ea, yea! And maybe they will all be nympomaniac blondes with huge bimbos that will be ready to do anything if you show them how to properly install a SLI video card setup on their home-made PC-s?
And they will be easily impressed when you show them your mad Perl skills?
Dude, chicks aren't impressed by mad perl skills - chicks like Ruby.
I can't imagine they can compete with a major chain store like Frys at component level sales
I think you overestimate the size of Frys. They hardly exist outside of California. In the tech mecca of the Seattle area, there is a grand total of ONE store, and it's prices really aren't any better for most things than Newegg, even when you take shipping & tax into account. Plus it's in a pretty horrible location for most people in the area.
Now think about how many locations Wal-Mart has around the country, and you should realize the scope of buying in tha tkind of bulk should be able to completely overwhelm something the size of Fry's, at least for things they carry in common, which I imagine will be rather small.
When you need the weird bits and pieces, though, Wal-Mart will never be able to compete with Fry's. That's where I got the 4-pin molex-to-SATA power adapter for my new 400GB drive yesterday.:)
Is FF2 going to have a multi-threaded UI? I keep waiting, and keep getting disappointed. I've looked through the lists of what's coming up, but have yet to notice this. For heavy tabs users like myself, that would have a MASSIVE impact on performance.
OS X running Windows apps in ugly gray, thats what he is onto. Its coming.
A monochrome Windows desktop would surely look better than all this cartoon crap they've been shoving at us since XP came out. The first thing I do with an XP machine is convert it to the 'classic' look (and turn off animations & sounds).
Don't forget the awesome 'Platinum' scheme OS 9 had - that was a nice look.
I once had a five-digit uid but I lost it and now I have no idea where it went.
*yawn*
I waited for it to be worth bothering creating a Slashdot account. The first posters were the reason I finally bothered. Idiocy-aversion is the mother of all invention.
ClearType certainly does not bold non-bolded text. The fact that some people seem to think that antialised rendering is "bold" indicates their ignorance.
It looks bold compared to non-CT text on a CRT. Plus it's extremely fuzzy.
Honestly, if you are using an LCD monitor, it's stupid not to have ClearType turned on. The fact that it is off by default always stunned me.
I'm not USING an LCD. I didn't turn CT on; the IE7 installer turned it on for IE7.
I guess though we also get the unhealthy radiation of a CRT and the lack of resolution flexibility of a TFT.
Interesting - I hadn't read anything about the resolution flexibility of a SED. It won't really affect me - I don't change my resolution much, if at all. As long as the display has the resolution, colour fidelity, and speed I want at a price I can afford, I'll be quite happy. I've stuck with my 1998 high-end 21" CRT this long, I can wait a few more years. It sure will be nice to reclaim all that desk space, though - my monitor effectively claims about 40% of my desk!
Likewise, GNU/Linux or FreeBSD is a *technically* more reliable operating system, but that's hardly my point. It's not what we've all been used to.
It's what the vast majority of people using computers in the U.S. are used to, and it's what I'm forced to use at work, and design for.
My big problem with the situation is that the IE7 installer isn't respecting the existing system-wide ClearType setting; it turns it on for IE7 and offers NO WARNING that it's going to do so. And with the goofy UI it has now, good luck for the average user to turn it off if they don't like it. (Users rarely change the default settings, even if they would like to).
It's a great OPTION to have, but it's fucked up beyond belief to force it on everyone.
I've used the tuner before, and it didn't bring that much of an improvement. I've not done any tests on aperture grille vs shadowmask CRTs, though. I tend to prefer shadowmask as I'm picky enough to immediately spot, and thus be vastly annoyed by, the dampening wires of aperture grille CRTs. I dunno if there's any difference in CT performance between the two technologies, though.
It'll be interesting to see if CT works well with SED or not.
There is an option to turn it off, it's in the Advanced menu. And I agree with the OP, no, ClearType does not make text look bold.
No kidding it can be turned off. That's not the point. The point is, I have it OFF on my system, so IE7 shouldn't be using CT rendering, ESPECIALLY without asking me first. This is the DEFAULT behaviour, which means that 99% of the idiots who wind up using IE7 when it becomes the Windows default will be getting an untuned CT display, LCD or CRT.
Print a page using the same physical font size that your web browser uses and compare it to the ClearType rendering. On the other hand, the hinted, non-antialiased 96dpi rendering that you're used to more than likely inaccurately represents the font's true stroke width.
Yes, it's a *technically* more accurate font rendering, but that's hardly my point. It's not what we've all been used to. It's not best used for low-DPI CRT displays. It makes all that nicely-rendered text look FUZZY on every CRT I've used it on, whether the CT has been 'tuned' or not.
Even without IE7, there are a lot of people that turn ClearType on, many laptops and desktop computers come preconfigured with ClearType on (those with a TFT), and Mac OSX also has font-smoothing somewhat similar to ClearType.
So I'd say you have to spend some time making sure your sites look good with ClearType, IE7 or not.
You're right, the move to LCD is happening quite quickly. I haven't yet because the quality of LCD I'd need to equal my nice CRT is way out of my price range at the moment. *sigh*
I really love thin/light fonts, so this whole thing is going to be an aesthetically-unsettling transistion. *shrug*
If we had really high-DPI displays, great, let's bring fonts into the modern age, but we're just not there, yet, IMO. I'd want a minimum of 300dpi before trying this nonsense on a CRT. And don't forget - LCD hasn't won the war, yet. SED displays should be out by year's end, and may compete quite well, depending on price.
What are their UI people smoking? Or did they hire some Opera UI people?
Opera is the most customisable interface I've ever encountered, and not just browsers.
Fair play. I was referring more to the IE7 interface compared with the goofy default layout of Opera's UI. You're very correct in how customizable Opera's UI is - although it's often EXTREMELY obfuscated as to how to customize many things. Nevertheless, what you want to customize can almost always be done in Opera, though it'll take some requests for help in the forums.
Not so with IE7, as far as I can tell. I can add, remove, and rearrange stuff on the toolbar, but I can't move the toolbar into different locations, as I could with previous versions of IE.
I'm hoping this isn't the final UI form. If it is, then it's taken several large steps backwards in UI customizability from previous versions of IE.
It's not like it's a big deal to me, since even with all its nifty new features (well, new to IE), I'll still be using Firefox, but the ClearType issue fucking up font display is going to mess with the usability of some of the sites I've designed, which is really irritating.
As far as Opera, I'm eagerly awaiting the final release of 9. I'm hoping I can customize it enough to use it as my main email client, as I freaking hate Thunderbird (and Outlook and Outlook Express, and, and, and...) I'd like the Hugin and Munin scripts updated for version 9.
Maybe if you start making links blue and underlined as they are supposed to be, and not just bold, you won't have that problem. Nice design move there, parent.
My text links are blue and bold, just not underlined, until your mouse pointer hovers over them. It's a nice design; I just didn't figure MS would force everyone to use bold text in IE7 by default (via ClearType). Guess that was stupid of me, huh?
ClearType, nor any other antialiasing scheme for that matter, doesn't alter fonts sufficiently enough for them to look bold. Whatever is causing the bold appearance, ClearType isn't it. If turning off ClearType fixes the problem, then the switch must be doing more than simply turning ClearType on or off. Besides, I thought ClearType was an OS-wide, on/off thing.
Bold text looks 'bolder', but regular text, with ClearType, looks like bold used to look with CT off. It's definitely a CT problem; this happens on every CRT display I've tried it on.
Yes, CT should be an OS-wide on/off thing, but the IE team believes that no matter what your system CT setting is, IE7 will enable CT for you, with no option to turn it off.
I just installed it a few minutes ago, and am using it now. Bleh. The interface is still pretty horrible. Is this supposed to be the final layout? UnBELIEVABLY bad! What are their UI people smoking? Or did they hire some Opera UI people?
And the ClearType on by default is ridiculous.:(
At least I didn't do any stupid IE hacks with the sites I've developed for work - so everything works fine, except now with ClearType on by default, all the text looks bold, so many of our text links simply look like regular text. Nice UI move there, MS. *grumpy*
Doesn't anyone remember the 'pass phrase' thing from awhile back? You know - less complex but much longer passwords, so they're secure but easy to remember? "The quick fox jumps over the lazy brown dog" type of thing (though that should probably not be allowed:)
Slashdot Mirror
ea, yea! And maybe they will all be nympomaniac blondes with huge bimbos that will be ready to do anything if you show them how to properly install a SLI video card setup on their home-made PC-s?
And they will be easily impressed when you show them your mad Perl skills?
Dude, chicks aren't impressed by mad perl skills - chicks like Ruby.
I can't imagine they can compete with a major chain store like Frys at component level sales
:)
I think you overestimate the size of Frys. They hardly exist outside of California. In the tech mecca of the Seattle area, there is a grand total of ONE store, and it's prices really aren't any better for most things than Newegg, even when you take shipping & tax into account. Plus it's in a pretty horrible location for most people in the area.
Now think about how many locations Wal-Mart has around the country, and you should realize the scope of buying in tha tkind of bulk should be able to completely overwhelm something the size of Fry's, at least for things they carry in common, which I imagine will be rather small.
When you need the weird bits and pieces, though, Wal-Mart will never be able to compete with Fry's. That's where I got the 4-pin molex-to-SATA power adapter for my new 400GB drive yesterday.
Assuming they really do this, I'd expect them to be pretty much unbeatable for low-end parts.
I'm sure they'll have unbeatable prices for 5400rpm 5.25" harddrives.
Is FF2 going to have a multi-threaded UI? I keep waiting, and keep getting disappointed. I've looked through the lists of what's coming up, but have yet to notice this. For heavy tabs users like myself, that would have a MASSIVE impact on performance.
Joe Armstrong!
OS X running Windows apps in ugly gray, thats what he is onto. Its coming.
A monochrome Windows desktop would surely look better than all this cartoon crap they've been shoving at us since XP came out. The first thing I do with an XP machine is convert it to the 'classic' look (and turn off animations & sounds).
Don't forget the awesome 'Platinum' scheme OS 9 had - that was a nice look.
The other issue with using ultra fast spindle speed HDs in laptops is that it makes your laptop pull to the left.
Only in the northern hemisphere.
It is way past time we made flywheels do more work.
Definitely - those bastards haven't been carrying their weight!
I once had a five-digit uid but I lost it and now I have no idea where it went.
*yawn*
I waited for it to be worth bothering creating a Slashdot account. The first posters were the reason I finally bothered. Idiocy-aversion is the mother of all invention.
ClearType certainly does not bold non-bolded text. The fact that some people seem to think that antialised rendering is "bold" indicates their ignorance.
It looks bold compared to non-CT text on a CRT. Plus it's extremely fuzzy.
Honestly, if you are using an LCD monitor, it's stupid not to have ClearType turned on. The fact that it is off by default always stunned me.
I'm not USING an LCD. I didn't turn CT on; the IE7 installer turned it on for IE7.
Do you get it yet?
Finally, a use for Arnold J. Rimmer.
Rimmer Directive 271 states clearly, "No chance, you metal bastard."
On Windows systems, you pay for everything. Everything. Except IE.
I guarantee you, I've paid and paid for IE.
And all I got was this lousy CSS support. *sigh*
I guess though we also get the unhealthy radiation of a CRT and the lack of resolution flexibility of a TFT.
Interesting - I hadn't read anything about the resolution flexibility of a SED. It won't really affect me - I don't change my resolution much, if at all. As long as the display has the resolution, colour fidelity, and speed I want at a price I can afford, I'll be quite happy. I've stuck with my 1998 high-end 21" CRT this long, I can wait a few more years. It sure will be nice to reclaim all that desk space, though - my monitor effectively claims about 40% of my desk!
Likewise, GNU/Linux or FreeBSD is a *technically* more reliable operating system, but that's hardly my point. It's not what we've all been used to.
It's what the vast majority of people using computers in the U.S. are used to, and it's what I'm forced to use at work, and design for.
My big problem with the situation is that the IE7 installer isn't respecting the existing system-wide ClearType setting; it turns it on for IE7 and offers NO WARNING that it's going to do so. And with the goofy UI it has now, good luck for the average user to turn it off if they don't like it. (Users rarely change the default settings, even if they would like to).
It's a great OPTION to have, but it's fucked up beyond belief to force it on everyone.
I've used the tuner before, and it didn't bring that much of an improvement. I've not done any tests on aperture grille vs shadowmask CRTs, though. I tend to prefer shadowmask as I'm picky enough to immediately spot, and thus be vastly annoyed by, the dampening wires of aperture grille CRTs. I dunno if there's any difference in CT performance between the two technologies, though.
It'll be interesting to see if CT works well with SED or not.
There is an option to turn it off, it's in the Advanced menu. And I agree with the OP, no, ClearType does not make text look bold.
No kidding it can be turned off. That's not the point. The point is, I have it OFF on my system, so IE7 shouldn't be using CT rendering, ESPECIALLY without asking me first. This is the DEFAULT behaviour, which means that 99% of the idiots who wind up using IE7 when it becomes the Windows default will be getting an untuned CT display, LCD or CRT.
Print a page using the same physical font size that your web browser uses and compare it to the ClearType rendering. On the other hand, the hinted, non-antialiased 96dpi rendering that you're used to more than likely inaccurately represents the font's true stroke width.
Yes, it's a *technically* more accurate font rendering, but that's hardly my point. It's not what we've all been used to. It's not best used for low-DPI CRT displays. It makes all that nicely-rendered text look FUZZY on every CRT I've used it on, whether the CT has been 'tuned' or not.
Even without IE7, there are a lot of people that turn ClearType on, many laptops and desktop computers come preconfigured with ClearType on (those with a TFT), and Mac OSX also has font-smoothing somewhat similar to ClearType.
So I'd say you have to spend some time making sure your sites look good with ClearType, IE7 or not.
You're right, the move to LCD is happening quite quickly. I haven't yet because the quality of LCD I'd need to equal my nice CRT is way out of my price range at the moment. *sigh*
I really love thin/light fonts, so this whole thing is going to be an aesthetically-unsettling transistion. *shrug*
If we had really high-DPI displays, great, let's bring fonts into the modern age, but we're just not there, yet, IMO. I'd want a minimum of 300dpi before trying this nonsense on a CRT. And don't forget - LCD hasn't won the war, yet. SED displays should be out by year's end, and may compete quite well, depending on price.
What are their UI people smoking? Or did they hire some Opera UI people?
Opera is the most customisable interface I've ever encountered, and not just browsers.
Fair play. I was referring more to the IE7 interface compared with the goofy default layout of Opera's UI. You're very correct in how customizable Opera's UI is - although it's often EXTREMELY obfuscated as to how to customize many things. Nevertheless, what you want to customize can almost always be done in Opera, though it'll take some requests for help in the forums.
Not so with IE7, as far as I can tell. I can add, remove, and rearrange stuff on the toolbar, but I can't move the toolbar into different locations, as I could with previous versions of IE.
I'm hoping this isn't the final UI form. If it is, then it's taken several large steps backwards in UI customizability from previous versions of IE.
It's not like it's a big deal to me, since even with all its nifty new features (well, new to IE), I'll still be using Firefox, but the ClearType issue fucking up font display is going to mess with the usability of some of the sites I've designed, which is really irritating.
As far as Opera, I'm eagerly awaiting the final release of 9. I'm hoping I can customize it enough to use it as my main email client, as I freaking hate Thunderbird (and Outlook and Outlook Express, and, and, and...) I'd like the Hugin and Munin scripts updated for version 9.
Text links should be underlined. That's the convention.
Non-bolded text should stay non-bolded in applications unless you specifically configure something that way. That's another convention.
Maybe if you start making links blue and underlined as they are supposed to be, and not just bold, you won't have that problem. Nice design move there, parent.
My text links are blue and bold, just not underlined, until your mouse pointer hovers over them. It's a nice design; I just didn't figure MS would force everyone to use bold text in IE7 by default (via ClearType). Guess that was stupid of me, huh?
ClearType, nor any other antialiasing scheme for that matter, doesn't alter fonts sufficiently enough for them to look bold. Whatever is causing the bold appearance, ClearType isn't it. If turning off ClearType fixes the problem, then the switch must be doing more than simply turning ClearType on or off. Besides, I thought ClearType was an OS-wide, on/off thing.
Bold text looks 'bolder', but regular text, with ClearType, looks like bold used to look with CT off. It's definitely a CT problem; this happens on every CRT display I've tried it on.
Yes, CT should be an OS-wide on/off thing, but the IE team believes that no matter what your system CT setting is, IE7 will enable CT for you, with no option to turn it off.
I just installed it a few minutes ago, and am using it now. Bleh. The interface is still pretty horrible. Is this supposed to be the final layout? UnBELIEVABLY bad! What are their UI people smoking? Or did they hire some Opera UI people?
:(
And the ClearType on by default is ridiculous.
At least I didn't do any stupid IE hacks with the sites I've developed for work - so everything works fine, except now with ClearType on by default, all the text looks bold, so many of our text links simply look like regular text. Nice UI move there, MS. *grumpy*
Doesn't anyone remember the 'pass phrase' thing from awhile back? You know - less complex but much longer passwords, so they're secure but easy to remember? "The quick fox jumps over the lazy brown dog" type of thing (though that should probably not be allowed :)
Just please, NO biometrics.
But no Coke Zero? Lame.
Don't worry...there's plenty of Zima for the lame.