They definitely don't make it easy to "register" for the download -- first they want all sorts of personal info that really shouldn't be required (phone #, street address, etc...) - THEN, if you don't fill out EVERY field (including those not marked as required), and say "YES" to all of the spam checkboxes at the bottom, their javascript form handler balks at you.
Not to mention that you *have* to have javascript enabled to even register...
I was going to check it out -- but I *refuse* to give them free reign to spam me by phone, fax, email, and snal mail for the privilege of doing so.
I own and operate a movie theatre. In common with all other theatres, I make my profit from the concession sales. The price that you pay for the ticket to get in to the show doesn't actually leave anything for "profit".
Really? I thought profit was the reason every time I go to a movie, it seems the price has jumped at least 25-50 cents...is the MPAA gouging the theatres that badly?
I remember while I was growing up, and in high school, even, a nighttime showing was 5 bucks. Now I'm lucky if it's under 9.75. Admittedly I've been out of HS for 8 years now...but still, the price hikes seem outrageous. It's the reason I don't see many movies anymore.
The other issue is the absolutely outrageous cost of popcorn/soft drinks at the movie concessions. Now, admittedly, a "medium" theatre drink is generally about the size of a "large" anywhere else, but still, charging 3 times as much for an equivalent drink is highway robbery, any way you look at it, even with a captive audience. On the popcorn end of it - take a look at how much normal popcorn costs. Now look at general theatre prices. They're at least 5-8 times what the stuff costs.
I don't mind paying a premium for the ticket, or for the food, but I do mind when I feel like I'm getting ripped off with the ticket, and KNOW I'm getting ripped off with the food.
(Not to mention that I'm diabetic, and generally the only 2 beverages I could get *at* the theatre would be Diet Coke/Pepsi (ICK!) or water (bland)... I generally manage to "smuggle" in a diet lemon Snapple or Arizona iced tea -- which I figure should be perfectly legal seeing as I can't GET it at the theatre (they lose no money if I hate their beverage offerings and wouldn't have bought one anyway) -- now if they offered Diet Barqs(the only halfway decent tasting diet soft drink, IMHO), or a decent selection if diet teas, I might feel guilty about bringing my own drink)
I'm sure it is possible to fix if you know what you are doing but the whole point of apt-get is that it is supposed to take care of that instead.
Actually, it's not supposed to take care of *everything* for you -- it just takes care of most dependency issues, so you can concentrate on which software you want to run. You still have to understand what the software you're installing is going to do.
If there's a major problem with an often-used package (or set of packages such as KDE, Gnome, etc...) there's generally some press about it over on Debianplanet - as well as on the mailing list. If you're going to run "unstable", then you generally should check those places before you do any major installing, just to be safe.
As far as installing KDE2 -- Here's my install process (which has worked with "unstable" every time I've tried) from a 'clean' system:
Install base system (stable)
Upgrade base system (stable)
Check Debianplanet for any caveats with the current packages
Change/etc/apt/sources.list to point at unstable
dist-upgrade to unstable (gives the "unstable" base system)
install/configure xfree86 (should give you Xfree4.xx at this point)
install kde
install kdebase-crypto (to give konq SSL support)
Thusfar, that's worked for me on quite a few new boxes -- I don't play around with Gnome too often, so I can't help out there.
I guess the real bottom line is that just because an "easy-to-use" tool exists, doesn't mean that you can just be lazy about the stuff you install - you still have to keep up on what's broken at any given point. That's the drawback of "unstable" - if you want everything to "just work", then "stable" is the answer, although you'll get a lot of outdated stuff, it's been tested quite extensively. If you want newer stuff, but don't want the bleeding edge, then "testing" is where you should be, although I've found it tended to break a lot more than "unstable" when I tried it (this was a while back - maybe things have changed since then). "unstable" is for us bleeding edge freaks who want to run the latest versions of everything -- at any given time something could bust - but it's generally fixed within a day or so.
At this point, I've pretty much lost my faith in the ability of OSS development to create usable software.
Check out Evolution, GNOME, KDE, etc... Those are the projects that are getting to the point of having some *real* usability.
The problem with the "scratch the itch" model is that the primary groups that get their itches scratched are the power users and not the every-day appliance users.
I'll grant you that a power user, or someone with programming skills of their own is more likely to get their particular itch scratched - many times by doing the work themselves. But, I've also noticed that most developers I've spoken or exchanged email with are quite receptive to constructive criticism, particularly when it comes to GUIs. If you have a beef with the way something works, or if you think a certain feature absolutely *needs* to be added, in order to ensure usability -- email the developer (or the development mailing list, in some cases), and tell them about it. Generally they'll either put it on the TODO list, or they'll table it, generally explaining their reason for doing so.
Granted, it took Microsoft a few years to pick up on usability testing, but once they did so, they did so with a vengance. Microsoft spends almost as much money on the very difficult problem of how human beings think, as they to telling computers what to think.
...and thus stereotyping the user experience to the way that either a) they perceive users to want to act, or b) the way they want users to act. This is where my biggest problem with MS's interface lies. If you don't think in their terms, you can't change things to work the way you'd like. You can't ditch the whole thing and go with another interface entirely (Litestep comes VERY close, though - but it breaks some things as well). With OSS, if you don't like the current interface, you can a) change it yourself, if you have the programming skill to do so, b) petition the developer for the changes you desire often with good results, or c) ditch the current interface entirely, replacing it with one that works more closely to the way you'd like it to.
The Open Source model currently does not support collaborative work between programmers, designers, psychologists and sociologists that leads to good interface design.
Most probably because the OSS community is fairly topheavy with developers. There are quite a few designers as well. What we lack are a lot of the last two - psychologists and sociologists. People who study the way people work. Most usability improvements in OSS are done through a more trial-and-error approach, or taking from an existing working model. The former works, but only over time - and leads to an evolving interface that may "break" existing paradigms over time. The latter leads to a more polished look, and quicker results, but little in the way of innovation.
The Open Source model doesn't have good mechanisms for paying a dozen users to sit down in front of a camera for a usability test.
No - but the OSS model does thrive on alpha and beta releases, most open to the public, with developers asking for comments and feedback. Sure, you might not have a camera watching people try to use it, but if they respond, you can get some good feedback nonetheless.
The Open Source movement doesn't have good mechanisms for paying technical writers and instructional designers to create clear and concise help and training systems.
No - the OSS movement relies on volunteers to write the documentation, for the most part. This is one area that is severely lacking right now, but hopefully will change in the future. THis is also one of the areas where non-programmers can really help out. Sure - they may not be able to code, but they can give feedback about what was easy for them to learn, and what was not - they may be able to write decent documentation. (note: I didn't say "great" docs, only "decent" ones - which are much better than nothing, and over time might evolve into "great" docs.) What is really needed is a bunch of beginners to sit down and learn how to use things - and to take notes on what they learn. Many of us have used things like Emacs or Vi for so long that it's like second nature - and it's hard for us to put ourselves back into the shoes of someone who has no experience with these things at all.
Note that I said "the average Joe." You insinuate that they can "scratch their itch" by "coming out with a GUI of their own." Why are you assuming that the average user A) has programming experience, and B) wants to go to the trouble of writing code or modifying configurations? I seriously doubt my friend the average Joe teacher or my uncle the average Joe farmer will want to write their own GUIs. I'm not sure I'm the one who missed the point here.
Hrmm...maybe I wasn't clear enough - I'll punctuate:
>>Then, as more users came in, they started having individual itches to scratch, and due to the open nature of OSS, those with the programming skill to do so, could scratch their itch, and come out with a GUI of their own, that fixes their own problem.
Note the part where I said "...those with the programming skill to do so..." - I never insinuated that "the average Joe" could program - only that *some* of the new converts either could, or were willing to learn enough to do so.
>>Then, by releasing it to the world, either in the form of a patch (for small itches) or a full-fledged fork of the source code (for broader-ranging itches), other users could benefit.
...and here's where "the average Joe" benefits. Those who *do* have the skill, and who *do* scratch their itches and contribute their modifications/additions back make it possible for the experience of those who *don't* have that skill to improve.
Those who can't program to scratch their itches can always send a quick email to the developer (whose email addy is generally readily available in most cases through an About dialog or somesuch) with what they think should be changed. Of course, the change itself is at the developer's discresion, but if people who *can't* fix things themselves don't complain, their problems won't get fixed. Developers I've spoken with are generally VERY accepting of constructive criticism - of course, YMMV from project to project and developer to developer.
I agree with you - until the end of your second paragraph:
due to MS's inability to adhear to their own standards. This is an area that Linux could have capitalized on, but unfortunately developers were too interested in developing GUI's for developers... not the average Joe.
This quite simply misses the point of the way OSS GUI development has gone. Yes - in the beginning, it was all about the developers. Then, as more users came in, they started having individual itches to scratch, and due to the open nature of OSS, those with the programming skill to do so, could scratch their itch, and come out with a GUI of their own, that fixes their own problem. Then, by releasing it to the world, either in the form of a patch (for small itches) or a full-fledged fork of the source code (for broader-ranging itches), other users could benefit.
As this process goes on, the GUIs become more and more usable and intuitive - not just for the people who have been using them - but for new users as well. Believe it or not, there are some developers who make changes to GUIs in the interest of making them "easier to use".
Sure - there are about 40-50 different window managers out there - and some would say that "fragments" the linux "desktop experience". I disagree - I think it give the user *choice* of how they want their system to look/work/run. Maybe I don't want all those toolbars and taskbars and such that KDE/Gnome offers. I can run Blackbox or WindowMaker. Maybe I want a COMPLETELY customizable GUI. I can run Enlightenment. Maybe I want a UI very similar to one from Redmond. I can run FVWM95, or more realistically, KDE. Maybe I want the bare minimum. There's PWM, TWM, and a multitude of super-lightweight window managers out there to fit the bill. You can work in an environment that suits your productivity - without someone else dictating your interface to you. That's the key. Sure, it may take you a while to try out a few different ones to find one that fits you, but once you do, you won't want to go back to the strictly-enforced-by-someone-elses-idea-of-what-is -usable interface offered to you by MS.
in the end the user makes the decision what he or she wants, and the user will say that the switch to Linux doesn't offer enough benefits to justify a shift.
I disagree here as well. Often, the user is *not* given a choice - because of MS's marketing strategies, pretty much any home user desktop (or standard office desktop) will come with the latest version of Windows on it - whether you want it to or not. (This is part and parcel of the DoJ's conviction of MS for illegally leveraging their monopoly) Try ordering a laptop with Linux or FreeBSD from Dell or Gateway. Try picking one up at CompUSA loaded with *your* choice of OS. You won't be given that option. You're forced to buy a machine with WIndows, whether you will replace it with Linux/BSD/whatever or not. That sale will count towards the number of WIndows systems shipped - regardless of what OS you end up running on it.
If you want the latest games, you have to run Windows, because hardware vendors don't release open specs to their hardware, and it takes the linux driver hackers time to reverse-engineer the interfaces. Game developers can't wait for 3rd parties to hack drivers together that probably won't perform as well as the ones written by the vendor (who has unfettered access to the specs) - and thus they develop their games for Windows. Places like Loki are trying to fill the void, but their choice of which games to port is rather lacking, IMHO.
If you want to have full access to various multimedia files, you have to run Windows (or MacOS, but they're not in the x86 OS market). Most Quicktime formatted.mov files won't play under linux (or any other free OS) because the Sorenson codec is used, which is unavailable due to licensing. This is a key reason why my fiancee won't switch from Windows. She downloads and watches many videos from the 'net (we are blessed with a wonderful DSL connection, at least for the time being) - and is unable to watch them under linux due to the lack of codec support. To her, this is a fault of the OS, when in reality it's the fault of proprietary codecs.
Want to play store-bought DVDs on your DVD-drive equipped linux system? Not withgout breaking US law! Windows 2000 (and thus I'm assuming XP as well) comes equipped with a software DVD player that plays *most* commercial DVDs (although it refuses to play my copy of "Storm Riders" which my component DVD player plays just fine) - and because you're forced to take Windows with most new systems, most users think the DVD player is "free". With linux, you have to find a copy of the CSS libs (which have been outlawed under the DMCA) and hook them up to one of the DVD-capable players out there. To many, this will seem a fault of the OS.
I'm convinced that users would like to have choice, and they would like things to work. They don't care about who owns the copyright, or what codec things are encoded with. They want to play a movie file, or a dvd, or play a game. RIght now, they can have one, but not both. With WIndows, you can have these things work - but you give up choice. With linux, you get choice, but some things don't work. Of course, the other issue is stability - MS is admittedly working on it, but they're not there yet.
As the linux desktop environments mature, they will get better and better. That's not the issue, and that's not why users are going with MS. They're going with MS because they're either not given a choice, or they want compatibility with proprietary standards.
It's basically a catch-22 -- game developers want to make games using the latest and greatest hardware support - hardware manufacturers release windows-only drivers, and refuse to release either a linux driver, or the specs by which a third party could release a linux driver.
So the hardware doen't perform to it's full potential under linux. Game developers see that there's no support for the hardware - and don't develop the software.
Places like Loki are doing what they can with the games they can. I'll agree, though, that they could have better choices of games. IMHO the concentration should be on successful, long-lasting games - games that a year after release still have a large following. Games like Diablo II, the Baldur's Gate games, Starcraft, Everquest, etc... Those are the kinds of games that will sell well. Those are the kinds of games a lot of people are still playing - and quite a few of those people dual-boot to linux. I'd gladly pay for a linux version of Diablo II or Baldur's Gate II -- right now they're the only reasons I boot back to Windows.
There *is* a market out there - they're just hitting it with the wrong games.
My first inclination was Romulans - and the light build and calm tone of "shady half-cloaked future villan" seems to support this. Weren't the Romulans also big into genetic engineering?
The other obvious choice would be Dominion-related, as the Klingons were fairly instrumental in the DS9 wormhole conflict, and they also posess the genetic engineering tech.
Cardassians? They never really liked the Klingons either, although they never factored into TOS, and as such probably aren't suspect.
I'm sure by season-end, we'll have a fairly good idea;P
Can someone tell me why this did not get picked up by a more respectful network?
Sure. The Star Trek franchise is owned by Paramount, who also owns UPN (United Paramount Network). Since it's their show, it's shown on their network, because if it's any good, they want the credit for it. (And if it's bad, noone will care, because UPN basically stinks anyway)
Look, you can't put a notebook on your lap and use your 5 button usb mouse. NUFF SAID.
Actually, I do it all the time. Admittedly, I don't have an ibook, but my Vaio is pretty nice - and I just plug my 5(7) button mouse into the usb port, and run it on the arm of the couch - couldn't be simpler. Optical mice make this much easier - although if I was stuck with a non-optical one, I'm pretty sure I'd work out a way to use a binder or something to stabilize it.
What I'd really like to see is more improvements in 3d chipsets for "desktop-replacement" laptops, for those of us who want to play the latest games (yes, I'm drooling over the new GeForce-equipped ones) and power-saving features for the subnotebooks. (make 'em run over 6 hours, and I'll buy one to compliment my hefty, power-hungry Vaio)
Chances are, most of your sentences don't use z, x or q. We're down to 23.
Add space, return, and shift - we're back up to 26, but I'd imagine at least 90-95% of typing would invole the keys we have. I'm sure there's at least a couple letters that could be statistically removed, but I don't have the info handy (or the time to write a character-frequency checking perl script to run a few texts through right now).
His statistics don't seem too out of line...in fact, you could probably remove shift and return from my example above -- most sentences only have one capital letter, and one CR. That would make a reasonable 24, IMHO, although since I can't touch-type, not being able to see the keys would be counterproductive for me =)
Heh...leave it alone for a month or so (because it's running so well, you don't bother to think about upgrading), and have that be a month with a lot of changes to GNOME/KDE (assuming you're one of the folks who enjoys one, or both of those) -- THEN you'll see some big download sizes.
BUt you're generally right. Incremental updates to Debian are fairly small - I generally don't see more than 500k-1meg per session - more if I leave it longer (and MUCH larger in the above circumstance of both GNOME and KDE being upgraded!).
What they *should* have done was stop pressing new Win2k CDs, and patch the master copy. Then press their new CDs with the patched version.
This includes OEM install CDs.
There's no excuse for a retail copy (either in a store, or through a vendor's "bundling" with a new system) of an OS with year-old security flaws to be vulnerable out-of-the-box to those flaws, especially when the company producing it not only knows about the flaws, but has patches available.
MS is *in part* responsible for not keeping retail/OEM copies reasonably up-to-date. By reasonably, I mean something less than a year behind the times.
That's not to say that lazy/ignorant admins aren't to blame for not patching their servers. That's their job, and their responsibility. But, newly installed/purchased copies should have been immune already. IMHO, at least.
The problem is that it makes it so you can't praise MS for something on one hand - but criticize them on another.
You can't say "I really like Hotmail - it's a great service [logo with link] - but not all MS products are as tasty - Frontpage, quite frankly sucks - it produces big, bloated HTML that doesn't work right in any browser but MSIE." -- even though the two products are unrelated in your conjecture, other than the fact they're made by the same company - the EULA prevents you from saying things like this if you use the logo, even if that use is legitimate.
(note: I don't like Hotmail - it's a spambed - I just used it as an example - I should have used their mice as the example instead - they're the one thing MS seems to be able to do RIGHT)
Probably the reason Gundam was pulled is because it pushes a VERY strong anti-war message. It often takes the track of showing just how devestating and horrible war can be -- the big robots are juyst a means to an end. Overall, the series' have a VERY pacifistic message, for the most part. Wouldn't want the kiddies picking up on the "war is bad" rhetoric, would we? Besides, it often shows the military in a bad light, and we know we can't be teaching that either, can we?;P
Dragonball/Dragonball z, on the other hand, aren't dealing with war at all - they mostly deal with superpowered martial artists who do completely impossible things - in short, it's complete fantasy. Not that Gundam isn't - but it's at least closer to being possible than Dragonball.
I don't agree with pulling it - and I don't agree with the propaganda-inspired imagery the media is, as a whole, trying to push. Last week's attacks were a tragedy - yes. They were horrible, and those responsible need to be brought to justice. But I'm quickly becoming convinced that the Justice we're seeking is merely a witch-hunt, and is being used as an excuse to push other agendas...
You left out Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" -- which I was *highly* suprised to see on the list -- that's always a highly requested song in times of trouble.
Nothing stopped the RTLinux people from "innovating". Unless you define "innovating" as "using copyright to prevent distribution".
Nothing forced the RTLinux guys to use the Linux sources as their basis, and thus accept the terms of the GPL -- they could have used BSD sources and avoided these issues. Instead, they used the Linux sources, and accepted the GPL license they came with. Plain and simple.
Noone is saying that they couldn't innovate, or turn a profit. They just have to abide by the terms they agreed to when they used the Linux sources =)
If he ever refused to hire somebody based on their inability to see color, I bet he'd lose in Court, lose bad too.
If it was for a generic programming job, I'd agree. For a generic job in *any* field, I'd agree.
If he was hiring for a specific job, which involved programming in a language where color was a key element, it could be a stated requirement that the applicant be able to see color.
In that case, I think he'd prevail -- simply because it's a stated requirement.
The same as if there was a manual assembly line job that involved seperating piles of red and green items that were otherwise identical - I think that the job would, in part, require the applicant to be able to distinguish red from green.
In a generic setting, the ability to see color has no relevance to programming -- but in certain niche fields or jobs, it might.
As for the original poster - I'd be put off too, if I was in your situation. But it would only be a minor setback. Perl, C, and a myriad of other great languages don't require color vision (or any vision at all - although it might be hard to produce GUI apps without sight)
Exactly right. mod_gzip is a bandwidth-saver not a load-saver. The problem (from what I've gathered) was the server load, with the larger page sizes chewing up more memory, along with a LOT more requests multiplying that number.
I can use DHCP or static IP addresses on my computers
Hmm...is this a toggle, or can you use both at the same time (for example, using DHCP to allocate a static IP to one MAC address, while allocating an internal dynamic IP to another)?
I have 3 ips with my current setup, (one for my server, one for my desktop, and one for my laptop) and I'd like to free one up for the occasional time I host a small (3 extra comp) lanparty, and use DHCP/NAT for the whole shebang - but I'd want to make sure the server gets it's own IP all the time.
I've been considering putting together a small firewall box to do this, but that'd take a weekend, and I'd have to find room for the extra box - one of those little linksys boxes would be perfect sizewise (we have a rather small apartment) but I wonder about the ability to do both NAT and static at the same time.
Slashdot Mirror
They definitely don't make it easy to "register" for the download -- first they want all sorts of personal info that really shouldn't be required (phone #, street address, etc...) - THEN, if you don't fill out EVERY field (including those not marked as required), and say "YES" to all of the spam checkboxes at the bottom, their javascript form handler balks at you.
Not to mention that you *have* to have javascript enabled to even register...
I was going to check it out -- but I *refuse* to give them free reign to spam me by phone, fax, email, and snal mail for the privilege of doing so.
I own and operate a movie theatre. In common with all other theatres, I make my profit from the concession sales. The price that you pay for the ticket to get in to the show doesn't actually leave anything for "profit".
Really? I thought profit was the reason every time I go to a movie, it seems the price has jumped at least 25-50 cents...is the MPAA gouging the theatres that badly?
I remember while I was growing up, and in high school, even, a nighttime showing was 5 bucks. Now I'm lucky if it's under 9.75. Admittedly I've been out of HS for 8 years now...but still, the price hikes seem outrageous. It's the reason I don't see many movies anymore.
The other issue is the absolutely outrageous cost of popcorn/soft drinks at the movie concessions. Now, admittedly, a "medium" theatre drink is generally about the size of a "large" anywhere else, but still, charging 3 times as much for an equivalent drink is highway robbery, any way you look at it, even with a captive audience. On the popcorn end of it - take a look at how much normal popcorn costs. Now look at general theatre prices. They're at least 5-8 times what the stuff costs.
I don't mind paying a premium for the ticket, or for the food, but I do mind when I feel like I'm getting ripped off with the ticket, and KNOW I'm getting ripped off with the food.
(Not to mention that I'm diabetic, and generally the only 2 beverages I could get *at* the theatre would be Diet Coke/Pepsi (ICK!) or water (bland)... I generally manage to "smuggle" in a diet lemon Snapple or Arizona iced tea -- which I figure should be perfectly legal seeing as I can't GET it at the theatre (they lose no money if I hate their beverage offerings and wouldn't have bought one anyway) -- now if they offered Diet Barqs(the only halfway decent tasting diet soft drink, IMHO), or a decent selection if diet teas, I might feel guilty about bringing my own drink)
Actually, it's not supposed to take care of *everything* for you -- it just takes care of most dependency issues, so you can concentrate on which software you want to run. You still have to understand what the software you're installing is going to do.
If there's a major problem with an often-used package (or set of packages such as KDE, Gnome, etc...) there's generally some press about it over on Debianplanet - as well as on the mailing list. If you're going to run "unstable", then you generally should check those places before you do any major installing, just to be safe.
As far as installing KDE2 -- Here's my install process (which has worked with "unstable" every time I've tried) from a 'clean' system:
Thusfar, that's worked for me on quite a few new boxes -- I don't play around with Gnome too often, so I can't help out there.
I guess the real bottom line is that just because an "easy-to-use" tool exists, doesn't mean that you can just be lazy about the stuff you install - you still have to keep up on what's broken at any given point. That's the drawback of "unstable" - if you want everything to "just work", then "stable" is the answer, although you'll get a lot of outdated stuff, it's been tested quite extensively. If you want newer stuff, but don't want the bleeding edge, then "testing" is where you should be, although I've found it tended to break a lot more than "unstable" when I tried it (this was a while back - maybe things have changed since then). "unstable" is for us bleeding edge freaks who want to run the latest versions of everything -- at any given time something could bust - but it's generally fixed within a day or so.
...or Debian as well. =)
Just did an apt-cache show on grub in unstable - looks like it's at 0.90-11
At this point, I've pretty much lost my faith in the ability of OSS development to create usable software.
Check out Evolution, GNOME, KDE, etc... Those are the projects that are getting to the point of having some *real* usability.
The problem with the "scratch the itch" model is that the primary groups that get their itches scratched are the power users and not the every-day appliance users.
I'll grant you that a power user, or someone with programming skills of their own is more likely to get their particular itch scratched - many times by doing the work themselves. But, I've also noticed that most developers I've spoken or exchanged email with are quite receptive to constructive criticism, particularly when it comes to GUIs. If you have a beef with the way something works, or if you think a certain feature absolutely *needs* to be added, in order to ensure usability -- email the developer (or the development mailing list, in some cases), and tell them about it. Generally they'll either put it on the TODO list, or they'll table it, generally explaining their reason for doing so.
Granted, it took Microsoft a few years to pick up on usability testing, but once they did so, they did so with a vengance. Microsoft spends almost as much money on the very difficult problem of how human beings think, as they to telling computers what to think.
...and thus stereotyping the user experience to the way that either a) they perceive users to want to act, or b) the way they want users to act. This is where my biggest problem with MS's interface lies. If you don't think in their terms, you can't change things to work the way you'd like. You can't ditch the whole thing and go with another interface entirely (Litestep comes VERY close, though - but it breaks some things as well). With OSS, if you don't like the current interface, you can a) change it yourself, if you have the programming skill to do so, b) petition the developer for the changes you desire often with good results, or c) ditch the current interface entirely, replacing it with one that works more closely to the way you'd like it to.
The Open Source model currently does not support collaborative work between programmers, designers, psychologists and sociologists that leads to good interface design.
Most probably because the OSS community is fairly topheavy with developers. There are quite a few designers as well. What we lack are a lot of the last two - psychologists and sociologists. People who study the way people work. Most usability improvements in OSS are done through a more trial-and-error approach, or taking from an existing working model. The former works, but only over time - and leads to an evolving interface that may "break" existing paradigms over time. The latter leads to a more polished look, and quicker results, but little in the way of innovation.
The Open Source model doesn't have good mechanisms for paying a dozen users to sit down in front of a camera for a usability test.
No - but the OSS model does thrive on alpha and beta releases, most open to the public, with developers asking for comments and feedback. Sure, you might not have a camera watching people try to use it, but if they respond, you can get some good feedback nonetheless.
The Open Source movement doesn't have good mechanisms for paying technical writers and instructional designers to create clear and concise help and training systems.
No - the OSS movement relies on volunteers to write the documentation, for the most part. This is one area that is severely lacking right now, but hopefully will change in the future. THis is also one of the areas where non-programmers can really help out. Sure - they may not be able to code, but they can give feedback about what was easy for them to learn, and what was not - they may be able to write decent documentation. (note: I didn't say "great" docs, only "decent" ones - which are much better than nothing, and over time might evolve into "great" docs.) What is really needed is a bunch of beginners to sit down and learn how to use things - and to take notes on what they learn. Many of us have used things like Emacs or Vi for so long that it's like second nature - and it's hard for us to put ourselves back into the shoes of someone who has no experience with these things at all.
Note that I said "the average Joe." You insinuate that they can "scratch their itch" by "coming out with a GUI of their own." Why are you assuming that the average user A) has programming experience, and B) wants to go to the trouble of writing code or modifying configurations? I seriously doubt my friend the average Joe teacher or my uncle the average Joe farmer will want to write their own GUIs. I'm not sure I'm the one who missed the point here.
Hrmm...maybe I wasn't clear enough - I'll punctuate:
>>Then, as more users came in, they started having individual itches to scratch, and due to the open nature of OSS, those with the programming skill to do so, could scratch their itch, and come out with a GUI of their own, that fixes their own problem.
Note the part where I said "...those with the programming skill to do so..." - I never insinuated that "the average Joe" could program - only that *some* of the new converts either could, or were willing to learn enough to do so.
>>Then, by releasing it to the world, either in the form of a patch (for small itches) or a full-fledged fork of the source code (for broader-ranging itches), other users could benefit.
...and here's where "the average Joe" benefits. Those who *do* have the skill, and who *do* scratch their itches and contribute their modifications/additions back make it possible for the experience of those who *don't* have that skill to improve.
Those who can't program to scratch their itches can always send a quick email to the developer (whose email addy is generally readily available in most cases through an About dialog or somesuch) with what they think should be changed. Of course, the change itself is at the developer's discresion, but if people who *can't* fix things themselves don't complain, their problems won't get fixed. Developers I've spoken with are generally VERY accepting of constructive criticism - of course, YMMV from project to project and developer to developer.
I agree with you - until the end of your second paragraph:
s -usable interface offered to you by MS.
.mov files won't play under linux (or any other free OS) because the Sorenson codec is used, which is unavailable due to licensing. This is a key reason why my fiancee won't switch from Windows. She downloads and watches many videos from the 'net (we are blessed with a wonderful DSL connection, at least for the time being) - and is unable to watch them under linux due to the lack of codec support. To her, this is a fault of the OS, when in reality it's the fault of proprietary codecs.
due to MS's inability to adhear to their own standards. This is an area that Linux could have capitalized on, but unfortunately developers were too interested in developing GUI's for developers... not the average Joe.
This quite simply misses the point of the way OSS GUI development has gone. Yes - in the beginning, it was all about the developers. Then, as more users came in, they started having individual itches to scratch, and due to the open nature of OSS, those with the programming skill to do so, could scratch their itch, and come out with a GUI of their own, that fixes their own problem. Then, by releasing it to the world, either in the form of a patch (for small itches) or a full-fledged fork of the source code (for broader-ranging itches), other users could benefit.
As this process goes on, the GUIs become more and more usable and intuitive - not just for the people who have been using them - but for new users as well. Believe it or not, there are some developers who make changes to GUIs in the interest of making them "easier to use".
Sure - there are about 40-50 different window managers out there - and some would say that "fragments" the linux "desktop experience". I disagree - I think it give the user *choice* of how they want their system to look/work/run. Maybe I don't want all those toolbars and taskbars and such that KDE/Gnome offers. I can run Blackbox or WindowMaker. Maybe I want a COMPLETELY customizable GUI. I can run Enlightenment. Maybe I want a UI very similar to one from Redmond. I can run FVWM95, or more realistically, KDE. Maybe I want the bare minimum. There's PWM, TWM, and a multitude of super-lightweight window managers out there to fit the bill. You can work in an environment that suits your productivity - without someone else dictating your interface to you. That's the key. Sure, it may take you a while to try out a few different ones to find one that fits you, but once you do, you won't want to go back to the strictly-enforced-by-someone-elses-idea-of-what-i
in the end the user makes the decision what he or she wants, and the user will say that the switch to Linux doesn't offer enough benefits to justify a shift.
I disagree here as well. Often, the user is *not* given a choice - because of MS's marketing strategies, pretty much any home user desktop (or standard office desktop) will come with the latest version of Windows on it - whether you want it to or not. (This is part and parcel of the DoJ's conviction of MS for illegally leveraging their monopoly) Try ordering a laptop with Linux or FreeBSD from Dell or Gateway. Try picking one up at CompUSA loaded with *your* choice of OS. You won't be given that option. You're forced to buy a machine with WIndows, whether you will replace it with Linux/BSD/whatever or not. That sale will count towards the number of WIndows systems shipped - regardless of what OS you end up running on it.
If you want the latest games, you have to run Windows, because hardware vendors don't release open specs to their hardware, and it takes the linux driver hackers time to reverse-engineer the interfaces. Game developers can't wait for 3rd parties to hack drivers together that probably won't perform as well as the ones written by the vendor (who has unfettered access to the specs) - and thus they develop their games for Windows. Places like Loki are trying to fill the void, but their choice of which games to port is rather lacking, IMHO.
If you want to have full access to various multimedia files, you have to run Windows (or MacOS, but they're not in the x86 OS market). Most Quicktime formatted
Want to play store-bought DVDs on your DVD-drive equipped linux system? Not withgout breaking US law! Windows 2000 (and thus I'm assuming XP as well) comes equipped with a software DVD player that plays *most* commercial DVDs (although it refuses to play my copy of "Storm Riders" which my component DVD player plays just fine) - and because you're forced to take Windows with most new systems, most users think the DVD player is "free". With linux, you have to find a copy of the CSS libs (which have been outlawed under the DMCA) and hook them up to one of the DVD-capable players out there. To many, this will seem a fault of the OS.
I'm convinced that users would like to have choice, and they would like things to work. They don't care about who owns the copyright, or what codec things are encoded with. They want to play a movie file, or a dvd, or play a game. RIght now, they can have one, but not both. With WIndows, you can have these things work - but you give up choice. With linux, you get choice, but some things don't work. Of course, the other issue is stability - MS is admittedly working on it, but they're not there yet.
As the linux desktop environments mature, they will get better and better. That's not the issue, and that's not why users are going with MS. They're going with MS because they're either not given a choice, or they want compatibility with proprietary standards.
OK, rant mode off - I need caffeine!
It's basically a catch-22 -- game developers want to make games using the latest and greatest hardware support - hardware manufacturers release windows-only drivers, and refuse to release either a linux driver, or the specs by which a third party could release a linux driver.
So the hardware doen't perform to it's full potential under linux. Game developers see that there's no support for the hardware - and don't develop the software.
Places like Loki are doing what they can with the games they can. I'll agree, though, that they could have better choices of games. IMHO the concentration should be on successful, long-lasting games - games that a year after release still have a large following. Games like Diablo II, the Baldur's Gate games, Starcraft, Everquest, etc... Those are the kinds of games that will sell well. Those are the kinds of games a lot of people are still playing - and quite a few of those people dual-boot to linux. I'd gladly pay for a linux version of Diablo II or Baldur's Gate II -- right now they're the only reasons I boot back to Windows.
There *is* a market out there - they're just hitting it with the wrong games.
My first inclination was Romulans - and the light build and calm tone of "shady half-cloaked future villan" seems to support this. Weren't the Romulans also big into genetic engineering?
;P
The other obvious choice would be Dominion-related, as the Klingons were fairly instrumental in the DS9 wormhole conflict, and they also posess the genetic engineering tech.
Cardassians? They never really liked the Klingons either, although they never factored into TOS, and as such probably aren't suspect.
I'm sure by season-end, we'll have a fairly good idea
Can someone tell me why this did not get picked up by a more respectful network?
Sure. The Star Trek franchise is owned by Paramount, who also owns UPN (United Paramount Network). Since it's their show, it's shown on their network, because if it's any good, they want the credit for it. (And if it's bad, noone will care, because UPN basically stinks anyway)
Look, you can't put a notebook on your lap and use your 5 button usb mouse. NUFF SAID.
Actually, I do it all the time. Admittedly, I don't have an ibook, but my Vaio is pretty nice - and I just plug my 5(7) button mouse into the usb port, and run it on the arm of the couch - couldn't be simpler. Optical mice make this much easier - although if I was stuck with a non-optical one, I'm pretty sure I'd work out a way to use a binder or something to stabilize it.
What I'd really like to see is more improvements in 3d chipsets for "desktop-replacement" laptops, for those of us who want to play the latest games (yes, I'm drooling over the new GeForce-equipped ones) and power-saving features for the subnotebooks. (make 'em run over 6 hours, and I'll buy one to compliment my hefty, power-hungry Vaio)
"you might be a terrorist"
Sounds like a scary parody of the Jeff Foxworthy "...you might be a redneck" standup bit.
His statistics don't seem too out of line...in fact, you could probably remove shift and return from my example above -- most sentences only have one capital letter, and one CR. That would make a reasonable 24, IMHO, although since I can't touch-type, not being able to see the keys would be counterproductive for me =)
Heh...leave it alone for a month or so (because it's running so well, you don't bother to think about upgrading), and have that be a month with a lot of changes to GNOME/KDE (assuming you're one of the folks who enjoys one, or both of those) -- THEN you'll see some big download sizes.
BUt you're generally right. Incremental updates to Debian are fairly small - I generally don't see more than 500k-1meg per session - more if I leave it longer (and MUCH larger in the above circumstance of both GNOME and KDE being upgraded!).
What they *should* have done was stop pressing new Win2k CDs, and patch the master copy. Then press their new CDs with the patched version.
This includes OEM install CDs.
There's no excuse for a retail copy (either in a store, or through a vendor's "bundling" with a new system) of an OS with year-old security flaws to be vulnerable out-of-the-box to those flaws, especially when the company producing it not only knows about the flaws, but has patches available.
MS is *in part* responsible for not keeping retail/OEM copies reasonably up-to-date. By reasonably, I mean something less than a year behind the times.
That's not to say that lazy/ignorant admins aren't to blame for not patching their servers. That's their job, and their responsibility. But, newly installed/purchased copies should have been immune already. IMHO, at least.
The problem is that it makes it so you can't praise MS for something on one hand - but criticize them on another.
You can't say "I really like Hotmail - it's a great service [logo with link] - but not all MS products are as tasty - Frontpage, quite frankly sucks - it produces big, bloated HTML that doesn't work right in any browser but MSIE." -- even though the two products are unrelated in your conjecture, other than the fact they're made by the same company - the EULA prevents you from saying things like this if you use the logo, even if that use is legitimate.
(note: I don't like Hotmail - it's a spambed - I just used it as an example - I should have used their mice as the example instead - they're the one thing MS seems to be able to do RIGHT)
The readme.eml file is the payload. Due to what I can only hope is a bug in IE, this type of file will *automatically* execute.
The file seems to be written in unicode, and has some registry strings in it -- I haven't had a chance to completely dissect it yet.
Probably the reason Gundam was pulled is because it pushes a VERY strong anti-war message. It often takes the track of showing just how devestating and horrible war can be -- the big robots are juyst a means to an end. Overall, the series' have a VERY pacifistic message, for the most part. Wouldn't want the kiddies picking up on the "war is bad" rhetoric, would we? Besides, it often shows the military in a bad light, and we know we can't be teaching that either, can we? ;P
Dragonball/Dragonball z, on the other hand, aren't dealing with war at all - they mostly deal with superpowered martial artists who do completely impossible things - in short, it's complete fantasy. Not that Gundam isn't - but it's at least closer to being possible than Dragonball.
I don't agree with pulling it - and I don't agree with the propaganda-inspired imagery the media is, as a whole, trying to push. Last week's attacks were a tragedy - yes. They were horrible, and those responsible need to be brought to justice. But I'm quickly becoming convinced that the Justice we're seeking is merely a witch-hunt, and is being used as an excuse to push other agendas...
How is a song about a youngster's rage against themself and their father related to recent events?
?
You left out Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" -- which I was *highly* suprised to see on the list -- that's always a highly requested song in times of trouble.
Please.
Nothing stopped the RTLinux people from "innovating". Unless you define "innovating" as "using copyright to prevent distribution".
Nothing forced the RTLinux guys to use the Linux sources as their basis, and thus accept the terms of the GPL -- they could have used BSD sources and avoided these issues. Instead, they used the Linux sources, and accepted the GPL license they came with. Plain and simple.
Noone is saying that they couldn't innovate, or turn a profit. They just have to abide by the terms they agreed to when they used the Linux sources =)
If he ever refused to hire somebody based on their inability to see color, I bet he'd lose in Court, lose bad too.
If it was for a generic programming job, I'd agree. For a generic job in *any* field, I'd agree.
If he was hiring for a specific job, which involved programming in a language where color was a key element, it could be a stated requirement that the applicant be able to see color.
In that case, I think he'd prevail -- simply because it's a stated requirement.
The same as if there was a manual assembly line job that involved seperating piles of red and green items that were otherwise identical - I think that the job would, in part, require the applicant to be able to distinguish red from green.
In a generic setting, the ability to see color has no relevance to programming -- but in certain niche fields or jobs, it might.
As for the original poster - I'd be put off too, if I was in your situation. But it would only be a minor setback. Perl, C, and a myriad of other great languages don't require color vision (or any vision at all - although it might be hard to produce GUI apps without sight)
Exactly right. mod_gzip is a bandwidth-saver not a load-saver. The problem (from what I've gathered) was the server load, with the larger page sizes chewing up more memory, along with a LOT more requests multiplying that number.
Of course, I *could* be wrong =)
I can use DHCP or static IP addresses on my computers
Hmm...is this a toggle, or can you use both at the same time (for example, using DHCP to allocate a static IP to one MAC address, while allocating an internal dynamic IP to another)?
I have 3 ips with my current setup, (one for my server, one for my desktop, and one for my laptop) and I'd like to free one up for the occasional time I host a small (3 extra comp) lanparty, and use DHCP/NAT for the whole shebang - but I'd want to make sure the server gets it's own IP all the time.
I've been considering putting together a small firewall box to do this, but that'd take a weekend, and I'd have to find room for the extra box - one of those little linksys boxes would be perfect sizewise (we have a rather small apartment) but I wonder about the ability to do both NAT and static at the same time.