Ever tried to share a printer connected to a Mac with Windows machines?
Yes. The problems are usually on the Windows end because of lack of installed drivers. That OS X doesn't share out windows drivers is not Apple's fault. Likewise, the fact that there are several incompatible methods for sharing windows printers and that a driver may only expect a single type may cause problems. The same problems that OS X has with sharing Windows printers is shared by Samba on other Unix platforms.
Ever had to reboot to make your network shares re-appear?
Yes. Almost every time on my Win XP SP2 box when I want to use it over the network. Quite often, it can't see itself! Again, not an apple problem, but Microsoft futzing with SMB/CIFS. I've never had to reboot my Mac to make network shares re-appear, as all it takes is a netbios query. Do you know anything about Windows networking? Like the fact that sometimes it can take up to fifteen minutes for a change in sharing to propagate, or that slap-fights and hissy fits between domain controllers can take down all Windows networking on an entire subnet? Do some reading on Samba and educate yourself before you implicate non-windows OS's as problematic when it comes to Windows networking.
Ever had problems copying files to Windows file share due to unsupported characters and resource forks?
Nope. Can't say I've ever been bitten by this one. Ever. When you copy files that contain resource forks, the forks are stored in a hidden directory. Windows doesn't use them and OS X knows how to retrieve them as well. Now if you like to futz with things and erase these files or the hidden directories, it isn't Apple's fault. Also, this has no effect on the utility of the data in the files. Resource forks don't store the data, only metadata. If a program shoves data into a resource fork that should be in the data fork, then that's the fault of the developer for being stupid. In any case, this does not impact the way that OS X and Windows interoperate.
I wasn't arguing that the minority voters connected with Bush, either, just that there was less commonality with Kerry. Lack of commonality (among other things) leads to apathy.
I'm only focussing on the demographics and attitudes of the people, that the UCB researchers didn't understand. Up here in the People's Republic of Ithaca NY (Cornell), it was a given that Kerry was obviously the only choice. I would wager that the attitude at UCB was identical, and likewise completely out of phase with the vast majority of America that didn't view the choice as a foregone conclusion of electing an intellectual over a moron.
When blinded by ideology, people become deaf, dumb and blind. It's unfortunate and true no matter what political persuasion you find yourself. Neither of the major candidates were idiots, and most likely there wouldn't be much of a visible difference in policy or action between a second Bush term and a first Kerry term. Still, there would be differences that concerned voters did discern and cast ballots for and against.
Yes, over 50 million voted for Kerry, but over 60 million voted for Bush in the end. You have to be honest when you ask yourself why.
Face it, Kerry was not a candidate that resonated with most democrats.
Do you think that most of the ethnic minority voters who occupy these counties feel more positive regard towards an extremely rich white guy who would likely have them as servants, or a bumbling, not-as-rich white guy who speaks Spanish and does his own manual labor?
Not to mention the number of times that Bush visited the state, hurricane relief and having locally booming economy, there just isn't much resentment there towards Bush. Kerry, on the other hand, had great difficulty even in enthusing the non-ethnic-minority democrats in Florida. He was a dud.
To think that this morning, I thought Kerry would call a press conference to demand that Bush concede. What happened to his 10,000 lawyers in Lear jets, fueled up on the runways?
I overestimated him. He apparently does have a shred of humility or decency, and enough common sense to know when he's beat. Somebody call Gore, Franken, or Moore if you want to be divisive. John Kerry earned my respect today.
It deals with the uncertainty of quantum mechanics and the problem that observing quantum states without affecting quantum states. It is rhetorical and posed this way:
Say you have an opaque, bulletproof, and soundproof box that you put a cat inside. In addition, you put a loaded revolver in this box, with a cord tied around cat and around the trigger. Is the cat dead or alive?
To find out, you have to open the box. You don't know until you open the box, and the act of opening the box may scare the cat into triggering the gun. To observe if the cat is dead or alive, you have to interfere.
This is also a good analogy for journalism and politics, as the act of observing and reporting on politics has an effect on what political information is given and acted upon. Politicians and their surrogates tend to be the cats holding the guns.
My gut instinct is that you are just trolling, but the fact that you replied to yourself twice leads me to believe that you may just be unstable/unhinged.
I'm quite familiar with the scientific method, and have been using it for the last seventeen years. I'm guessing that you just discovered it, and are attempting to misapply it in an effort to appear more intelligent to the Jr. high crowd that sometimes frequents here.
If you haven't noticed, my post was about the subject of the article; journalists and politics. I wasn't looking at the accusations of Rather's piece, because, well there isn't any reason to. Sources and your "evidence" thoroughly and completely discredited mean that there is nothing to see here.
Evidence that is fraudulent or manufactured to fit a theory is not evidence. In this case, the fraud is much more important than what he was trying to prove, because it addresses the objectivity, ethics, and credibility of Mr. Rather. In this particular case, Mr. Rather's ego and personal politics have become the story and have greatly extended the length of time that this event is spending in the public eye.
As I said, this isn't fair to Kerry or to Bush, who both should be focussing on policy debate. Instead, this pathetic attempt to injure the president (possibly to get back for the Swift Boat Vets,) and it's continued mismanagement of damage control has cost Kerry, Rather and CBS, when the same story done with real evidence and proper objectivity may have helped all three.
Liberal has only recently become an insult, as the connotation of that word has been formed by the populace's reaction to the antics of those who are so labeled. If so many of those who call themselves or are called liberals weren't so venomous and vitriolic, then it probably wouldn't be seen as an insult.
Contrary to your beliefs, both recent and long-running studies have shown that ~80% of journalists see themselves as liberal or left leaning, while only ~10% identify themselves as right leaning or conservative. Of course the boards of those companies that you mention may be more conservative than their employees, but those who wield the pen overwhelmingly lean left. Unfortunately, most journalists tend not to cleanse themselves or their work of their own biases.
I used to brand myself a liberal, and wore the title proudly with all of the positive values that one reads in a dictionary definition. Unfortunately I found myself a classical liberal, rather than modern liberal. Most of the people I found that identified themselves liberals had personalities and convictions that I found incompatible with my own, and quite incompatible with the definition of a classic liberal.
Eventually, I came to view the label of liberal by the common negative connotation. The most striking thing I noticed is that the one thing that lead me originally to believe that I was a liberal was the one thing that I could never find in all of my modern liberal associates; I wasn't a bigot, and I believed in freedom and equality.
If the modern liberals would return to the original definition and relax their poisonous rhetoric, then maybe it wouldn't be an insult anymore.
Examples include 20/20 rigging trucks to explode to prove mismanufacture, 60 minutes reporting volvo;s have an unexplained sudden acceleration.
That should be Dateline NBC for the trucks and Audi, not Volvo for the cars. A much more recent and politically linked example is the current Rathergate with the forged documents and a steadfast refusal by Rather and company to admit that they are wrong.
In the Rather case, he has been personally invested in the Texas Democratic Party for several years. Because of his politics, he blatantly manufactured news with a few of his daughter's cronies. In this case it is the journalistic equivalent of throwing a previously shot cat into Shroedinger's box, and then accusing Shroedinger of being cruel to animals.
The real world impact that was hoped for in this case vanished when the sham was unraveled. First the forged documents and the strings of experts. Then the star interview of Barnes was found to be both not in power at the time, and discredited by his own prior statements and his own daughter. The most recent national polls are probably reflecting a backlash to the "dirty tricks" aspect of this little episode, more than Bush or Kerry's own campaigning. This kind of journalism in action is fair to neither Kerry or Bush, and shouldn't be practiced by any of the press.
Now CBS is still feeling the pain and can't escape from it until they perform a major mea culpa or have a major purge of their perceived bias (Mr. Rather). In this case they lost right leaning viewers because of perceived left slant, and principled left leaning viewers because of tainted credibility. Now their ratings rely on rubberneckers waiting to see what the next act is in this train-wreck. Witness the strings of press releases announcing that they will be announcing something. Pathetic.
In terms of innovation, MS released its first mouse in 1983, one year before the Mac was launched...
A clever way to imply that Microsoft innovates, but history says otherwise. Englebart invented the mouse in the late 1960's, and Xerox PARC used it first almost-commercially in the 1970's. Apple produced their first mouse based system, the Lisa in 1982 which was the first real use of the mouse as an input peripheral by any commercially available system. Microsoft's mouse was then, as they are now, developed and manufactured by somebody else, but marked by Microsoft. Also, the Microsoft mice of that era were almost completely functionally unusable, where Apple's mouse worked well because it had to.
A friend of mine who toiled along with me in some advanced engineering calculus and the sometimes non-intuitive notation, always took great pleasure in the fact that Newton died a virign.
Unfortunately, Ctrl-Insert and Sift-Insert were never the standard method in Windows, because Microsoft never really standardized anything. These were WordPerfect methods.
The first standardization, well before 1992, was the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines published in Inside Macintosh around 1983-84. This is the origin of the Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.
Apple did lots of usability studies for the Mac, and the fruits of this labor were the one-button mouse and the Command-z,x,c & v, as well as other standardized "Command Key Shortcuts."
This cluster of keys were selected because of their proximity to the Command key, and the ease of pressing them with the left thumb and index finger. Z, X, C, and V corresponded to Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste, the most common operations that were required in a GUI-based work system. Others combinations were standardized for closing windows (Cmd-w), Saving (Cmd-s), Printing (Cmd-p), and Quitting programs (Cmd-q). All Mac programs had to include these functions and use these standardized shortcuts if applicable.
Sun used these same Command Key Shortcuts in OpenLook, and eventually Microsoft embraced and corrupted these combinations by replacing the Command key with the Control Key, which required using the left pinky finger instead of the thumb to press. The Alt key which is positioned in the same place as the Command key was already claimed in Windows for their pseudo-standard of activating menus based on the underlined letter. The Command Key Shortcuts outside of this cluster were partially implemented for printing and saving, but quitting programs or closing windows is still the archaic and unintuitive Alt-F4 on Windows.
And yet, almost every other country in the world has ratified it, and yet the recent performance of the US economy is no better than that of Australia, or the EU.
Also not to pick nits, but the big industrial powers of the EU who have signed said treaty, haven't been able to come close to meeting their obligations. Also, the 9/11 attacks and their repercussions through the U.S. economy, the Dot Bomb, and the fall of the dollar because of historic low interest rates have more to do with economic growth parity.
As of now, the U.S. economy is second in growth to China, and first in overall size. The EU admission of ten new states and enacting of the Kyoto treaty would most certainly change this as China as a signatory is exempt because of it's "third world" status. No, the Kyoto protocol was squarely designed to be a kick in the groin to the U.S. by many smaller states that wish they were the U.S.
For fuel economy (and therefore less consumption) diesel kicks the crap out of gasoline engines. This 85% of non CO2 emissions targets diesel engines for elimination.
In reality, diesel emissions are much safer than gasoline emissions. They are less noxious and contain much less carbon monoxide and less particulate emissions. Unfortunately, the particulate emissions from diesel are an order of magnitude larger than that of gasoline engines, and therefore visible to the naked eye. "Because we can see it, it must be bad" is faulty logic here, as gasoline engines produce more particulate, and you can't see it.
CARB (the originator) has setup a misguided policy, that will make us more dependent on foreign oil, and keep the rate of consumption unchecked.
It doesn't work. In my experience, windows will use whichever DLL comes first in the %PATH%, which happens to have the same name. Sometimes, this results in an "Ordinal Not Found" error or something similar, and sometimes it just goes on without a problem. There may be some official way to make conflicting DLLs coexist in Windows, but many/most developers don't use it, so the fallback is to search the %PATH% for the existence of the file.
In some cases, this problem can be "fixed" by changing the order that directories are listed in %PATH%, but sometimes the differing versions cause too many compatibility problems.
The parent to your post is either delusional or misinformed. DLL Hell still exists on Windows.
Oh, I assure you that I get it, and to some extent I agree with you that any disruption to the typical user is a problem. We just disagree on the extent to which Linux is up to the task of replacing Windows in the enterprise.
I've dealt with successful implementation of UNIX desktops in the past, with OpenWindows and CDE on Solaris and HP/UX respectively. The key here, was that the users did not have any pre-attachment to Windows or Windows programs. They had what they needed to use, and nothing more. I know that Linux can do the job, but I also know that it can't easily fill a void left by an existing MS windows user's desktop, which is often crammed with non-essentials that users get attached to. Worse yet, there are some essentials (Exchange compatibility) that Linux work-alikes, just aren't good enough to replace yet. An enterprise that is not already MS-centric, will have a much easier time transitioning away than the majority that are stuck in Microsoft's web.
The problem in effect is managing user expectations on what they can and cannot do, and what it takes for them to do what they do. I've had problems moving people from Outlook Express to full Outlook. For the most part, they look and act the same, but they are different enough to cause problems for many users. Switching entirely to another platform, no matter how good it may be, has even more problems.
My father-in-law had a problem when I moved him from MS-Outlook to Mac OS X Mail, because the button for a new e-mail had changed shape, and said "compose" instead of "new". This wasn't just a problem for him, many other users had the same mental block. Apple rectified this problem by going against their own noun-verb guidelines, and changed this back to "new" for Panther.
I know that Linux is finding its way on more x86 desktops than Mac OS X, but that's only because OS X doesn't run on x86. In the larger picture, Mac OS X is the largest installed base of desktop UNIX, period. None of the assorted Linux desktops are growing at the same rate of adoption as Mac OS X, so they still have a lot to do to catch-up mindshare and marketshare wise, to match an arguable also-ran. Again, Linux desktops need to evolve and improve much more than Apple needs to, because Apple is already there.
The consistent interface issue is definitely not horseshit, as you put it. People, in general, have a problem with change, and Linux desktops are a definite change from what they are currently used to. That goes for minor changes between program versions, all the way to platform switches. There isn't any magic bullet here.
Garbage post. Mod seriously down, troll, flamebait, utter drivel.
Wow! I must have placed a shot too close to the bow to elicit a response like that. I assure you I am not trolling, so it would behoove you to be more introspective of the state of Desktop Linux, than defensive.
I know that the cost of the MS Treadmill is increasing, but that wasn't my point. Also, I know that there are problems in enterprises with upgrading in the MS family, which I've witnessed first hand, time and again. That isn't the point either.
My point was that Linux still is not to the point where it would be as minor of a disruption as upgrading Windows, or Windows programs, within an enterprise. The enterprise is filled with people that have problems with minor disruptions. Geeks, on the other hand, tend to look at software usability differences as a minor challenge to overcome, on the way to some new feature. Normal enterprise workers tend to respond with "Who moved MY cheese!"
My example of Mac OS X was to illustrate that there is already a good, very useable UNIX that is ready for the enterprise desktop. No, it won't "evolve" as fast as KDE or Gnome, but it doesn't need to. It already has a consistent, coherent interface, with an existing MS Office implementation, in existence. Linux, even within single distributions, does not have a consistent or coherent interface. Also, none of the Linux office suites have the necessary capabilities to displace MS Office. Until both of those conditions are satisfied, my assertion stands that this is more hope than general interest.
With ever increasing Windows problems, it may be more of a hope for Linux Desktops to finally be useable enough for enterprise users, rather than genuine interest. How many non-geeks even know what the various linux desktop systems are, besides not Windows. Linux geeks know that Linux is the kernel, and nothing more, so what desktop is the Linux Desktop?
Today's Linux desktops fall over themselves trying to act similar to Windows, while having the unfortunate problem of not being even as consistent as Windows. This problem is rooted in the whole X11+Gnome+GTK+KDE+Qt+Ximian+Lestif+kitchen sink quagmire that is required to supply the pieces of this quite disjointed user experience.
In my not so humble opinion, the interest for the Linux desktop is the hope of Microsoft liberation, without scrapping existing hardware. This is quite silly, as the cost of the disruption in retraining all of the users, will far outweigh the cost of either switching to a useable, coherent UNIX desktop like Mac OS X, or staying on the MS Treadmill. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix here, as the bazaar is not willing to collaborate on a unified, coherent Linux Desktop.
If the US politicians and oil producers could wrap their minds around that concept, there'd be quite a change in the amount of polution produced in the world, as well as curing our horrendous trade deficit, but I'm afraid that there's far too much power politics involved to see any useful change here. The oil conglomerates make far too much off of importing, blah, blah, blah...
Oh the tired rant I used to mouth in a former life.
I used to believe the evil and arrogance of oil companies and their political enablers, until I heard from the mouths of two separate Oil CEO's that were adamant about the need to find alternatives to hydrocarbon fuels. Both had implemented immense R&D programs at their companies to find alternatives to petroleum and mineral sources of energy. Why would this be?
First of all, who has the most to lose with the advent of a better alternative? The companies who's entire business is based on sucking oil from the ground. Do you think that oil companies like doing business in more dangerous parts of the world? How about the prospect of figuring out what to do when all of the low-hanging fruit is picked, and technology has not enabled economical retrieval of some known deposits. What about increasing liability for environmental mishaps encountered in transporting oil.
Most oil companies now look at themselves as energy companies, and as such, are looking beyond their position today towards a more tenable future, where mineral oil is a scarce commodity. Still, as no alternative has become technically or economically viable yet, they remain primarily oil companies.
$2 Billion is the most that Microsoft has EVER payed out to any company. To reach a settlement like this, they may have future plans to do a lot more with Java. Technology sharing...
I couldn't find the original article, but in May of the following year, they repeated some of the Penn State claims in a 'NT is Better than UNIX' article. This time, they claimed that the changeover started in March of 1995. Check out the Google cache to see how little Microsoft's tactics change over time.
In May of 1995, I was shocked and surprised to read in Byte Magazine about how Penn State University had saved so much money and had such a massive increase in reliability by switching all of their network resources over to Windows NT. I was so surprised, because I read about it while waiting for a computer in the most advanced student lab at the time, and I saw not hide nor hair of Windows NT.
The Byte article quoted CAC higher-ups about how NT greatly improved security, file and print serving, and that all student labs had switched over wholesale. At this time, the file serving was handled by a Banyan Vines network, and printing being spooled by old Mac SE/30's.
By that fall, Windows NT was finally introduced to the labs, and the nightmare of having 100% BSOD boxes and useless labs had begun. When I graduated in the fall of 1996, printing was still handled by Macs, but usually PowerMac 6100's by that point. NT had lost all credibility at Penn State, and Microsoft had used them to hoodwink many large organizations with a totally fallacious article in Byte.
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Yes. The problems are usually on the Windows end because of lack of installed drivers. That OS X doesn't share out windows drivers is not Apple's fault. Likewise, the fact that there are several incompatible methods for sharing windows printers and that a driver may only expect a single type may cause problems. The same problems that OS X has with sharing Windows printers is shared by Samba on other Unix platforms.
Yes. Almost every time on my Win XP SP2 box when I want to use it over the network. Quite often, it can't see itself! Again, not an apple problem, but Microsoft futzing with SMB/CIFS. I've never had to reboot my Mac to make network shares re-appear, as all it takes is a netbios query. Do you know anything about Windows networking? Like the fact that sometimes it can take up to fifteen minutes for a change in sharing to propagate, or that slap-fights and hissy fits between domain controllers can take down all Windows networking on an entire subnet? Do some reading on Samba and educate yourself before you implicate non-windows OS's as problematic when it comes to Windows networking.
Nope. Can't say I've ever been bitten by this one. Ever. When you copy files that contain resource forks, the forks are stored in a hidden directory. Windows doesn't use them and OS X knows how to retrieve them as well. Now if you like to futz with things and erase these files or the hidden directories, it isn't Apple's fault. Also, this has no effect on the utility of the data in the files. Resource forks don't store the data, only metadata. If a program shoves data into a resource fork that should be in the data fork, then that's the fault of the developer for being stupid. In any case, this does not impact the way that OS X and Windows interoperate.
-- Len
My daughter is blind because she had a stroke before she was born. Her eyes are perfect, but she cannot see.
Although I think a shopping robot is silly, it would still make this task much easier for my daughter when she is older and wants to be independent.
-- Len
95-0 against Kyoto.
It is a bad treaty, like higher CAFE standards have actually lead to increased rather than decreased fuel consumption.
-- Len
I wasn't arguing that the minority voters connected with Bush, either, just that there was less commonality with Kerry. Lack of commonality (among other things) leads to apathy.
I'm only focussing on the demographics and attitudes of the people, that the UCB researchers didn't understand. Up here in the People's Republic of Ithaca NY (Cornell), it was a given that Kerry was obviously the only choice. I would wager that the attitude at UCB was identical, and likewise completely out of phase with the vast majority of America that didn't view the choice as a foregone conclusion of electing an intellectual over a moron.
When blinded by ideology, people become deaf, dumb and blind. It's unfortunate and true no matter what political persuasion you find yourself. Neither of the major candidates were idiots, and most likely there wouldn't be much of a visible difference in policy or action between a second Bush term and a first Kerry term. Still, there would be differences that concerned voters did discern and cast ballots for and against.
Yes, over 50 million voted for Kerry, but over 60 million voted for Bush in the end. You have to be honest when you ask yourself why.
-- Len
Face it, Kerry was not a candidate that resonated with most democrats.
Do you think that most of the ethnic minority voters who occupy these counties feel more positive regard towards an extremely rich white guy who would likely have them as servants, or a bumbling, not-as-rich white guy who speaks Spanish and does his own manual labor?
Not to mention the number of times that Bush visited the state, hurricane relief and having locally booming economy, there just isn't much resentment there towards Bush. Kerry, on the other hand, had great difficulty even in enthusing the non-ethnic-minority democrats in Florida. He was a dud.
Not curious, nor a surprise.
-- Len
To think that this morning, I thought Kerry would call a press conference to demand that Bush concede. What happened to his 10,000 lawyers in Lear jets, fueled up on the runways?
I overestimated him. He apparently does have a shred of humility or decency, and enough common sense to know when he's beat. Somebody call Gore, Franken, or Moore if you want to be divisive. John Kerry earned my respect today.
-- Len
It deals with the uncertainty of quantum mechanics and the problem that observing quantum states without affecting quantum states. It is rhetorical and posed this way:
Say you have an opaque, bulletproof, and soundproof box that you put a cat inside. In addition, you put a loaded revolver in this box, with a cord tied around cat and around the trigger. Is the cat dead or alive?
To find out, you have to open the box. You don't know until you open the box, and the act of opening the box may scare the cat into triggering the gun. To observe if the cat is dead or alive, you have to interfere.
This is also a good analogy for journalism and politics, as the act of observing and reporting on politics has an effect on what political information is given and acted upon. Politicians and their surrogates tend to be the cats holding the guns.
-- Len
My gut instinct is that you are just trolling, but the fact that you replied to yourself twice leads me to believe that you may just be unstable/unhinged.
I'm quite familiar with the scientific method, and have been using it for the last seventeen years. I'm guessing that you just discovered it, and are attempting to misapply it in an effort to appear more intelligent to the Jr. high crowd that sometimes frequents here.
If you haven't noticed, my post was about the subject of the article; journalists and politics. I wasn't looking at the accusations of Rather's piece, because, well there isn't any reason to. Sources and your "evidence" thoroughly and completely discredited mean that there is nothing to see here.
Evidence that is fraudulent or manufactured to fit a theory is not evidence. In this case, the fraud is much more important than what he was trying to prove, because it addresses the objectivity, ethics, and credibility of Mr. Rather. In this particular case, Mr. Rather's ego and personal politics have become the story and have greatly extended the length of time that this event is spending in the public eye.
As I said, this isn't fair to Kerry or to Bush, who both should be focussing on policy debate. Instead, this pathetic attempt to injure the president (possibly to get back for the Swift Boat Vets,) and it's continued mismanagement of damage control has cost Kerry, Rather and CBS, when the same story done with real evidence and proper objectivity may have helped all three.
-- Len
Liberal has only recently become an insult, as the connotation of that word has been formed by the populace's reaction to the antics of those who are so labeled. If so many of those who call themselves or are called liberals weren't so venomous and vitriolic, then it probably wouldn't be seen as an insult.
Contrary to your beliefs, both recent and long-running studies have shown that ~80% of journalists see themselves as liberal or left leaning, while only ~10% identify themselves as right leaning or conservative. Of course the boards of those companies that you mention may be more conservative than their employees, but those who wield the pen overwhelmingly lean left. Unfortunately, most journalists tend not to cleanse themselves or their work of their own biases.
I used to brand myself a liberal, and wore the title proudly with all of the positive values that one reads in a dictionary definition. Unfortunately I found myself a classical liberal, rather than modern liberal. Most of the people I found that identified themselves liberals had personalities and convictions that I found incompatible with my own, and quite incompatible with the definition of a classic liberal.
Eventually, I came to view the label of liberal by the common negative connotation. The most striking thing I noticed is that the one thing that lead me originally to believe that I was a liberal was the one thing that I could never find in all of my modern liberal associates; I wasn't a bigot, and I believed in freedom and equality.
If the modern liberals would return to the original definition and relax their poisonous rhetoric, then maybe it wouldn't be an insult anymore.
-- Len
That should be Dateline NBC for the trucks and Audi, not Volvo for the cars. A much more recent and politically linked example is the current Rathergate with the forged documents and a steadfast refusal by Rather and company to admit that they are wrong.
In the Rather case, he has been personally invested in the Texas Democratic Party for several years. Because of his politics, he blatantly manufactured news with a few of his daughter's cronies. In this case it is the journalistic equivalent of throwing a previously shot cat into Shroedinger's box, and then accusing Shroedinger of being cruel to animals.
The real world impact that was hoped for in this case vanished when the sham was unraveled. First the forged documents and the strings of experts. Then the star interview of Barnes was found to be both not in power at the time, and discredited by his own prior statements and his own daughter. The most recent national polls are probably reflecting a backlash to the "dirty tricks" aspect of this little episode, more than Bush or Kerry's own campaigning. This kind of journalism in action is fair to neither Kerry or Bush, and shouldn't be practiced by any of the press.
Now CBS is still feeling the pain and can't escape from it until they perform a major mea culpa or have a major purge of their perceived bias (Mr. Rather). In this case they lost right leaning viewers because of perceived left slant, and principled left leaning viewers because of tainted credibility. Now their ratings rely on rubberneckers waiting to see what the next act is in this train-wreck. Witness the strings of press releases announcing that they will be announcing something. Pathetic.
-- Len
A clever way to imply that Microsoft innovates, but history says otherwise. Englebart invented the mouse in the late 1960's, and Xerox PARC used it first almost-commercially in the 1970's. Apple produced their first mouse based system, the Lisa in 1982 which was the first real use of the mouse as an input peripheral by any commercially available system. Microsoft's mouse was then, as they are now, developed and manufactured by somebody else, but marked by Microsoft. Also, the Microsoft mice of that era were almost completely functionally unusable, where Apple's mouse worked well because it had to.
-- Len
A friend of mine who toiled along with me in some advanced engineering calculus and the sometimes non-intuitive notation, always took great pleasure in the fact that Newton died a virign.
-- Len
Unfortunately, Ctrl-Insert and Sift-Insert were never the standard method in Windows, because Microsoft never really standardized anything. These were WordPerfect methods.
The first standardization, well before 1992, was the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines published in Inside Macintosh around 1983-84. This is the origin of the Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.
Apple did lots of usability studies for the Mac, and the fruits of this labor were the one-button mouse and the Command-z,x,c & v, as well as other standardized "Command Key Shortcuts."
This cluster of keys were selected because of their proximity to the Command key, and the ease of pressing them with the left thumb and index finger. Z, X, C, and V corresponded to Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste, the most common operations that were required in a GUI-based work system. Others combinations were standardized for closing windows (Cmd-w), Saving (Cmd-s), Printing (Cmd-p), and Quitting programs (Cmd-q). All Mac programs had to include these functions and use these standardized shortcuts if applicable.
Sun used these same Command Key Shortcuts in OpenLook, and eventually Microsoft embraced and corrupted these combinations by replacing the Command key with the Control Key, which required using the left pinky finger instead of the thumb to press. The Alt key which is positioned in the same place as the Command key was already claimed in Windows for their pseudo-standard of activating menus based on the underlined letter. The Command Key Shortcuts outside of this cluster were partially implemented for printing and saving, but quitting programs or closing windows is still the archaic and unintuitive Alt-F4 on Windows.
-- Len
Who said they wanted to make a profit from the music player?
Also not to pick nits, but the big industrial powers of the EU who have signed said treaty, haven't been able to come close to meeting their obligations. Also, the 9/11 attacks and their repercussions through the U.S. economy, the Dot Bomb, and the fall of the dollar because of historic low interest rates have more to do with economic growth parity.
As of now, the U.S. economy is second in growth to China, and first in overall size. The EU admission of ten new states and enacting of the Kyoto treaty would most certainly change this as China as a signatory is exempt because of it's "third world" status. No, the Kyoto protocol was squarely designed to be a kick in the groin to the U.S. by many smaller states that wish they were the U.S.
-- Len
For fuel economy (and therefore less consumption) diesel kicks the crap out of gasoline engines. This 85% of non CO2 emissions targets diesel engines for elimination.
In reality, diesel emissions are much safer than gasoline emissions. They are less noxious and contain much less carbon monoxide and less particulate emissions. Unfortunately, the particulate emissions from diesel are an order of magnitude larger than that of gasoline engines, and therefore visible to the naked eye. "Because we can see it, it must be bad" is faulty logic here, as gasoline engines produce more particulate, and you can't see it.
CARB (the originator) has setup a misguided policy, that will make us more dependent on foreign oil, and keep the rate of consumption unchecked.
-- Len
It doesn't work. In my experience, windows will use whichever DLL comes first in the %PATH%, which happens to have the same name. Sometimes, this results in an "Ordinal Not Found" error or something similar, and sometimes it just goes on without a problem. There may be some official way to make conflicting DLLs coexist in Windows, but many/most developers don't use it, so the fallback is to search the %PATH% for the existence of the file.
In some cases, this problem can be "fixed" by changing the order that directories are listed in %PATH%, but sometimes the differing versions cause too many compatibility problems.
The parent to your post is either delusional or misinformed. DLL Hell still exists on Windows.
-- Len
Oh, I assure you that I get it, and to some extent I agree with you that any disruption to the typical user is a problem. We just disagree on the extent to which Linux is up to the task of replacing Windows in the enterprise.
I've dealt with successful implementation of UNIX desktops in the past, with OpenWindows and CDE on Solaris and HP/UX respectively. The key here, was that the users did not have any pre-attachment to Windows or Windows programs. They had what they needed to use, and nothing more. I know that Linux can do the job, but I also know that it can't easily fill a void left by an existing MS windows user's desktop, which is often crammed with non-essentials that users get attached to. Worse yet, there are some essentials (Exchange compatibility) that Linux work-alikes, just aren't good enough to replace yet. An enterprise that is not already MS-centric, will have a much easier time transitioning away than the majority that are stuck in Microsoft's web.
The problem in effect is managing user expectations on what they can and cannot do, and what it takes for them to do what they do. I've had problems moving people from Outlook Express to full Outlook. For the most part, they look and act the same, but they are different enough to cause problems for many users. Switching entirely to another platform, no matter how good it may be, has even more problems.
My father-in-law had a problem when I moved him from MS-Outlook to Mac OS X Mail, because the button for a new e-mail had changed shape, and said "compose" instead of "new". This wasn't just a problem for him, many other users had the same mental block. Apple rectified this problem by going against their own noun-verb guidelines, and changed this back to "new" for Panther.
I know that Linux is finding its way on more x86 desktops than Mac OS X, but that's only because OS X doesn't run on x86. In the larger picture, Mac OS X is the largest installed base of desktop UNIX, period. None of the assorted Linux desktops are growing at the same rate of adoption as Mac OS X, so they still have a lot to do to catch-up mindshare and marketshare wise, to match an arguable also-ran. Again, Linux desktops need to evolve and improve much more than Apple needs to, because Apple is already there.
The consistent interface issue is definitely not horseshit, as you put it. People, in general, have a problem with change, and Linux desktops are a definite change from what they are currently used to. That goes for minor changes between program versions, all the way to platform switches. There isn't any magic bullet here.
-- Len
Wow! I must have placed a shot too close to the bow to elicit a response like that. I assure you I am not trolling, so it would behoove you to be more introspective of the state of Desktop Linux, than defensive.
I know that the cost of the MS Treadmill is increasing, but that wasn't my point. Also, I know that there are problems in enterprises with upgrading in the MS family, which I've witnessed first hand, time and again. That isn't the point either.
My point was that Linux still is not to the point where it would be as minor of a disruption as upgrading Windows, or Windows programs, within an enterprise. The enterprise is filled with people that have problems with minor disruptions. Geeks, on the other hand, tend to look at software usability differences as a minor challenge to overcome, on the way to some new feature. Normal enterprise workers tend to respond with "Who moved MY cheese!"
My example of Mac OS X was to illustrate that there is already a good, very useable UNIX that is ready for the enterprise desktop. No, it won't "evolve" as fast as KDE or Gnome, but it doesn't need to. It already has a consistent, coherent interface, with an existing MS Office implementation, in existence. Linux, even within single distributions, does not have a consistent or coherent interface. Also, none of the Linux office suites have the necessary capabilities to displace MS Office. Until both of those conditions are satisfied, my assertion stands that this is more hope than general interest.
-- Len
With ever increasing Windows problems, it may be more of a hope for Linux Desktops to finally be useable enough for enterprise users, rather than genuine interest. How many non-geeks even know what the various linux desktop systems are, besides not Windows. Linux geeks know that Linux is the kernel, and nothing more, so what desktop is the Linux Desktop?
Today's Linux desktops fall over themselves trying to act similar to Windows, while having the unfortunate problem of not being even as consistent as Windows. This problem is rooted in the whole X11+Gnome+GTK+KDE+Qt+Ximian+Lestif+kitchen sink quagmire that is required to supply the pieces of this quite disjointed user experience.
In my not so humble opinion, the interest for the Linux desktop is the hope of Microsoft liberation, without scrapping existing hardware. This is quite silly, as the cost of the disruption in retraining all of the users, will far outweigh the cost of either switching to a useable, coherent UNIX desktop like Mac OS X, or staying on the MS Treadmill. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix here, as the bazaar is not willing to collaborate on a unified, coherent Linux Desktop.
-- Len
Oh the tired rant I used to mouth in a former life.
I used to believe the evil and arrogance of oil companies and their political enablers, until I heard from the mouths of two separate Oil CEO's that were adamant about the need to find alternatives to hydrocarbon fuels. Both had implemented immense R&D programs at their companies to find alternatives to petroleum and mineral sources of energy. Why would this be?
First of all, who has the most to lose with the advent of a better alternative? The companies who's entire business is based on sucking oil from the ground. Do you think that oil companies like doing business in more dangerous parts of the world? How about the prospect of figuring out what to do when all of the low-hanging fruit is picked, and technology has not enabled economical retrieval of some known deposits. What about increasing liability for environmental mishaps encountered in transporting oil.
Most oil companies now look at themselves as energy companies, and as such, are looking beyond their position today towards a more tenable future, where mineral oil is a scarce commodity. Still, as no alternative has become technically or economically viable yet, they remain primarily oil companies.
-- Len
$2 Billion is the most that Microsoft has EVER payed out to any company. To reach a settlement like this, they may have future plans to do a lot more with Java. Technology sharing...
-- Len
-- Len
In May of 1995, I was shocked and surprised to read in Byte Magazine about how Penn State University had saved so much money and had such a massive increase in reliability by switching all of their network resources over to Windows NT. I was so surprised, because I read about it while waiting for a computer in the most advanced student lab at the time, and I saw not hide nor hair of Windows NT.
The Byte article quoted CAC higher-ups about how NT greatly improved security, file and print serving, and that all student labs had switched over wholesale. At this time, the file serving was handled by a Banyan Vines network, and printing being spooled by old Mac SE/30's.
By that fall, Windows NT was finally introduced to the labs, and the nightmare of having 100% BSOD boxes and useless labs had begun. When I graduated in the fall of 1996, printing was still handled by Macs, but usually PowerMac 6100's by that point. NT had lost all credibility at Penn State, and Microsoft had used them to hoodwink many large organizations with a totally fallacious article in Byte.
-- Len
That should read Croatian. Serbian is Cyrillic. Unless, Croatian is already a supported language, then this would be more like a redneck dialect.
-- Len