Install snood (www.snood.org) and you get gator, period. No check box exists to prevent gator from being installed. If you don't want gator you have to go in and manually remove it from your system. Apparently gator is so annoying that the folks behind it no longer wish to give the user a choice.
The question is, will anyone care about web services. I'm not about to pay for these so called services if I have to wait long periods to download the software, wait for the software to talk to whoever is supposed to be running it for me, and then get disconnected while using these services. Like most Americans who have internet access today, I'm still on a POTS connection. Web services simply won't work for home users until we have ubiquitous broadband that's easy, and reliable.
AFAIK, no internet connection is required. You can use activation over the phone if you prefer, and you can turn off any automatic updating that might want you to be connected (although the auto. updates will not force you to go online if, for example, you're on a dial-up connection). So far I've seen no indication that internet connectivity is a must (at least under build 2486 of winxp pro).
People, stop complaining about Borland writing commercial software for Linux. If you don't like the idea of writing GPL'd code in a proprietary environment then don't, no one is forcing you. In order for Linux to be more accepted as a commercially viable platform there needs to be solutions (such as Borland's) which will hold people's hands through the potentially confusing licensing problems and through the development cycle on a completely new platform. Don't expect any company to develop for Linux if all they have to go on is man pages and how-tos. Borland's software is important for those of us who believe that more commercial software for Linux will speed its adoption as a desktop computing platform.
...and learn to use the new system (which still isn't as easy as Windows)
My younger sister prefers KDE2 to Windows on her p120. It does what she needs a computer to do, and does it consistently w/out locking up or melting for no reason. Windows is not easy, Windows is familiar. KDE2 is not easier or harder to use than Windows, it's just different. Don't put down a perfectly good system because you don't understand the difference between familiarity and ease of use.
As an unrelated side note...The only innovation in Windows since the 3.x series was the task bar. Until Microsoft moves to something more intuative than what's fundamentally program manager poping up when you hit the start button, Windows will not get any easier.
Is there seriously anything Jon Katz likes? Perhaps slashdot should change to "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. Jon Katz Movie Reviews".
Oops, I just turned off Jon Katz articles, darn.
How is this a feature? I could really care less how fast my PDA is, as long as it does it's job as a PDA. I've got a laptop for playing quake on, I don't need it on my PDA.
More functionality out-of-the-box (spreadsheet, ect.) saving memory for many people
Maybe you meant money there? I would tend to think that editing documents on a PDA would be a pain, you'd best just carry that laptop again. The only thing I (and seemingly many others) want a PDA for is a glorified notepad, period.
I've still got the original floppy, and the manual. I learned programming from the function dictionary in the manual. That manual will forever be placed in an esteemed position in my library (a 90 degree turn of my head is all it takes to view it right now), for it got me interesting in programming. I lost my social life during middle school to that book. Ah, the memories....
Correct, Microsoft pays no federal income tax. Thank Reagan for that, he bought some votes for a tax cut by creating some major loopholes which virtually eliminated corporate income tax at the federal level.
A surefire way to get an article submitted is to send it in multiple times over the span of a week...eventually someone screws up.
What's really fun is submitting an article, getting it posted, and then re-submitting it until you get a duplicate posted (not that i've ever done it;).
Did you have it installed in an image running off of a fat32 partition? If I install redhat 7 onto an image file the disk i/o performance drops off horribly. Perhaps QNX has the same problem.
You can learn C in a day if you're dedicated...but anyways. I see what you're saying about a language hiding the internals of a system and providing a good framework, and not a minimalist base that everyone else can build their own framework off of. Something like this is just what is needed on a PDA, and the Palm API provides it. Granted, you still have pointers and the like running around (which some people think are too low level), but the whole API has a data-centric design aimed primarily at what the PDA is meant for -- storing data. I guess we could quibble over the language, but I really don't care and really couldn't argue about it effectively since my knowledge of languages doesn't include any of these new fancy languages, just C/C++ and assembler (vb does not count as a language;).
In reply to the person who submitted the story, how easy do you want it to be. Oh no, the horror, you must learn the language. C isn't hard, and programming for PalmOS isn't either. Download the reference PDF and you're set. It was all fairly self explanatory IMO (a heck of alot better than trying to program straight win32 from the crappy Microsoft help files that came with borland). I think some people today think programming ought to be handed to them, that the programming framework should allow them to do wonders with out lifting a finger, and granted, I do agree that a programming framework should do much of the gruntwork that ends up being repetitive in writing large apps, but you, the programmer, have to get in there and be creative. If programming was easy, everyone would do it (ok, if it was easy to everyone, to alot of us it is, but the/. crowd isn't exactly 'average').
He's right, windows95 kicks the pants off of linux on old 486 machines with (slashdot filters are annoying, imagine a 'less than' sign here) 20 MB of RAM, but only for browsing. Try running a web server on the same machine (argh, brain hurts at just the thought), or try setting it up as a NAT box. Apparently, we've found the one thing windows is good at -- browsing the web on laughably old, and slow, computers (and that's where it should stay;) ).
Note: I know this because I had a 486 DX/2 66 Mhz up until I got my duron 700 Mhz machine last sept. Sad really...but it worked. Netscape did become usable under linux once it got upgraded to 20 MB of RAM though.
Amen:-).
But I seriously think that KDE2 is more intuative than windows. My sister uses it and never asks questions about how to do things, on the other hand, when she's having to use windows it's constant questioning over what to do and what things mean.
Linux is ready for the desktop when I can say, in all honesty, that my sister uses it (and doesn't know jack about computers).
with a new president-elect installed through a very undemocratic power grab
I'm sure you wouldn't be complaining had a certain other candidate won (and NO, he did not win the popular vote, no one can accurately tell who did due to millions of uncounted ballots that wouldn't matter due to the current system). The supreme court did not pick the next president, the people of florida did (in fact, they picked him three times;)).
For example, if I install Red Hat using the "Gnome Workstation" option, it takes up somewhere in the neighborhood of a gigabyte of storage space. This is heinous bloat, most of which the average user (or even programmer) would never use. But trying to make heads or tails of what packages are actually needed would be impossible for the non geek.
I've been using Linux for four years and don't know exactly which packages can be safely removed!
*runs away screaming
Slashdot Mirror
Install snood (www.snood.org) and you get gator, period. No check box exists to prevent gator from being installed. If you don't want gator you have to go in and manually remove it from your system. Apparently gator is so annoying that the folks behind it no longer wish to give the user a choice.
BTW, I'm having trouble finding Florda on my world map.
FUD mean Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. The term you're looking for is vaporware.
The question is, will anyone care about web services. I'm not about to pay for these so called services if I have to wait long periods to download the software, wait for the software to talk to whoever is supposed to be running it for me, and then get disconnected while using these services. Like most Americans who have internet access today, I'm still on a POTS connection. Web services simply won't work for home users until we have ubiquitous broadband that's easy, and reliable.
AFAIK, no internet connection is required. You can use activation over the phone if you prefer, and you can turn off any automatic updating that might want you to be connected (although the auto. updates will not force you to go online if, for example, you're on a dial-up connection). So far I've seen no indication that internet connectivity is a must (at least under build 2486 of winxp pro).
People, stop complaining about Borland writing commercial software for Linux. If you don't like the idea of writing GPL'd code in a proprietary environment then don't, no one is forcing you. In order for Linux to be more accepted as a commercially viable platform there needs to be solutions (such as Borland's) which will hold people's hands through the potentially confusing licensing problems and through the development cycle on a completely new platform. Don't expect any company to develop for Linux if all they have to go on is man pages and how-tos. Borland's software is important for those of us who believe that more commercial software for Linux will speed its adoption as a desktop computing platform.
My younger sister prefers KDE2 to Windows on her p120. It does what she needs a computer to do, and does it consistently w/out locking up or melting for no reason. Windows is not easy, Windows is familiar. KDE2 is not easier or harder to use than Windows, it's just different. Don't put down a perfectly good system because you don't understand the difference between familiarity and ease of use.
As an unrelated side note...The only innovation in Windows since the 3.x series was the task bar. Until Microsoft moves to something more intuative than what's fundamentally program manager poping up when you hit the start button, Windows will not get any easier.Is there seriously anything Jon Katz likes? Perhaps slashdot should change to "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters. Jon Katz Movie Reviews". Oops, I just turned off Jon Katz articles, darn.
150 MHz MIPS processor, instead of 33 MHz
How is this a feature? I could really care less how fast my PDA is, as long as it does it's job as a PDA. I've got a laptop for playing quake on, I don't need it on my PDA.
More functionality out-of-the-box (spreadsheet, ect.) saving memory for many people
Maybe you meant money there? I would tend to think that editing documents on a PDA would be a pain, you'd best just carry that laptop again. The only thing I (and seemingly many others) want a PDA for is a glorified notepad, period.
I've still got the original floppy, and the manual. I learned programming from the function dictionary in the manual. That manual will forever be placed in an esteemed position in my library (a 90 degree turn of my head is all it takes to view it right now), for it got me interesting in programming. I lost my social life during middle school to that book. Ah, the memories....
Correct, Microsoft pays no federal income tax. Thank Reagan for that, he bought some votes for a tax cut by creating some major loopholes which virtually eliminated corporate income tax at the federal level.
A surefire way to get an article submitted is to send it in multiple times over the span of a week...eventually someone screws up.
;).
What's really fun is submitting an article, getting it posted, and then re-submitting it until you get a duplicate posted (not that i've ever done it
GOOD EVENING GENTLEMEN.
ALL YOUR DEAD HORSE ARE BELONG TO US!
*die lameness filter, die a horrible flaming death*
ALL YOUR DEAD HORSE ARE BELONG TO US!
*this is here to throw of the lameness filter*
My goodness, maybe I should post crap more often. This has generated more replies than virtually anything I've ever posted.
Ok, it's old now. It's no longer funny unless I see it on a sign over the highway or at a sports event (which would be quite cool :).
Did you have it installed in an image running off of a fat32 partition? If I install redhat 7 onto an image file the disk i/o performance drops off horribly. Perhaps QNX has the same problem.
God created man in a mature form, why then would he choose to create the universe in any other fashion?
You can learn C in a day if you're dedicated...but anyways. I see what you're saying about a language hiding the internals of a system and providing a good framework, and not a minimalist base that everyone else can build their own framework off of. Something like this is just what is needed on a PDA, and the Palm API provides it. Granted, you still have pointers and the like running around (which some people think are too low level), but the whole API has a data-centric design aimed primarily at what the PDA is meant for -- storing data. I guess we could quibble over the language, but I really don't care and really couldn't argue about it effectively since my knowledge of languages doesn't include any of these new fancy languages, just C/C++ and assembler (vb does not count as a language ;).
In reply to the person who submitted the story, how easy do you want it to be. Oh no, the horror, you must learn the language. C isn't hard, and programming for PalmOS isn't either. Download the reference PDF and you're set. It was all fairly self explanatory IMO (a heck of alot better than trying to program straight win32 from the crappy Microsoft help files that came with borland). I think some people today think programming ought to be handed to them, that the programming framework should allow them to do wonders with out lifting a finger, and granted, I do agree that a programming framework should do much of the gruntwork that ends up being repetitive in writing large apps, but you, the programmer, have to get in there and be creative. If programming was easy, everyone would do it (ok, if it was easy to everyone, to alot of us it is, but the /. crowd isn't exactly 'average').
He's right, windows95 kicks the pants off of linux on old 486 machines with (slashdot filters are annoying, imagine a 'less than' sign here) 20 MB of RAM, but only for browsing. Try running a web server on the same machine (argh, brain hurts at just the thought), or try setting it up as a NAT box. Apparently, we've found the one thing windows is good at -- browsing the web on laughably old, and slow, computers (and that's where it should stay ;) ).
Note: I know this because I had a 486 DX/2 66 Mhz up until I got my duron 700 Mhz machine last sept. Sad really...but it worked. Netscape did become usable under linux once it got upgraded to 20 MB of RAM though.
Amen :-).
But I seriously think that KDE2 is more intuative than windows. My sister uses it and never asks questions about how to do things, on the other hand, when she's having to use windows it's constant questioning over what to do and what things mean.
Linux is ready for the desktop when I can say, in all honesty, that my sister uses it (and doesn't know jack about computers).
From the FAQ:
How do you say Ximian?
ZIM-ee-un, to rhyme with "simian."
This is incorrect. The correct pronunciation (read slowly):
St-oooooooo-pid.
with a new president-elect installed through a very undemocratic power grab
;)).
I'm sure you wouldn't be complaining had a certain other candidate won (and NO, he did not win the popular vote, no one can accurately tell who did due to millions of uncounted ballots that wouldn't matter due to the current system). The supreme court did not pick the next president, the people of florida did (in fact, they picked him three times
For example, if I install Red Hat using the "Gnome Workstation" option, it takes up somewhere in the neighborhood of a gigabyte of storage space. This is heinous bloat, most of which the average user (or even programmer) would never use. But trying to make heads or tails of what packages are actually needed would be impossible for the non geek.
I've been using Linux for four years and don't know exactly which packages can be safely removed!
*runs away screaming