Re:Actually it's not a bad book
on
Linux Power Tools
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Man pages, schman pages. Yes, I'll go so far as to say: schman pages.
The deep, inherent flaw with man pages is that you need to know what you need to know before you can even access the relevant piece of documentation. For instance, maybe I want help with setting schedules system events. How am I supposed to know to type
man cron
if I have never heard of cron before? That's why sometimes it's very useful to have this stuff in a book that you can thumb through, learning new stuff as you go.
They don't want you download to something. You want to download something. If you don't want to share, don't use bandwidth sharing apps. Use http. Geez.
- I cannot believe that an advanced media player program has no capability to retrieve tags and cover art and such for random files using available information. This is totally unacceptable in a modern music organizer program. Hell, even WMP9, as crappy as it does it, can do that. Why am I entering tags and cover art and such shit manually?
Most likely it's because you stole your music off the internet. If you had ripped it yourself, or bought it, it would have those tags already.
I find myself worrying that just as the invention of the pocket calculator robbed my generation of the ability to do anything more that simple math in our heads, Google will do the same for general knowledge. It's very tempting to reach for Google when you don't know the answer to a simple question, and as wireless devices get more prevalent it seems like that might become more and more of an issue. I don't really have an answer here, but it's interesting to think about.
1 IT guy supporting a couple thousand machines without difficulty.
A single guy supporting a couple hundred macs I can buy -- because I do it -- but a couple thousand?, no way. That one IT guy couldn't possibly be doing a *good* job supporting those machines, in any case.
No KIDDING. How totally, completely dull. Congratulations, you've slavishly copied Windows 95; now how about doing something, anything else... linux has so much potential to be the back end to a truly revolutionary user interface, but it seems to be stuck on the "give the users what they know" stage -- even if what they know is a retarded, confusing GUI mess. What year is this again?
Apple got a lot of flack for interface changes in MacOS X, and some of that flack was for good reason, but at least they tried, and continue to be trying; check out Expose for a great example. I'd love to see some of that kind of innovation coming from the Linux camp, there would be a hell of a lot more reason to "switch" (or at least check out linux at all) if there was some easily demonstrable reason it was better than Windows/MacOS X/etc.
For most Americans, if "free" is not compelling enough then "equal" is probably not compelling enough either; there has to be something tangible linux offers that they can't get on their existing platform. And this ain't it.
Sure, QuickTime 4's UI was kind of bad, but have youy checked out Windows Media Player 9 lately? Talk about bad interface -- they didn't even include the ability to fast forward or rewind!
Simplicity is for those people who can't program their own VCR. Duh!
You know, that's a great metaphor for linux UI in general -- as most humans agree that programming a VCR is stupidly and unnecessarily hard. Even with VCR+ or VCR Gold or on-screen programming or *whatever*, I've never seen a VCR timer that didn't inherently make life hard for the user.
Compare this to tivo -- on tivo, you press one button, you can browse listings, you can search listings, you hit the record button and that's it. Much better human interface design and product engineering -- and as a result, they can charge for it!
I'd love to see linux become viable for more users, but until the "Simplicity is stoopid, and you are so stoopid" mentality is violently overthrown, linux will remain a decent server platform and a desktop also-ran.
The creators of the (arrogantly, perversely, stupidly named) Ogg Vorbis format had their chance to innovate and create a format wildly better than.mp3, and they blew it. Rather than adding actual features music fans might find compelling enough to switch all their probably-already-ripped digital music to.ogg, they imitated rather than innovated. It's a fine quality audio compression format, but there's nothing interesting whatsoever about "Ogg" other than legal patent ideology, and that's simply not interesting whatsoever to 99.99% of the music-listening public.
Besides, you yourself admit that in the past year you've bought one single CD. Why should the music industry listen to the advice of an obviously cheap bastard?
Slashdot Mirror
Algorithmic music? Try this kind of thing yourself. (Mac OS X).
~jeff
Man pages, schman pages. Yes, I'll go so far as to say: schman pages.
The deep, inherent flaw with man pages is that you need to know what you need to know before you can even access the relevant piece of documentation. For instance, maybe I want help with setting schedules system events. How am I supposed to know to type
man cron
if I have never heard of cron before? That's why sometimes it's very useful to have this stuff in a book that you can thumb through, learning new stuff as you go.
~jeff
~poochie
"I for one, still like the fresh talent and community feel of the tracking scene."
And I, for one, long for the return to the simplicity and elegance of railway travel.
~jeff
My SE30 can do most everything this new iMac can, just not in color and not as fast. It's hardly obsolete.
Why are you a liar?
~jeff
I've never used iTunes, but I can guarantee you...
JuK is... probably the most usable multimedia application I've every used.
~jeff
If they want me to download something,
They don't want you download to something. You want to download something. If you don't want to share, don't use bandwidth sharing apps. Use http. Geez.
~jeff
- I cannot believe that an advanced media player program has no capability to retrieve tags and cover art and such for random files using available information. This is totally unacceptable in a modern music organizer program. Hell, even WMP9, as crappy as it does it, can do that. Why am I entering tags and cover art and such shit manually?
Most likely it's because you stole your music off the internet. If you had ripped it yourself, or bought it, it would have those tags already.
~jeff
I find myself worrying that just as the invention of the pocket calculator robbed my generation of the ability to do anything more that simple math in our heads, Google will do the same for general knowledge. It's very tempting to reach for Google when you don't know the answer to a simple question, and as wireless devices get more prevalent it seems like that might become more and more of an issue. I don't really have an answer here, but it's interesting to think about.
~jeff
Rapoon is very good indeed.
~jeff
1 IT guy supporting a couple thousand machines without difficulty.
A single guy supporting a couple hundred macs I can buy -- because I do it -- but a couple thousand?, no way. That one IT guy couldn't possibly be doing a *good* job supporting those machines, in any case.
~jeff
No KIDDING. How totally, completely dull. Congratulations, you've slavishly copied Windows 95; now how about doing something, anything else... linux has so much potential to be the back end to a truly revolutionary user interface, but it seems to be stuck on the "give the users what they know" stage -- even if what they know is a retarded, confusing GUI mess. What year is this again?
Apple got a lot of flack for interface changes in MacOS X, and some of that flack was for good reason, but at least they tried, and continue to be trying; check out Expose for a great example. I'd love to see some of that kind of innovation coming from the Linux camp, there would be a hell of a lot more reason to "switch" (or at least check out linux at all) if there was some easily demonstrable reason it was better than Windows/MacOS X/etc.
For most Americans, if "free" is not compelling enough then "equal" is probably not compelling enough either; there has to be something tangible linux offers that they can't get on their existing platform. And this ain't it.
~jeff
~jeff
So very, very right -- but if someone started a "machinima blog", I'd want to punch them even harder.
~jeff
I think Exposé is great for managing windows, but it would actually be the best way to watch TV/channel surf that I've ever seen...
~jeff
Sure, QuickTime 4's UI was kind of bad, but have youy checked out Windows Media Player 9 lately? Talk about bad interface -- they didn't even include the ability to fast forward or rewind!
~jeff
Simplicity is for those people who can't program their own VCR. Duh!
You know, that's a great metaphor for linux UI in general -- as most humans agree that programming a VCR is stupidly and unnecessarily hard. Even with VCR+ or VCR Gold or on-screen programming or *whatever*, I've never seen a VCR timer that didn't inherently make life hard for the user.
Compare this to tivo -- on tivo, you press one button, you can browse listings, you can search listings, you hit the record button and that's it. Much better human interface design and product engineering -- and as a result, they can charge for it!
I'd love to see linux become viable for more users, but until the "Simplicity is stoopid, and you are so stoopid" mentality is violently overthrown, linux will remain a decent server platform and a desktop also-ran.
~jeff
You know, if you just worked at your job for the same amount of time as it just took you to write that post, you could have made enough money to buy a nice USB optical two button mouse (with scroll wheel!) by now.
~jeff
Hey, I dunno. Where are all your ideas, genius?
~jeff
John Romero's hair is pretty liek a pony!!!1
~Jeff (k)
It's code that gets itself mirrored on lots and lots of web servers.
~jeff
If I decide the expansion is worth it, I'll pick me up a copy of the original, just to be legit
S-u-u-u-u-re you will.
~jeff
Shut up about .ogg; shut up shut up shut up.
The creators of the (arrogantly, perversely, stupidly named) Ogg Vorbis format had their chance to innovate and create a format wildly better than .mp3, and they blew it. Rather than adding actual features music fans might find compelling enough to switch all their probably-already-ripped digital music to .ogg, they imitated rather than innovated. It's a fine quality audio compression format, but there's nothing interesting whatsoever about "Ogg" other than legal patent ideology, and that's simply not interesting whatsoever to 99.99% of the music-listening public.
Besides, you yourself admit that in the past year you've bought one single CD. Why should the music industry listen to the advice of an obviously cheap bastard?
~jeff
I look forward to next week's "2003 Humidifier Vs. Dehumidifer Deathmatch!".
~jeff
Apple's website is a SINGLE document.
That's one long document.
~jeff