Web3D seems to be a potential big market, at least Macroemdia, Adobe, Intel, Curious Labs and some former MetaCreations guys named Viewpoint seem to think so:
I know, seriously, how can there be bloopers aside from bad script readings?
There are some cool ones on the Shrek DVD. You can see mistakes where the princess' dress is two feet left of her body or where donkey's fur is ten inches too long. I'm making my money writing graphics software, and believe me, there's much you can do wrong! (and some of it looks funny)
Just take a look at South Park. It proves that technical perfection or visual quality have nothing to do with good or bad entertainment. South Park's visual appearance is total crap,
Definately true. Shrek would even have been a great success if it wasn't high quality CGI but bad cartoons like the Tracy Ullman Simpsons. At least, I went to see Shreck because of the graphics, but I ended up laughing my ass off and couldn't pay any attention to the rendering at all.
You are assuming that an interface that is good for the geek is bad for the newbie, and vice versa. This is not neccesarily true. While I am far from calling it the perfect interface, my opinion is that e.g. the BeOS UI is perfect for both sides. Users who don't want to touch any of the OS interiours at all seem to be comfortable with it, while geeks never get the feeling of being interrupted by assistants or other annoying so-called "userfriendly" toys.
The key is keeping things as simple and consitent as possible. Take the common bash with the usual unix tools: It is mostly a very consistent approach, help is available for almost any item with '--help' and you can RTFM with 'man command'. Now imagine how happy your mother (as an expample of the ultimate non-geek computer user) would be if her keyboard had a "help"-key (I know Amiga computers have one that's unused most of the time) that raised a help window that looked more or less the same, no matter what application she were running at that time.
The basic rules of good UI design serve both the geek and the novice. Everyone profits from simpicity, consictency, visibility and predictability.
Usually I hate themes, they just add more confusion to mostly alreday inconsistent interfaces. But I admit, one of the first things I installed on OS X was Sosumi. OS X however, being the OS I use the most at this time (I still stand to my.sig, it's just that my BeOS box is a couple thousand miles away) seems to be tuned on "showability" instead of usability. I hope Apple listens to its users just the way they did with Dock enlargement (it was standard on 10.0.x but is turned off in 10.1.x) and applies the "form follows function" rule to the OS X UI.
One of the major points why I don't like KDE is that they don't make any choices but make everything a user decision. Having the menu bar in the window or on the screen top does not result in having the best but the worst of both worlds.
I'd like to remind all the people working on a user interfaces of this quote from the KDE UI pages:Avoid rampant customisation... If a user can, by a few judicious choices, really improve the interface, we probably have done a poor job.
I've been watching Atheos for over a year now and I must say that I am disappointed. I really respect Kurt's work and he did an amazing job on it (esp the filesystem and the kernel are impressive), but it's hardly progressing right now and it depends almost exclusively on Kurt. It could progress faster if one forked it and went on without Kurt's blessing as it is necessary right now, but no one's doing it and I don't have the time to do it.
AtheOS may be cool in two or three years, but in it's current status it is far from the point where BeOS is.
BeOS will still run on my computer, I don't have any plans of switching over to a different platform at the moment. See, the sad thing is not that further BeOS development is halted and we will probably see it lose more and more of its users and developers until it's really gone; no, I could live with that. If there was a replacement. It was no problem for me to sell my Amiga, because I saw a new future: BeOS, A system in the same spirit, small footprint, exceptional performance and a straightforward architecture so you could tell what every file was for. Try this with any other current system, you will fail.
But now it's hard for me to leave the BeOS platform: I don't see anything replacing it, there is no successor. The current GNU/Linux distributions (and I still don't like the term GNU/Linux as it does not inlcude the non-GPL'd XFree86) are by far too complicated in their architecture and there is no common API with a documentation to it like the BeBook. Developing a full-blown application is a PITA, as you have to look in dozens of places to find all the information you want. Windows XP is as well incredibly bloated compared to BeOS and is behind in the responsiveness and although it is not based on the DOS derivates it still carries lots of legacy stuff in its API. MacOS X comes closer, but it needs some optimization to get near BeOS.
Don't get me wrong, all of the systems mentioned abover are in most parts good, modern operating systems and I use all of them almost daily. But whoever proposes one of them as a replacement for the BeOS experience obviously never really used BeOS, or wrote a program on it. You can read many reports in BeOS forums from people who tried Mandrake or Windows but just don't get the joy in computing they had with BeOS. And the article from Scot Hacker on OSNews, it's filled with disappointment between the lines. From his past articles on BeOS you can tell that Scot was a real fan of the the BFS and BeOS' filetyping and he surely misses it in MacOS X as much as I do.
So technically our situation ain't different as it was at the release of BeOS R5: The BeOS is still as exciting as it was and it still offers the same power and performance as it did. That's why I will continue using it. When will I stop? As soon as I find some other system that creates the same kind of fascination in me. Until then, all other systems will be tools to get work done, but not a fun hobby as BeOS is.
The internet can help overcoming the language barrier. In fact, most of my english skills are from the internet. If it wasn't for web pages, usenet and mailing lists I wouldn't have had the opportunity to exercice written english that easily from Germany. Reading and writing kept my enlish alive, and it really pays off when visiting english speaking countries: I still have a German accent, but I have hardly any problems constructing and understanding even complex sentence structures.
Any OS? So install MacOS on it then...
There is no platform you cann install any OS on. However, having a Mac means you can still use NetBSD or Linux as well, you're not restricted to MacOS.
Then you'll like Opera 6 that can run in SDI mode if desired. Hm, and to me there's more than just the gestures, but I don't feel like putting down all of Operas features here. If you're interested in it, go to their website and read for yourself.
I think on some browsers you can still edit the extention->file type association, so that they use only the mime type. However, you'll then have to deal with the problem that some filetypes are not identified correctly due to lazy webserver admins. Hm..yes, I just checked: I can remove the.exe extention from Opera as valid file type for executables. Besides, the security flaw is not a wrong identification but the double identification which lets the exploit bypass the save/execute dialog in IE.
Google toolbar? I do a google search in Opera by entering "g my search words" in the URL field. And once you got addicted to the mouse gestures, you wonder how you could ever live without.
Considering that a lot of users never update their browser at all (I have seen quite some people using the IE 4.0 that came with Win98), even an immediate release of a bugfix will still not undo the danger of having that security hole in first place.
I know this sounds like a stupid average comment but...who's using IE anyway? After I found Opera for Windows, I have no desire for another browser at all. Opera has some very useful UI details that make IE look as comfortable as reading web pages with wget | more.
You are wrong on the "no product". The current BeOS version has not only a lot more drivers than Version 5, it also features an updated app_server and PicassoGL. Only because Bone7b and an OGL beta leaked out, doesn't mean that BeOS stopped there (not to mention that those betas leaked months ago, and the people at Be were working on BeOS in the meantime).
BeOS fans would be happy to pay $100 for a copy of the current unreleased version of BeOS.
Why did you mod him as troll?
Trolling is senseless bashing, but this guy has some serious points and backs them with proper information.
For those who discredit Tognazzini or Fitt's law should note that KDE's UI pages refer and link to Tog and Fitt's law.
I don't want to mention the other systems he's missing but what I don't like is that he apparently has a pretty narrow view of the compuer users: Smart Linux users and stupid Windows followers. Heck, doesn't he know that there are people that use Windows2k because they know Linux?
"The key thing that many people seem to forget is that MSDOS has a nice extension mechanism. Everything NT is doing could be done as extensions to MSDOS. The multitasking is already being done via the Windows95. The NTFS and TCP/IP extension will allow you to switch via mode and rotate on the fly. You could do the rest as extensions if you wanted."
Sometimes it's better to start from the scratch, otherwise you'll carry legacy baggage with you.
Slashdot Mirror
Adobe Atmosphere
Macromedia Shockwave3D, in cooperation with Intel
Curious Labs Avatar Lab
Viewpoint VET
This goes way beyond VRML, and there are some big clients using those technologies. E.g. AOL is using Viewpoint.
I know, seriously, how can there be bloopers aside from bad script readings?
There are some cool ones on the Shrek DVD. You can see mistakes where the princess' dress is two feet left of her body or where donkey's fur is ten inches too long. I'm making my money writing graphics software, and believe me, there's much you can do wrong! (and some of it looks funny)
Just take a look at South Park. It proves that technical perfection or visual quality have nothing to do with good or bad entertainment. South Park's visual appearance is total crap,
Definately true. Shrek would even have been a great success if it wasn't high quality CGI but bad cartoons like the Tracy Ullman Simpsons. At least, I went to see Shreck because of the graphics, but I ended up laughing my ass off and couldn't pay any attention to the rendering at all.
There is already computer generated pornography. There are also popular communities like renderotica around.
You are assuming that an interface that is good for the geek is bad for the newbie, and vice versa. This is not neccesarily true. While I am far from calling it the perfect interface, my opinion is that e.g. the BeOS UI is perfect for both sides. Users who don't want to touch any of the OS interiours at all seem to be comfortable with it, while geeks never get the feeling of being interrupted by assistants or other annoying so-called "userfriendly" toys.
The key is keeping things as simple and consitent as possible. Take the common bash with the usual unix tools: It is mostly a very consistent approach, help is available for almost any item with '--help' and you can RTFM with 'man command'. Now imagine how happy your mother (as an expample of the ultimate non-geek computer user) would be if her keyboard had a "help"-key (I know Amiga computers have one that's unused most of the time) that raised a help window that looked more or less the same, no matter what application she were running at that time.
The basic rules of good UI design serve both the geek and the novice. Everyone profits from simpicity, consictency, visibility and predictability.
ACK again.
.sig, it's just that my BeOS box is a couple thousand miles away) seems to be tuned on "showability" instead of usability. I hope Apple listens to its users just the way they did with Dock enlargement (it was standard on 10.0.x but is turned off in 10.1.x) and applies the "form follows function" rule to the OS X UI.
Usually I hate themes, they just add more confusion to mostly alreday inconsistent interfaces. But I admit, one of the first things I installed on OS X was Sosumi. OS X however, being the OS I use the most at this time (I still stand to my
ACK.
.. If a user can, by a few judicious choices, really improve the interface, we probably have done a poor job.
One of the major points why I don't like KDE is that they don't make any choices but make everything a user decision. Having the menu bar in the window or on the screen top does not result in having the best but the worst of both worlds.
I'd like to remind all the people working on a user interfaces of this quote from the KDE UI pages:Avoid rampant customisation.
I've been watching Atheos for over a year now and I must say that I am disappointed. I really respect Kurt's work and he did an amazing job on it (esp the filesystem and the kernel are impressive), but it's hardly progressing right now and it depends almost exclusively on Kurt. It could progress faster if one forked it and went on without Kurt's blessing as it is necessary right now, but no one's doing it and I don't have the time to do it.
AtheOS may be cool in two or three years, but in it's current status it is far from the point where BeOS is.
BeOS will still run on my computer, I don't have any plans of switching over to a different platform at the moment. See, the sad thing is not that further BeOS development is halted and we will probably see it lose more and more of its users and developers until it's really gone; no, I could live with that. If there was a replacement. It was no problem for me to sell my Amiga, because I saw a new future: BeOS, A system in the same spirit, small footprint, exceptional performance and a straightforward architecture so you could tell what every file was for. Try this with any other current system, you will fail.
But now it's hard for me to leave the BeOS platform: I don't see anything replacing it, there is no successor. The current GNU/Linux distributions (and I still don't like the term GNU/Linux as it does not inlcude the non-GPL'd XFree86) are by far too complicated in their architecture and there is no common API with a documentation to it like the BeBook. Developing a full-blown application is a PITA, as you have to look in dozens of places to find all the information you want. Windows XP is as well incredibly bloated compared to BeOS and is behind in the responsiveness and although it is not based on the DOS derivates it still carries lots of legacy stuff in its API. MacOS X comes closer, but it needs some optimization to get near BeOS.
Don't get me wrong, all of the systems mentioned abover are in most parts good, modern operating systems and I use all of them almost daily. But whoever proposes one of them as a replacement for the BeOS experience obviously never really used BeOS, or wrote a program on it. You can read many reports in BeOS forums from people who tried Mandrake or Windows but just don't get the joy in computing they had with BeOS. And the article from Scot Hacker on OSNews, it's filled with disappointment between the lines. From his past articles on BeOS you can tell that Scot was a real fan of the the BFS and BeOS' filetyping and he surely misses it in MacOS X as much as I do.
So technically our situation ain't different as it was at the release of BeOS R5: The BeOS is still as exciting as it was and it still offers the same power and performance as it did. That's why I will continue using it. When will I stop? As soon as I find some other system that creates the same kind of fascination in me. Until then, all other systems will be tools to get work done, but not a fun hobby as BeOS is.
The internet can help overcoming the language barrier. In fact, most of my english skills are from the internet. If it wasn't for web pages, usenet and mailing lists I wouldn't have had the opportunity to exercice written english that easily from Germany. Reading and writing kept my enlish alive, and it really pays off when visiting english speaking countries: I still have a German accent, but I have hardly any problems constructing and understanding even complex sentence structures.
Any OS? So install MacOS on it then...
There is no platform you cann install any OS on. However, having a Mac means you can still use NetBSD or Linux as well, you're not restricted to MacOS.
Could you please post a link where I can download a legal version of Windows XP and Office for $0? Thank you very much.
Then you'll like Opera 6 that can run in SDI mode if desired. Hm, and to me there's more than just the gestures, but I don't feel like putting down all of Operas features here. If you're interested in it, go to their website and read for yourself.
I think on some browsers you can still edit the extention->file type association, so that they use only the mime type. However, you'll then have to deal with the problem that some filetypes are not identified correctly due to lazy webserver admins. .exe extention from Opera as valid file type for executables. Besides, the security flaw is not a wrong identification but the double identification which lets the exploit bypass the save/execute dialog in IE.
Hm..yes, I just checked: I can remove the
Google toolbar? I do a google search in Opera by entering "g my search words" in the URL field. And once you got addicted to the mouse gestures, you wonder how you could ever live without.
Considering that a lot of users never update their browser at all (I have seen quite some people using the IE 4.0 that came with Win98), even an immediate release of a bugfix will still not undo the danger of having that security hole in first place.
I know this sounds like a stupid average comment but...who's using IE anyway? After I found Opera for Windows, I have no desire for another browser at all. Opera has some very useful UI details that make IE look as comfortable as reading web pages with wget | more.
You are wrong on the "no product". The current BeOS version has not only a lot more drivers than Version 5, it also features an updated app_server and PicassoGL. Only because Bone7b and an OGL beta leaked out, doesn't mean that BeOS stopped there (not to mention that those betas leaked months ago, and the people at Be were working on BeOS in the meantime).
BeOS fans would be happy to pay $100 for a copy of the current unreleased version of BeOS.
OpenSource programs don't die!
They just fade away.
Why did you mod him as troll? Trolling is senseless bashing, but this guy has some serious points and backs them with proper information.
For those who discredit Tognazzini or Fitt's law should note that KDE's UI pages refer and link to Tog and Fitt's law.
Maybe you just want to read Jef Raskin's "the humane interface"?
I don't want to mention the other systems he's missing but what I don't like is that he apparently has a pretty narrow view of the compuer users: Smart Linux users and stupid Windows followers. Heck, doesn't he know that there are people that use Windows2k because they know Linux?
Not to say that you can offer the same services for non-free (both meanings) software.
"The key thing that many people seem to forget is that MSDOS has a nice extension mechanism. Everything NT is doing could be done as extensions to MSDOS. The multitasking is already being done via the Windows95. The NTFS and TCP/IP extension will allow you to switch via mode and rotate on the fly. You could do the rest as extensions if you wanted."
Sometimes it's better to start from the scratch, otherwise you'll carry legacy baggage with you.