I think "better" would be rather relative in this case.
And as for the "0wned" thing, sorry for misunderstanding you, but I think it still brings up a new issue - how would you justify to yourself the fact that you could ruin someone's life by putting certain material on a hacked Windows box? What if the court didn't accept the defense the guy in the article used?
Umm...I don't, actually, and I don't know anyone who owns "a couple of random window boxes on the net..". Even among computer geek types, many people don't have the spare cash to keep 3 or 4 boxes up, ya know.
I do find it rather odd that you seem to think having child porn would be okay, as long as nobody gets blamed for it....Like that would make it a good thing somehow.
Next time you post, Mr Zealot, try actually reading the posts you respond to. If you had, you'd have realized that I was pointing out how innovation in gaming (Pikmin, Animal Crossing etc) was rarely rewarded into today's gaming market.
Uh, no, actually you seemed to be claiming that Nintendo's statement regarding complex games was wrong.
Your exact words:
if the 'cast doubt on the ability of Nintendo's competitors to continue attracting users with games that are becoming more and more graphically sophisticated and difficult to play.' quote is anything to go buy is that crap games a la Enter The Matrix sell, but actually producing good complex games is the way to business oblivion. Presumably their new console, HomeBoy Advance or whatever it'll be called, will ship with Super Mario Simple Simon and Game Hero Hits A Big Red Button And Does Nothing Else At All Between The Flashy Intro And Outro sequences
If you were truly saying what you claim to have been, you hardly could have obfuscated it more.
But I guess the squirrels that live in your head somehow translated that into an imagined slight against the corporation you somehow feel needs defending at every opportunity. Perhaps cutting down on caffeine would help.
The squirrels find your lack of faith disturbing, Channard....I'll let them handle things, while I finish off this gallon of Dr. Pepper.
A tip for your next post, though: Learn about the wonders of the enter key and italics for quoting.
I've been wondering the same thing....I bought a 40 gig WD drive a year ago, and about 6 months ago, it starts giving me SMART warnings about random read times everytime it boots.
Currently, my data seems fine, but whenever I try to access anything on the drive, there seems to be a random chance of the drive getting "stuck" doing a seek, which either causes a short wait if i'm lucky, or a complete freeze if i'm not.
At this point, just hoping it stays alive long enough for me to buy a new drive soon and get everything copied over. And i'll never buy WD again...My new drive will be either a Seagate or Maxtor.
Name a game that you "just gotta" go out and buy a Game Cube for. There isn't one.
I can name several, actually.
Super Smash Bros. Melee Ikaruga Wind Waker Mario Golf F-Zero GX Metroid Prime Super Monkey Ball 1 or 2 Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicle (out in February, Japanese version already out) Tales of Symphonia (out in April)
Super Mario Kart? You're kidding right? These types of games have a place -- when you're six to ten years old..
Trust me, if you've actually played any of the games in that series, and still feel that way...You are part of a microscopic minority.
Let me guess, though...You think mindless gore-fests like the GTA series, or interactive movies like Xenosaga are "in depth" enough for you? You can keep em, thanks.
quote is anything to go buy is that crap games a la Enter The Matrix sell, but actually producing good complex games is the way to business oblivion.
Enter the Matrix was on all 3 systems, idiot. You clearly don't even own a Cube, and have probably never even played any of that system's games.
Game Hero Hits A Big Red Button And Does Nothing Else At All Between The Flashy Intro And Outro sequences.
Uh, no, from recent releases, that would be called Xenosaga and Xenogears, and they were both on Sony systems. Funny that.
Oh, no, wait, that last one's already been done with Metal Gear Solid 2.
Also only on a Sony system, and the XBox. Basically, you're trying to prove that Nintendo games suck by giving examples of games on competing platforms that do bad things.
Next time you post, Mr. Troll, get your facts straight first.
Adults tend to want stories with more interesting themes than "save the princess from the bad guy" and characters with more depth than their alignment and/or funny way of speaking.
Uhh, if you don't like Mario, fine, but I think history slightly disagrees with you here.
As for depth...I have to say I find Microsoft and Sony's latest offerings (aside from a few games) about as stimulating as a pile of gravel. I used to be glad when XBox commercials came on, it gave me more time to go make a sandwich or something.
forcing the main character to never say a word just gets strange after a while, especially if the other characters are all talking.
Bow down before Chrono Trigger and Earthbound, heathen! Two of the greatest games of all time, on a Nintendo system, and with mute heros. And certainly better than anything Sony/Microsoft have or will come up with anytime soon.
They're too easy! We've been playing video games all our lives, we're not so hopeless as to need a little fairy to explain the weak point of every boss or to warn us every time a shadow appears at our feat that a hand will try to grab us in about 2 seconds.
Take away the help, and people would be whining about how things are too challenging, I guarantee. And if you don't want to use the hints, IGNORE THEM. If you want to pat yourself on the head for figuring things out, you are not forced to follow any advice they give you.
I've seen the little kids of today get overly frustrated playing games even as simple as Mario 64, but they still play and they get better... and besides, you don't have to STOP making games for little kids just because you make some targeted for adults.
maybe if they created some new innovative PS2/Xbox ass kicking games (for less $) people would support them more
Uh, no, then the anti-GC crowd would switch to whining about how Nintendo's games were too wierd and unplayable. Trolls and doomsayers will always find a way to continue.
Some of us actually like those "lame ports of famicon/super famicon".
As for Pokemon, well....That pretty much speaks for itself, doesn't it? Video games, card games, a TV series, toys....It's not going to just wither away and die. Especially not because Sony releases the unproven, (probably) overpriced PSP.
Yeah, I do agree, and I suppose I should have elaborated a bit.....Keeping (as you say) the regular net connection available but very limited is much better than wiping it out completely.
For many people in college, especially the types that would ask a question on Slashdot such as this, that suggestion is almost certainly not feasible.
Even if you limit yourself to only schoolwork, high-speed access and a direct connection to the school network still is often required for project submissions, authentication for various services, huge down/uploads, and other such stuff.
Yes, he could go use a campus computer lab, but by the same token, he could just go there whenever the time-wasting urge comes up again. And would it really be feasible to head out every time something came up that the 2400 baud couldn't handle?
Whenever you were in college (10 years or so ago, i'm guessing), fast 'Net access may have been an avoidable luxury, but again, today it's a necessity.
Hmm what is this username that identifies me on my given network i wonder?
Umm, that would be the username you have to use when you connect to Kaaza, WinMX, Morpheus, or just about any other p2p network besides Freenet. They didn't mean the wifi network you're using.
You really don't sound like you have much of a clue at all.
I personally listen to almost 100% indie music and find that its harder to find good RIAA artists/songs than it is to find good indie artists. Certainly per capita the RIAA loses and badly.
You kinda contradict yourself here...If you're listening to almost 100% indie music everytime you turn on a music source, how are you going to find anything else?:)
For the record, too, I do listen to a lot of stuff that (I guess) would considered "indie"...Lots of game soundtracks and tunes from anime that the RIAA doesn't even know exist.
As far as music goes, I tend to think that the majority of major label stuff is quite unbearable to listen to. A lot of people subscribe to the idea that if the artist isn't signed to a major, then it must not be good enough. That is so rediculous!
Well, yes, Brittney et. al are mind-numbingly bad, worse than other independent artist i've heard....But there's some gold to be found if you stay away from them. I think that's another misconception people get tricked into by the labels - even among the majors, teen-pop is not the only thing being put out.
Music production can be done so cheaply now that for a few thousand dollars, a talented musician can make a CD that sounds better than any big budget major label recording.
Well, maybe I just haven't heard the right artists yet. Just because the capability's there doesn't mean they'll all take full advantage of it, though.
This would be nice in a perfect world, however, in this one....The vast majority of independent music, games, and applications are sadly lacking in quality. Hence, people will go after the good (copyrighted) stuff.
Again, to be blunt, most of the free/independent stuff sucks. People don't want it.
I don't really see what you're getting at here. You start out with the dramatic line about how everything is content. So what? Anyone with two brain cells to put together can realize this.
You then go off on a long rant about how almost anything and everything we do online will be tracked and criminalized somehow, all thanks to the RIAA.
If you surf the web, you are vulnerable, because I seriously doubt you check the copyright status of each and every piece of content you download. So wipe that smug smile off your face, because it's just a matter of time before your IP shows up on a federal subpoena.
If you truly think that way, then you, sir, are an idiot. Check the status of every single file that you access, always, or resign yourself to being jailed in the future? It's exactly that kind of a paranoia-maximized environment that would sound a death knell for the public Internet, and give the RIAA absolute delight.
I agree that there is certainly a problem, but that is not and never will be the way to solve it.
Yes, seriously. Mac zealots gushing on public boards about how awesome OSX is and how it destroys Windows and golly gee, we can't understand why everyone doesn't use it...It gets incredibly annoying very fast, and only causes more problems if anything.
Fair enough. It's weird though, after trying OS X, I will never again use another OS for my work if I can help it. It is seriously efficient and has replaced in my workspace: 1) IRIX, 2) Win2k and 3) Classic MacOS doing everything in one box what the three OS's did in three boxes.
And the rest of us give a damn....Why, exactly? Either someone's already going to be using OSX and agree with you out of relflex, they're someone that was going to switch anyway and didn't need to be convinced by you, or they'll be a Windows user that has no intention of ever switching. Either way, your gushing is again wasted.
The parent post expressed a problem that is easily resolved by using OS X. It was a suggestion and a point for discussion. That is what./ is all about, right? I have said it before and I will say it again, like Linux advocacy, Mac advocacy is an effort at ensuring the tools I want and need are available to me in the future given the overwhelming market forces arrayed against "alternative" platforms like Linux and OS X.
What you say is true, at least partially. However, good advocacy does not mean trying to shove the superiority of Macs down people's throats at every possible junction, or spinning the facts to support yourself.
Very true. But then you are using a Toshiba laptop and not a sweet little Powerbook that provides good run time and performance in an elegantly designed and functional package
Yet another example of why Mac users are so often horribly grating. You sound like someone that's been brainwashed by a cult, really. Macs are the One True Computer, and nothing else could ever be as functional and elegantly designed, right?
A well-maintained Windows PC can be just as functional as any Mac, and usually moreso, owing to the slant of the software market. Don't try to force your preferences on the rest of us.
There has been a trend toward this for years. Remember when OS's came with paper manuals? These were replaced by (often inferior) online documentation. When Microsoft got so big, it made financial sense to attempt the scenario you describe by not shipping boot disks at all. After all when you have 95% of the market, 50 cents saved per license adds up.
Funny, i've personally set up about 50-75 new Dell PCs this summer, and every single one came with a Windows XP install disk, 3 restore disks from Dell, and a paper manual for Windows XP. Yet again, you're trying to spin things so "Windows sux0rs!".
In the process of installing Mdk I accidently nuked the wrong wrong windows partition (I nuked/mnt/win_d instead of/mnt/win_c because I thought d: would be the data partition and c: would be the boot/program partition - wrong!
You say this like you can barely believe it - a small clue though, Windows XP doesn't have seperate data and boot partitions. Never has. 5 seconds of looking in "My Computer" in Windows would have shown you this.
Be all that as it may, don't make Windows out to be bad just because you assumed it worked the same way as Linux.
The kicker is he was sharing and didn't know it, someone had taken over his win 2k box and was running a bot on it to share movies.
How the hell do you NOT notice someone using your box as a distribution point for full-length movies? One would think unknown files taking up hundreds of megs would be a fast tipoff. Or the fact that bandwidth usage has suddenly jumped sky-high.
I'm sorry, but anyone that allows that sort of thing to go on long enough to be tracked and warned is a first-class idiot.
The WinAMP playlist isn't part of the main program window -- it's a seprate window you have to manage or attach and drag around. The UI widgets are not standard windows controls, and at 1280x1024 or larger they are too small to comfortably read. On top of that, the little abbreviations and symbols used on the various controls aren't intuitive, so you have to try things out to figure our what they do and how it works.
These issues are one the main reasons Winamp is totally skinable. 27,613 skins for the Winamp 2 branch at last count. If you can't read the widgets on the default skin, then change it to one you like better, or make your own.
Last I saw, the playback controls all looked like those on a regular stereo, even with the wierd-ass skins I use, so i'm not really sure where you're coming from on that. Even at 1280x1024, i've never had trouble navigating, but if you can't read a button for some reason, there's keyboard shortcuts for everything that stay consistent accross different skins.
The Windows Media Player Media Library is even more obnoxious, because it requires you to enter, maintain, and store metadata in the Media Library database that isn't correspondingly present on the filesystem, and you can't pick up that metadata inside other programs.
I won't argue with you on this point, mainly because WMP is so fux0red on my system at the moment that it won't even start:):P
The main complaint I had wasn't with the usability as much as it is with the bloatiness of the programs. WinAMP has degraded through the major releases into a giant bloated "let's skin everything, fuck performance" mess. It eats up memory and causes song playback to suffer when you've got numerous other programs running (which I almost always do when listening to music files on my PC).
Yeah, if you're using Winamp 3, that's been an issue for just about everyone. It's the main reason development on the Winamp 2 branch is still continuing, and tons of people have backpedaled a bit.
I don't care about or want "pretty". I want efficient, simple, and functional. I want the bare minimum necessary to get the job done. VUPlayer meets those desires perfectly.
That desire is fine, but making other non-bare-bones players out to be junk because they look nicer is just stupid.
Yes, they can -- and a bit more -- but I dont' want or need their extra bells and whistles. I just want something that works reliably and efficiently and offers the functionality I care about.
I have around ~10,000 songs in a playlist most days. Winamp handles that fine, doesn't crash, and doesn't slow my system down - hell, when Windows freezes up sometimes, Winamp is the only program that keeps functioning and playing somehow.
For the simple reason that it's easier on the eyes, and because people love to customize their desktops - they're called personal computers for a reason. If you don't want to skin anything, then fine, but you're in the minority.
Forgive me if i'm assuming too much, but you give the impression that you're one of those types that does almost nothing but use office programs or bang out code, and generally sees games/pretty graphics as a waste of time. There's nothing wrong with that, but, again, you have to realize that most of us don't care enough about optimizing every last CPU cycle to not have some graphical enjoyment.
And, if you can legitimately say that drawing a waveform while playing a song is wasting enough CPU time to have a serious impact, you need a new computer.....It just doesn't take that much power, plain and simple.
Fuck WinAMP and Windows Media Player with their giant, over-engineered bloated interfaces and difficult-to-understand-and-use playlist and media library concepts
Wha? You must have one hell of an unorganized filesystem if making a playlist is hard. (in Winamp or xmms) Click the button that says "File" in the lower left corner, pick whether you want a directory, url, or individual files. Pick the target(s) and then click "Ok". Files are now on your playlist- and they can be deleted or re-ordered with single commands. How freakin' hard is that?
If you can operate a stereo and CD Player, you can operate Winamp. Don't try to dredge up bullshit reasons to hate it for not being open-source.
VUPlayer is simple, fast, and supports basically everything.
After checking it out for a while, I would also add "ugly" and "redundant" to that list. Even if you only look at open-source players, there's still XMMS, which is actually pleasing to the eye rather than looking like just another vanilla-style Windows app. Not to mention that both Winamp and XMMS will do (almost, I don't think Winamp will have CD ripping for another update or two) everything VUPlayer can.
How do you expect GC to compete with XBOX and PS2 when GC has a pathetic excuse for online gaming...I mean, Phantasy Star Online, AND THAT'S IT???
Oh, gee, I forgot, the fondest wish of every game player is to have every game online...NOT. I'm so sick and tired of people holding up online console gaming like it's the Holy Grail or something. If I want multiplayer console, i'll get some friends to come over and play that way. In the same room. What a concept!
Please. I got XBox for online games, and my PS2 only sees use right now as an online machine...is there ANY online sports games on GC yet? Madden? Any NHL game? Baseball? Something similar to SOCOM? How about Wolfenstein, or GHOST RECON? I didn't think so...GC is and will always be for kiddies who don't know why a console would be hooked up to a cable modem/DSL line...
I defer to Tycho and Gabe on this one. Oh, and a little newsflash for you- not everyone in the world loves sports games to the exclusion of everything else, and everybody sure as hell doesn't love online sports games.
Come back when you've grown up a bit, and can debate intelligently.
Slashdot Mirror
I think "better" would be rather relative in this case.
And as for the "0wned" thing, sorry for misunderstanding you, but I think it still brings up a new issue - how would you justify to yourself the fact that you could ruin someone's life by putting certain material on a hacked Windows box? What if the court didn't accept the defense the guy in the article used?
Umm...I don't, actually, and I don't know anyone who owns "a couple of random window boxes on the net..". Even among computer geek types, many people don't have the spare cash to keep 3 or 4 boxes up, ya know.
I do find it rather odd that you seem to think having child porn would be okay, as long as nobody gets blamed for it....Like that would make it a good thing somehow.
Next time you post, Mr Zealot, try actually reading the posts you respond to. If you had, you'd have realized that I was pointing out how innovation in gaming (Pikmin, Animal Crossing etc) was rarely rewarded into today's gaming market.
Uh, no, actually you seemed to be claiming that Nintendo's statement regarding complex games was wrong.
Your exact words:
if the 'cast doubt on the ability of Nintendo's competitors to continue attracting users with games that are becoming more and more graphically sophisticated and difficult to play.' quote is anything to go buy is that crap games a la Enter The Matrix sell, but actually producing good complex games is the way to business oblivion. Presumably their new console, HomeBoy Advance or whatever it'll be called, will ship with Super Mario Simple Simon and Game Hero Hits A Big Red Button And Does Nothing Else At All Between The Flashy Intro And Outro sequences
If you were truly saying what you claim to have been, you hardly could have obfuscated it more.
But I guess the squirrels that live in your head somehow translated that into an imagined slight against the corporation you somehow feel needs defending at every opportunity. Perhaps cutting down on caffeine would help.
The squirrels find your lack of faith disturbing, Channard....I'll let them handle things, while I finish off this gallon of Dr. Pepper.
A tip for your next post, though: Learn about the wonders of the enter key and italics for quoting.
I've been wondering the same thing....I bought a 40 gig WD drive a year ago, and about 6 months ago, it starts giving me SMART warnings about random read times everytime it boots.
Currently, my data seems fine, but whenever I try to access anything on the drive, there seems to be a random chance of the drive getting "stuck" doing a seek, which either causes a short wait if i'm lucky, or a complete freeze if i'm not.
At this point, just hoping it stays alive long enough for me to buy a new drive soon and get everything copied over. And i'll never buy WD again...My new drive will be either a Seagate or Maxtor.
Name a game that you "just gotta" go out and buy a Game Cube for. There isn't one.
I can name several, actually.
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Ikaruga
Wind Waker
Mario Golf
F-Zero GX
Metroid Prime
Super Monkey Ball 1 or 2
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicle (out in February, Japanese version already out)
Tales of Symphonia (out in April)
Super Mario Kart? You're kidding right? These types of games have a place -- when you're six to ten years old..
Trust me, if you've actually played any of the games in that series, and still feel that way...You are part of a microscopic minority.
Let me guess, though...You think mindless gore-fests like the GTA series, or interactive movies like Xenosaga are "in depth" enough for you? You can keep em, thanks.
quote is anything to go buy is that crap games a la Enter The Matrix sell, but actually producing good complex games is the way to business oblivion.
Enter the Matrix was on all 3 systems, idiot. You clearly don't even own a Cube, and have probably never even played any of that system's games.
Game Hero Hits A Big Red Button And Does Nothing Else At All Between The Flashy Intro And Outro sequences.
Uh, no, from recent releases, that would be called Xenosaga and Xenogears, and they were both on Sony systems. Funny that.
Oh, no, wait, that last one's already been done with Metal Gear Solid 2.
Also only on a Sony system, and the XBox. Basically, you're trying to prove that Nintendo games suck by giving examples of games on competing platforms that do bad things.
Next time you post, Mr. Troll, get your facts straight first.
Adults tend to want stories with more interesting themes than "save the princess from the bad guy" and characters with more depth than their alignment and/or funny way of speaking.
Uhh, if you don't like Mario, fine, but I think history slightly disagrees with you here.
As for depth...I have to say I find Microsoft and Sony's latest offerings (aside from a few games) about as stimulating as a pile of gravel. I used to be glad when XBox commercials came on, it gave me more time to go make a sandwich or something.
forcing the main character to never say a word just gets strange after a while, especially if the other characters are all talking.
Bow down before Chrono Trigger and Earthbound, heathen! Two of the greatest games of all time, on a Nintendo system, and with mute heros. And certainly better than anything Sony/Microsoft have or will come up with anytime soon.
They're too easy! We've been playing video games all our lives, we're not so hopeless as to need a little fairy to explain the weak point of every boss or to warn us every time a shadow appears at our feat that a hand will try to grab us in about 2 seconds.
Take away the help, and people would be whining about how things are too challenging, I guarantee. And if you don't want to use the hints, IGNORE THEM. If you want to pat yourself on the head for figuring things out, you are not forced to follow any advice they give you.
I've seen the little kids of today get overly frustrated playing games even as simple as Mario 64, but they still play and they get better... and besides, you don't have to STOP making games for little kids just because you make some targeted for adults.
I think Gabe from Penny Arcade says it best.
maybe if they created some new innovative PS2/Xbox ass kicking games (for less $) people would support them more
Uh, no, then the anti-GC crowd would switch to whining about how Nintendo's games were too wierd and unplayable. Trolls and doomsayers will always find a way to continue.
Some of us actually like those "lame ports of famicon/super famicon".
As for Pokemon, well....That pretty much speaks for itself, doesn't it? Video games, card games, a TV series, toys....It's not going to just wither away and die. Especially not because Sony releases the unproven, (probably) overpriced PSP.
Yeah, I do agree, and I suppose I should have elaborated a bit.....Keeping (as you say) the regular net connection available but very limited is much better than wiping it out completely.
For many people in college, especially the types that would ask a question on Slashdot such as this, that suggestion is almost certainly not feasible.
Even if you limit yourself to only schoolwork, high-speed access and a direct connection to the school network still is often required for project submissions, authentication for various services, huge down/uploads, and other such stuff.
Yes, he could go use a campus computer lab, but by the same token, he could just go there whenever the time-wasting urge comes up again. And would it really be feasible to head out every time something came up that the 2400 baud couldn't handle?
Whenever you were in college (10 years or so ago, i'm guessing), fast 'Net access may have been an avoidable luxury, but again, today it's a necessity.
Hmm what is this username that identifies me on my given network i wonder?
Umm, that would be the username you have to use when you connect to Kaaza, WinMX, Morpheus, or just about any other p2p network besides Freenet. They didn't mean the wifi network you're using.
You really don't sound like you have much of a clue at all.
Thanks for the links, i'll give them a listen.
:)
I personally listen to almost 100% indie music and find that its harder to find good RIAA artists/songs than it is to find good indie artists. Certainly per capita the RIAA loses and badly.
You kinda contradict yourself here...If you're listening to almost 100% indie music everytime you turn on a music source, how are you going to find anything else?
For the record, too, I do listen to a lot of stuff that (I guess) would considered "indie"...Lots of game soundtracks and tunes from anime that the RIAA doesn't even know exist.
As far as music goes, I tend to think that the majority of major label stuff is quite unbearable to listen to. A lot of people subscribe to the idea that if the artist isn't signed to a major, then it must not be good enough. That is so rediculous!
Well, yes, Brittney et. al are mind-numbingly bad, worse than other independent artist i've heard....But there's some gold to be found if you stay away from them. I think that's another misconception people get tricked into by the labels - even among the majors, teen-pop is not the only thing being put out.
Music production can be done so cheaply now that for a few thousand dollars, a talented musician can make a CD that sounds better than any big budget major label recording.
Well, maybe I just haven't heard the right artists yet. Just because the capability's there doesn't mean they'll all take full advantage of it, though.
This would be nice in a perfect world, however, in this one....The vast majority of independent music, games, and applications are sadly lacking in quality. Hence, people will go after the good (copyrighted) stuff.
Again, to be blunt, most of the free/independent stuff sucks. People don't want it.
I don't really see what you're getting at here. You start out with the dramatic line about how everything is content. So what? Anyone with two brain cells to put together can realize this.
You then go off on a long rant about how almost anything and everything we do online will be tracked and criminalized somehow, all thanks to the RIAA.
If you surf the web, you are vulnerable, because I seriously doubt you check the copyright status of each and every piece of content you download. So wipe that smug smile off your face, because it's just a matter of time before your IP shows up on a federal subpoena.
If you truly think that way, then you, sir, are an idiot. Check the status of every single file that you access, always, or resign yourself to being jailed in the future? It's exactly that kind of a paranoia-maximized environment that would sound a death knell for the public Internet, and give the RIAA absolute delight.
I agree that there is certainly a problem, but that is not and never will be the way to solve it.
Did you miss the 4 or 5 people complaining about the Windows requirement above, or what? Read previous comments before you post.
Yes, it's very possible. I wouldn't put it past the RIAA not to know that fact, though.
Oh, please. Seriously?
./ is all about, right? I have said it before and I will say it again, like Linux advocacy, Mac advocacy is an effort at ensuring the tools I want and need are available to me in the future given the overwhelming market forces arrayed against "alternative" platforms like Linux and OS X.
Yes, seriously. Mac zealots gushing on public boards about how awesome OSX is and how it destroys Windows and golly gee, we can't understand why everyone doesn't use it...It gets incredibly annoying very fast, and only causes more problems if anything.
Fair enough. It's weird though, after trying OS X, I will never again use another OS for my work if I can help it. It is seriously efficient and has replaced in my workspace: 1) IRIX, 2) Win2k and 3) Classic MacOS doing everything in one box what the three OS's did in three boxes.
And the rest of us give a damn....Why, exactly? Either someone's already going to be using OSX and agree with you out of relflex, they're someone that was going to switch anyway and didn't need to be convinced by you, or they'll be a Windows user that has no intention of ever switching. Either way, your gushing is again wasted.
The parent post expressed a problem that is easily resolved by using OS X. It was a suggestion and a point for discussion. That is what
What you say is true, at least partially. However, good advocacy does not mean trying to shove the superiority of Macs down people's throats at every possible junction, or spinning the facts to support yourself.
Very true. But then you are using a Toshiba laptop and not a sweet little Powerbook that provides good run time and performance in an elegantly designed and functional package
Yet another example of why Mac users are so often horribly grating. You sound like someone that's been brainwashed by a cult, really. Macs are the One True Computer, and nothing else could ever be as functional and elegantly designed, right?
A well-maintained Windows PC can be just as functional as any Mac, and usually moreso, owing to the slant of the software market. Don't try to force your preferences on the rest of us.
There has been a trend toward this for years. Remember when OS's came with paper manuals? These were replaced by (often inferior) online documentation. When Microsoft got so big, it made financial sense to attempt the scenario you describe by not shipping boot disks at all. After all when you have 95% of the market, 50 cents saved per license adds up.
Funny, i've personally set up about 50-75 new Dell PCs this summer, and every single one came with a Windows XP install disk, 3 restore disks from Dell, and a paper manual for Windows XP. Yet again, you're trying to spin things so "Windows sux0rs!".
In the process of installing Mdk I accidently nuked the wrong wrong windows partition (I nuked /mnt/win_d instead of /mnt/win_c because I thought d: would be the data partition and c: would be the boot/program partition - wrong!
You say this like you can barely believe it - a small clue though, Windows XP doesn't have seperate data and boot partitions. Never has. 5 seconds of looking in "My Computer" in Windows would have shown you this.
Be all that as it may, don't make Windows out to be bad just because you assumed it worked the same way as Linux.
The kicker is he was sharing and didn't know it, someone had taken over his win 2k box and was running a bot on it to share movies.
How the hell do you NOT notice someone using your box as a distribution point for full-length movies? One would think unknown files taking up hundreds of megs would be a fast tipoff. Or the fact that bandwidth usage has suddenly jumped sky-high.
I'm sorry, but anyone that allows that sort of thing to go on long enough to be tracked and warned is a first-class idiot.
The WinAMP playlist isn't part of the main program window -- it's a seprate window you have to manage or attach and drag around. The UI widgets are not standard windows controls, and at 1280x1024 or larger they are too small to comfortably read. On top of that, the little abbreviations and symbols used on the various controls aren't intuitive, so you have to try things out to figure our what they do and how it works.
:):P
These issues are one the main reasons Winamp is totally skinable. 27,613 skins for the Winamp 2 branch at last count. If you can't read the widgets on the default skin, then change it to one you like better, or make your own.
Last I saw, the playback controls all looked like those on a regular stereo, even with the wierd-ass skins I use, so i'm not really sure where you're coming from on that. Even at 1280x1024, i've never had trouble navigating, but if you can't read a button for some reason, there's keyboard shortcuts for everything that stay consistent accross different skins.
The Windows Media Player Media Library is even more obnoxious, because it requires you to enter, maintain, and store metadata in the Media Library database that isn't correspondingly present on the filesystem, and you can't pick up that metadata inside other programs.
I won't argue with you on this point, mainly because WMP is so fux0red on my system at the moment that it won't even start
The main complaint I had wasn't with the usability as much as it is with the bloatiness of the programs. WinAMP has degraded through the major releases into a giant bloated "let's skin everything, fuck performance" mess. It eats up memory and causes song playback to suffer when you've got numerous other programs running (which I almost always do when listening to music files on my PC).
Yeah, if you're using Winamp 3, that's been an issue for just about everyone. It's the main reason development on the Winamp 2 branch is still continuing, and tons of people have backpedaled a bit.
I don't care about or want "pretty". I want efficient, simple, and functional. I want the bare minimum necessary to get the job done. VUPlayer meets those desires perfectly.
That desire is fine, but making other non-bare-bones players out to be junk because they look nicer is just stupid.
Yes, they can -- and a bit more -- but I dont' want or need their extra bells and whistles. I just want something that works reliably and efficiently and offers the functionality I care about.
I have around ~10,000 songs in a playlist most days. Winamp handles that fine, doesn't crash, and doesn't slow my system down - hell, when Windows freezes up sometimes, Winamp is the only program that keeps functioning and playing somehow.
Why is it that media players need skins?
For the simple reason that it's easier on the eyes, and because people love to customize their desktops - they're called personal computers for a reason. If you don't want to skin anything, then fine, but you're in the minority.
Forgive me if i'm assuming too much, but you give the impression that you're one of those types that does almost nothing but use office programs or bang out code, and generally sees games/pretty graphics as a waste of time. There's nothing wrong with that, but, again, you have to realize that most of us don't care enough about optimizing every last CPU cycle to not have some graphical enjoyment.
And, if you can legitimately say that drawing a waveform while playing a song is wasting enough CPU time to have a serious impact, you need a new computer.....It just doesn't take that much power, plain and simple.
Fuck WinAMP and Windows Media Player with their giant, over-engineered bloated interfaces and difficult-to-understand-and-use playlist and media library concepts
Wha? You must have one hell of an unorganized filesystem if making a playlist is hard. (in Winamp or xmms) Click the button that says "File" in the lower left corner, pick whether you want a directory, url, or individual files. Pick the target(s) and then click "Ok". Files are now on your playlist- and they can be deleted or re-ordered with single commands. How freakin' hard is that?
If you can operate a stereo and CD Player, you can operate Winamp. Don't try to dredge up bullshit reasons to hate it for not being open-source.
VUPlayer is simple, fast, and supports basically everything.
After checking it out for a while, I would also add "ugly" and "redundant" to that list. Even if you only look at open-source players, there's still XMMS, which is actually pleasing to the eye rather than looking like just another vanilla-style Windows app. Not to mention that both Winamp and XMMS will do (almost, I don't think Winamp will have CD ripping for another update or two) everything VUPlayer can.
How do you expect GC to compete with XBOX and PS2 when GC has a pathetic excuse for online gaming...I mean, Phantasy Star Online, AND THAT'S IT???
Oh, gee, I forgot, the fondest wish of every game player is to have every game online...NOT. I'm so sick and tired of people holding up online console gaming like it's the Holy Grail or something. If I want multiplayer console, i'll get some friends to come over and play that way. In the same room. What a concept!
Please. I got XBox for online games, and my PS2 only sees use right now as an online machine...is there ANY online sports games on GC yet? Madden? Any NHL game? Baseball? Something similar to SOCOM? How about Wolfenstein, or GHOST RECON? I didn't think so...GC is and will always be for kiddies who don't know why a console would be hooked up to a cable modem/DSL line...
I defer to Tycho and Gabe on this one. Oh, and a little newsflash for you- not everyone in the world loves sports games to the exclusion of everything else, and everybody sure as hell doesn't love online sports games.
Come back when you've grown up a bit, and can debate intelligently.