I've been dealing with a rash of OpenOffice compatibility problems with MS Office that I hope don't cause my business plan to bomb in a local business plan competition. I've been discovering that the way it saves.doc files doesn't quite match with how MS Office reads them, so things end up misaligned - tables broken up, images out of place, etc. And don't even get me started on docx... I'm going to try to get a revised (MS Office-saved) version in, but I hope it's not too late.
BTW, the problem is just as bad with Microsoft Word rendering other Microsoft Word files. Just this morning, I saw this example in action in a meeting.
Last night, one of the attendees sent out some notes for us to read before the meeting. We all dutifully printed out our copy of the doc, and brought it with us to the meeting.
Despite the fact that we all run Microsoft Office (yes, the document was created with Microsoft Office) there were 3 different versions of the printed doc at the meeting. You could tell by looking around that one version of the doc (printed from Microsoft Office for Macintosh) was aligned in a weird way when moving text around a table. Another version of the doc (Microsoft Office 2007) put a pagebreak in a different spot than everyone else's copy, and put an extra blank line between a table and its caption. This was a 3-page doc with an enumerated list of paragraphs, so differences were easy to spot when looking around the table.
This was a Word document in plain DOC format, not DOCX.
If you have a document that absolutely must preserve formatting, send it as a PDF.
FreeDos is a great way to root a windows machine almost instantly. Anyone can download it, install it into a user accessible directory and gain access to ALL local files simply because it mounts the existing file system.
Well, no. The FreeDOS kernel doesn't have NTFS support built-in, so it does nothing with Windows partitions formatted with NTFS. To read those, you need to use a TSR like NTFSDOS.
If your Windows partition used some version of FAT, then FreeDOS would read that, no problem. But so would any other OS, including Linux, or another version of Windows.
How do you run FreeDOS inside DOSBox? DOSBox doesn't separate out the DOS-emulation parts from the hardware-emulation parts and doesn't support installing another OS.
Are you confusing DOSBox with DOSEMU? DOSEMU is a virtualisation program used to run DOS (MS-DOS or FreeDOS) on Linux/x86. DOSBox is a portable DOS and PC emulator.
morgan_greywolf's followup makes clear that he confused DOSEmu with DOSBox (probably because the window title under DOSEmu says "DOS in a box".)
However, the DOSBox wiki specifically mentions FreeDOS as an excellent source for utilities, many of which DOSBox does not provide internally. For example, the MORE program. Since DOSBox was originally intended to run games, DOSBox just doesn't include very much on the CLI than what you need to run games. If you want to be more of a DOS power-user (and prefer running DOSBox) then you need the utilities provided by FreeDOS.
The one requirement I have for DOS is to do bios upgrades to older laptops which still requiring booting to dos. This seems to be one use case which I didn't have much luck with FreeDOS. Is that intentional part of the design (perhaps freedos protects the bios?) or was it just an incompatibility of the bios upgrade tool I have?
At a guess, I'd put this on the BIOS upgrade tool you have. Lots of BIOS updaters run fine on FreeDOS, and in fact several vendors such as ASUS [used to?] include a bootable copy of FreeDOS with their BIOS software if you got it on CDROM. The intention was to use this bootable CDROM to install the BIOS update from DOS.
I know that ASUS did this - at least as late as 2004 - because we wrote a technote on how the ASUS CDROM that came with your motherboard was borked. Specifically, it looks like they didn't bother to completely remove the "installer" parts, which made it easy to break your Windows system by [accidentally] installing FreeDOS on it.
For those of you who read Wm Gibson's Virtual Light (1994) I'd guess we're a step closer...:-)
If you haven't read it, the book centers around a pair of special glasses that sport "Virtual Light". The concept of VL adds optical data for the wearer. In the book, this can be whatever supplemental data you've uploaded. Load the right data, and when you look at a garden though the VL glasses, you get a little tag overlayed on each plant, telling you that plant's name and other info. Cops might see forensic data overlayed when they look at a crime scene. Or a land developer might see future, planned buildings in place of what's there now.
In the book, the macguffin was supposedly the Virtual Light glasses, but really it was the data on them and what it meant to the data owner.
The issues I have with Hulu are (1) resolution (currently sucks) and (2) integration with a media appliance (lacking). I want to watch the show on my primary flatscreen TV using my remote, durnit, not on the laptop messing about with a mouse.
I tried Hulu for the first time a few months ago, when our Comcast DVR failed to pick up a series episode. It impressed me that the Hulu show resolution was much better than YouTube, although not as good as regular cable TV (but not off by much.. certainly acceptable.) Since then, my wife & I have used Hulu several times just to see if another show we'd heard about was any good (catch up on missed episodes.)
We have a Mac Mini (mostly for pushing iTunes purchases to our iPods) hooked up as another input on our flat-screen TV. We watch Hulu on that, full-screen. Use the bluetooth keyboard & mouse to set up the show, start watching, set aside the keyboard & mouse. Not as convenient as a single remote, but not too distracting.
In my ideal world, Hulu creates an "app" that you can buy ($10 or less) on the PlayStation Network store, that lets you watch Hulu right from the PlayStation. I'd love that! Note that Hulu refuses to play videos on the PS3's browser ("not supported on your platform") but the PS3 browser plays YouTube videos just fine.
For the record: They bought the PS3 because it was less expensive than the other Blu-ray players on the market. And because my wife & I have a PS3 (envy me, my wife likes videogames!) so the in-laws knew the PS3 would be "compatible" with their HDTV over HDMI.
BTW, I hope everyone gets the irony/sarcasm with my wife & I have a PS3 [and HDTV].. so the in-laws knew the PS3 would be "compatible" with their HDTV over HDMI. The in-laws don't "get" technology, so they were a little worried when - to get HD - they'd need to use this new "HDMI" thing. I tried to explain "HDMI" was a standard, like the RCA plugs on their old TV, but that only goes so far...
Do they use any of the other media features like the web browser, the music/photo viewing or the video section of the PSN store?
I bought them a $25 PSN gift card, and showed them how to rent a movie from PSN (they were impressed by the selection, but not so much by the PSN "browser" since they couldn't make the text huge.) I helped mom-in-law buy Piyotama (dropping-balls puzzle game) and she thought it was cute, but hasn't played it since that day.
They already have computers in the house (dad-in-law has a desktop in the home office, mom-in-law has a Mac laptop) so they didn't "get" why they should mess with the PS3 web browser - I tried to point out the PS3 is right there when you finish watching a movie and couldn't figure out where you'd seen the sidekick before. IMDB is a bookmark away in the PS3 browser, but mom-in-law says she'd prefer to just get her Mac laptop and look it up there. And I suppose the PS3 browser does suck a bit, so I can't blame her.
And you can probably guess they don't use the PS3 photo viewer either, since they share pics via email, so why show pics any other way? I pointed out the PS3 is like a digital photo frame (which they know about, and the dad-in-law bought one for his mom a few years ago) but they don't sit around the basement TV area unless they're watching a movie, so no point in starting the photo viewer. But I swear the next time the wife & I go on a vacation to some neat spot like Scotland or Canada, we're going to load all our photos on their PS3 so they can watch them there. That might do it.:-)
I guess I'm a bit of an oddball but I have a PS3 and have yet to watch a single blu-ray movie at home. I don't intend on purchasing any movies as blu-ray in the immediate or distant future.
And I suppose my mother/father-in-laws (who are in their 60's) are the other end of the spectrum. They bought a PS3 when they upgraded their television to an HDTV flat-screen, and have yet to play any games on it. The only PS3 games in the house are ones my brother-in-law brings over (to play when he's visiting - great idea!) But they replaced several of their favorite DVD movies with versions re-released on Blu-ray.
For the record: They bought the PS3 because it was less expensive than the other Blu-ray players on the market. And because my wife & I have a PS3 (envy me, my wife likes videogames!) so the in-laws knew the PS3 would be "compatible" with their HDTV over HDMI.
How does Free go about breaking this lock-in? I know for me if it wasn't for entertainment software I would be all over GNU. Wine steps in and fills that void somewhat but currently does not have enough compatibility to bring me over to the good side. I like Linux, I want to use it, but my games don't play in it and thats the only thing that keeps a closed OS on my desktop.
You do it by buying a Playstation or Xbox360 or Wii, and play
your games there - and watch your movies there. Use your PC for
personal computing and skip the "entertainment"
stuff.
I'm prefacing this with the fact that I ran Linux as my only OS for a year (SuSE 9) then I switched back to Microsoft. Linux and GNU are a superior development process - inclusive and plural - but Microsoft right now has the superior ecosystem.
And as far as Windows having the "superior ecosystem"? I don't think so. There's lots of stuff broken in Windows and other Microsoft products. OpenOffice.org Ninja often runs benchmarks against Microsoft and Free. Bad Vista has a list of lots of things that are wrong, but as this is from the FSF, the angle is mostly about freedoms. Or check out Linuxinexile for things that just don't work "right" under Windows, compared to Linux:
Yes and yes. It does help who just want to see the next level and it does let people bypass the essential struggle of the game, thereby 'diminishing' the meaning of playing it.
But, hey, you paid for the game, I say you should be able to access all of its content, regardless of your playing skill. I would never use the cheat option, but I'm not going to fret myself into a furor that elsewhere in the privacy of their own homes people are enjoying the game differently.
I played about 95% of "Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones". I almost gave up on the game at the other boss battle at the King's Road, where you fight two bosses at once: one with an axe, one with a sword. Barely made it. But I stopped completely when I hit the final boss battle, with the Vizier. It got waaaaay too frustrating to keep banging my head against that level. I understand the temptation to make boss battles that hard and repetitive, but that one got to be too much.
I gave up on it. I quit. Fuck it. Sold it back to GameStop.
Later, I head from some of my friends who had finished the game that the next level was, by far, the best level in the game. Too bad, I never got to play it.
You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. I said:
Imagine if people had been patenting good ideas in software since the beginning of computing. How quickly would things have developed if a patent owner was sitting on an idea and no one else could build upon it? Then, a list of some examples of some software methods that could have been patented in the past, if we patented software methods back then. In theory, when these concepts were new, you might claim in a patent filing that the methods were non-obvious (the usual test applied in patent filings.) Today, these software methods are commonplace and most are trivial (even implemented as college-level programming assignments.) The list was meant as an example how patents on these software methods clearly would have blocked or hampered technology progress up to today.
Apple's patent is really a software method. And it's stupid to allow software methods to be patentable.
Apple's patent filing, "Method and system for prolonging emergency calls," describes a system for determining when a call is an emergency call, then implementing a number of different tactics to help facilitate the call - deactivating Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or various sensors, making it harder to (accidentally) hang up, and providing options for "emergency phrase buttons," all via pre-recorded audio messages. Hey, that's a software method!
Many posters have already suggested that this should not be patentable because it's a potentially life-saving feature. Critical reflection shows why that argument does not hold much water.
I would argue that this should not be patentable because it's a software method. Imagine if people had been patenting good ideas in software since the beginning of computing. How quickly would things have developed if a patent owner was sitting on an idea and no one else could build upon it?
Patent for converting written text that describes a series of logical steps into a format that can be run directly by the computer
Patent for executing commands at a prompt via a keyboard
Patent for running more than one task at a time on a computer
Patent for responding to more than one user at a time on a computer
Patent for communicating with other computers over a network
Patent for formatting output for a teletype, plotter, or other external printing device
Patent for displaying information and accepting user input in a graphical environment that uses "desktop" metaphors to represent information
Patent for interacting with software "buttons" as a method to interact with a user: buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes, fields, text boxes, and other input
...
Patent to allow a mobile phone to disable non-critical features, make it more difficult to accidentally disconnect, and provide a method for interacting non-verbally with the receiver (such as through software "buttons") when the user dials an emergency number (such as 911 or 999).
[Lightning once striked{sic} our office building.] Our computer room was down for three days as a result. Amazon's six hour downtime looks like a big improvement.
Never had a lightning strike, but last year the building transformer that feeds our data center Fucking Exploded (I was on the other side of the building, and I tell you the earth moved.) No injuries, since it's shielded from the building by a retaining wall. Backup power (UPS, generator) went totally dark about 30 minutes later, which should never happen, but it was an odd day.
We were down for about 12 hours. And we're a University, not a Fortune-100. Massive electrical repair can happen quickly if you have the right people involved, with the right agreements.
So basically a set of servers went down, and it took down the particular instances running on those servers. Customers were still able to take the same exact image and start new instances-- it sounds like immediately. Now sure, it'd be nice if they worked out some kind of automatic clustering and failover to take care of this sort of thing for you, but when my server goes down with my dedicated host, I don't have the option to start up a new host immediately with the same exact configuration.
I don't think I read this the same way you did. From my reading, customers could fire up a new server instance, but I doubt it had their same data. Sure, the base OS configuration was the same - but same data, I don't think so.
From the article:
While Amazon was correcting the problem, it told customers they had the option of launching new server instances to replace those that went down. But customers were also able to wait for their original instances to come back up after power was restored to the hardware in question.
It takes me a while to read 40 pages, and I'm a fast reader. Especially 40 pages of olde-English legalese and latin terms.
Both times I've refused, the people asking me to sign it had no clue as to why I wouldn't sit there and read the whole damn thing while they were staring at me and waiting. I told them if they were serious, they'd give me an NDA that I could read while sitting there.
In both instances they gave me a concise version. There's simply no reason to have an NDA bigger than 5 pages.
At my work, our standard NDA is 1-page long. I mean, really, you don't need a lot of space to say "don't talk about this until we say it's ok." Everything after that in an NDA tends to address penalties.
Quick offtopic question for you: I've a PSP, and noticed that with, say, PS1 Classics, they're available for both the PSP and the PS3. Does one purchase enable play on both, should you own both? Or do you need to purchase twice?
You purchase once. I picked up '(PS1) Spyro the Dragon' for PSP/PS3. You can play it on your PS3, and you can push it to your PSP to play there. Yes, you can play on both PSP and PS3 at the same time - it doesn't "lock" you into only one platform at a time.
I don't know how to transfer save files from the PS3 to PSP, though.
Every game I own on UMD, I've already converted to ISO so that I can push it onto a memory stick. Cuts down on the annoyingly long UMD load times, makes it so that I can carry 5-6 games without worrying about losing/swapping the UMD cartridges in and out, and saves me up to 25% battery life as well.
I'm glad for you. But not everyone who owns a PSP is willing to hack it, to run homebrew on it to play ripped UMDs. Hacking your PSP is the only way to rip a UMD to ISO.
Problem #1: people hate re-paying to get something they already paid for, especially in such a short term. Yes, I know people pay money for old arcade titles or NES/SNES titles on the 360/wii services, and even a few will pay for old Playstation titles, but that's because those are OLD and many people either lost their old copy, broke it, sold it at a garage sale, or remember playing it over at a friend's place. If you turn around and tell people, two years after buying the UMD, "well if you want it on the new device you'll have to buy it again", you'll have a customer revolt.
I'm not sure you read my comment the first time around, so I'll repeat the idea: Sony isn't making the PSP Go for people who already own a PSP. Sure, some current PSP owners will probably go for the PSP Go. Those that do likely could care less that the PSP Go doesn't support UMD games. These people are happy to move on to new games, and probably don't have any (or very many) UMD games around.
But the real target audience for the PSP Go is people who don't yet own a PSP of any kind. For them, the fact that the PSP is light, small, cute, and can purchase & download games over the "innernet" can be a great draw. "You mean, I don't have to go to a store to buy games?" That's what you'll hear from people using the PSP Go.
Besides, Sony has been selling digital downloads of "UMD Classic" games via PlayStation Network for a while now. I think both Ratchet & Clank Size Matters and Loco Roco are now available for digital download. I already own those games on UMD. It doesn't bother me that they are re-selling these games on PSN - I already have them, so I don't care. They aren't forcing me to re-purchase them. Actually, I've picked up a few PSP games I hadn't played before, because they were available on PSN and looked interesting (incidentally, I couldn't find a few of them as either new or used copies at my local game shop - so PSN was the way to go, for me.)
My PSP-1001 is still going strong. I suspect it will outlast my old "favorites" - I'm pretty much done with 2 of them - so by the time it dies and I get a PSP Go, I don't think I'll have any UMD games to worry about anyway.
--
The "problems" #2 and #3 that you listed are trolls, though.
#2 - I think I'm paraphrasing Didier Malenfant, President Ready at Dawn (who made the totally awesome Daxter game) when he said "the PSP has one analog stick, but that doesn't stop anyone from making great games if you approach the game with the right design.":-)
You loose the UMD so you loose access to all the cheap used games and the old PSP will get a software update to allow you to get games online just like the go.
I don't know that you actually have a PSP, or you'd know that the current PSP can already access the PlayStation Network online store to buy games (not movies, though... probably too big to download over wifi?) I've downloaded some demos directly to my PSP-1001 using PSN, and it works fine.
I haven't purchased PSP downloadable games on my PSP through PSN, though. That's because I have a PS3 also, and I'd rather buy games via the PS3, and use the PS3's hard drive as a "repository" of my purchased downloadable games. I push purchased games to the PSP when I want to play them.
And yes, I've bought a lot of PSP games through PSN. Cuboid, SOCOM Fire Team Bravo, Puzzle Quest, etc. Actually, I probably wouldn't have bought SOCOM FTB except that it was pretty cheap on PSN, and I figured what the heck. (Turns out, I liked it.)
Yes, you lose access to all the used PSP games that are already out on UMD. That matters (somewhat) to people like me who already have a PSP and have a (small) library of PSP-UMD games that I occasionally re-play: Daxter, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, Star Wars: Battefront 2, SOCOM Tactical Strike, Lumines, Loco Roco. (A few of these are now available via PSN as "UMD classic" downloadable games, for less $$ than the cost of the game on UMD.) And I buy the occasional PS1 game from PSN: Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot. (I still have my original Spyro trilogy on PS1 discs, but re-purchased it anyway so I could play it on my PSP.) When my current PSP-1001 dies, and I replace it with a PSP Go, I'll probably have to re-purchase any of those old (great) games that I still want to re-play. Or, I could look for a (used?) PSP that supports UMD. So here's hopin' my PSP-1001 outlasts the "replay value" of those old PSP-UMD games.
Aside: I also still have a few UMD movies. To be honest, though, I don't really re-watch movies. I only watch(ed) UMD movies when I went on business trips, but as soon as the PSN store offered movie rentals (where the SD version could be "pushed" to a PSP to watch there) I only watched new stuff that were rented. Not that there are any new UMD movies, anyway...
But back to the point - Sony isn't making the PSP Go for you & me. They are making it for people who don't (yet) have a PSP and would be willing to buy one. That's why Sony is making such a big deal that the PSP Go can purchase games from PlayStation Network. It will attract more people to the PSP Go. It's the same crowd that buy apps for their iPhone. Or PC games from Steam. Same concept, different price points.
When Slashdot discussed the PSP Go a few weeks ago, I posted a bit of advice for Sony, to help with immediate adoption of the PSP Go. I'll repeat it here:
Hint to Sony: When you release the PSP Go, please also release [at least] the top 50% of games from your UMD PSP game catalog as digital downloads from PlayStation Network, so PSP Go owners can buy older, popular games. Really, I'm telling you to make half of your "UMD classic" games available on PSN. Just do it. It's the only way you'll build traction for the PSP Go.
In the context of the story, the issue at hand is that Google is being pressured by "the Linux community" to develop a version of their browser "for Linux". If your Debian desktop is different than my Fedora desktop, then we can't both run Chrome. Either Google targets Fedora, or Debian, or OpenBSD, or, or or... That's the "problem" (challenge?) with "developing for Linux."
When big-iron UNIX systems were everywhere, the vendors realized the same problem about every system looking slightly different. So they created the FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.
When Linux distros started to become popular, the Linux vendors came to the same realization, and defined the FSSTND (Filesystem Standard.)
The next step in the evolution is to define a standard toolset & API. What is the minimum base set of API that a system needs to allow 3rd party developers (like Google) to develop to a "common" Linux desktop?
The PSP Go has no UMD, so what happens for someone who has UMD games already?
Your idea of an external UMD dock seems like a workable idea. Not ideal, but workable. It's similar to a USB DVD drive for a laptop/netbook: just plug in the external UMD drive into a PSP Go, and play games / watch movies as normal.
I have a PSP-1001, and own maybe 5-6 games on UMD, and another 5-6 movies on UMD. (The PSP makes a great movie player on cross-country flights.) I just bought SOCOM: Tactical Strike for PSP, which is only available on UMD. I'm almost finished on my first play-through, and already I can tell it's a game I'll play again later. (Just like Daxter and Battlefront 2... the graphics stand up well over time.)
It really would be too bad to "lose" the games I already own if my current PSP dies, and I buy a PSP Go. And it wouldn't be fair to re-purchase them.
That said, if you were fairly new to the PSP concept and bought a PSP Go, I can see how this would be very useful. Especially with all the PSP and PSP/PS1 games on PlayStation Network.
Hint to Sony: When you release the PSP Go, please also release [at least] the top 50% of games from your UMD PSP game catalog as digital downloads from PlayStation Network, so PSP Go owners can buy older, popular games. Really, I'm telling you to make half of your "UMD classic" games available on PSN. Just do it. It's the only way you'll build traction for the PSP Go.
Oh, but the problem is that the real reasons why working in Ubuntu is better than working on Windows can't be seen in screenies. It's the sum of many small great touches:)
Overall, I've been a Linux user (at home) since 1993. I've been fortunate enough to run Linux full-time at work since 2002- until January this year. (My new boss isn't a fan.) So I'm in a great position to do a feature comparison of all the things that function better for doing work in Linux than with Windows.
Check out this blog: Linux in Exile (updated about once a week)
The difference between Windows and Linux has been shocking, to say the least. Since I find it interesting when long-time Windows users experiment with Linux for the first time, I thought it might be equally interesting for me to blog about my first experience running Windows in over 6 or 7 years.
Until there is a Linux distro that "just works" as well as an average new windows installation, there will only be niche uptake of Linux.
My wife has run Linux on a laptop since sometime around 1998-1999. Laptops are notorious for having lots of difficult-to-support hardware in them. Yet when I install Linux (was Red Hat, now Fedora) every time it "just works". Wireless networking, graphics, and all the stuff she needed. When we upgraded her laptop to a newer one (Lenovo, in this case) again the hardware "just worked" with Linux.
For my wife (who definitely is not a technical user) I'd say Linux is already there.
My wife knows little about technology, and just needs a system that lets her browse the web, do email (client-based, not webmail), update spreadsheets (home finance stuff), and write docs (she finished up her Master's thesis using Linux.) She's very happy with Firefox, Thunderbird (she doesn't much like Evolution), and OpenOffice. Granted, she isn't a gamer, just an average user.
It was 1993, and I installed Slackware Linux 1.03 (Linux kernel 0.99 pl11, I think) on my '386 PC. I was still a physics student then, and was starting to do more with computational lab analysis in FORTRAN77 (random sampling of data, R-K simulation, etc.) I used to make frequent trips to the UNIX labs to do my analysis there, which was actually better than using the (shared) systems via the campus dialup.
Before moving to Linux, my primary platform was MS-DOS. I used WordPerfect 5.1 to write term papers and lab write-ups, and As-Easy-as 5 (a shareware Lotus 1-2-3 clone) to do my spreadsheet-driven data analysis (linear fit, std dev, etc.)
Moving to Linux certainly made my lab analysis easier (using 'f77') since I could now do it all from my dorm room with no trips to the labs. I could run X Windows (using 'twm') same as the labs. I had already tinkered with LaTeX before then, so it was easy to switch to that to write the rest of my college papers. I don't remember what I used as my spreadsheet under Linux, but I know I had one. And I had a terminal emulator (looked a lot like ProComm) so I could dial into the main computer lab if I needed to use Mathematica.
Later, DOSEmu let me run MS-DOS under Linux, so I eventually moved back to As-Easy-As until I graduated in 1995.
I remember that the success of Linux, even then, encouraged me that we could get a free version of DOS off the ground in 1994, when Microsoft hinted that DOS would "die" in 1995.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
I've been dealing with a rash of OpenOffice compatibility problems with MS Office that I hope don't cause my business plan to bomb in a local business plan competition. I've been discovering that the way it saves .doc files doesn't quite match with how MS Office reads them, so things end up misaligned - tables broken up, images out of place, etc. And don't even get me started on docx... I'm going to try to get a revised (MS Office-saved) version in, but I hope it's not too late.
BTW, the problem is just as bad with Microsoft Word rendering other Microsoft Word files. Just this morning, I saw this example in action in a meeting.
Last night, one of the attendees sent out some notes for us to read before the meeting. We all dutifully printed out our copy of the doc, and brought it with us to the meeting.
Despite the fact that we all run Microsoft Office (yes, the document was created with Microsoft Office) there were 3 different versions of the printed doc at the meeting. You could tell by looking around that one version of the doc (printed from Microsoft Office for Macintosh) was aligned in a weird way when moving text around a table. Another version of the doc (Microsoft Office 2007) put a pagebreak in a different spot than everyone else's copy, and put an extra blank line between a table and its caption. This was a 3-page doc with an enumerated list of paragraphs, so differences were easy to spot when looking around the table.
This was a Word document in plain DOC format, not DOCX.
If you have a document that absolutely must preserve formatting, send it as a PDF.
FreeDos is a great way to root a windows machine almost instantly. Anyone can download it, install it into a user accessible directory and gain access to ALL local files simply because it mounts the existing file system.
Well, no. The FreeDOS kernel doesn't have NTFS support built-in, so it does nothing with Windows partitions formatted with NTFS. To read those, you need to use a TSR like NTFSDOS.
If your Windows partition used some version of FAT, then FreeDOS would read that, no problem. But so would any other OS, including Linux, or another version of Windows.
-jh
How do you run FreeDOS inside DOSBox? DOSBox doesn't separate out the DOS-emulation parts from the hardware-emulation parts and doesn't support installing another OS. Are you confusing DOSBox with DOSEMU? DOSEMU is a virtualisation program used to run DOS (MS-DOS or FreeDOS) on Linux/x86. DOSBox is a portable DOS and PC emulator.
morgan_greywolf's followup makes clear that he confused DOSEmu with DOSBox (probably because the window title under DOSEmu says "DOS in a box".)
However, the DOSBox wiki specifically mentions FreeDOS as an excellent source for utilities, many of which DOSBox does not provide internally. For example, the MORE program. Since DOSBox was originally intended to run games, DOSBox just doesn't include very much on the CLI than what you need to run games. If you want to be more of a DOS power-user (and prefer running DOSBox) then you need the utilities provided by FreeDOS.
-jh
The one requirement I have for DOS is to do bios upgrades to older laptops which still requiring booting to dos. This seems to be one use case which I didn't have much luck with FreeDOS. Is that intentional part of the design (perhaps freedos protects the bios?) or was it just an incompatibility of the bios upgrade tool I have?
At a guess, I'd put this on the BIOS upgrade tool you have. Lots of BIOS updaters run fine on FreeDOS, and in fact several vendors such as ASUS [used to?] include a bootable copy of FreeDOS with their BIOS software if you got it on CDROM. The intention was to use this bootable CDROM to install the BIOS update from DOS.
I know that ASUS did this - at least as late as 2004 - because we wrote a technote on how the ASUS CDROM that came with your motherboard was borked. Specifically, it looks like they didn't bother to completely remove the "installer" parts, which made it easy to break your Windows system by [accidentally] installing FreeDOS on it.
-jh
For those of you who read Wm Gibson's Virtual Light (1994) I'd guess we're a step closer ... :-)
If you haven't read it, the book centers around a pair of special glasses that sport "Virtual Light". The concept of VL adds optical data for the wearer. In the book, this can be whatever supplemental data you've uploaded. Load the right data, and when you look at a garden though the VL glasses, you get a little tag overlayed on each plant, telling you that plant's name and other info. Cops might see forensic data overlayed when they look at a crime scene. Or a land developer might see future, planned buildings in place of what's there now.
In the book, the macguffin was supposedly the Virtual Light glasses, but really it was the data on them and what it meant to the data owner.
The issues I have with Hulu are (1) resolution (currently sucks) and (2) integration with a media appliance (lacking). I want to watch the show on my primary flatscreen TV using my remote, durnit, not on the laptop messing about with a mouse.
I tried Hulu for the first time a few months ago, when our Comcast DVR failed to pick up a series episode. It impressed me that the Hulu show resolution was much better than YouTube, although not as good as regular cable TV (but not off by much .. certainly acceptable.) Since then, my wife & I have used Hulu several times just to see if another show we'd heard about was any good (catch up on missed episodes.)
We have a Mac Mini (mostly for pushing iTunes purchases to our iPods) hooked up as another input on our flat-screen TV. We watch Hulu on that, full-screen. Use the bluetooth keyboard & mouse to set up the show, start watching, set aside the keyboard & mouse. Not as convenient as a single remote, but not too distracting.
In my ideal world, Hulu creates an "app" that you can buy ($10 or less) on the PlayStation Network store, that lets you watch Hulu right from the PlayStation. I'd love that! Note that Hulu refuses to play videos on the PS3's browser ("not supported on your platform") but the PS3 browser plays YouTube videos just fine.
For the record: They bought the PS3 because it was less expensive than the other Blu-ray players on the market. And because my wife & I have a PS3 (envy me, my wife likes videogames!) so the in-laws knew the PS3 would be "compatible" with their HDTV over HDMI.
BTW, I hope everyone gets the irony/sarcasm with my wife & I have a PS3 [and HDTV] .. so the in-laws knew the PS3 would be "compatible" with their HDTV over HDMI. The in-laws don't "get" technology, so they were a little worried when - to get HD - they'd need to use this new "HDMI" thing. I tried to explain "HDMI" was a standard, like the RCA plugs on their old TV, but that only goes so far ...
Do they use any of the other media features like the web browser, the music/photo viewing or the video section of the PSN store?
I bought them a $25 PSN gift card, and showed them how to rent a movie from PSN (they were impressed by the selection, but not so much by the PSN "browser" since they couldn't make the text huge.) I helped mom-in-law buy Piyotama (dropping-balls puzzle game) and she thought it was cute, but hasn't played it since that day.
They already have computers in the house (dad-in-law has a desktop in the home office, mom-in-law has a Mac laptop) so they didn't "get" why they should mess with the PS3 web browser - I tried to point out the PS3 is right there when you finish watching a movie and couldn't figure out where you'd seen the sidekick before. IMDB is a bookmark away in the PS3 browser, but mom-in-law says she'd prefer to just get her Mac laptop and look it up there. And I suppose the PS3 browser does suck a bit, so I can't blame her.
And you can probably guess they don't use the PS3 photo viewer either, since they share pics via email, so why show pics any other way? I pointed out the PS3 is like a digital photo frame (which they know about, and the dad-in-law bought one for his mom a few years ago) but they don't sit around the basement TV area unless they're watching a movie, so no point in starting the photo viewer. But I swear the next time the wife & I go on a vacation to some neat spot like Scotland or Canada, we're going to load all our photos on their PS3 so they can watch them there. That might do it. :-)
I guess I'm a bit of an oddball but I have a PS3 and have yet to watch a single blu-ray movie at home. I don't intend on purchasing any movies as blu-ray in the immediate or distant future.
And I suppose my mother/father-in-laws (who are in their 60's) are the other end of the spectrum. They bought a PS3 when they upgraded their television to an HDTV flat-screen, and have yet to play any games on it. The only PS3 games in the house are ones my brother-in-law brings over (to play when he's visiting - great idea!) But they replaced several of their favorite DVD movies with versions re-released on Blu-ray.
For the record: They bought the PS3 because it was less expensive than the other Blu-ray players on the market. And because my wife & I have a PS3 (envy me, my wife likes videogames!) so the in-laws knew the PS3 would be "compatible" with their HDTV over HDMI.
How does Free go about breaking this lock-in? I know for me if it wasn't for entertainment software I would be all over GNU. Wine steps in and fills that void somewhat but currently does not have enough compatibility to bring me over to the good side. I like Linux, I want to use it, but my games don't play in it and thats the only thing that keeps a closed OS on my desktop.
You do it by buying a Playstation or Xbox360 or Wii, and play your games there - and watch your movies there. Use your PC for personal computing and skip the "entertainment" stuff.
I'm prefacing this with the fact that I ran Linux as my only OS for a year (SuSE 9) then I switched back to Microsoft. Linux and GNU are a superior development process - inclusive and plural - but Microsoft right now has the superior ecosystem.
And as far as Windows having the "superior ecosystem"? I don't think so. There's lots of stuff broken in Windows and other Microsoft products. OpenOffice.org Ninja often runs benchmarks against Microsoft and Free. Bad Vista has a list of lots of things that are wrong, but as this is from the FSF, the angle is mostly about freedoms. Or check out Linuxinexile for things that just don't work "right" under Windows, compared to Linux:
Doesn't sound like a "superior ecosystem" to me. But hey, to each his own, I guess.
Yes and yes. It does help who just want to see the next level and it does let people bypass the essential struggle of the game, thereby 'diminishing' the meaning of playing it. But, hey, you paid for the game, I say you should be able to access all of its content, regardless of your playing skill. I would never use the cheat option, but I'm not going to fret myself into a furor that elsewhere in the privacy of their own homes people are enjoying the game differently.
I played about 95% of "Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones". I almost gave up on the game at the other boss battle at the King's Road, where you fight two bosses at once: one with an axe, one with a sword. Barely made it. But I stopped completely when I hit the final boss battle, with the Vizier. It got waaaaay too frustrating to keep banging my head against that level. I understand the temptation to make boss battles that hard and repetitive, but that one got to be too much.
I gave up on it. I quit. Fuck it. Sold it back to GameStop.
Later, I head from some of my friends who had finished the game that the next level was, by far, the best level in the game. Too bad, I never got to play it.
You seem to have missed the entire point of my post. I said: Imagine if people had been patenting good ideas in software since the beginning of computing. How quickly would things have developed if a patent owner was sitting on an idea and no one else could build upon it? Then, a list of some examples of some software methods that could have been patented in the past, if we patented software methods back then. In theory, when these concepts were new, you might claim in a patent filing that the methods were non-obvious (the usual test applied in patent filings.) Today, these software methods are commonplace and most are trivial (even implemented as college-level programming assignments.) The list was meant as an example how patents on these software methods clearly would have blocked or hampered technology progress up to today.
Apple's patent is really a software method. And it's stupid to allow software methods to be patentable.
Apple's patent filing, "Method and system for prolonging emergency calls," describes a system for determining when a call is an emergency call, then implementing a number of different tactics to help facilitate the call - deactivating Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or various sensors, making it harder to (accidentally) hang up, and providing options for "emergency phrase buttons," all via pre-recorded audio messages. Hey, that's a software method!
Many posters have already suggested that this should not be patentable because it's a potentially life-saving feature. Critical reflection shows why that argument does not hold much water.
I would argue that this should not be patentable because it's a software method. Imagine if people had been patenting good ideas in software since the beginning of computing. How quickly would things have developed if a patent owner was sitting on an idea and no one else could build upon it?
Software patents are stupid.
[Lightning once striked{sic} our office building.] Our computer room was down for three days as a result. Amazon's six hour downtime looks like a big improvement.
Never had a lightning strike, but last year the building transformer that feeds our data center Fucking Exploded (I was on the other side of the building, and I tell you the earth moved.) No injuries, since it's shielded from the building by a retaining wall. Backup power (UPS, generator) went totally dark about 30 minutes later, which should never happen, but it was an odd day.
We were down for about 12 hours. And we're a University, not a Fortune-100. Massive electrical repair can happen quickly if you have the right people involved, with the right agreements.
So basically a set of servers went down, and it took down the particular instances running on those servers. Customers were still able to take the same exact image and start new instances-- it sounds like immediately. Now sure, it'd be nice if they worked out some kind of automatic clustering and failover to take care of this sort of thing for you, but when my server goes down with my dedicated host, I don't have the option to start up a new host immediately with the same exact configuration.
I don't think I read this the same way you did. From my reading, customers could fire up a new server instance, but I doubt it had their same data. Sure, the base OS configuration was the same - but same data, I don't think so.
From the article:
While Amazon was correcting the problem, it told customers they had the option of launching new server instances to replace those that went down. But customers were also able to wait for their original instances to come back up after power was restored to the hardware in question.
It takes me a while to read 40 pages, and I'm a fast reader. Especially 40 pages of olde-English legalese and latin terms. Both times I've refused, the people asking me to sign it had no clue as to why I wouldn't sit there and read the whole damn thing while they were staring at me and waiting. I told them if they were serious, they'd give me an NDA that I could read while sitting there. In both instances they gave me a concise version. There's simply no reason to have an NDA bigger than 5 pages.
At my work, our standard NDA is 1-page long. I mean, really, you don't need a lot of space to say "don't talk about this until we say it's ok." Everything after that in an NDA tends to address penalties.
Depending on the amount of pr0n in its harddrive, the outcome could be pretty sticky.
Penalty! Bad joke, two minutes in the box. :-)
Quick offtopic question for you: I've a PSP, and noticed that with, say, PS1 Classics, they're available for both the PSP and the PS3. Does one purchase enable play on both, should you own both? Or do you need to purchase twice?
You purchase once. I picked up '(PS1) Spyro the Dragon' for PSP/PS3. You can play it on your PS3, and you can push it to your PSP to play there. Yes, you can play on both PSP and PS3 at the same time - it doesn't "lock" you into only one platform at a time.
I don't know how to transfer save files from the PS3 to PSP, though.
Every game I own on UMD, I've already converted to ISO so that I can push it onto a memory stick. Cuts down on the annoyingly long UMD load times, makes it so that I can carry 5-6 games without worrying about losing/swapping the UMD cartridges in and out, and saves me up to 25% battery life as well.
I'm glad for you. But not everyone who owns a PSP is willing to hack it, to run homebrew on it to play ripped UMDs. Hacking your PSP is the only way to rip a UMD to ISO.
Problem #1: people hate re-paying to get something they already paid for, especially in such a short term. Yes, I know people pay money for old arcade titles or NES/SNES titles on the 360/wii services, and even a few will pay for old Playstation titles, but that's because those are OLD and many people either lost their old copy, broke it, sold it at a garage sale, or remember playing it over at a friend's place. If you turn around and tell people, two years after buying the UMD, "well if you want it on the new device you'll have to buy it again", you'll have a customer revolt.
I'm not sure you read my comment the first time around, so I'll repeat the idea: Sony isn't making the PSP Go for people who already own a PSP. Sure, some current PSP owners will probably go for the PSP Go. Those that do likely could care less that the PSP Go doesn't support UMD games. These people are happy to move on to new games, and probably don't have any (or very many) UMD games around.
But the real target audience for the PSP Go is people who don't yet own a PSP of any kind. For them, the fact that the PSP is light, small, cute, and can purchase & download games over the "innernet" can be a great draw. "You mean, I don't have to go to a store to buy games?" That's what you'll hear from people using the PSP Go.
Besides, Sony has been selling digital downloads of "UMD Classic" games via PlayStation Network for a while now. I think both Ratchet & Clank Size Matters and Loco Roco are now available for digital download. I already own those games on UMD. It doesn't bother me that they are re-selling these games on PSN - I already have them, so I don't care. They aren't forcing me to re-purchase them. Actually, I've picked up a few PSP games I hadn't played before, because they were available on PSN and looked interesting (incidentally, I couldn't find a few of them as either new or used copies at my local game shop - so PSN was the way to go, for me.)
My PSP-1001 is still going strong. I suspect it will outlast my old "favorites" - I'm pretty much done with 2 of them - so by the time it dies and I get a PSP Go, I don't think I'll have any UMD games to worry about anyway.
--
The "problems" #2 and #3 that you listed are trolls, though.
#2 - I think I'm paraphrasing Didier Malenfant, President Ready at Dawn (who made the totally awesome Daxter game) when he said "the PSP has one analog stick, but that doesn't stop anyone from making great games if you approach the game with the right design." :-)
#3 - Then buy different games.
You loose the UMD so you loose access to all the cheap used games and the old PSP will get a software update to allow you to get games online just like the go.
I don't know that you actually have a PSP, or you'd know that the current PSP can already access the PlayStation Network online store to buy games (not movies, though ... probably too big to download over wifi?) I've downloaded some demos directly to my PSP-1001 using PSN, and it works fine.
I haven't purchased PSP downloadable games on my PSP through PSN, though. That's because I have a PS3 also, and I'd rather buy games via the PS3, and use the PS3's hard drive as a "repository" of my purchased downloadable games. I push purchased games to the PSP when I want to play them.
And yes, I've bought a lot of PSP games through PSN. Cuboid, SOCOM Fire Team Bravo, Puzzle Quest, etc. Actually, I probably wouldn't have bought SOCOM FTB except that it was pretty cheap on PSN, and I figured what the heck. (Turns out, I liked it.)
Yes, you lose access to all the used PSP games that are already out on UMD. That matters (somewhat) to people like me who already have a PSP and have a (small) library of PSP-UMD games that I occasionally re-play: Daxter, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, Star Wars: Battefront 2, SOCOM Tactical Strike, Lumines, Loco Roco. (A few of these are now available via PSN as "UMD classic" downloadable games, for less $$ than the cost of the game on UMD.) And I buy the occasional PS1 game from PSN: Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot. (I still have my original Spyro trilogy on PS1 discs, but re-purchased it anyway so I could play it on my PSP.) When my current PSP-1001 dies, and I replace it with a PSP Go, I'll probably have to re-purchase any of those old (great) games that I still want to re-play. Or, I could look for a (used?) PSP that supports UMD. So here's hopin' my PSP-1001 outlasts the "replay value" of those old PSP-UMD games.
Aside: I also still have a few UMD movies. To be honest, though, I don't really re-watch movies. I only watch(ed) UMD movies when I went on business trips, but as soon as the PSN store offered movie rentals (where the SD version could be "pushed" to a PSP to watch there) I only watched new stuff that were rented. Not that there are any new UMD movies, anyway ...
But back to the point - Sony isn't making the PSP Go for you & me. They are making it for people who don't (yet) have a PSP and would be willing to buy one. That's why Sony is making such a big deal that the PSP Go can purchase games from PlayStation Network. It will attract more people to the PSP Go. It's the same crowd that buy apps for their iPhone. Or PC games from Steam. Same concept, different price points.
When Slashdot discussed the PSP Go a few weeks ago, I posted a bit of advice for Sony, to help with immediate adoption of the PSP Go. I'll repeat it here:
Hint to Sony: When you release the PSP Go, please also release [at least] the top 50% of games from your UMD PSP game catalog as digital downloads from PlayStation Network, so PSP Go owners can buy older, popular games. Really, I'm telling you to make half of your "UMD classic" games available on PSN. Just do it. It's the only way you'll build traction for the PSP Go.
In the context of the story, the issue at hand is that Google is being pressured by "the Linux community" to develop a version of their browser "for Linux". If your Debian desktop is different than my Fedora desktop, then we can't both run Chrome. Either Google targets Fedora, or Debian, or OpenBSD, or, or or... That's the "problem" (challenge?) with "developing for Linux."
When big-iron UNIX systems were everywhere, the vendors realized the same problem about every system looking slightly different. So they created the FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.
When Linux distros started to become popular, the Linux vendors came to the same realization, and defined the FSSTND (Filesystem Standard.)
The next step in the evolution is to define a standard toolset & API. What is the minimum base set of API that a system needs to allow 3rd party developers (like Google) to develop to a "common" Linux desktop?
The PSP Go has no UMD, so what happens for someone who has UMD games already?
Your idea of an external UMD dock seems like a workable idea. Not ideal, but workable. It's similar to a USB DVD drive for a laptop/netbook: just plug in the external UMD drive into a PSP Go, and play games / watch movies as normal.
I have a PSP-1001, and own maybe 5-6 games on UMD, and another 5-6 movies on UMD. (The PSP makes a great movie player on cross-country flights.) I just bought SOCOM: Tactical Strike for PSP, which is only available on UMD. I'm almost finished on my first play-through, and already I can tell it's a game I'll play again later. (Just like Daxter and Battlefront 2 ... the graphics stand up well over time.)
It really would be too bad to "lose" the games I already own if my current PSP dies, and I buy a PSP Go. And it wouldn't be fair to re-purchase them.
That said, if you were fairly new to the PSP concept and bought a PSP Go, I can see how this would be very useful. Especially with all the PSP and PSP/PS1 games on PlayStation Network.
Hint to Sony: When you release the PSP Go, please also release [at least] the top 50% of games from your UMD PSP game catalog as digital downloads from PlayStation Network, so PSP Go owners can buy older, popular games. Really, I'm telling you to make half of your "UMD classic" games available on PSN. Just do it. It's the only way you'll build traction for the PSP Go.
Oh, but the problem is that the real reasons why working in Ubuntu is better than working on Windows can't be seen in screenies. It's the sum of many small great touches :)
Overall, I've been a Linux user (at home) since 1993. I've been fortunate enough to run Linux full-time at work since 2002- until January this year. (My new boss isn't a fan.) So I'm in a great position to do a feature comparison of all the things that function better for doing work in Linux than with Windows.
Check out this blog: Linux in Exile (updated about once a week)
The difference between Windows and Linux has been shocking, to say the least. Since I find it interesting when long-time Windows users experiment with Linux for the first time, I thought it might be equally interesting for me to blog about my first experience running Windows in over 6 or 7 years.
Until there is a Linux distro that "just works" as well as an average new windows installation, there will only be niche uptake of Linux.
My wife has run Linux on a laptop since sometime around 1998-1999. Laptops are notorious for having lots of difficult-to-support hardware in them. Yet when I install Linux (was Red Hat, now Fedora) every time it "just works". Wireless networking, graphics, and all the stuff she needed. When we upgraded her laptop to a newer one (Lenovo, in this case) again the hardware "just worked" with Linux.
For my wife (who definitely is not a technical user) I'd say Linux is already there.
My wife knows little about technology, and just needs a system that lets her browse the web, do email (client-based, not webmail), update spreadsheets (home finance stuff), and write docs (she finished up her Master's thesis using Linux.) She's very happy with Firefox, Thunderbird (she doesn't much like Evolution), and OpenOffice. Granted, she isn't a gamer, just an average user.
It was 1993, and I installed Slackware Linux 1.03 (Linux kernel 0.99 pl11, I think) on my '386 PC. I was still a physics student then, and was starting to do more with computational lab analysis in FORTRAN77 (random sampling of data, R-K simulation, etc.) I used to make frequent trips to the UNIX labs to do my analysis there, which was actually better than using the (shared) systems via the campus dialup.
Before moving to Linux, my primary platform was MS-DOS. I used WordPerfect 5.1 to write term papers and lab write-ups, and As-Easy-as 5 (a shareware Lotus 1-2-3 clone) to do my spreadsheet-driven data analysis (linear fit, std dev, etc.)
Moving to Linux certainly made my lab analysis easier (using 'f77') since I could now do it all from my dorm room with no trips to the labs. I could run X Windows (using 'twm') same as the labs. I had already tinkered with LaTeX before then, so it was easy to switch to that to write the rest of my college papers. I don't remember what I used as my spreadsheet under Linux, but I know I had one. And I had a terminal emulator (looked a lot like ProComm) so I could dial into the main computer lab if I needed to use Mathematica.
Later, DOSEmu let me run MS-DOS under Linux, so I eventually moved back to As-Easy-As until I graduated in 1995.
I remember that the success of Linux, even then, encouraged me that we could get a free version of DOS off the ground in 1994, when Microsoft hinted that DOS would "die" in 1995. :-)