The problem with this thinking is that all life must be carbon based and all life must exist the way it does on this one planet. IIRC virii are not carbon based, and IIRC virii do not respirate. They certainly constitute life. But I could be wrong about virii, I'm too lazy to look it up.
It makes you sexist by promoting the idea that men and women should be treated differently. Saying it would not be funny if it were about a man is the exact definition. Sexist
While you do have some points with people liking and watching Jackass, you completely lose it when you assert that MTV is a desirable brand name.
I know a little bit about branding and what it can do for your product because I work for abercrombie, which, as I suppose most people on here know, gets college students to pay double for anything because it has a specific logo on it.
Seeing as I also am and spend time with exactly the people this targets, I can tell you that they all want to download free MP3s (in addition to buying lots of CDs, someone has to be the one to rip them) and burn them to CDs, and get on AOL. A few of them want a word processor (no, college students don't care if it's Word or not, they just know Word as a brand), but most will use the computers in the labs even when they have their own in the dorm or at their apartment.
As for the brand of PC? No one cares. Really. As stated on/. ad nauseum PC users are always putting them out of site, anyway, so why does a PC brand matter (for branding's sake)? The only brands of computers that are recognisable on campus are Sony and Apple, anyway.
There's no such thing as a lifestyle computer (and lifestyle brands are the only brands college students are buying), and the only brand coming close to that is Apple, possibly Sony, but both are really more stylish than presenting a lifestyle. Windows is also not a lifestyle brand. So being that this PC may present an idea on the outside, I doubt MTV is going to get Microsoft to create a special version of Windows.
If a Linux distro company could get AOL to license AOL for Linux, create a specific window manager that highlighted running applications instead of presenting a system, throw in a CD burner, and POSSIBLY a DVD player (I know a ton of people that got them for Christmas despite having computers with DVD built in) and market it as a lifestyle device, that would be a winner. Think eVilla targeted at college students instead of Grandma.
Actually, Apple has made it even easier for software vendors to replace their built-in applications. Toast Titanium for Mac OS X actually uses Apple's optical drivers, making it easier for Roxio to work on the parts of CD burning that Apple does not cover.
In Mac OS 9.x, when you insert a blank CD in your drive, and you have Toast installed, the buttons are "Prepare", "Eject", and "Toast", instead of just "Prepare", and "Eject".
I can't remember what Mac OS X does, because I have burned a CD only once with it since I installed Toast for Mac OS X.
Just try to do a massive file renaming on a Mac, e.g. Linux (probably most *nixs, but I've only used Linux recently) focuses on flexibility. The shells are scriptable.
Since Mac OS 8 all Macs have scripts installed to change text in item names, change the case of text in item names, and even add and remove text to/from item names on a massive level.
And since OS X is the latest OS from Apple, talking about how Mac OS Classic does it is like talking about how Windows 3.11, does things.
Simple fact is, Mac users now have the Mac OS and UNIX in one OS. Every single thing you can think of to do on UNIX/Linux, I can do with Mac OS X, plus I have AppleScript. I can put a face on all of those scripts (including shell scripts if I use AppleScript Studio).
Apple has Perl scripts on their web site to restart the Menu Extras Server, in case a Menu Extra goes wonky. The Script Menu Menu Extra supports running shell scripts from the GUI.
I am a GUI zealot, I'm visually oriented, but I am also a power user. I have Terminal (tcsh) open all the time to do things like open multiple files at once, use top to see what app is burning all my cycles, and to ftp.
Just how does spam contribute to the spreading of viruses? So far I've never received a virus-infected spam mail...
You mean to tell me that all of the recent e-mail viruses and worms people were opening and propagating lately have looked like something other than spam?
The point I was illustrating with regards to viruses and worms is that all of the white noise from spam creates a great screen to throw in a harmful e-mail.
But by silencing them, we will only be hastening our countries decline into a totalitarian state.
Is software the only thing online that should be free as in speech? Why not spam?
Problem with your "free speech" and spam metaphor is that it does not cost me anything to hear someone.
Spam is push, not pull like software. It clogs bandwidth, which I pay for, it clogs hard drive space on my mail server, and it also is one of the biggest reasons why e-mail viruses are even still around.
Hows aboot where spam must have a "text/spam" mime type (or something), and I get to choose whether or not I download spam?
The best part about free speech is that I have the freedom to also not listen. But with spam I am forced to have to at the very least read the subject to decipher whether it is a real message.
Spam filters can filter out messages from companies that I have given my e-mail for product updates or announcements.
You're right - its a PDA. Not a desktop. It has very little to do with Linux or Windows software. It has a LOT more to do with the ability to sync data and use various data types. A PDA is an extension. It allows you to access data away from the desktop.
I've had a WinCE 2.11 device and a Palm OS 4.0 device (I don't even remember what drawer I stashed my Casio in once I got my M115). I rarely synced either of them with my computer.
Frankly, computer PIMs suck, it was always easier to get the data on my handheld. Of course, I'm not a business user, so I don't have tons of shared schedules in Outlook that I need to carry with me.
Between Best Buy, Franklin-Covey, and Circuit City, all the people at the handheld counters have told me the backup card for the new Palms has sold the best. Why would you need a backup card on a device that backs up when it syncs? Like I said, a lot of people never even hook their Palm to their computers.
The only compelling reason I ever had to sync was AvantGo.
I used to have an Indigo 2, not that I had any need for an Indigo 2, I just had the opportunity to get one in a swap for a PowerCC Mac Clone. It had Elan graphics which is great for medeling, but you even threaten it with a texture and it goes into convulsive fits. The thing about sgi is that the machines have the bandwidth . They are designed to move large amounts of graphics data. Well, really just any data that is bandwidth intensive. Plus the hardware just looks so damn cool.
It doesn't hurt that Asians have nonewhatsoever loyalty to Microsoft. Asian countries in general eat up small, cute, and cheap (small and cute are paramount, as seen in Gameboy and Apple's PowerBook 2400). The Japanese are especially brand-conscious, and Microsoft is not seen as a desirable brand (shoddy localisation support). Japanese gamers do not see a new console called XBox, they see a Microsoft product that plays games. Besides, with Sony and Nintendo owning the rights to the most historically desirable games, there's nothing left for Microsoft to do but get something innovative on their system...HA HA HA HA,
To be fair, if I were an MS employee, I would be interested in letting people know about Embedded XP's key features like Windows File Protection and Windows Driver Protection. Currently I run Mac OS X, so I am already protected against Windows Drivers, but boy, what I wouldn't give to be protected from Windows Files!
I seem to remember a loud outcry in the Mac community by some manufacturer (processor ugrade or video card) that had written their drivers to deliver good results under MacBench.
Mind you they did not optimise the driver for MacBench, they optimised their driver to report that it was doing well under MacBench.
According to what we have seen, it looks like ATi has written a driver that will report itslef as having good performance if it is being run under a benchmark. Since there is no direct access to hardware under Windows, applications such as Quake must rely on the DirectX drivers for that access, meaning Quake cannot reliably benchmark anything if the driver is being written to tell Quake whatever it wants to tell Quake.
One of the most obvious is that maybe some people want an ultra-modern operating system that runs just as well on hardware a few years old.
Another reason may be to do some serious programming (serious meaning developing other tools, things like Apache and Gimp), where there are tons of free already ported and tested dev tools.
There's a lot of support behind Linux, and not all that much behind Darwin right now. It all boils down to the right tool for the job.
Some people just want to get behind something that is free (as in beer and speech) while having a stylish computer to do it.
I wish for once when there was an article about something great happening for free, there wouldn't be a thousand negative rants.
Despite the fact that you would have to break into and destroy every free or open technology, not everyone thinks that way.
I think the best part about what is going on in Maine is that 802.11(b) can be linked and repeated. With small 802.11b networks popping up, I think it may be a short time (5 years) before we have a publicly supported free wireless internet. I'd share my bandwidth, to be sure I rarely use all of it on my Cable Modem over Airport.
He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. His number is 666.
Tired of those long, tedious 8-hour days at work? Introducing the 6-hour watch! Leave work early!
We don't need another hero
on
Torvalds Tells All
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
we don't need to know the way home.
I have to admit that I haven't been following Linus's interviews too closely as of late, but I do remember reading in 1996 or 1997 (when I first tried to install Linux) about why he created it; he did it for himself.
He wanted UNIX for his PC because he thought DOS was crappy.
He had a lot of people appreciate his idea and even make him a Geek Icon. Hey that's pretty exciting stuff for a young geek to have lots of other geeks look at you in awe.
Eventually the reality of what you are doing sets in. It's not a hobby anymore and you are not doing it for yourself anymore. People depend on you to run their businesses, they want you to lead an OS holy war, so to speak.
Eventually you either let the crowd push you to insanity, or you have to decide not to care what everyone is screaming at you, and you have to remember why you started all of it in the first place.
Linus is right, though, he shouldn't really be caring much what everyone else is doing. Linux should be it's own product and not the "me too" product that it has become.
The more you try to be everything to everyone, the more likely you are going to be nothing to noone.
It's sad to think that that a company that takes such a large, sweeping, shoddy approach to computing makes someone believe somehow that is going to be the right choice for an individual.
The larger your audience becomes, the less likely you are to please, or even satisfy your target. That's Marketing 101. When MS's installed base was smaller, people were happier with it. That's the reason why Mac users are so happy with Macintosh; it's targeted to predominantly aesthetically creative people, and Linux users are happy; it's targeted towards technically creative people.
After the rejection of Microsoft's appeal in the historic antitrust trial, the case was sent back to lower courts for rememdy solutions. Lower court judge Bete Shitekopf brought down the heavy hand of the law. "I decided after much deliberation and consultation that the only fair thing to do would be to force Microsoft to give away copies of Windows XP and Office XP to anyone who wanted one. This clearly is the only solution to help consumers hurt by this monopoly."
Input devices need to become slightly more specialised while the interface slowly fades away. There should be no arrows on scroll bars, we should do it with the scroll wheel on the mouse. It needs to be a melding of interface and input, much the way Palm has implemented it.
I think we need to see more/better keyboard controls that make sense, like controlling volume, eject, and CD/DVD functions into the input (media keyboards). We need to see rarely-used keys eliminated (insert, forward delete, home, end, page up, page down) and their functions incorporate into the rest of the keyboard (command/alt arrow keys, command/alt delete).
There needs to be a better setup of keys, and more OS functions need to be standardised in the keyboard ( I don't count Dvorak as a better setup. Check out FITALY for a better setup.
I'm not sure exactly what would be better, but functions like closing a window should be built into the mouse, just like scrolling. (Yes, my scroll wheel is programmed to that function).
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with this thinking is that all life must be carbon based and all life must exist the way it does on this one planet. IIRC virii are not carbon based, and IIRC virii do not respirate. They certainly constitute life. But I could be wrong about virii, I'm too lazy to look it up.
It makes you sexist by promoting the idea that men and women should be treated differently. Saying it would not be funny if it were about a man is the exact definition. Sexist
I know a little bit about branding and what it can do for your product because I work for abercrombie, which, as I suppose most people on here know, gets college students to pay double for anything because it has a specific logo on it.
Seeing as I also am and spend time with exactly the people this targets, I can tell you that they all want to download free MP3s (in addition to buying lots of CDs, someone has to be the one to rip them) and burn them to CDs, and get on AOL. A few of them want a word processor (no, college students don't care if it's Word or not, they just know Word as a brand), but most will use the computers in the labs even when they have their own in the dorm or at their apartment.
As for the brand of PC? No one cares. Really. As stated on /. ad nauseum PC users are always putting them out of site, anyway, so why does a PC brand matter (for branding's sake)? The only brands of computers that are recognisable on campus are Sony and Apple, anyway.
There's no such thing as a lifestyle computer (and lifestyle brands are the only brands college students are buying), and the only brand coming close to that is Apple, possibly Sony, but both are really more stylish than presenting a lifestyle. Windows is also not a lifestyle brand. So being that this PC may present an idea on the outside, I doubt MTV is going to get Microsoft to create a special version of Windows.
If a Linux distro company could get AOL to license AOL for Linux, create a specific window manager that highlighted running applications instead of presenting a system, throw in a CD burner, and POSSIBLY a DVD player (I know a ton of people that got them for Christmas despite having computers with DVD built in) and market it as a lifestyle device, that would be a winner. Think eVilla targeted at college students instead of Grandma.
In Mac OS 9.x, when you insert a blank CD in your drive, and you have Toast installed, the buttons are "Prepare", "Eject", and "Toast", instead of just "Prepare", and "Eject".
I can't remember what Mac OS X does, because I have burned a CD only once with it since I installed Toast for Mac OS X.
AppleScript Web Site
Since Mac OS 8 all Macs have scripts installed to change text in item names, change the case of text in item names, and even add and remove text to/from item names on a massive level.
And since OS X is the latest OS from Apple, talking about how Mac OS Classic does it is like talking about how Windows 3.11, does things.
Simple fact is, Mac users now have the Mac OS and UNIX in one OS. Every single thing you can think of to do on UNIX/Linux, I can do with Mac OS X, plus I have AppleScript. I can put a face on all of those scripts (including shell scripts if I use AppleScript Studio).
Apple has Perl scripts on their web site to restart the Menu Extras Server, in case a Menu Extra goes wonky. The Script Menu Menu Extra supports running shell scripts from the GUI.
I am a GUI zealot, I'm visually oriented, but I am also a power user. I have Terminal (tcsh) open all the time to do things like open multiple files at once, use top to see what app is burning all my cycles, and to ftp.
You mean to tell me that all of the recent e-mail viruses and worms people were opening and propagating lately have looked like something other than spam?
The point I was illustrating with regards to viruses and worms is that all of the white noise from spam creates a great screen to throw in a harmful e-mail.
Problem with your "free speech" and spam metaphor is that it does not cost me anything to hear someone.
Spam is push, not pull like software. It clogs bandwidth, which I pay for, it clogs hard drive space on my mail server, and it also is one of the biggest reasons why e-mail viruses are even still around.
Hows aboot where spam must have a "text/spam" mime type (or something), and I get to choose whether or not I download spam?
The best part about free speech is that I have the freedom to also not listen. But with spam I am forced to have to at the very least read the subject to decipher whether it is a real message.
Spam filters can filter out messages from companies that I have given my e-mail for product updates or announcements.
I've had a WinCE 2.11 device and a Palm OS 4.0 device (I don't even remember what drawer I stashed my Casio in once I got my M115). I rarely synced either of them with my computer.
Frankly, computer PIMs suck, it was always easier to get the data on my handheld. Of course, I'm not a business user, so I don't have tons of shared schedules in Outlook that I need to carry with me.
Between Best Buy, Franklin-Covey, and Circuit City, all the people at the handheld counters have told me the backup card for the new Palms has sold the best. Why would you need a backup card on a device that backs up when it syncs? Like I said, a lot of people never even hook their Palm to their computers.
The only compelling reason I ever had to sync was AvantGo.
I used to have an Indigo 2, not that I had any need for an Indigo 2, I just had the opportunity to get one in a swap for a PowerCC Mac Clone. It had Elan graphics which is great for medeling, but you even threaten it with a texture and it goes into convulsive fits. The thing about sgi is that the machines have the bandwidth . They are designed to move large amounts of graphics data. Well, really just any data that is bandwidth intensive. Plus the hardware just looks so damn cool.
I'd much rather see an article about how someone's predictions for 2001 fared out.
Oh, the fabulousness of making yourself sound like an authority, but not having to take any responsibility for your words.
It doesn't hurt that Asians have nonewhatsoever loyalty to Microsoft. Asian countries in general eat up small, cute, and cheap (small and cute are paramount, as seen in Gameboy and Apple's PowerBook 2400). The Japanese are especially brand-conscious, and Microsoft is not seen as a desirable brand (shoddy localisation support). Japanese gamers do not see a new console called XBox, they see a Microsoft product that plays games. Besides, with Sony and Nintendo owning the rights to the most historically desirable games, there's nothing left for Microsoft to do but get something innovative on their system...HA HA HA HA,
To be fair, if I were an MS employee, I would be interested in letting people know about Embedded XP's key features like Windows File Protection and Windows Driver Protection. Currently I run Mac OS X, so I am already protected against Windows Drivers, but boy, what I wouldn't give to be protected from Windows Files!
I seem to remember a loud outcry in the Mac community by some manufacturer (processor ugrade or video card) that had written their drivers to deliver good results under MacBench.
Mind you they did not optimise the driver for MacBench, they optimised their driver to report that it was doing well under MacBench.
According to what we have seen, it looks like ATi has written a driver that will report itslef as having good performance if it is being run under a benchmark. Since there is no direct access to hardware under Windows, applications such as Quake must rely on the DirectX drivers for that access, meaning Quake cannot reliably benchmark anything if the driver is being written to tell Quake whatever it wants to tell Quake.
One of the most obvious is that maybe some people want an ultra-modern operating system that runs just as well on hardware a few years old.
Another reason may be to do some serious programming (serious meaning developing other tools, things like Apache and Gimp), where there are tons of free already ported and tested dev tools.
There's a lot of support behind Linux, and not all that much behind Darwin right now. It all boils down to the right tool for the job.
Some people just want to get behind something that is free (as in beer and speech) while having a stylish computer to do it.
Isn't this exactly what local television stations do during a live broadcast that goes wrong, or has a hiccup?
Maybe I read this all wrong.
Despite the fact that you would have to break into and destroy every free or open technology, not everyone thinks that way.
I think the best part about what is going on in Maine is that 802.11(b) can be linked and repeated. With small 802.11b networks popping up, I think it may be a short time (5 years) before we have a publicly supported free wireless internet. I'd share my bandwidth, to be sure I rarely use all of it on my Cable Modem over Airport.
Tired of those long, tedious 8-hour days at work? Introducing the 6-hour watch! Leave work early!
I have to admit that I haven't been following Linus's interviews too closely as of late, but I do remember reading in 1996 or 1997 (when I first tried to install Linux) about why he created it; he did it for himself.
He wanted UNIX for his PC because he thought DOS was crappy.
He had a lot of people appreciate his idea and even make him a Geek Icon. Hey that's pretty exciting stuff for a young geek to have lots of other geeks look at you in awe.
Eventually the reality of what you are doing sets in. It's not a hobby anymore and you are not doing it for yourself anymore. People depend on you to run their businesses, they want you to lead an OS holy war, so to speak.
Eventually you either let the crowd push you to insanity, or you have to decide not to care what everyone is screaming at you, and you have to remember why you started all of it in the first place.
Linus is right, though, he shouldn't really be caring much what everyone else is doing. Linux should be it's own product and not the "me too" product that it has become.
It's sad to think that that a company that takes such a large, sweeping, shoddy approach to computing makes someone believe somehow that is going to be the right choice for an individual.
The larger your audience becomes, the less likely you are to please, or even satisfy your target. That's Marketing 101. When MS's installed base was smaller, people were happier with it. That's the reason why Mac users are so happy with Macintosh; it's targeted to predominantly aesthetically creative people, and Linux users are happy; it's targeted towards technically creative people.
REUTERS
After the rejection of Microsoft's appeal in the historic antitrust trial, the case was sent back to lower courts for rememdy solutions. Lower court judge Bete Shitekopf brought down the heavy hand of the law. "I decided after much deliberation and consultation that the only fair thing to do would be to force Microsoft to give away copies of Windows XP and Office XP to anyone who wanted one. This clearly is the only solution to help consumers hurt by this monopoly."
I think we need to see more/better keyboard controls that make sense, like controlling volume, eject, and CD/DVD functions into the input (media keyboards). We need to see rarely-used keys eliminated (insert, forward delete, home, end, page up, page down) and their functions incorporate into the rest of the keyboard (command/alt arrow keys, command/alt delete).
There needs to be a better setup of keys, and more OS functions need to be standardised in the keyboard ( I don't count Dvorak as a better setup. Check out FITALY for a better setup.
I'm not sure exactly what would be better, but functions like closing a window should be built into the mouse, just like scrolling. (Yes, my scroll wheel is programmed to that function).