What's your objection? Do you feel that so much high quality programming comes out of the likes of ITV, CH5 and BSkyB that the license fee no longer has a place?
Based on the product arguement they can only really give consumers a choice if every aspect of the machine works with either of the operating system options they provide, if they choose to design a computer with a lot of windows only hardware inside then it's going to be a problem as they're building computers which cleary link to the functionality of another product.
Any user who ignores the request to stop sending word documents and for some inexplicable reason takes personal offence when asked to save as RTF or similar should be shot, that ought to do it. I rejoice on the rare occasions that i receive RTFs instead of DOCs.
Of course ending this blind reliance upon MS Office would be a nice option, though i can't ever see it happening, the users would riot if they discovered that their viral email attachments didn't behave the same way as they did on carol's computer at the hospital... who cares if the IT services go down and patients die, as long as they still have the correct version of solitaire to play when they come back up.
"You mean i have to click 'start slideshow' before it will fill my screen with amusingly shaped vegetables?! that's an outrage, how am i supposed to get my work done! now please excuse me while i mail every user in the exchange addressbook to tell them."
I want to know why this is being reported as news now and on a linux site of all places, this thing appeared on the web, OSNews if not Slashdot, months ago, and we didn't care then either.
Do you mean this particular build is officially a GPLd Java distribution? Or just that there are ongoing plans to open up bits of java but the idea of a completely functional Free OO.o package for win32 users is a way off?
I don't know the timeframe of when they said that, but for a very long time (in comparison to desktops) laptops were indeed laughable and highly underpowered...
Are you talking about laptops in general or the OLPC machines?
Re-read my original post, I never suggested that they have already made such changes to their default file formats, only that it's the one possible way in which this story could have any importance. My post was speculation, nothing more, i'm sorry that it came across differently to you.
As for:
we could say that if they quietly decided Linux is unnecessary and made MS Windows binaries the default kernel for their builds, that would be cause for concern.
That is a truly ridiculous statement, I know that's probably your intention but come on, it doesn't even begin to make sense, if you're going to troll please do try harder.
Well, if they quietly decided that ODF is unnecessary and made MS "Open" XML the default file format for their builds, that could be cause for concern.
Of course a lot, if not all, of what they need is provided by OpenOffice.org, if they are going to be learning a new UI and trying to handle new default file formats anyway then what's holding them back from trying some of the non MS offerings?
Epiphany is very nice but for the fact that keyboard shotcuts aren't, by default, predictable or sensible, default textbox focus when opening new tabs also used to be an issue, hitting Ctrl+t and having to follow up with either a mouseclick in the address bar or, wait for it, 3x Shift+Ctrl+Tab followed by 1x Ctrl+Tab to tab between the page and the address bar... nice. Of course this behaviour has probably been fixed in more recent versions.
My Bigest problem with FF2 is that it breaks the user interface for all of the existing userbase, where did this whole close button per tab thing come from, and what's that strange new button where the close button should be? not only is it fiddly to close tabs by clicking on individual Xs, if you turn the old behaviour on then your habit of automatically seeking the right hand edge of the tab bar and clicking causes problems. Not that i don't like the new style tab bar, I can just see a lot of problems with it for less technical users who have ventured into the world of tabbed browsing with FF 1.x.
Oh, the theme is washed out and drab, that's its other big problem, IE7 and Opera both look far more appealing to your average user when compared to the new FF2 theme.
But at the same time there are plenty of Atheists, Muslism, etc. who put a lot of work into feeding and clothing the poor and what's more , in the case of atheism, there is no religious incentive, these are humanitarian acts.
I don't know about a port, it's all written for the Quake VM or something along those lines so i suspect slotting in another engine is a very big job indeed, tremulous looks pretty good when played on good hardware and it remains playable on lessser machines with the quality knocked back, i'm sure that is a reasonably important factor in its popularity. Maybe we'll see new graphics effects added to the ioq3 engine in future versions.
I must agree, the ID games have always been great fun for multiplayer, be it accross a serial cable between two machines barely qualified to play Doom or modern online gaming.
One of my current favourites uses ID's opensource quake3 engine, Tremulous is a surprisingly well designed multiplayer team FPS with a twist. It's Free, in the freedom sense, and the dozens of servers are _never_ short of players, whatever time you connect.
Eyecandy? it's some form of the plastic theme with nasty over the top shiny window decorations, the crystal icons are still as bad as they've always been, the wallpaper's inoffensive enough, i guess. That's not to say it's worse than the artwork in recent Ubuntu releases, indeed it's hard to imagine a distro like that.
I guess a Pentax K100 and the pancake 40/2.8 would be smaller than some digicams
Well, an ME Super with said lens is more compact, no sticky outy ergonomicy bits, but the *ist/k*d + 40mm pancake is still a nice combo, albeit at 60mm equiv.
From what i've read it sounds like the K10D is to the K100D what the LX was to the, erm, some-80s-model-that-wasn't-terribly-special-goes-h ere.
If your wife has a collection of manual focus pentax lenses then i should imagine she'd appreciate the higher magnification pentaprism viewfinder provided by the k10d.
I've been extremely impressed by my Pentax DSLR, the *ist DS has nice ergonomics, good high sensitivity performance, a very nice viewfinder as DSLRs go, not as good as the old ME Super but better than the nikon D70 and certainly most other similarly specced cameras. K mount lens compatibility is good, they don't have a physical aperture coupler ring anymore so M series lenses need to be stopped down to metre but the Pentax-M 50mm f/1.7 and 40mm f/2.8 produce such nice results I don't mind. Of course A series lenses and any third party lens with the electrical contacts for it will work in auto and program modes.
Of course now every pentax user is watching (im)patiently to see if the fabled K10D will a) ever be released and b) be the pentax camera they've been waiting for since ever since the first emergence of DSLRs. Among all the other new features, they're putting a real pentaprism finder back into their K digital line!
Oh, the pentax RAW format, version produced by my camera anyway, seems to be handled fine by the UFRaw photo loader for GIMP, just pull gimp-ufraw from your repo.
There's no reason why they shouldn't continue Krita development, choice is a good thing, there are however a number of reasons why Krita shouldn't be tagged State of the Art in a slashdot story title.
Slashdot Mirror
What's your objection? Do you feel that so much high quality programming comes out of the likes of ITV, CH5 and BSkyB that the license fee no longer has a place?
Erm, yeah, that's pretty much what i meant.
Based on the product arguement they can only really give consumers a choice if every aspect of the machine works with either of the operating system options they provide, if they choose to design a computer with a lot of windows only hardware inside then it's going to be a problem as they're building computers which cleary link to the functionality of another product.
Of course ending this blind reliance upon MS Office would be a nice option, though i can't ever see it happening, the users would riot if they discovered that their viral email attachments didn't behave the same way as they did on carol's computer at the hospital... who cares if the IT services go down and patients die, as long as they still have the correct version of solitaire to play when they come back up.
I want to know why this is being reported as news now and on a linux site of all places, this thing appeared on the web, OSNews if not Slashdot, months ago, and we didn't care then either.
c areabouttheplatform
l 0 .html
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=15636
Ah, the wonders of linuxdevices/windowsfordevices/gimmepageviewsdont
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9902727147.htm
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS554916553
Do you mean this particular build is officially a GPLd Java distribution? Or just that there are ongoing plans to open up bits of java but the idea of a completely functional Free OO.o package for win32 users is a way off?
*psst*, you can't say that, it's "Soccer player", otherwise you'll only confuse the Americans further.
Are you talking about laptops in general or the OLPC machines?
As for:
That is a truly ridiculous statement, I know that's probably your intention but come on, it doesn't even begin to make sense, if you're going to troll please do try harder.
I'm not trolling, just speculating wildly. Remember, just because the website says that now doesn't mean Novell can't change its mind in the future.
It's odd that MS have any interest in the laptops at all, having previously attacked the devices as laughable, underpowed, etc.
Well, if they quietly decided that ODF is unnecessary and made MS "Open" XML the default file format for their builds, that could be cause for concern.
Of course a lot, if not all, of what they need is provided by OpenOffice.org, if they are going to be learning a new UI and trying to handle new default file formats anyway then what's holding them back from trying some of the non MS offerings?
Has anyone read that changes document yet?
First item under USB is Add Playstation 2 Trance Vibrator driver
Is this the first sex toy to be officially supported by the Linux kernel?! Surely that's enough for front page news.
Epiphany is very nice but for the fact that keyboard shotcuts aren't, by default, predictable or sensible, default textbox focus when opening new tabs also used to be an issue, hitting Ctrl+t and having to follow up with either a mouseclick in the address bar or, wait for it, 3x Shift+Ctrl+Tab followed by 1x Ctrl+Tab to tab between the page and the address bar... nice. Of course this behaviour has probably been fixed in more recent versions.
My Bigest problem with FF2 is that it breaks the user interface for all of the existing userbase, where did this whole close button per tab thing come from, and what's that strange new button where the close button should be? not only is it fiddly to close tabs by clicking on individual Xs, if you turn the old behaviour on then your habit of automatically seeking the right hand edge of the tab bar and clicking causes problems. Not that i don't like the new style tab bar, I can just see a lot of problems with it for less technical users who have ventured into the world of tabbed browsing with FF 1.x.
Oh, the theme is washed out and drab, that's its other big problem, IE7 and Opera both look far more appealing to your average user when compared to the new FF2 theme.
But at the same time there are plenty of Atheists, Muslism, etc. who put a lot of work into feeding and clothing the poor and what's more , in the case of atheism, there is no religious incentive, these are humanitarian acts.
I don't know about a port, it's all written for the Quake VM or something along those lines so i suspect slotting in another engine is a very big job indeed, tremulous looks pretty good when played on good hardware and it remains playable on lessser machines with the quality knocked back, i'm sure that is a reasonably important factor in its popularity. Maybe we'll see new graphics effects added to the ioq3 engine in future versions.
I must agree, the ID games have always been great fun for multiplayer, be it accross a serial cable between two machines barely qualified to play Doom or modern online gaming.
One of my current favourites uses ID's opensource quake3 engine, Tremulous is a surprisingly well designed multiplayer team FPS with a twist. It's Free, in the freedom sense, and the dozens of servers are _never_ short of players, whatever time you connect.
Eyecandy? it's some form of the plastic theme with nasty over the top shiny window decorations, the crystal icons are still as bad as they've always been, the wallpaper's inoffensive enough, i guess. That's not to say it's worse than the artwork in recent Ubuntu releases, indeed it's hard to imagine a distro like that.
....With full frame sensor and aperture coupler ring reinstated for proper backward compatibility, good to know i'm not alone in this dream :)
From what i've read it sounds like the K10D is to the K100D what the LX was to the, erm, some-80s-model-that-wasn't-terribly-special-goes-h ere.
If your wife has a collection of manual focus pentax lenses then i should imagine she'd appreciate the higher magnification pentaprism viewfinder provided by the k10d.
I've been extremely impressed by my Pentax DSLR, the *ist DS has nice ergonomics, good high sensitivity performance, a very nice viewfinder as DSLRs go, not as good as the old ME Super but better than the nikon D70 and certainly most other similarly specced cameras. K mount lens compatibility is good, they don't have a physical aperture coupler ring anymore so M series lenses need to be stopped down to metre but the Pentax-M 50mm f/1.7 and 40mm f/2.8 produce such nice results I don't mind. Of course A series lenses and any third party lens with the electrical contacts for it will work in auto and program modes.
Of course now every pentax user is watching (im)patiently to see if the fabled K10D will a) ever be released and b) be the pentax camera they've been waiting for since ever since the first emergence of DSLRs. Among all the other new features, they're putting a real pentaprism finder back into their K digital line!
Oh, the pentax RAW format, version produced by my camera anyway, seems to be handled fine by the UFRaw photo loader for GIMP, just pull gimp-ufraw from your repo.
But letting idiots choose is generally a bad idea.
There's no reason why they shouldn't continue Krita development, choice is a good thing, there are however a number of reasons why Krita shouldn't be tagged State of the Art in a slashdot story title.