiously overlooked by politicians for simular reasons. (the problem with the "Überhangmandate")
This letter really stuffs Mickeysoft's mouth in the conclusive argument dept.. I actually raised my mood subtantially on this rainy sunday here in germany.
However they've (MS) got quite a marketing machinery.... A well, 2 years more or less 'til *nix kicks Mickeysofts ass up and down the street - who could care? After all: Linux won't go broke. We've got all the time of the world... unless OSS is outlawed, that is:-(
Bingo! You're right on. That's one of the reasons I bought CorelDraw/PhotoPaint for Linux.
PS has Kay's Power Tools built in solid. And Kay Krause once said something like this: No fuckin' body stores his stuff in Folders that are stored in Folders that are strored in Folders. In essence he said even the standard synonyms that 'doze uses are NOT easy to use.
Kay Krause turned the technical plugin thing into that what the term plugin actually implies. Snap it on and be done with it. A plugin that I have to compile before I can plug it in is not.. well.. a plugin. PS has a solid bunch of plugins that explain themselves. They are easy to use and very powerfull, have previews and their default settings don't make the result look like someone shat on your pic.
Bottom Line: Gimp is cool, but it's something like 5 years behind.
Recently scientist found the astonishing amount of dead that have lived at some time before their demise. Prof. Harald Dumpfbacke Radab claims that by removing all living people from society, death could be reduced by up to 99.8%!
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We all know that George Lucas kinda like ignores his actors for the larger part. He gives them Freedom, he gives some advice, but he's not the Director that goes into Character bulding very much. He's all more of the 'visual poetry' type. One gets the impression, that he would just like to make a long sequence of stills, pans and enviro shot of a variety of Space Opera Worlds (Bespin, Mos Aisly (dunno how thats spelled), Endor, Deathstar Interior) - all that is his visual style and it fits the Space Opera genre he's into so very much.
Having Actors being something like Posers and not much more really doesn't bother in such a setting. On the contrary, it actualy goes along quite well.
Spielberg on the other hand - with his own distinct visual handwriting (that 80s Kiddy Candy Movie look - that's all his - even AI had it!) would spoil the esprit of SW totally!!!
He's a good director, no doupt, but keeping Spielbarg away from SW is just what I would do if I where a producer.
When it boils down to usabilty, KDE/KWin is nothing much more than a silly rippoff of the crappy Windoze CUA model. It's so much Windows in it's inflexability and "user-railroading" that it quite often just plain SUXX0RS!.
The KDE/KWin Enviroment is closer to Windows than to a well configurated Linux/Enlightenment enviroment.
And for users and coders working togther:
It's ALL about communication. If at all, we need a quick and easy way for controling usability and getting users and coders together to discuss the issues arising. Special usability mailinglists of forums for every project would kinda be the thing.
But a former Windoze user to lazy to switch to an enviroment that is so usable he can't even imagine it is NOT the right person to judge usability.
You definitely need something to project a hologram on to. It doesn't just work with thin air. (Air's invisible, remember?)
The only solution for a real walkaround 3D hologram I could think of would be some kind of plexiglas bubble filled with smoke of something other half translucent (to let the lasers through)/half "lightable" (to catch the light and reflect it for the eyes).
Am I making sense or what?
As you see, both walls, the one showing left and the right one, are lit by the sun. Also the sky seems somewhat blurry and apears to have something one might call an 'intense twighlight'.
That's because he exposed the "Film" over the entire day in order to actually make a picture, thus tracking every daylight condition and them changing with the path of the sun.
This is indeed an amazing inovative feat. I would have liked to meet this guy.
Just last night I set up the last parts of a PC including CD burner and burning software for friends of mine. ;-).
Onc again I noticed how far away in knowlege about computers I am from "mere mortals".
The task of installing hard and software to burn CDs is a straitforward and simple task to us. We know what steps to follow, and if where stuck and the manual is nonexistant we know there should be a thing called "readme" which explains special details we ought to know.
They gave me 50$ for setting up the CD-RW (and the internet connection) - at first I refused it, but they insisted and I mercyfully gave in
On the way home it occured to me that I have 15 years of computer expierience and that 50$ was actually a bargain for people who have other stuff to do than learn about stuff like the fact that Webpages are made of "sourcecode" and that that looks like something one can read and understand fairly well or that installing ISDN Capi under Win98SE sux big time and it usually takes 3-4 calls on the Hotline to get the message across to them where the actual problem is.
Bottom line: If I wouldn't have done it and explained the use of the software to them, they wouldn't have a burner set up. Evidently, people who are tech savy can ripp a CD considerebly easyier that other people and are much more likely to put up with the 'hassle' of doing so.
This is a good arguement to make CD's cheaper.
In the 'olden days' it often wasn't worthwhile looking for somebody with the Vinil to make a cassette. The Albums where cheap anough and the Artwork often was a great bonus. Ergo: Make CD's cheaper again and include added value - then ripping won't be the big thing anymore.
"Should I by a piece of computer equipment now or wait another 6 months?"
Honestly know:
What kind of answer do you expect on a question like that? In other words: A friend of mine has a saying: "The sky is blue, computers get cheaper." If a DVD-R is worth the money for you now, you need it and can afford it - then buy it. If not, don't. It's that simple.
My Boss is a lousy developer. He's often nagging about "wouldn't just a threeliner workaround do the job?" and stuff like that.
But when things get tight and I'm willing to stand a fight, he shuts up and listens and usally keeps the customers of our back - our argues with them. The other side is of course that if he hadn't promised "the blue from the sky" - as we say in germany - we wouldn't have gotten into the corner in the first place.
Bosses are that way. Their sellers, and if they stay fair with me and pay my roll, I'm the last one complaining about them being lousy developers.
A PM has to be a bit of bouth. Pushy to the devdept., but ready to listen to a well prepared (not only the PMs and CEOs doing rubbish, mind you...) argument from R&D - if marketing and R&D work the slightest bit together in that way, things usually turn out well in the end.
If not, companys usually go belly up when VC runs out the latest.
Think about what category yours belongs to (and what category of developer you are!!!) and act acordingly.
With Software bloated beyond all sanity and every thinkable feature built in, the only way vendors can seperate themselves from he pack is by issueing usability. :-(.
;;-).
The major improvements in the recent Micros~1 Office and in the new Macromedia Dreamteam release-cycle are usability improvements.
Good, no wait, lets say: successfull software companies know how important it is to keep a certain amount of usability consistency, also, not only, but also because they want to seperate themselves from others. That's the reason why I'm having such a hard time switching from Freehand to Corel Draw
My opinion is that version fatique only realy happens with crappy software or users who aren't really up to using it the right way. Any software vendor changing the behaviour only for the sake of changing the behaviour and being able to put a new version number on the box regularly have their salenumbers blow up in their face. Exceptions are, of course, marketing monsters like Mickeysoft, that, within certain bounds, really don't need to give a damn.
Then again: With the computer invading every day live more and more, the industry needs an updated common user access standard (cuas) covering all those countless new features. Maybe even the OSS community would have a look at it then
I wouldn't be surprised if five years from now, Microsoft will end up chucking Windows and joining the party. (Or putting things into Linux that previously only Windows could do. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing...)
/.whenever I did.
Aaaahh, finaly...
Somebody else sees this the same way. I've been saying that for more than a year now and have been thorowly ignored on
I most certain that you are right on. M$ is only milking the last bit they can take out of their classical inhouse-software-only strategy. As soon as the marketing dept. gives down word that it's over, and time to switch to a mutple OS and service strategy - they're gonna do it. And their Linux distro and subscription service is gonna kick RH, SuSE and Mandrake up and down the street - and all people are gonna think M$ invented Linux.
Go on, mod me down again...
I wonder why people - especially IT Pros - often just don't get it:
The gap between now and an age where computing is a subtatial part of cultural techniques in a way that we can't do without anymore is about as big as the gap between the stone age and the industrial revolution. Aside from the fact that technology evolves "a little faster" now, that is.
In 100 years people will remember those awkward times when people fought for "Browser Standards" or some other stuff - just like when Tesla and Edison fighting over which type of current is best. Nobody would even consider rasing the debate nowadays - because it would seem (and be ) utterly silly.
We have Zillions of Standards and Platforms that have such a short lifetime that they will be considered something like experimental sidesteps in 50 years from now. Considering the fact that IT is redefining itself every odd year - just like, lets say, the railroads in the beginning (anybody know how many trackwidths they had back then?) - the discussion about why "Software is bad" or if it's not, is somewhat pointless.
Everybody knows ILM and George Lucas. Them saying that Linux is 5 times faster than some other extra special plattform they've used up 'till now - without even wasting a breath on 'doze - is what convinces Execs and Deciders that Linux is a top notch OS and really cool. :-)
This article is one hell of a drumming for Linux (and Python for that matter)- I'm gonna translate it into german and show it to the people who aren't convinced yet.
I'm using the m105 for something like 8 weeks now and am quite happy with it. I've got the KeyBoard and use it mostly for writing longer articles and for "offline" reading (just yesterday I took it out onto our backyard to read some man pages I had copy and pasted to text and tranfered to the palm) It saves weight, paper and most of all printing time. Only a few seconds to make your workstation docs portable - very practical. However, it's all far from ideal. Here's what I want - based on everyday use of a palm, a cellphone and all that:
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1. Cellphone w. modem built in on the backside - want it to fit my ear and dont want my display all messed up and spat on
2. Hardware accelerated asymetric crypto module - for text and speech (long way to go till that one - I know)
3. UHF pager built in (Skyper, Scall (german telco pager standard) - good enough for short msg. fast and high power (reaches people where Cellphones fail - in cellars, deep inside buildings, etc.)
4. Display switchable from selflit to relective as to be readable in very bright light conditions.
5. Rechargeble Cells with with minimum of +50 hrs. of juice under full throttle.
6. Shock and (spray)water resitant.
7. easy switchable outer snap-on frame (it breaks? replace it) - basically I've come to like this seemingly unimportant option on the Palm m105.
8. Good pocket/pouch available (I also like the palm-glove)
9. spare cell carger with second cell and rocksolid cellcharging management (one is getting charged - on is in the PDA)
10. Optimized screen space usage, (see Handaera) switchable alignment (also Handaera)
11. Good OS (Palm is quite ok actually) with a solid HTML 4 reader - doesn't have to display everything as intended, but it should do a good work at simulatin/substituting the stuff.
That's kinda what I would like just now. Of course one could say: "Gimme an Octane 8 Workstation the size of a bar of chocolate that runs 200 hrs on a teaspoon of saltwater", but I kinda guessed you wanted a more realistic aproach.
The features I listed above (ecept maybe the crypto module) are pretty much realistic and ould make for a distinct PDA on todays market.
Hope I was of some help.
In the "OSS War" against Mickeysoft and proprietary software it's a quite shure guess that germany is gonna fall first.
:-) ) - likes to celebrate himself as a technology guru of his o-so-advanced bavaria and seems to support the movement himself. Verbaly that is.
Since the german parlament in Berlin has decided to migrate a substancial part of their IT infrastructure to Linux (Note: Linux - not BSD or something else) and just know larger cities and regions - like that of Munich - are about to ditch 'doze for cost saving, safety and perfomrance reasons there's a good chance of a domino effect building up enough momentum to cause the one or other OSS rupture across the IT globe. IT and especially Linux is hip and 'leet in "Krautland" - traditonally a country that relies on technology and it's know-how as main source of export - and nobody in germany wants to give himself away as somebody who isn't up to date with the latest. Thus so many german polititians and officials mentioning Linux.
Supprisingly the current conservative canditate for Cancelorship Edmund Stoiber - normaly the kind of guy who wants to forbid "Killergames" like Counterstrike (yepp, we've got better quality german alloy blockheads too
There was something like that that REALLY happend some 50 Years ago. ... corn everything, you name it. The british and the german (and a lot of other peolple) call it mais. The german word "Korn" is a word used to describe any type of grain.
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The War was over, germans where way past their reserves and the Marshal plan was due and germany (west) was to be brought to strength again to serve as a good buffer to the commies. The american headquaters gave word across the atlantic to ask what the germans would need (food of course).
The germans back then ordered some x-hundred thousand tons of corn. (Korn) And got x-hundred thousand tons of what AMERICANS call corn. For more than a year then the germans ate corn-bread, corn-cereal, corn-soup, canned corn
I guess they should have ordered grain or something like "x of wheat and y of barley".
Anyhow, most certainly one of the funniest missunderstandings in recent history.
Are we going to go through all this again?
/. time and time again. But go ahead, mod me down again and fall for the legend that Mickeysoft can f*ck around for ever without nobody noticing. And fall for the illusion that Linux just now is so super easy to use for anybody and it's all evil Mickeysoft keeping the people from converting this very instant and without hesitation.
The (seemingly) eternal OSS vs. Micros~1 Talk wasn't a minutes conversation worth of an issue 5 1/2 years ago when Linux was some real freaky lowlevel stuff and the (by then small) IT professional scene was involved in a OS/2 vs. Windows95 debate with the n00bs (the ones on the Win95 side). And it will be out of fashion in the same amount of time from now on the latest.
It's kinda like Tesla and Edisons fight over the right kind of elctro currency in the rise of electricity times. The debate is over the world has moved on now that electricity has grown up since then and become a common thing. A debate like back then (something like a hundred years ago) would today just be plain pointless. Just as pointless as it would have been 70 years ago, when lightbulbs where starting to become commonplace.
And yes, this is still the very first steps of information technology, no matter what you think, and what is yet to come even M$ can keep under control completely. Does Ford build all the cars nowadays just because he invented the assembly line? See?
I really wonder why people just don't get it. Linux has reached desktop parity with other OSes barely half a year ago - and for that it's kicking serious ass. How long does anyone think Micros~1 can keep up with the 2 year get-and-pay-our-new-OS cycle that ensued with the upcoming of the then bizarely sized Win95? Especially in such mega-fast living times of today.
When the tide has turned against them M$ will go away from inhouse-only all by themselves. And certainly a solid Linux distro is also gonna be part of their package aswell - not only, but also. As i've said here on
C'mon folks, get real.
Well, I lost you somewhere in the middle...
No, wait, actually I got bored - on one side that is. On the other however, I must admit that the sheer volume of your essay overwelmed me in it's might and glory and that I am very impressed of what you can make of a difference in box office throughput of two blockbuster movies currently out.
As I just said I couldn't last all the way through (shame on me - I never was good on critical idealism and other philosophical stuff) but I'm shure you've gotten a serious curve from Enkidu/Gilgamesh over Plato, Moses, past Nietzsche, straight up to Timothy Leary.
I really don't understand how people allways bash you whenever you post a story (also because the bottom line being that it's actually a hideos waste of time), yet I somehow really do feel the urge to punch a pillow hard and make gnarling noises and then eventually tear it apart with a loud neandertal scream so that the stuffing goes flying all over the place whenever - yes I guess that is so - whenever I read stuff you wrote. I don't know if that is do to the fact that I'm sitting in front of a bloodless screen when I expierience (guess that's the right word) one of your articles or I get itches I can't really make out from reading it or... I just don't know...I can't..stand...*GASP*
*jumps to feet* *moves over to bed* *grabs pillow* *YAAARGH!* *OOOMPH!* *PUNCH!* *POUNDER!*
etc...
BTW: For a number five in a serial of feature movies - and one that is considered especially dense with stuff that only people who are familiar with the series can grasp - I think E2 did fairly well. *cough*
BTW2: Maybe you just like to hear yourself talk/ read yourself writing a little more than others. That wouldn't be half bad if you'd work on your style a little more if it only where that it wouldn't show all that obvious anymore. I'm actually quite honest with this here.
Leaving the simple fact aside that a certain few aspects of weapon combat/massacres ARE simulated/trained by playing Egoshooters - the largest portion of skill Robert Steinhauser used in the Effurt massacre he trained in action shooting training Sessions in the local "Schuetzenverein" (the tradtional german musketeers clubs). The only place in germany where civilians can optain the right to legaly own and handle such heavy weapons as a pumpgun.
Conservative german politicians in the now-all-present pre-election phase like to leave this little detail aside nowadays whilst demanding prohibition of "Killergames". For the simple reason that a large portion of conservative voters actually come from these "traditionalists" parts.
I dont know about you folks (i've seen/smelled some incredibliy dirty geeks across the time)but I clean my Keyboard 3x a year. Not so much the bacteria but hairs/dust/grease/plain old dirt are what bothers me. (remove keys, wash, brush dirt out of frame (*bleech*), etc.) :-). Without the M$ Key (they where build way befor that time). He!
:-))).
I once picked up a KB from Fleamarket. It was incredibly filthy - kinda in the sticky goo stage, specially around the keys (JUCK!). Anyway, I took it home, removed the Keycaps (IBM Model M build 1985), stuffed them in a clothbag, put that in the washing machine (50 degrees centigrade will do fine), cleaned the frame with dishwash and a scrubbing sponge (no,not the electronics), dried it with the hairdryer, assembled it back together and - wammo - had myself a top notch, shiny as new IBM Model M KB. Armor plating and all
Moral: If that guy would have cleaned his KB only ONCE, he would have noticed WHAT KIND it was - and wouldn't have sold it to me for 2$
Just imagine PC games in 5 years from now.
Gasp.
I dig 3D grafics and stuff, and as someone doing that semi-professional I must say that that HW accelarated Displacement Mapping really got me curious. If this isn't just a hoax it could really put Matrox foot on serious 3D ground again. Even though Matrox kinda messed up for good with me as they just couldn't get OpenGL to work properly for 3 GFXCard generations in a row. (not to speak of their non-existant Linux support)
This one's slightly OT but what the heck, the switch was on VERY big iron....
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A collegue of mine (who is a top notch programmer) did his service in the Bundeswehr (german military) in the early eighties. His afinity with computers lead him to request asignment as Fernmelder (the people who operate the radio). Turns out it was the dullest job he could have ever chosen. He got asigned to the bridgehead for all military communications in northern german. A tight room suffed with the latest military communication/cryptography equip one could imagine - and they weren't alowed to have a chair to sit on in there whilst reading the telex from one machine and typing it into the other for hours on end and doing nothing else than manually routing the stuff.
Anyhow, the space under the desks was crammed with rows of big, featureless boxes - some hypersecret obviously f*cking expensive electronic cryptodevices manufactured by Nixdorf/Elekluft. Featureless but for two things: Some ominous comcords would go in and out of the back and the front featured THE SWITCH. And I mean a big fat hairy dark red german Bundeswehr SWITCH - covered with a steel latch screwed tight with a M8 Bolt (that's metric threading in case you've wondered).
The Fernmelder where advised to be carefull whilst polishing the floor with that heavy polishing machine, as to NOT come against that SWITCH. Nope, they he was not told what it was for - even though he had the highest clearance for the job.
Anyhow - his boredom and frustration culminated all the way to his last month on duty. He,the living router, was all by him self once again. He took out his pocket knife, losened the bolt, flicked THE SWITCH forth and back and screwed the bolt tight again.
He kept a strait face whilst insisting that he'd just done his job when the commlinks went haywire. Communications where down for a week north of Muenster (kinda a third of west germany), the whole crew got that week off for homestay ("..but stay available..") and my collegue NEVER got pulled in for reserve until today.
The entire Bundeswehr communication was migrated to elektronic routing that very season.
We both have concluded that it probably must have been some security mechanisim to fry the cryptodevices beyond recognition just in case the commies march in...
Moral to the story: Do tell the geek what the switch is for - or he'll try it out.
..when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!!!
Honestly now: Up your's, RH!
I never really believed that your all-in-one Pro package with a two-game-demo bonus could in any way really stand up to it's price of 249,- Euro(!!!)
The first time I saw that pricetag I couldn't believe my eyes! (And I had thought that recent raise of SuSE Pro from 50$ to 80$ was much)
Crappy dead-tree docs (by SuSE standards anyway), less options during the easy n00by install, and not a dimes worth more on apps on their CDs/DVD.
No f*ckin' way are they gonna talk me into thinking that their measily10$ rebate is a bargain. Because it just plain isn't..
Get real, RH, you must be kiddin'.
BTW: Let's also not forget the hilarious pricing of their Red Hat Certified Engineer Training and Certification.
5000 Euro??? - Yeah, shure....
That's not the real problem with the last election in the US. The problem is that the election system sucks.
The amount of votes was against Doubleyou. Period.
Close or not, that's not the question.
The even bigger problem is, that the established partys don't want to fix it, because that would ask for fixage on other ends of the election system aswell. Resulting in a gain of democracy and a general loss of power for the big established partys. That's why it will stay just as crappy as it is.
BTW, the german system has simular (albeit not so extreme) issues which are gratiously overlooked by politicians for simular reasons. (the problem with the "Überhangmandate")
This letter really stuffs Mickeysoft's mouth in the conclusive argument dept.. I actually raised my mood subtantially on this rainy sunday here in germany.
:-(
However they've (MS) got quite a marketing machinery....
A well, 2 years more or less 'til *nix kicks Mickeysofts ass up and down the street - who could care?
After all: Linux won't go broke. We've got all the time of the world... unless OSS is outlawed, that is
Bingo! You're right on. That's one of the reasons I bought CorelDraw/PhotoPaint for Linux.
.. well.. a plugin.
PS has Kay's Power Tools built in solid. And Kay Krause once said something like this:
No fuckin' body stores his stuff in Folders that are stored in Folders that are strored in Folders.
In essence he said even the standard synonyms that 'doze uses are NOT easy to use.
Kay Krause turned the technical plugin thing into that what the term plugin actually implies. Snap it on and be done with it. A plugin that I have to compile before I can plug it in is not
PS has a solid bunch of plugins that explain themselves. They are easy to use and very powerfull, have previews and their default settings don't make the result look like someone shat on your pic.
Bottom Line:
Gimp is cool, but it's something like 5 years behind.
Recently scientist found the astonishing amount of dead that have lived at some time before their demise.
Prof. Harald Dumpfbacke Radab claims that by removing all living people from society, death could be reduced by up to 99.8%!