Speaking of laptop power savings: LED backlights?
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· Score: 3, Offtopic
I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable than me can shed light (ha ha) on the possibilities for white-LED backlights in laptops.
Certain high-end digital cameras (like the newest Nikon SLRs) have white LED backlights for their LCD displays. White LED prices are dropping (USD7.88 for a nice little waterproof, floating flashlight at Walmart:) !), and power consumption on white LEDs is ridiculously low. As I understand it, the backlight is the biggest draw in a lot of laptops, especially turned up bright.
So why don't we see some low-power LED-light screens? I'd pay $200 more easily for my next laptop if it got (for instance) 50% more battery life.
What's stopping those? Considering that there are now several approaches (AMD, Intel, Transmeta and now VIA) to saving power on laptop processors, what about the other powerhogs?:)
One of the possibilities I'd like to come out of such wireless service is always-on-if-in-range connection, but not just in-city. If I'm in another city with the same service provider, I want to connect seamlessly as if I was in my "home coverage area" (quoted because I hope that's a term / concept which it's time to dump:)).
As the network patchwork fills in, I want to be able to use the cheapest / most appropriate current connection available as I switch between areas that have different things available. Merlin, sucks but it's wireless. Ricochet is cooler, if it wasn't out of business. Starband is nice, but it's Windows-only and requires expensive install. IP-over-cellular exists but is expensive. Iridium still sort of exists. Dialup works from Motel 6. DSL, cable have their own sets of goods and bads -- but I'm talking things that could be at least potentially mobile.
Topping off the list of I Wants, I want to be able to cruise around the country (or the planet, but I'd settle for North America) on a Honda Goldwing with reasonable wireless internet access from anywhere I choose to stop.
Yes, I thought this was a beter name, personally:)
I can see a Linux-only company adding it to their name (though the examples I can think of are dangerous -- LinuxGruven? LinuxCare?), VA Research I think was a cooler name. VA Systems would be a nice generalized, plausable-deniability name, too;) (After all, what can't be defined in some sense as "a system"?)
On that note though, I think "VA Software" is better than "VA Linux" as a company name. Nobody asked me about the name change, though;)
Windows is reliable. Every generation is more and more secure. Boy, next one's gonna be the winner. No problems here. Sheesh, I wish I could use Linux at work, but Windows is what we've settled on, so I guess that's good enough. I need to play games. Without the latest DirectX Flooznithummer, I'm not going to go to some inferior operating system. Windows is really secure if you're not a total luser! Gosh, at work we've settled on sitting on sharp, dirty spikes every day instead of regular chairs, and dammit, it's necessary for efficiency! Horses, too.
the "complexity" I referred to there is financial / logistical. Things like keeping physical track of license documentation, of paying for and accounting for upgrades, maintaining lists of unlocking keys, etc. I like not needing to enter serial numbers when I install Mandrake;)
Obviously (?), a company's software environment can be more *or* less complex with free software depending on implementation, what the company does, etc. City of Largo did a simpling-down move, all software on server, etc, but that's really orthogonal to whether it's free... there are stripped down, custom-embeddable versions of Windows which could be used to do the same thing, just not quite as simply.
is when people start griping for commercial software as easy and smart as their free stuff.
Yes, this already goes on sometimes (in server rooms, say), but it's still funny and as much a contrarian in-joke in many cases as it is a genuine sentiment. When it stops being funny -- well, that *will* be funny;)
I'd like to see Red Hat & c. (IBM is doing this a bit) play up the HUGE upgrade free software means when it comes to complexity, ongoing costs, etc.
Ongoing costs for software rental / licensure (and remember, companies don't *buy* most software, esp. from Microsoft -- they purchase quite restrictive licenses) are like holes in your money bag. From a business standpoint, they'd better be doing a lot of "making your memos more productive" to make up for it.
The more software that can be apt-get installed, the flatter the (overstated) learning curve becomes. Someone will probably make sure that Windows has a cute apt-get wizard too;)
itachi wrote: "It's been out for a while, in fact. It's got a BSD core, it's very user friendly (to the point that it is always criticized on/.), it has the simplest, cleanest install I've ever seen, and it's all about the user's experience. Mac OS X. I'm running 10.1.1 and OpenBSD (respectively) on my two primary machines, and if I could throw the two of them into a blender for a 3rd machine... "
heh, OS X is pretty nice, though my esperience has been slightly buggier than yours, it sounds like.
Solaris I've used (slightly) but not myself installed.
NetBSD is the closest to what I'm suggesting probably, simply for licensing reasons. It's true I didn't get this specific when I said "Mandrake Linux" but the thing which rules out Solaris and Mac OS for that role is that Mandrake produces free / Free software. So does OpenBSD -- Mac OS is a cool example of the way the *BSD license is flexible enough to branch proprietary as well as non-proprietary software, but I'd *prefer* (not kill puppies for, just prefer) an OS of the non-proprietary variety.
"The original post was talking about making a GUI installer that had no more inherent functionality than the console installer."
Depends what you consider functionality. I think a better help system during the install (troubleshooting, context-linked explanations to call up with various levels of verbosity...) would be improved functionality. And in general, unless the *old* functionality is removed, giving users new ways to do things sounds good to me.
wiredog wrote: " Why? Mandrake is aimed straight at the Desktop. RedHat aims at Windows NT users. The BSD's aim at unix sysadmins who Know What They Are Doing. Open/Free/Net don't need a User Friendly graphical install interface because their current interface is friendly to the users they aim at."
OK. You're right, and that's what I tried to say in the first place -- they don't *need* to do anything, really, this is just an idea I've been wondering about for a while. Then again, no one needs to eat anything besides what they've eaten before. To me, that's an unconvincing argument against not trying new things... conservativism has its merits, but there are drawbacks, too. "As it was, so shall it ever be"?
Needs are relative and context-dependent. Someone who wanted to use an ultra-secure OS as the basis of a turn-key retail or data-entry system, for instance, might want the good things about OpenBSD, but not the learning curve. "Take it or leave it" is one answer to this, but I see no reason for it to be the only answer.
Sure, the BSDs are (currently) well suited only for people who are used to UNIX, know their way around shells, etc (though there are some good intro books, which would probably turn anyone who's pretty computer literate into a moderate user in not too long a time) -- but there's really nothing inherent that says they have to be. (And a nice counterexample in the case of OS X, too.)
The reason I would like to see this is because I think it's good to have a crowded, robust OS marketplace. Like my comment said, my wish isn't a demand on BSD developers or anyone else; I'm surprised, though, that an ultra-friendly version of at least one of the BSDs hasn't already emerged, but it takes some lucky intersections of interest, ability, time and money which aren't inevitable, only possible.
I think you have a good point on that -- BSD License (I'm not about to argue what form of license is the One True Sense of Freedom) would allow just that. I think it would be great if MS came out with an OBSD based OS -- good competition for other OSes;) And if, as you say, they tout it also as Linux Compatible, then the embrace phase of the dance at least would be good for nearly any *nixish OS. (Then comes extend, extinguish, etc, but... that's another issue.)
If they make good, high-quality software, that part is good. Bad, intrusive, petty licensing issues are still annoying and a good reason to avoid MS software, but any good stuff they make is still good stuff.
a) Theo and company (good company) don't need or seek new users just to be popular. They like doing what they do -- I know that. Don't take what I'm about to say as marketing advice to them, so much as a pleasant wish. It doesn't impose an obligation or demand on the OpenBSD guys, and I know it. Still...
b) I'm surprised (not to say hurt, disappointed and disconsolate) that no one (am I wrong?) has come out with the equivalent of Mandrake to at least one of the BSDs -- and by equivalent I mean in a certain superficial but important way: user-friendly, pretty install, emphasis on user experience, intelligibility.
c) Really, I'm just talking about the install. Something with some graphical flair, built-in help system for new users, and a game or two, or a little slideshow, or some interesting history text files, *something* built in to play while slow parts of the install proceed. No accounting for taste, but I think there are a lot of good graphic artists (all the Ximian stuff, for instance, and many great KDE examples) working in the world of free software. (Hey, I also like the BSD art, so obviously I am open for attack by the art critics;)).
I name Mandrake as my prototype here, just because I happen to like their stuff -- RH also makes a pretty install, not quite as cute, and so do several other distros. But Mandrake is in Walmart, which suits my example ("Walmart: making things accessable to the masses")
Cmdrtaco might not think the Star Wars game is very fun, but Cliff and I do. Cliff is busy destroying towers right now, in fact -- this game is making me want to buy the GameCube and glue the lid shut...
I rarely add software to an installation of Mandrake or Red Hat, and were I a SuSE user I could probably add an "extremely" before the "rarely." Even the smaller, downloadable all-GPL version of mandrake has most of the software that I want / need on a daily basis. (Except for upgrading certain things, grabbing a new Mozilla once in a while, etc.)
To get gimp to run on OS X (it runs, Yes...) is a larger pain than installing a simple Linux system, and does me no good when using OS 9, anyhow. (For speed reasons, even with 10.1 and 384 megs of memory, I find myself usually booting that machine into OS 9.)
But you're right, I wasn't thinking about macgimp when I wrote that.
re: bitchX -- though a lot of people swear by bitchX, to me it's at best a distant 3rd behind xchat and mozilla's IRC mode. So it's no argument for me, really, on that count. Using the nicely cross-platform Mozilla (on borrowed Windows machines, my Linux-running desktops or my iBook running Mac OS) isn't exactly a terrible hardship, and that module seems to improve faster even than the rest of Mozilla, but it's just not my favorite.
re: Paying for software -- never said I was opposed to paying for software, only that I prefer Free software to the other kinds. Paying for (or just using) Free software seems a better long-term investment to me than paying for (or just using) the other kinds. I prefer not to spend more money than I have to (doesn't everyone?), and I like software with available source, in part because that means there's no reason it has to disappear if / when its vendor disappears.
(Did you ever use the word processor called "WriteNow"? Clean, fast, fit on 2 floppies... if the source was open, I might be using a modern descendent of that program today.)
I can diss any software I want:) Most software sucks. Mozilla crashes sometimes, and that's my most-days, most-hours window on the world. No Free *nix desktop handles fonts with anything like the panache of Mac OS. More generally, most user interfaces (not just software, or computers -- think of the user interface of everything from buying an airline ticket to car radios) are horrible. Sometimes software has problems that come from being proprietary (security problems that don't get fixed for a long time because of a ponderous review and fix cycle, say), but software problems come in all varieties, and any non-trivial program probably has bugs worth crying about.
With Photoshop vs GIMP specifically, like I said before, I prefer GIMP, and it runs under Linux, my preferred OS for right now. PS runs on my laptop, and I have a paid-for (limited version) copy on there. If you don't prefer GIMP, and want to shell out the money for a full version of PS, well, great, no problem! I'm sure the PS coders are bright guys and earn the salaries they're paid. In certain applications, PS is currently a better choice; those just aren't the ones I have. (No 4-color printing, for instance.) I do wish for better text-handling in GIMP, it's true, but we choose different bundles all the time, and my font complaints don't overshadow my general preferences.
At least, that's a sufficient answer to me, and the biggest easily-identifiable reason I'm waiting impatiently for mdk8.1:) I have photoshop LE (came with a Wacom tablet), and it's OK, but after using both I prefer GIMP's interface in general for my personal photo manipulation and drawing. Both have good and bad points, and Sure, I'm just more used to GIMP after not touching PS for a few years, but hey. YMMV, etc.
For people who a) like or need IRC and b) prefer free software to shareware / guiltware / payware, xchat is also quite nice to have, though Mozilla's IRC capabilities are getting quite nice. (private msg's are handled much better by xchat, though.)
OS X is nice looking, though, now that I bumped up the RAM in my iBook;)
it's true that there are a lot of places in the world where old monitors aren't just lying around people's garages, but... for a whole lot (most, I think, but can't say) Americans, anyhow, a weekend yardsale haunting or two should yield a working VGA monitor for $20 or so. I say this based on time spent in NYC, suburban MD, rural TN, and Austin, TX in the last few years. Yard sales aside, (not) in the worlds of Ebeneezer Scrooge, "Are there no thrift stores?" I see VGA monitors (rightly considered near useless for modern OSes) mostly unused, in landfills, etc.
I bought (in Knoxville, TN, yesterday evening) a MadCatz brand adapter, marked down to $9.99 from $14.99, with a short cable on one end to one of the four dreamcast inputs, and on the other end a (selectable, via cool little sliding door) port for either a PS/2 or AT keyboard.
I have read that keyboards other than the Sega may not be compatible with the various OS projects loading on the dreamcast though, so I may have to go back and get a sega keyboard as well. I'd much rather have a nice preowned-by-NASA IBM behemoth hooked up to it, though:) The Sega keyboard (they had one in stock) feels like a typical PC keyboard -- that is, not great response, but no worse than today's ordinary, mediocre, forgettable, disposable keyboards.*
Steve Roberts does pretty well on recumbents on all sorts of terrain... (of course, that's far from a normal case, and he has 108 or some other ridiculously high number of gears).
You're sure right that they're not easy to ride on hills, though, but if I were to ride x-country, I might just want to walk up (or hitch from drivers with pickups) the big hills:)
What I like about recumbents is in large part what they're not, which is hunch-inducing crotch-wedges.
The truth is, I haven't taken any rides over 20 miles, myself -- so going cross country (in the U.S.) is a bit of a pipedream right now:) If I do it, I would try to stay in a lot of towns across the country, by no means would I try to set any speed records!
On a recumbent bike though, I think this could be a good way to travel the country, especially once there's unmetered medium-bandwidth Internet service through Low-Earth-Orbit satellites. A low-powered laptop, a trickle-charger, enough clothes to get between towns, and some high-calorie food...
As far as the comparison I made being Apples-to-Oranges, it might even be more like horses-to-snowboards. But unless context makes it illegal, immoral, dangerous or fattening, there's nothing wrong with a good Apples-Oranges comparison, IMO. I generally like the texture and flavor of oranges better than apples, but if sliced and baked into a crust, I'd prefer apples:)
Eh, I don't really care about what is or isn't (considered) a "gaming platform" -- the Mandrake release sounds interesting because it would let me play with a computer game that looks sort of interesting (the Sims) without paying for either a new piece of hardware (console) or another OS (some variety of Windows). I've seen screenshots from the Sims, and I know a lot of people are fascinated by it, but I've never played, myself. Since I'm likely to buy a boxed Mandrake 8.1 anyhow, the price difference isn't much, making it much more tempting as an experiment.
Re: "markets where it actually has the edge," I'm not saying that you should want to buy the Mandrake gaming edition, or anything else. I like fireworks, Honda Goldwings, and Korean food, among other things -- if you prefer to spend your money and attention on things I don't like, well... OK, that's your choice to make. Since Linux is for the moment at least my OS of choice, games that run under Linux have the edge in my one-person market.
Maybe one day I'll care enough to buy a game console, but so far and for the most part the actual games leave me cold. Tastes vary, situations are complex, etc.
And really, it was an offhand (but truthful) statement of preference, not a demand that anyone else agree. Chill:)
I'm not knocking Apple -- I've liked Apple's hardware for a long time. I own and use an Apple computer, and have had a string of 'em before the current iBook (IIfx, SE/30,* Classic II, Performa 636*, powerbook 140, powerbook 240 duo, and maybe a few others in there, too). For the past several years, I've been a lot more interested in software-with-source-code-available, a category that Mac OS (excepting the Darwin part of OS X) does not fall into. OK; that doesn't mean that Apple become a bad company making bad computers, it just means that people have different preferences and interests. OK, no problem. (Several of the Slashdot authors and coders use / enjoy Macs, btw.)
For reasons outlined in some other comments, I actually prefer the Linksys AP+4-port switch to the Apple Airport, but lighten up, alright?:) I may have certain objections to Apple, but I also have a lot of praise for them. Apple has a remarkably good user interface (less bad than most alternatives in most aspects), good industrial design for their hardware (the G3/G4 case is genius, better by far than the pricey Antec cases on my PCs), and intelligent focus on the user experience in general.
Apple has done more to open up home wireless networking than most of the other companies involved in it combined. The airport is functionally brilliant (wish my Linksys had a modem, I do) and for a while was the best deal in home wireless by a long shot. Right now though, Linksys and SMC (and others) are making products which for many people can bring the benefits they'd get from an Airport for much less money. So? Apple isn't dumb:) They'll either add features (like they've just done), drop prices (like the not-bad pricing on current Apple laptops), or otherwise try to make people find it worthwhile to buy their version. Or maybe they won't, and that aspect of their business will falter. OK -- no problem, at least long term.
If you still think my post was hard on Apple, or negative, I don't know what else to tell you. I generally like Apple, though like a lot of other armchair critics, there are a lot of things I wish they did differently. No crime in that, eh?
Cheers,
timothy
*The only real dog of the bunch, but still a useful machine.
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I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable than me can shed light (ha ha) on the possibilities for white-LED backlights in laptops.
:) !), and power consumption on white LEDs is ridiculously low. As I understand it, the backlight is the biggest draw in a lot of laptops, especially turned up bright.
:)
Certain high-end digital cameras (like the newest Nikon SLRs) have white LED backlights for their LCD displays. White LED prices are dropping (USD7.88 for a nice little waterproof, floating flashlight at Walmart
So why don't we see some low-power LED-light screens? I'd pay $200 more easily for my next laptop if it got (for instance) 50% more battery life.
What's stopping those? Considering that there are now several approaches (AMD, Intel, Transmeta and now VIA) to saving power on laptop processors, what about the other powerhogs?
timothy
One of the possibilities I'd like to come out of such wireless service is always-on-if-in-range connection, but not just in-city. If I'm in another city with the same service provider, I want to connect seamlessly as if I was in my "home coverage area" (quoted because I hope that's a term / concept which it's time to dump :)).
As the network patchwork fills in, I want to be able to use the cheapest / most appropriate current connection available as I switch between areas that have different things available. Merlin, sucks but it's wireless. Ricochet is cooler, if it wasn't out of business. Starband is nice, but it's Windows-only and requires expensive install. IP-over-cellular exists but is expensive. Iridium still sort of exists. Dialup works from Motel 6. DSL, cable have their own sets of goods and bads -- but I'm talking things that could be at least potentially mobile.
Topping off the list of I Wants, I want to be able to cruise around the country (or the planet, but I'd settle for North America) on a Honda Goldwing with reasonable wireless internet access from anywhere I choose to stop.
timothy
"beter" is something else, too advanced for the scope of today's conversation. My bad.
Yes, I thought this was a beter name, personally :)
;) (After all, what can't be defined in some sense as "a system"?)
;)
I can see a Linux-only company adding it to their name (though the examples I can think of are dangerous -- LinuxGruven? LinuxCare?), VA Research I think was a cooler name. VA Systems would be a nice generalized, plausable-deniability name, too
On that note though, I think "VA Software" is better than "VA Linux" as a company name. Nobody asked me about the name change, though
Cheers,
timothy
Windows is reliable. Every generation is more and more secure. Boy, next one's gonna be the winner. No problems here. Sheesh, I wish I could use Linux at work, but Windows is what we've settled on, so I guess that's good enough. I need to play games. Without the latest DirectX Flooznithummer, I'm not going to go to some inferior operating system. Windows is really secure if you're not a total luser! Gosh, at work we've settled on sitting on sharp, dirty spikes every day instead of regular chairs, and dammit, it's necessary for efficiency! Horses, too.
Written English, besides a tag, needs some other things, like underlining phrases to be parsed at once ;)
By using the word "upgrade," though, I qualified for a dose of abuse and revilement.
timothy
the "complexity" I referred to there is financial / logistical. Things like keeping physical track of license documentation, of paying for and accounting for upgrades, maintaining lists of unlocking keys, etc. I like not needing to enter serial numbers when I install Mandrake ;)
... there are stripped down, custom-embeddable versions of Windows which could be used to do the same thing, just not quite as simply.
Obviously (?), a company's software environment can be more *or* less complex with free software depending on implementation, what the company does, etc. City of Largo did a simpling-down move, all software on server, etc, but that's really orthogonal to whether it's free
timothy
is when people start griping for commercial software as easy and smart as their free stuff.
;)
;)
Yes, this already goes on sometimes (in server rooms, say), but it's still funny and as much a contrarian in-joke in many cases as it is a genuine sentiment. When it stops being funny -- well, that *will* be funny
I'd like to see Red Hat & c. (IBM is doing this a bit) play up the HUGE upgrade free software means when it comes to complexity, ongoing costs, etc.
Ongoing costs for software rental / licensure (and remember, companies don't *buy* most software, esp. from Microsoft -- they purchase quite restrictive licenses) are like holes in your money bag. From a business standpoint, they'd better be doing a lot of "making your memos more productive" to make up for it.
The more software that can be apt-get installed, the flatter the (overstated) learning curve becomes. Someone will probably make sure that Windows has a cute apt-get wizard too
timothy
itachi wrote: "It's been out for a while, in fact. It's got a BSD core, it's very user friendly (to the point that it is always criticized on /.), it has the simplest, cleanest install I've ever seen, and it's all about the user's experience. Mac OS X. I'm running 10.1.1 and OpenBSD (respectively) on my two primary machines, and if I could throw the two of them into a blender for a 3rd machine... "
heh, OS X is pretty nice, though my esperience has been slightly buggier than yours, it sounds like.
Solaris I've used (slightly) but not myself installed.
NetBSD is the closest to what I'm suggesting probably, simply for licensing reasons. It's true I didn't get this specific when I said "Mandrake Linux" but the thing which rules out Solaris and Mac OS for that role is that Mandrake produces free / Free software. So does OpenBSD -- Mac OS is a cool example of the way the *BSD license is flexible enough to branch proprietary as well as non-proprietary software, but I'd *prefer* (not kill puppies for, just prefer) an OS of the non-proprietary variety.
timothy
"The original post was talking about making a GUI installer that had no more inherent functionality than the console installer."
...) would be improved functionality. And in general, unless the *old* functionality is removed, giving users new ways to do things sounds good to me.
Depends what you consider functionality. I think a better help system during the install (troubleshooting, context-linked explanations to call up with various levels of verbosity
timothy
"conservatism" probably works just as well ;)
... mushy ... need ... sleep ...
Brain
timothy
wiredog wrote: " Why? Mandrake is aimed straight at the Desktop. RedHat aims at Windows NT users. The BSD's aim at unix sysadmins who Know What They Are Doing. Open/Free/Net don't need a User Friendly graphical install interface because their current interface is friendly to the users they aim at."
... conservativism has its merits, but there are drawbacks, too. "As it was, so shall it ever be"?
OK. You're right, and that's what I tried to say in the first place -- they don't *need* to do anything, really, this is just an idea I've been wondering about for a while. Then again, no one needs to eat anything besides what they've eaten before. To me, that's an unconvincing argument against not trying new things
Needs are relative and context-dependent. Someone who wanted to use an ultra-secure OS as the basis of a turn-key retail or data-entry system, for instance, might want the good things about OpenBSD, but not the learning curve. "Take it or leave it" is one answer to this, but I see no reason for it to be the only answer.
Sure, the BSDs are (currently) well suited only for people who are used to UNIX, know their way around shells, etc (though there are some good intro books, which would probably turn anyone who's pretty computer literate into a moderate user in not too long a time) -- but there's really nothing inherent that says they have to be. (And a nice counterexample in the case of OS X, too.)
The reason I would like to see this is because I think it's good to have a crowded, robust OS marketplace. Like my comment said, my wish isn't a demand on BSD developers or anyone else; I'm surprised, though, that an ultra-friendly version of at least one of the BSDs hasn't already emerged, but it takes some lucky intersections of interest, ability, time and money which aren't inevitable, only possible.
cheers,
timothy
I think you have a good point on that -- BSD License (I'm not about to argue what form of license is the One True Sense of Freedom) would allow just that. I think it would be great if MS came out with an OBSD based OS -- good competition for other OSes ;) And if, as you say, they tout it also as Linux Compatible, then the embrace phase of the dance at least would be good for nearly any *nixish OS. (Then comes extend, extinguish, etc, but ... that's another issue.)
If they make good, high-quality software, that part is good. Bad, intrusive, petty licensing issues are still annoying and a good reason to avoid MS software, but any good stuff they make is still good stuff.
timothy
a) Theo and company (good company) don't need or seek new users just to be popular. They like doing what they do -- I know that. Don't take what I'm about to say as marketing advice to them, so much as a pleasant wish. It doesn't impose an obligation or demand on the OpenBSD guys, and I know it. Still ...
b) I'm surprised (not to say hurt, disappointed and disconsolate) that no one (am I wrong?) has come out with the equivalent of Mandrake to at least one of the BSDs -- and by equivalent I mean in a certain superficial but important way: user-friendly, pretty install, emphasis on user experience, intelligibility.
c) Really, I'm just talking about the install. Something with some graphical flair, built-in help system for new users, and a game or two, or a little slideshow, or some interesting history text files, *something* built in to play while slow parts of the install proceed. No accounting for taste, but I think there are a lot of good graphic artists (all the Ximian stuff, for instance, and many great KDE examples) working in the world of free software. (Hey, I also like the BSD art, so obviously I am open for attack by the art critics;)).
I name Mandrake as my prototype here, just because I happen to like their stuff -- RH also makes a pretty install, not quite as cute, and so do several other distros. But Mandrake is in Walmart, which suits my example ("Walmart: making things accessable to the masses")
Cheers,
Tim
Cmdrtaco might not think the Star Wars game is very fun, but Cliff and I do. Cliff is busy destroying towers right now, in fact -- this game is making me want to buy the GameCube and glue the lid shut ...
timothy
I rarely add software to an installation of Mandrake or Red Hat, and were I a SuSE user I could probably add an "extremely" before the "rarely." Even the smaller, downloadable all-GPL version of mandrake has most of the software that I want / need on a daily basis. (Except for upgrading certain things, grabbing a new Mozilla once in a while, etc.)
...) is a larger pain than installing a simple Linux system, and does me no good when using OS 9, anyhow. (For speed reasons, even with 10.1 and 384 megs of memory, I find myself usually booting that machine into OS 9.)
To get gimp to run on OS X (it runs, Yes
But you're right, I wasn't thinking about macgimp when I wrote that.
timothy
re: bitchX -- though a lot of people swear by bitchX, to me it's at best a distant 3rd behind xchat and mozilla's IRC mode. So it's no argument for me, really, on that count. Using the nicely cross-platform Mozilla (on borrowed Windows machines, my Linux-running desktops or my iBook running Mac OS) isn't exactly a terrible hardship, and that module seems to improve faster even than the rest of Mozilla, but it's just not my favorite.
... if the source was open, I might be using a modern descendent of that program today.)
:) Most software sucks. Mozilla crashes sometimes, and that's my most-days, most-hours window on the world. No Free *nix desktop handles fonts with anything like the panache of Mac OS. More generally, most user interfaces (not just software, or computers -- think of the user interface of everything from buying an airline ticket to car radios) are horrible. Sometimes software has problems that come from being proprietary (security problems that don't get fixed for a long time because of a ponderous review and fix cycle, say), but software problems come in all varieties, and any non-trivial program probably has bugs worth crying about.
re: Paying for software -- never said I was opposed to paying for software, only that I prefer Free software to the other kinds. Paying for (or just using) Free software seems a better long-term investment to me than paying for (or just using) the other kinds. I prefer not to spend more money than I have to (doesn't everyone?), and I like software with available source, in part because that means there's no reason it has to disappear if / when its vendor disappears.
(Did you ever use the word processor called "WriteNow"? Clean, fast, fit on 2 floppies
I can diss any software I want
With Photoshop vs GIMP specifically, like I said before, I prefer GIMP, and it runs under Linux, my preferred OS for right now. PS runs on my laptop, and I have a paid-for (limited version) copy on there. If you don't prefer GIMP, and want to shell out the money for a full version of PS, well, great, no problem! I'm sure the PS coders are bright guys and earn the salaries they're paid. In certain applications, PS is currently a better choice; those just aren't the ones I have. (No 4-color printing, for instance.) I do wish for better text-handling in GIMP, it's true, but we choose different bundles all the time, and my font complaints don't overshadow my general preferences.
Cheers,
timothy
At least, that's a sufficient answer to me, and the biggest easily-identifiable reason I'm waiting impatiently for mdk8.1 :) I have photoshop LE (came with a Wacom tablet), and it's OK, but after using both I prefer GIMP's interface in general for my personal photo manipulation and drawing. Both have good and bad points, and Sure, I'm just more used to GIMP after not touching PS for a few years, but hey. YMMV, etc.
;)
For people who a) like or need IRC and b) prefer free software to shareware / guiltware / payware, xchat is also quite nice to have, though Mozilla's IRC capabilities are getting quite nice. (private msg's are handled much better by xchat, though.)
OS X is nice looking, though, now that I bumped up the RAM in my iBook
timothy
it's true that there are a lot of places in the world where old monitors aren't just lying around people's garages, but ... for a whole lot (most, I think, but can't say) Americans, anyhow, a weekend yardsale haunting or two should yield a working VGA monitor for $20 or so. I say this based on time spent in NYC, suburban MD, rural TN, and Austin, TX in the last few years. Yard sales aside, (not) in the worlds of Ebeneezer Scrooge, "Are there no thrift stores?" I see VGA monitors (rightly considered near useless for modern OSes) mostly unused, in landfills, etc.
:)
Your part of the world may vary
timothy
I bought (in Knoxville, TN, yesterday evening) a MadCatz brand adapter, marked down to $9.99 from $14.99, with a short cable on one end to one of the four dreamcast inputs, and on the other end a (selectable, via cool little sliding door) port for either a PS/2 or AT keyboard.
:) The Sega keyboard (they had one in stock) feels like a typical PC keyboard -- that is, not great response, but no worse than today's ordinary, mediocre, forgettable, disposable keyboards.*
...
I have read that keyboards other than the Sega may not be compatible with the various OS projects loading on the dreamcast though, so I may have to go back and get a sega keyboard as well. I'd much rather have a nice preowned-by-NASA IBM behemoth hooked up to it, though
Tim
* but I'm not bitter. Noooooo
Dear Zarathud:
Thanks for pointing that out; I screwed up when I pasted in that link, now I amended it.
Cheers,
Tim
Steve Roberts does pretty well on recumbents on all sorts of terrain ... (of course, that's far from a normal case, and he has 108 or some other ridiculously high number of gears).
:)
You're sure right that they're not easy to ride on hills, though, but if I were to ride x-country, I might just want to walk up (or hitch from drivers with pickups) the big hills
What I like about recumbents is in large part what they're not, which is hunch-inducing crotch-wedges.
Tim
The truth is, I haven't taken any rides over 20 miles, myself -- so going cross country (in the U.S.) is a bit of a pipedream right now :) If I do it, I would try to stay in a lot of towns across the country, by no means would I try to set any speed records!
...
:)
On a recumbent bike though, I think this could be a good way to travel the country, especially once there's unmetered medium-bandwidth Internet service through Low-Earth-Orbit satellites. A low-powered laptop, a trickle-charger, enough clothes to get between towns, and some high-calorie food
As far as the comparison I made being Apples-to-Oranges, it might even be more like horses-to-snowboards. But unless context makes it illegal, immoral, dangerous or fattening, there's nothing wrong with a good Apples-Oranges comparison, IMO. I generally like the texture and flavor of oranges better than apples, but if sliced and baked into a crust, I'd prefer apples
Cheers,
timothy
Eh, I don't really care about what is or isn't (considered) a "gaming platform" -- the Mandrake release sounds interesting because it would let me play with a computer game that looks sort of interesting (the Sims) without paying for either a new piece of hardware (console) or another OS (some variety of Windows). I've seen screenshots from the Sims, and I know a lot of people are fascinated by it, but I've never played, myself. Since I'm likely to buy a boxed Mandrake 8.1 anyhow, the price difference isn't much, making it much more tempting as an experiment.
... OK, that's your choice to make. Since Linux is for the moment at least my OS of choice, games that run under Linux have the edge in my one-person market.
:)
Re: "markets where it actually has the edge," I'm not saying that you should want to buy the Mandrake gaming edition, or anything else. I like fireworks, Honda Goldwings, and Korean food, among other things -- if you prefer to spend your money and attention on things I don't like, well
Maybe one day I'll care enough to buy a game console, but so far and for the most part the actual games leave me cold. Tastes vary, situations are complex, etc.
And really, it was an offhand (but truthful) statement of preference, not a demand that anyone else agree. Chill
timothy
perhaps I'm responding to a troll, but --
:) I may have certain objections to Apple, but I also have a lot of praise for them. Apple has a remarkably good user interface (less bad than most alternatives in most aspects), good industrial design for their hardware (the G3/G4 case is genius, better by far than the pricey Antec cases on my PCs), and intelligent focus on the user experience in general.
:) They'll either add features (like they've just done), drop prices (like the not-bad pricing on current Apple laptops), or otherwise try to make people find it worthwhile to buy their version. Or maybe they won't, and that aspect of their business will falter. OK -- no problem, at least long term.
I'm not knocking Apple -- I've liked Apple's hardware for a long time. I own and use an Apple computer, and have had a string of 'em before the current iBook (IIfx, SE/30,* Classic II, Performa 636*, powerbook 140, powerbook 240 duo, and maybe a few others in there, too). For the past several years, I've been a lot more interested in software-with-source-code-available, a category that Mac OS (excepting the Darwin part of OS X) does not fall into. OK; that doesn't mean that Apple become a bad company making bad computers, it just means that people have different preferences and interests. OK, no problem. (Several of the Slashdot authors and coders use / enjoy Macs, btw.)
For reasons outlined in some other comments, I actually prefer the Linksys AP+4-port switch to the Apple Airport, but lighten up, alright?
Apple has done more to open up home wireless networking than most of the other companies involved in it combined. The airport is functionally brilliant (wish my Linksys had a modem, I do) and for a while was the best deal in home wireless by a long shot. Right now though, Linksys and SMC (and others) are making products which for many people can bring the benefits they'd get from an Airport for much less money. So? Apple isn't dumb
If you still think my post was hard on Apple, or negative, I don't know what else to tell you. I generally like Apple, though like a lot of other armchair critics, there are a lot of things I wish they did differently. No crime in that, eh?
Cheers,
timothy
*The only real dog of the bunch, but still a useful machine.