In my college's lab, we used Innoculate Personal Edition, a great antivirus program that was issued for free by Computer Associates.
Unfortunately, in the past year they have stopped issuing new releases of it, but there are still going to be virus signature updates available. If you can get an older copy, you can get a great, risk-free full-featured antivirus program (pretty much on par with Norton Antivirus).
Perhaps unrelated, but I remember watching another Japanese TV show on "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes" in America. In the clip of what appeared to be a gameshow, the contestants would consume mass quantites of beer and then (no joke) sit in a tub of ice cubes. They had portajohns some distance away, and the last person to make it to the portajohn was the winner.
I wish I was making up this stuff but I'm not.
At the time I was a teenager, so I didn't see what all the fuss was about. Now I'm in my early 20's, and I can definitely feel the guys' pain.:)
Regardless of source, is there any reason why these builds crash so often? (I tried the new build and almost immediately went back to Netscape 6 for Linux).
Also, a slightly odd question: why do I get a bunch of status information when I run the browser from the console (Mozilla and Netscape). I'm not debugging it, I'm just trying to run it. I would imagine most Windows users (e.g. my grandmother) would have no clue why those messages were appearing if she tried to run Mozilla/Netscape in Linux.
I disagree on one thing: I actually like it when corporate board register what I thought was "cool" all along with the general populace.
For example, an ex-girlfriend turned me onto Radiohead. We'd sit and listen to "The Bends" when it came out, and I turned out to be a bigger fan than she was. Years later, when "OK Computer" was getting critical acclaim (still, I feel, one of the most important albums of the 90's) I was already ahead of the curve. People were saying "you like Radiohead?" and I was suddenly chic.
And when the curve drops? I'll stick with them. I think that's actually the way most adults manage the fad tides, at least after their teen years. A few still turn on MTV for their daily prescription of "cool", but I think the rest of us watch the trends, pick out what we like, and ride it past the wave.
On the surface, this doesn't seem a whole lot different than the shopping and Netscape.com links that appear in all the recent builds of Netscape. Microsoft is simply linking to their own sites from within their own applications. From what I'm reading, this will not extend to the user interface as a whole, only Windows XP and Internet Explorer.
Not to say that I particularly like what MS is doing. But isn't this similar to what Netscape (and almost every other ap) does? The latest version of Adobe Acrobat has links to their corporate website. Mac OS X has a section on the Apple menu for purchasing Mac OS X software.
Doesn't Philips have to do this to avoid money loss? I thought the Tivo was like consoles in that the company initially loses money in the sale.
By the way, totally offtopic: in respect to consoles, pick up a Gameboy Advance. It rocks. I'm spending more time with it than I spend with my Playstation 2.
I purchased a GBA through eBay a few days ago (as I mentioned in a previous post) and it arrived today.
I have to say I'm impressed. Graphically, older GameBoy and GameBoy Color games look pretty much the same as they would play in a GameBoy Color unit (an upgrade I skipped in preparation for the GBA), but every game works perfectly. The games do stick out noticably (GBA games are half the size) which takes some getting used to. The buttons are also a bit tiny, which can be difficult if you're anything other than a two-year old (again, I had to get used to it).
Other than that the unit feels solid, is trivial to operate, and the screen is surprisingly robust. I'm looking forward to picking up a few GBA games to play on the unit -- I heard the graphics are awesome. So far, though, all the nice little touches, like the green power light turning red when the system is at 20-30% power, and gradually going out -- and the wonderfully loud speaker (which is a lot better sounding than I anticipated) make the system all worthwhile.
I was beginning to lose faith in Nintendo. I purchased an N64 and felt burned, and I thought they overly milked the Pokemon craze. But this system really is great, and I can't wait to play games like F-Zero, Final Fight, and even Sonic.
I was actually able to purchase the US version ahead of time in this eBay auction. At least I *think* I purchased the US version (I'm asking the guy about it right now, in looking at the auction text).
Just the same, I heard the Japanese version has English text and no territorial lockout (yeah!) so everything should be cool.
"And what is "clearly educated"? I assume you mean little more than "until they agreed with me.""
No. I meant if you told these same people that "your children might not be able to access sites about breast cancer, or Homer's "The Iliad", for it's violent imagery", they would see things more openly.
"But on the other hand, the second anyone actually exerts such democratic control -- say by mandating filters for public library and school access -- he's suddenly *shocked* at this blatant abuse of individual rights."
This doesn't demonstrate *my* democratic views, and I'm sure if you held it up to a national vote where both sides clearly educated the populace, these measures would go down. "Democratic" means the people speak.
I consider myself politically neutral, but your argument isn't logical. Further, beating up on Jon Katz shouldn't necessarily be a reason to get a +5, should it?
You think that's bad: combine that with hockey.:) I played ice hockey for several years in high school and street for several more. You have to lean over for most of the game. At the same time I was a computer nerd, constantly working with various applications. In that case my back was straight against a wooden chair.
To this day, when I go out to warm up while skating, I can still feel a little crick reaching my hockey stick down to my skates.
But an absence is. Of course there will be graduate students and faculty for a little while, but even those will thin out.
It's not an eerily empty campus, but it's pretty close. I should know. I go to a school just north of there (Sarah Lawrence College). Being in New York City adds nothing to it.
There is only one problem. Mundie's speech was done while student were still on campus. The school is now closed for the summer (commencement was last week). Who is going to listen to Stallman's speech?
The MS Natural "classic" (with the USB connection) can be plugged into any laptop and work automatically in Windows 98/above. I use it sometimes with my laptop. It's not extremely tiny, but I'd say it's about the size of the newer Apple pro keyboard. I'm so "trained" to the MS Natural that any normal keyboard cramps my fingers after a while.
I agree that it's a little surprising, but when you think about it, AOL could stand to lose a little coverage in the browser war over continuing to be on the desktop with the new version. I truly believe this helped them reach the user base they have today, and they were probably weighing the browsers (IE: dominant, Netscape: ours, but slightly buggy) against having that icon on the desktop.
I just hope that the "Professional" version of Windows XP ships without the icon. One less thing I'll have to delete if I buy it (I don't intend to buy the "personal" version).
While lead-time is certainly an issue (waiting for a game to come out almost defeats the purpose of a review), cost is still heavily a factor. One $50 game is "a drop in the bucket". 40+ of those in a month becomes "a major expense".
Most game companies view reviews as "cheap advertisments" anyway. Getting a 70-90 point score on a 100 point scale in a magazine for $50 is a LOT cheaper than spending a couple thousand to take out an ad.
As a former freelance game reviewer for a few game mags (most notably GameSpot, before it went ZDNet/CNet super-corporate), I can honestly tell you that the above review could never exist in a real gaming magazine, due to developer's constraints and advertising revenue.
For example, I remember reviewing a while back. I don't recall the company, but it was one of those "motion-video keyboard" games, where you watched grainy motion video and pressed keyboard keys to change the video, giving some semblance of a "game". This was in the nacient era of CD-ROM's, and it was supposed to be a "fighting game", but anyone could tell the game sucked. Most games of this genre did.
So I wrote a review saying the game sucked, and gave as one of my reasons "pseudo-videogame play does not constitute real gameplay". I gave the game a zero score.
Boy did I ever get roasted. First, my editor laughed because he thought the review was funny, and he printed it. Then we got a call from the game developer, saying they would never send up a free review copy of a game again (magazines rely on this -- they rarely ever purchase games). Then they threatened to pull advertising, and tell other game companies not to advertise.
Needless to say, my editor was no longer laughing. The magazine published a "counterpoint" review by a different writer, the gaming magazine industry's way of an apology. From that point on, I knew I could never write an "honest" review of a game again, at least for any noteworthy publication.
But since this guy paid for the game, and it's only Slashdot, this is "acceptable" in this case.
There is one major problem with your anaylsis: the machines run MacOS. Oh yes, and they only have one mouse button, because apparently users can't handle two. And the minority of software it runs, it runs slowly.
Other than that, I'll take my Inspiron 4000 (which is a better comparison, as Jobs did) which runs Windows 2000 and Linux and be just fine thank you very much.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, in the past year they have stopped issuing new releases of it, but there are still going to be virus signature updates available. If you can get an older copy, you can get a great, risk-free full-featured antivirus program (pretty much on par with Norton Antivirus).
I wish I was making up this stuff but I'm not.
At the time I was a teenager, so I didn't see what all the fuss was about. Now I'm in my early 20's, and I can definitely feel the guys' pain. :)
Um, did you read the article linked?
Also, a slightly odd question: why do I get a bunch of status information when I run the browser from the console (Mozilla and Netscape). I'm not debugging it, I'm just trying to run it. I would imagine most Windows users (e.g. my grandmother) would have no clue why those messages were appearing if she tried to run Mozilla/Netscape in Linux.
For example, an ex-girlfriend turned me onto Radiohead. We'd sit and listen to "The Bends" when it came out, and I turned out to be a bigger fan than she was. Years later, when "OK Computer" was getting critical acclaim (still, I feel, one of the most important albums of the 90's) I was already ahead of the curve. People were saying "you like Radiohead?" and I was suddenly chic.
And when the curve drops? I'll stick with them. I think that's actually the way most adults manage the fad tides, at least after their teen years. A few still turn on MTV for their daily prescription of "cool", but I think the rest of us watch the trends, pick out what we like, and ride it past the wave.
Not to say that I particularly like what MS is doing. But isn't this similar to what Netscape (and almost every other ap) does? The latest version of Adobe Acrobat has links to their corporate website. Mac OS X has a section on the Apple menu for purchasing Mac OS X software.
By the way, totally offtopic: in respect to consoles, pick up a Gameboy Advance. It rocks. I'm spending more time with it than I spend with my Playstation 2.
I have to say I'm impressed. Graphically, older GameBoy and GameBoy Color games look pretty much the same as they would play in a GameBoy Color unit (an upgrade I skipped in preparation for the GBA), but every game works perfectly. The games do stick out noticably (GBA games are half the size) which takes some getting used to. The buttons are also a bit tiny, which can be difficult if you're anything other than a two-year old (again, I had to get used to it).
Other than that the unit feels solid, is trivial to operate, and the screen is surprisingly robust. I'm looking forward to picking up a few GBA games to play on the unit -- I heard the graphics are awesome. So far, though, all the nice little touches, like the green power light turning red when the system is at 20-30% power, and gradually going out -- and the wonderfully loud speaker (which is a lot better sounding than I anticipated) make the system all worthwhile.
I was beginning to lose faith in Nintendo. I purchased an N64 and felt burned, and I thought they overly milked the Pokemon craze. But this system really is great, and I can't wait to play games like F-Zero, Final Fight, and even Sonic.
Just the same, I heard the Japanese version has English text and no territorial lockout (yeah!) so everything should be cool.
RedHat ad ---- "Windows 2000 Server is the worst operating system EVER".
*sigh*
Sort of like the NBC site for Weakest Link.
No. I meant if you told these same people that "your children might not be able to access sites about breast cancer, or Homer's "The Iliad", for it's violent imagery", they would see things more openly.
This doesn't demonstrate *my* democratic views, and I'm sure if you held it up to a national vote where both sides clearly educated the populace, these measures would go down. "Democratic" means the people speak.
I consider myself politically neutral, but your argument isn't logical. Further, beating up on Jon Katz shouldn't necessarily be a reason to get a +5, should it?
To this day, when I go out to warm up while skating, I can still feel a little crick reaching my hockey stick down to my skates.
It's not an eerily empty campus, but it's pretty close. I should know. I go to a school just north of there (Sarah Lawrence College). Being in New York City adds nothing to it.
There is only one problem. Mundie's speech was done while student were still on campus. The school is now closed for the summer (commencement was last week). Who is going to listen to Stallman's speech?
The MS Natural "classic" (with the USB connection) can be plugged into any laptop and work automatically in Windows 98/above. I use it sometimes with my laptop. It's not extremely tiny, but I'd say it's about the size of the newer Apple pro keyboard. I'm so "trained" to the MS Natural that any normal keyboard cramps my fingers after a while.
Um, I'm as much into Linux emulation as the next guy, but isn't this a bit pitiful? The Windows version of BoyCott Advance came out months ago.
Never mind. Think I found it here. Sweet theme. Better download it before Apple sics it's lawyers. :)
I just hope that the "Professional" version of Windows XP ships without the icon. One less thing I'll have to delete if I buy it (I don't intend to buy the "personal" version).
Most game companies view reviews as "cheap advertisments" anyway. Getting a 70-90 point score on a 100 point scale in a magazine for $50 is a LOT cheaper than spending a couple thousand to take out an ad.
For example, I remember reviewing a while back. I don't recall the company, but it was one of those "motion-video keyboard" games, where you watched grainy motion video and pressed keyboard keys to change the video, giving some semblance of a "game". This was in the nacient era of CD-ROM's, and it was supposed to be a "fighting game", but anyone could tell the game sucked. Most games of this genre did.
So I wrote a review saying the game sucked, and gave as one of my reasons "pseudo-videogame play does not constitute real gameplay". I gave the game a zero score.
Boy did I ever get roasted. First, my editor laughed because he thought the review was funny, and he printed it. Then we got a call from the game developer, saying they would never send up a free review copy of a game again (magazines rely on this -- they rarely ever purchase games). Then they threatened to pull advertising, and tell other game companies not to advertise.
Needless to say, my editor was no longer laughing. The magazine published a "counterpoint" review by a different writer, the gaming magazine industry's way of an apology. From that point on, I knew I could never write an "honest" review of a game again, at least for any noteworthy publication.
But since this guy paid for the game, and it's only Slashdot, this is "acceptable" in this case.
For fans of "old school" sprite RTS's, Red Alert 2 is a lot of fun as well. Check it out.
Other than that, I'll take my Inspiron 4000 (which is a better comparison, as Jobs did) which runs Windows 2000 and Linux and be just fine thank you very much.