When the first thing a motherboard review cites is how great it looks, you know we've finally crossed the threshold where extra speed is irrelevent. It's time to back off investment in hardware and put that money into developers. The computers are fast enough; now we need software that is more stable, more secure, and most usable.
True, I neglected to mention the Palm emulator (and the Palm simulator). The problem is, it's a beast to configure those to work with a system's TCP/IP stack properly, and once you get that going, you have to hunt down all the individual browsers that each handheld uses. Some of these aren't free, either -- you have to pay for them. I doubt many web page designers have the scratch lying around to buy a dozen web browsers, most of us don't even pay for Opera!
If T-Mobile wants their built-in web browser to be useful, they're going to have to provide some way for web developers to test out their pages on the devices. A few emulators for non-computer browsers exist (WebTV springs to mind), but not nearly enough.
T-Mobile (and Handspring, and Palm, and Nokia, and...) need to get cracking. And developers need to start taking CSS-driven design (with separate stylesheets for SCREEN, PDA, PRINTER, TV etc.) seriously.
I had a boss (newspaper publisher) who wore tremendously thick, uneven glasses (I think bifocals). He disappeared from the office for a week, and showed up the next Monday sans glasses:
"OK, before we start this week's meeting, I'd like to begin by saying, holy fucking shit, my vision is perfect. It was a scary surgery, you have to keep your eye perfectly still blah blah [outlines the whole process to us] but damnit, I can see without those fucking glasses. You have know idea what it's like for me to be able to just glance around from my computer screen to my papers out the windows without constantly adjusting the way I'm looking at everything.
"OK, the meeting. Eric, is that damned database finished yet?"
It's been about five years now, his vision still seems to be fine.
We've all read stories with cliches. Long, repeated phrases that you've heard a thousand times, and communicate nothing? Needlessly wordy paragraphs, commas, poorly chosen adverbs, excessive verbiage? I guess you could say that this article is crappily written. I suppose you could say that this gentleman needs an editor. Eventually, I will get to the point and say that this guy needs to get acquainted with the "cut" function of his word processor. Believe it or not, entire classes currently exist on how not to write like this!
My impression is that PostgreSQL has a reputation for being slower due to the way that every command is a transaction. Un-clued-in programmers will send a thousand INSERT transactions, instead of a single transaction (containing a thousand INSERTs). Using transactions properly, PGSQL kicks da casbah.
This is clearly another game like Halo that benefit hugely from the high-resolution and vivid color that a PC can provide and a "next-gen" console cannot. [i]Bummer[/i].
Nice to see that Nihilistic is finally producing something new, though... that's a talented crew.
I use a Celeron 333mhz laptop and a 1.4ghz desktop, and I can't tell the damned difference on web pages. Unless the page uses Flash -- the 1.4ghz machine closes those pages much more quickly.
Why is it that I can get a Dell laptop with a 15", 1600x1200 LCD for $1500, but I can't get a 15" LCD with better than 1024x768, or a 17" with better than 1200x960? LCD manufacturers really need a good smack upside the head...
The site is already slashdotted, but if you're at all familiar with Zeldman then know the message: website designers need to stop coding for "Netscape compatibility" (which means writing deliberate errors into the page to make it render correctly) and embrace CSS.
Websites fell into the decayed, rambling mess that they are today because designers started thinking that they were engineers.
A designer will use whatever tools appear to work to get the job done, because his job is simply to make something "look" right. If a designer needs to pound a nail into a wall, and the wrench is within reach, he'll use the wrench. Hence the use of <table> elements for layout.
And engineer's job is to do it the right way and make sure it functions properly. The engineer will use the appropriate tool. That's why standards -- which define the way things should work -- should be left in the hands of engineers. (design standards should be left in the hands of engineers who are also good designers, of which there are plenty; CSS works!)
The attitude that "it doesn't matter if the page is coded properly, as long as it looks right" is akin to thinking that it doesn't matter if you use "there" or "their" when you're writing -- as long as you get your point across.
btw, Netscape 4 isn't merely old -- it's broken (hence the Mozilla team's desire to start fresh). A properly written browser will ignore elements it doesn't understand, but Netscape doesn't do that. It attempts to interpret code it doesn't get and will often return a page of garbage or crash altogether. Try testing a CSS-driven, non-Netscape4 page in Netscape 3 -- it will usually turn out quite legible!
not a troll, serious question: what is the benefit of running an integrated Instant Messenger? Is downloading and installing a copy of Trillian (or your favorite Jabber variant) that much work? I mean, I don't particularly want a refrigerator with a built in coffee maker...
Java is used by jerks who are trying to apply a heavyweight OOP application paradigm where a lightweight, scripting solution would work better. Using a jackhammer instead of a good hammer and chisel on a marble sculpture, for example.
I worked in a "java shop" for a while. Their solutions to the simplest problems always revolved around memory intensive, server-side user states, and of course the only browser anything would work on reliably was MSIE. When MSIE quit shipping with Java, they folded overnight. (har har)
I've been enjoying using my iMac as a development server, but Apple sure doesn't make it easy when they change the file locations and settings with every upgrade and security tweak.
Note the way that the Pitfall commercials ends with "Pitfall, by David Crane." In a parallel universe, David Perry, John Carmack, and Tim Schaffer are all household names...
I was on a similar project a while ago, and figured that a Transmeta Crusoe would be perfect for my purposes. It turns out that non-laptop motherboards even exist, used primarily in rack-mount devices. But guess what? A basic Crusoe mobo & processor cost about 3 times what that Athlon 2600+ w/ motherboard will!
I think this might be part of Transmeta's woes... they've never released products that the "enthusiasts" can get into. Look what the overclockers did for AMD!
OK, before you laugh: you can get a 400mhz iMac "logicboard" with a built-in G3 processor, all the built-in ports (including Ethernet) for under $150. It's plenty fast, passively cooled, and without the CRT that typically comes with computers, will consume about as much power as your clock radio. All you have to figure out is a chassis. And as we all know, it runs "Darwin" BSD quite well...
... by Infinite Machine, and is apparently coming out on PC AND X-box? Is Lucasarts Publishing this for Infinite, or is this a completely different project...?
haha, I can answer that one for you because I had to write an interpreter for it... RTF is a horrible format, very cludgy, hard to write for, lousy formatting, etc... the document format of the future is XML/XHTML w/ CSS for layout, period.
MSWord exists today only because it was bundled by OEMs (originally as MSWorks, in crippled form... though the full version is still crippled...) It never could have caught on otherwise as no one that actually knew about word processors would have chosen it over WP if they actually had to pay for it.
Wrong. I worked at a software store during the period before and just after the introduction of Windows 95 (and Office 95), and saw WordPerfect sales go from the majority to an absolute sliver of the market, all due to the fact that Novel couldn't get a decent GUI plastered over WordPerfect 6.
It's really neat that a keyboard-centric word processor exists for professional typists, but for most people, a GUI is better. Compared to WordPerfect 6, Word 95 was magical. Novel had the market and dropped the ball. Corel wasn't able to pick it up in time.
I've heard of it, been meaning to give it a try sometime.
Mozilla has been slower than MSIE, don't kid yourself, but 1.1 is substantially faster than 1.0, I think they've finally caught up. This is cause to celebrate.
Good golly those application icons are ugly... can't they use the graphics from mozilla.org??
Did I mention it's faster?
Still annoying: when tabbed browsing is enabled, links to open new windows still open new windows (instead of new tabs). Damnit, I'm not going to control-click every link I suspect of opening a new window, this is silly.
Wouldn't it be cool in the download manager were a tabbed webpage?
No, seriously, it's fast on Windows, about as fast as MSIE. I can't wait to try the K-Meleon and Chimarae packages when they catch up to this version.
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When the first thing a motherboard review cites is how great it looks, you know we've finally crossed the threshold where extra speed is irrelevent. It's time to back off investment in hardware and put that money into developers. The computers are fast enough; now we need software that is more stable, more secure, and most usable.
True, I neglected to mention the Palm emulator (and the Palm simulator). The problem is, it's a beast to configure those to work with a system's TCP/IP stack properly, and once you get that going, you have to hunt down all the individual browsers that each handheld uses. Some of these aren't free, either -- you have to pay for them. I doubt many web page designers have the scratch lying around to buy a dozen web browsers, most of us don't even pay for Opera!
If T-Mobile wants their built-in web browser to be useful, they're going to have to provide some way for web developers to test out their pages on the devices. A few emulators for non-computer browsers exist (WebTV springs to mind), but not nearly enough.
T-Mobile (and Handspring, and Palm, and Nokia, and...) need to get cracking. And developers need to start taking CSS-driven design (with separate stylesheets for SCREEN, PDA, PRINTER, TV etc.) seriously.
I had a boss (newspaper publisher) who wore tremendously thick, uneven glasses (I think bifocals). He disappeared from the office for a week, and showed up the next Monday sans glasses:
"OK, before we start this week's meeting, I'd like to begin by saying, holy fucking shit, my vision is perfect. It was a scary surgery, you have to keep your eye perfectly still blah blah [outlines the whole process to us] but damnit, I can see without those fucking glasses. You have know idea what it's like for me to be able to just glance around from my computer screen to my papers out the windows without constantly adjusting the way I'm looking at everything.
"OK, the meeting. Eric, is that damned database finished yet?"
It's been about five years now, his vision still seems to be fine.
We've all read stories with cliches. Long, repeated phrases that you've heard a thousand times, and communicate nothing? Needlessly wordy paragraphs, commas, poorly chosen adverbs, excessive verbiage? I guess you could say that this article is crappily written. I suppose you could say that this gentleman needs an editor. Eventually, I will get to the point and say that this guy needs to get acquainted with the "cut" function of his word processor. Believe it or not, entire classes currently exist on how not to write like this!
gag
My impression is that PostgreSQL has a reputation for being slower due to the way that every command is a transaction. Un-clued-in programmers will send a thousand INSERT transactions, instead of a single transaction (containing a thousand INSERTs). Using transactions properly, PGSQL kicks da casbah.
MS is shrugging off 75% of the web server market by not supporting Linux with SQL Server, doesn't seem to be hurting them too badly... :)
This is clearly another game like Halo that benefit hugely from the high-resolution and vivid color that a PC can provide and a "next-gen" console cannot. [i]Bummer[/i].
Nice to see that Nihilistic is finally producing something new, though... that's a talented crew.
Oddly enough, that's exactly how the original Infocom games (the ones that shipped on 5.25" floppies) worked!
I use a Celeron 333mhz laptop and a 1.4ghz desktop, and I can't tell the damned difference on web pages. Unless the page uses Flash -- the 1.4ghz machine closes those pages much more quickly.
being overhyped didn't ruin Daikatana. Being Daikatana ruined Daikatana.
Why is it that I can get a Dell laptop with a 15", 1600x1200 LCD for $1500, but I can't get a 15" LCD with better than 1024x768, or a 17" with better than 1200x960? LCD manufacturers really need a good smack upside the head...
Websites fell into the decayed, rambling mess that they are today because designers started thinking that they were engineers.
A designer will use whatever tools appear to work to get the job done, because his job is simply to make something "look" right. If a designer needs to pound a nail into a wall, and the wrench is within reach, he'll use the wrench. Hence the use of <table> elements for layout.
And engineer's job is to do it the right way and make sure it functions properly. The engineer will use the appropriate tool. That's why standards -- which define the way things should work -- should be left in the hands of engineers. (design standards should be left in the hands of engineers who are also good designers, of which there are plenty; CSS works!)
The attitude that "it doesn't matter if the page is coded properly, as long as it looks right" is akin to thinking that it doesn't matter if you use "there" or "their" when you're writing -- as long as you get your point across.
btw, Netscape 4 isn't merely old -- it's broken (hence the Mozilla team's desire to start fresh). A properly written browser will ignore elements it doesn't understand, but Netscape doesn't do that. It attempts to interpret code it doesn't get and will often return a page of garbage or crash altogether. Try testing a CSS-driven, non-Netscape4 page in Netscape 3 -- it will usually turn out quite legible!
not a troll, serious question: what is the benefit of running an integrated Instant Messenger? Is downloading and installing a copy of Trillian (or your favorite Jabber variant) that much work? I mean, I don't particularly want a refrigerator with a built in coffee maker...
Java is used by jerks who are trying to apply a heavyweight OOP application paradigm where a lightweight, scripting solution would work better. Using a jackhammer instead of a good hammer and chisel on a marble sculpture, for example.
I worked in a "java shop" for a while. Their solutions to the simplest problems always revolved around memory intensive, server-side user states, and of course the only browser anything would work on reliably was MSIE. When MSIE quit shipping with Java, they folded overnight. (har har)
re: In fact, though it may be a hindrance now, that explains why *everything* in OS X is slightly larger.
But I bought a high-resolution monitor to make everything smaller!!!!
I've been enjoying using my iMac as a development server, but Apple sure doesn't make it easy when they change the file locations and settings with every upgrade and security tweak.
Note the way that the Pitfall commercials ends with "Pitfall, by David Crane." In a parallel universe, David Perry, John Carmack, and Tim Schaffer are all household names...
I think this might be part of Transmeta's woes... they've never released products that the "enthusiasts" can get into. Look what the overclockers did for AMD!
OK, before you laugh: you can get a 400mhz iMac "logicboard" with a built-in G3 processor, all the built-in ports (including Ethernet) for under $150. It's plenty fast, passively cooled, and without the CRT that typically comes with computers, will consume about as much power as your clock radio. All you have to figure out is a chassis. And as we all know, it runs "Darwin" BSD quite well...
... by Infinite Machine, and is apparently coming out on PC AND X-box? Is Lucasarts Publishing this for Infinite, or is this a completely different project...?
haha, I can answer that one for you because I had to write an interpreter for it... RTF is a horrible format, very cludgy, hard to write for, lousy formatting, etc... the document format of the future is XML/XHTML w/ CSS for layout, period.
I've heard of it, been meaning to give it a try sometime.
Mozilla has been slower than MSIE, don't kid yourself, but 1.1 is substantially faster than 1.0, I think they've finally caught up. This is cause to celebrate.
Good golly those application icons are ugly... can't they use the graphics from mozilla.org??
Did I mention it's faster?
Still annoying: when tabbed browsing is enabled, links to open new windows still open new windows (instead of new tabs). Damnit, I'm not going to control-click every link I suspect of opening a new window, this is silly.
Wouldn't it be cool in the download manager were a tabbed webpage?
No, seriously, it's fast on Windows, about as fast as MSIE. I can't wait to try the K-Meleon and Chimarae packages when they catch up to this version.
"The problem isn't Apple; the problem is that you don't give them enough money."
The feature is there, it's part of the chip. The feature was crippled. That sucks.