If Apple where to add native X11 support to OS X (don't ask), and wanted to show off this new capability, what would you recommend as the top ten X11 apps?
Gee, sorry Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft, Every other developer benevolent enough to continue support for our platform through times of dwindling market share... We've decided to allow users to run GNU alternatives to your apps right out of the box - yeah we know! "Human interface guidelines, shmuman shminterface shmidelines!" We've decided that having both screen-perimeter affixed menu bars and window-nested menu bars is BETTER...
I think the "smug feeling of superiority" comes from paying $12.47 for hardware and running a free suite of software, not the X11 environment...
I recently tried a simple GigE-to-100BaseT network between my first-gen G4 and my G/F's second-gen. Couldn't get Appletalk working either, then today I noticed that Appletalk was disabled under the "Directory Access" utility... Give that a whirl (I haven't bothered to lug her machine back in here and try it out yet).
For the same amount of money, you get PC hardware that is considerably faster.
Faster? Perhaps. More power efficient? Not a chance. Cooler(temp.)? No way. More efficient architecture? Good gravy, no! Utilizable SIMD core? Oh bugger.
Why we even need to have "Mhz/cost is far from the bottom line" arguments on/. in late 2002 is completely beyond me...
I'm looking at a whole slew of closed PowerMac auctions on ebaY... 800's go for around $1200 on average... You can even buy Apple logic boards for a little over $120 and roll your own:
True, at least there was a semblance of competition in the peripheral market for Mac NuBus/PDS cards... Still kinda sucked though...;) Glad Apple went mixed-endian a few years back.
....although he'll subsequently break the awkward silence by claiming that was his Newhouse impression......to much guffawing from the 4ppl3nUrd5 in the audience...
dang! You just brought forth great memories of visiting Pop's office at DEC in the early 80's and playing VT invaders... I'd totally forgotten about that;)
Now whose brain are we using as a benchmark? Anna Nicole Smith or Marilyn Vos Savant?
I might have an opportunity to meet Marilyn Vos Savant next month at the annual Parade Publications holliday party... I'll be sure and ask her the outcome of a 14 megaton detonation if it were to occur on the corner of 47th and Lex at about the 25th story level. I'll get back to you on that;)
I heard a quote recently regarding my adoptive city of 8 months, NYC... Something along the lines of:
One acquires the same life experience in a simple a walk down to the corner store in New York - that would take a week in any other city
The same can be said for Slashdot as well I suppose... Slashdot is the tech news web... redundancies and all:P
Re:No, it's fine. Click-to-focus SUCKS
on
Is Mac OS X Slow?
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· Score: 1
APPLE: put the menus back where they belong - with the application windows! (or at least make it an option)
Sorry, I just had to chuckle at the "where they belong" statement. Not only were the first systemwide GUI abstractions conceived and developed the 'Apple way', but MacOS 1 predated Windows 1 by quite a while... And Windows' single departure from being a blatant rip-off of MacOS 1 was the 'encapsulated task per window' scheme (wherein each application task contained its own menu bar).
Now, I realize you were probably being a little hyperbolic with that plea/demand, and I give you the license to desire a GUI scheme with which you are comfortable for your specific tasks... The thing is, Windows' and X-Window's most egregious violations of Fitt's Law of GID Control is that very scheme! Menu bars should not only be in a fixed location (where the user can assume it will be without 'thinking' about it) but a frequently accessed control area should be at the very edge of the screen... The short-n-sweet version of Fitt's logic is that items at the edge of the screen are far more easily accessible than items removed from the edge... If your target is removed from the edge of the screen you not only need a Y-axis muscle memory:
* throw the cursor 'up there' before your locus of attention catches up
* correct for X-axis position * click!
but also a Y-axis compensation:
* throw the cursor up there before your locus of attention catches up
* correct for X-axis position * drop the cursor down a tad on the Y-axis * click!
More likely, anyone who has grown accustomed to the Windows/X-Windows system isn't subconsciously trained to automatically 'throw the cursor up there' in the first place. When it's time to access a menu item, my personal experience suggests that the average Win/X-Win user needs to:
* concentrate on the current position of the cursor within its spacial context to the task window
* follow its motion up towards the menubar area, consciously directing its X/Y-axis motion * slow down as you approach target * click!
Hope that helped you see why Apple would maintain its original paradigm with OS X. I think it would behoove power-users if someone would develop a little Haxie that allow the user to assign chosen displays for menubar arrangement of different applications (or perhaps even mirror menubars on different displays!)
I completely agree on the click-to-focus gaffe... It'd be nice if OS X would auto-enable mouseover-to-focus whenever it detected a mouse with more than 1 button;D
I have dual monitors on my mac, both at 1600x1200, and it takes 3 lift-up put-downs of the optical mouse, with the senstivity put all the way up. Now on my PC with dual monitors, I can traverse the whole screen(s) quickly with one motion.
I've got an identical arrangement on my G4/500 - two 1600x1200 displays.
Allow me to direct your attention to USB Overdrive by Alessandro Levi Montalcini, which enables a far higher degree of control over the GID, including resolution-specific multiplication, and more pertinent to our setups, GID control acceleration (which doesn't sacrifice slow-speed GID accuracy for the ability to traverse a full 3200 pixels with one motion). Give it a whirl (assuming you haven't already;)
I have a slight lack of blood flow leading to my left eye, which normally isn't an issue...
...Except that a few years back I was employed as a computer lab assistant at my university. The lab was housed in the basement, usually with 2 out of 4 walls comprised of concrete. I would spend about 14 hours a day there, either as an employee or working on my own projects.
On about 6 different occasions, my left eye started to experience 'starriness', then tunnel vision, and then it would stop sending information to my brain entirely. This was a most disconcerting experience whenever it happened.
Since I left that environment, the problem hasn't recurred. (only very slightly, after dehydrating myself on my bicycle, but not entirely)
Perhaps the problem had more to do with the stress of my lifestyle than being around a million fans and CRT's, but I'm inclined to believe it was the latter (as I've been in other stressful positions hence)
Slashdot Mirror
I think the "smug feeling of superiority" comes from paying $12.47 for hardware and running a free suite of software, not the X11 environment...
...and you can then proceed to count the hours before that piece of shit crashes and burns!
Let's say it together!
YOU-GET-WHAT-YOU-PAY-FOR!
(and you certainly don't get an AthlonXP 1700+ with a quality MoBo/power Supply for $250)
You say troll-ato, I say trawl-ayto
More power efficient? Not a chance.
Cooler(temp.)? No way.
More efficient architecture? Good gravy, no!
Utilizable SIMD core? Oh bugger.
Why we even need to have "Mhz/cost is far from the bottom line" arguments on
$120 Logic Board
$80 Hard drive
$499 800 Mhz PowerPC daughtercard (2Mb DDR L3 cache!)
$130 Power Supply
$50 SDRAM
Total: $879
True, at least there was a semblance of competition in the peripheral market for Mac NuBus/PDS cards... Still kinda sucked though... ;) Glad Apple went mixed-endian a few years back.
uh... What does that have to do with a PowerPC emulating IA-32?
"kludgy" in that Win32 emulation would be akin to strapping a 12-foot outboard fan to the back of a Dodge Omni rather than just putting gas in it...
Endian byte order and all that.. hrrumph...
My guess is that it's AmigaAMP (or a dirivative thereof), rather than some sort of kludgy Win32 emulation...
....although he'll subsequently break the awkward silence by claiming that was his Newhouse impression... ...to much guffawing from the 4ppl3nUrd5 in the audience...
dang! You just brought forth great memories of visiting Pop's office at DEC in the early 80's and playing VT invaders... I'd totally forgotten about that ;)
He fought for the Confederacy, correct?
I heard a rumor that Fossil was going to introduce a LED Display watch at some point in the near future... PDA-schmee-dee-ay! I want retro geek!
Actually, I think the 11.2 Tflops figure was in regard to single precision...
On the front page, the statement: "Rmax: 5.69 Tflops"
LLNL Linux Network/Quadrix supercluster if build out of Penguin Computing 1U Relion 140's:
$4,747,392 offering 11.2 Teraflops...
$423.87/Gigaflop...
Actually...
33 Machines x ($3999 + $200 ##1.5Gigs Aftermarket DDR##) = $138,567
$138,567 for 217 gigaflops = $638.55/gigaflop
Now, I realize you were probably being a little hyperbolic with that plea/demand, and I give you the license to desire a GUI scheme with which you are comfortable for your specific tasks... The thing is, Windows' and X-Window's most egregious violations of Fitt's Law of GID Control is that very scheme! Menu bars should not only be in a fixed location (where the user can assume it will be without 'thinking' about it) but a frequently accessed control area should be at the very edge of the screen... The short-n-sweet version of Fitt's logic is that items at the edge of the screen are far more easily accessible than items removed from the edge... If your target is removed from the edge of the screen you not only need a Y-axis muscle memory:but also a Y-axis compensation: More likely, anyone who has grown accustomed to the Windows/X-Windows system isn't subconsciously trained to automatically 'throw the cursor up there' in the first place. When it's time to access a menu item, my personal experience suggests that the average Win/X-Win user needs to:Hope that helped you see why Apple would maintain its original paradigm with OS X. I think it would behoove power-users if someone would develop a little Haxie that allow the user to assign chosen displays for menubar arrangement of different applications (or perhaps even mirror menubars on different displays!)
I completely agree on the click-to-focus gaffe... It'd be nice if OS X would auto-enable mouseover-to-focus whenever it detected a mouse with more than 1 button
Allow me to direct your attention to USB Overdrive by Alessandro Levi Montalcini, which enables a far higher degree of control over the GID, including resolution-specific multiplication, and more pertinent to our setups, GID control acceleration (which doesn't sacrifice slow-speed GID accuracy for the ability to traverse a full 3200 pixels with one motion). Give it a whirl (assuming you haven't already
How mainstream is Unicode support in Linux distribs nowadays? Seems to me the problem's already been solved (in OS X and XP anyways)
/code has stripped my unicode characters from my post...
I notice that the
Many BBS's I frequent allow all kinds of multicultural strangeties such as Tibetan, Sanskrit , Mogolian... Even Mathematics!
I have a slight lack of blood flow leading to my left eye, which normally isn't an issue...
...Except that a few years back I was employed as a computer lab assistant at my university. The lab was housed in the basement, usually with 2 out of 4 walls comprised of concrete. I would spend about 14 hours a day there, either as an employee or working on my own projects.
On about 6 different occasions, my left eye started to experience 'starriness', then tunnel vision, and then it would stop sending information to my brain entirely. This was a most disconcerting experience whenever it happened.
Since I left that environment, the problem hasn't recurred. (only very slightly, after dehydrating myself on my bicycle, but not entirely)
Perhaps the problem had more to do with the stress of my lifestyle than being around a million fans and CRT's, but I'm inclined to believe it was the latter (as I've been in other stressful positions hence)
Nothing more than a little anecdote.