Forget support, all that I really want is for an OEM like dell or someone to sell a range of PCs where all the hardware inside is gauranteed to work with linux (or "linux" as shipped with the PC).
Just sell it with "no support other than replacement parts under warranty" and go.
Especially this would be nice for Laptops (which are traditionally the hardest to get working with linux)
Basicly, it would mean you could get a machine from a big name OEM with a well known distro on it and you would be sure that when you set it up that all the hardware in the machine has been tested and is working under linux as installed. Link it to the "automatic update" services that the distro has so that you can keep your box up to date and you have something that would be quite popular amongst people who like linux and want to run it but dont want to spend hours trying to get hardware working. Simply having a machine where all the hardware components have functional usable linux drivers that actually work would be nice:)
Why not build something that is basicly an excercise bike, treadmill, rower or something similar but with a video game element (for example, pedal the bike faster and the bike on the screen goes faster and you win the race).
Perhaps someone could hook an excercise bike to a MAME cabinet and use it with Prop Cycle:)
To all the people saying "dont let kids online unless you are watching over their shoulder", what exactly are you worried about the kids getting access to?
If every company realized that modding is GOOD for games (generally, there are exceptions to the rule though), maybe we would have better mod support.
For example, better mod support for the Command & Conquer line of games would be GREAT. As would better mod support for Rollercoaster Tycoon.
Some companies totally "get" modding (like ID Software, Epic and Valve and to a large extent Microsoft) and some sort of "get" modding e.g. Electronic Arts which kinda supports modding in Battlefield and The Sims and doesnt support it at all in any meaningfull way in most of their other games (for example, there is little to no official modding support towards the Command & Conquer line of games or Lord Of The Rings Battle For Middle Earth) Then there are companies (like blizzard) that are downright hostile to modding (just look at how much trouble they have gone to to make the game data for Warcraft III, Starcraft, Diablo II etc hard to get at, not to mention the bnetd case)
Lets ignore vista starter and look at the other 5 editions.
IMO, 5 editions is way too many. What they should have is this: 1.Vista Home. Same as current Home Basic but with Aeroglass UI as an optional component (i.e. people on lower spec machines dont have to install it, everyone else can). Should be better designed this time so that the things "missing" from XP home that made some apps not work (something about security I think) are all there in Vista Home. Especially, proper support for setting file permissions and for using Vista Home in a reduced privilage environment should be present. 2.Vista Media Pack. Includes all the media functions (DVD creating, HD movie maker, xbox 360 connect, photo features, PVR type functionality etc) currently in Vista Home Premium. 3.Vista Mobility Pack. Includes Tablet PC, PC-PC Sync etc. 4.Vista Business (or Vista Pro). Includes the business features currently in Vista Business including backup, encrypted file system, remote desktop (I dont know of very many home users who need Remote Desktop and those who do can buy Vista Pro/Vista Business), web server, fax, domains, offline folders, multiprocessor support etc. Not sure if they should keep the mobility stuff in Vista Business or have business users buy the Mobility pack. Certainly they should take out all the media functionality (premuim games in Vista Business??? Who needs that...) and have business users who DO need it buy the Vista Media Pack to get that functionality. Enterprise customers would get Vista Business too under their big multi-site licence deals. 5.Vista Enterprise tools. This would come with the unix stuff, the copy of Virtual PC, the enterprise level disk encryption and the other stuff currently in "Vista Enterprise". Big enterprises who actually need this stuff would be able to get (and use this) under the same site licence they have for windows. 6.Windows Vista Ultimate. Would include everything. Essentially Vista Business + Vista Media Pack + Vista Mobility Pack + Vista Enterprise tools.
Essentially, you now have the following versions of Vista: Windows Vista Home for home users Windows Vista Business (or Windows Vista Pro) for business users Windows Vista Ultimate (for those who have to have it all)
Plus these addons Windows Vista Media Pack (for those who need Media Center, DVD authoring, HD movie maker, xbox 360 connect etc) Windows Vista Mobillity Pack (for those who need tablet PC, PC-PC Sync etc etc) Windows Vista Enterprise Tools (for business users who need the advanced stuff)
Much less customer confusion. Home users buy home, business users buy business & geeks & gurus & etc buy (or pirate:) ultimate. People who need media functionality (or who own a 360 and want to connect to it) buy the media pack. People who need mobility buy the mobility pack. And enterprises who need the enterprise tools get and use that.
Much simpler (IMO) than all the distinctions between Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. Plus it provides upcharge opertunities later on if someone decides they DO in fact need the other stuff (e.g. the media functionality)
I regularly frequent the official Atari Rollercoaster Tycoon forums and there seems to be a bit of wallpapering/shills going on there. For example, there are always people who say "most people dont care about making this ride better" or "casual gamers dont want scenery importing" or otherwise come up with an excuse as to why xyz bug doesnt in fact need to be fixed or why xyz feature suggestion shouldnt be implemented. (to be honest, I actually do think that some of the feature suggestions shouldnt be implemented) Generally, these people seem to do their best to make RCT look good and make it seem like the problems with it are in fact not problems. Its not known for sure but its suspected (by some top community members) that some of these people are in fact shills for Atari and Frontier.
The question is, why organizations like the FCC listen when its such a small group complaining in the first place?
This is like those cases where one person living next to a live music venue is enough to get governments to force the venue to stop playing live music (or loud music) even though all the other people in the area dont give a stuff about the music.
BUT only if industries other than the music industry get their cut too (What about all the people with pirated movies, games, ebooks, software and so on on their blank CDs?) AND if everyone whos copyright is being violated gets their cut for said violations
I know of several places here in Perth (australia) where I dont get cellphone service (or didnt last time I was there) and where I had to move outside to get it. (the last case I can remember was when I was inside a k-mart store and had to go outside the store to get service)
I seriously doubt that the MPAA is going to do something as stupid as locking disks to players. Why? Because of Blockbuster. Blockbuster (and the rental market as a whole) are too big in this day and age to be ignored.
The problem for the chinese government is that Wikipedia is: A.a site that prides itself on being neutral whenever possible and presenting the facts only without presenting any opinion. and B.Editable by anyone from anywhere.
Having the facts presented with no bias is the one thing that the chinese government DOESNT want because it might actually make enough chinese hate their government that we end up with a "peoples revolution" (ala the revolution in Yugoslavia that ousted Milosovitch)
And, given point B, it is impossible to censor wikipedia (because its impossible to be sure that you have found all the things the chinese government doesnt like) so the only option is to ban it altogether.
The only thing I dont like about Diablo II is that even if you press all the potion buttons and drink potions as fast as you can, you can still die quite easliy. I dont know if its because of the way the game is coded (i.e. checking for keyboard events happens less often than running monster AI) or if its a design feature (I do notice that when you drink a healing potion the health appears as a very translucent red mark in your health bar which then takes a few seconds to "fill up to full")
When I was a kid, I had an electroincs kit that was basicly a box with all the components layed out on it and then springs attacked to all the lugs. You pushed a wire into the springs and connected circuts.
There was also another kit that I had that had a blue board with a bunch of holes and you basicly used screws to hold the components in place (then you unscrewed them and put them away for later use). I still remember when I was using this kit as part of some extra-curricular electronics course of some kind and the teacher at school thought that the ice-cream container with the foam in it and the electronic bits sticking out of the foam was dangerous (memory of that is hazy so I dont know the exact details anymore)
The site says "one physical CPU", microsoft may treat dual core CPUs as one physical CPU for this purpose.
Also, in any case, single core CPUs (some of which include technology like Hyperthreading) are going to be the dominant purchase for the home market for a while yet.
Gamers wanting to run Vista on their tricked out X86-64 Dual Core PC with more fans than an Eminem concert will buy (or pirate:) the Ultimate edition (or one of the business editions).
Most businesses will get the Business version (with small businesses getting the Small Business version).
Large corporations will get the Enterprise version (the kind that already have world-wide site licences for XP)
Most home users will get the Home Basic version (that comes with their new Dell or whatever they buy) with some opting for the more expensive Home Premium edition (generally those wanting the extra media functionality in the Home Premuim edition)
Starter edition is the same thing (basicly) as Windows XP Starter Edition and is intended for users in certain countries as a way to help thwart piracy. Most normal users dont need to care about Starter Edition or the N versions.
The thing I like about the NX-01 is that if you remove all the "trek" tech like the warp drive and the photon torpedos and the transporters and so on, all the other stuff (the consoles, the displays, the living quarters, the cargo storage, the doors and so on) are all items that could exist in the real world. For example, the display monitors that are all over the ship can be bought from just about any computer/electronics store (even the software could be written if you took the time to do it) and the doors exist too (the automatic doors on the front of the building I work in are fairly close, just replace the glass with metal and the automatic opening thing with a button to open it.
one of my biggest pet peves about IE is the way it handles MIME types (other browsers are probobly guilty of this to some extent too).
I cant find the RFC itself but I seem to recall that the standards for HTTP and MIME and stuff say that the client should treat what the server returns in the Content-Type header as authoratitive and not try to "guess" the content type from the filename or file contents. But, IE (and probobly other browsers although IE is the worst offender) ignores the spec and attempts to guess the file type from the filename and content anyway.
A good solution to the problems of ActiveX is to implement a whitelist of domains that are "ok" for ActiveX download and usage and then block everything else.
For example a sysadmin could add *.mycompany.com and *.microsoft.com to the list but block all else.
This will solve the problem for corporate intranets that need IE and ActiveX controls for corporate crap whilst still keeping the network safe from external ActiveX controls. And, if the corporation doesnt need ActiveX for anything, they can just disable it alltogether. Make all this controlable from group policy and, problem solved.
If it was a government request to block access to the video, google would have done what they usually do and said "access to this is blocked because the government told is to do it" (just like you get when you access some content in china or when you access blocked nazi content in various parts of europe)\
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I wonder if there is such a thing as a Halal certified pizza joint...
Forget support, all that I really want is for an OEM like dell or someone to sell a range of PCs where all the hardware inside is gauranteed to work with linux (or "linux" as shipped with the PC).
:)
Just sell it with "no support other than replacement parts under warranty" and go.
Especially this would be nice for Laptops (which are traditionally the hardest to get working with linux)
Basicly, it would mean you could get a machine from a big name OEM with a well known distro on it and you would be sure that when you set it up that all the hardware in the machine has been tested and is working under linux as installed. Link it to the "automatic update" services that the distro has so that you can keep your box up to date and you have something that would be quite popular amongst people who like linux and want to run it but dont want to spend hours trying to get hardware working. Simply having a machine where all the hardware components have functional usable linux drivers that actually work would be nice
Why not build something that is basicly an excercise bike, treadmill, rower or something similar but with a video game element (for example, pedal the bike faster and the bike on the screen goes faster and you win the race).
:)
Perhaps someone could hook an excercise bike to a MAME cabinet and use it with Prop Cycle
To all the people saying "dont let kids online unless you are watching over their shoulder", what exactly are you worried about the kids getting access to?
Both my 51cm CRT TV and DVD Player are "Centrex" branded (from china) and work great. My MIDI music keyboard is a Radio Shack.
My VCR is a Magnavox.
If every company realized that modding is GOOD for games (generally, there are exceptions to the rule though), maybe we would have better mod support.
For example, better mod support for the Command & Conquer line of games would be GREAT.
As would better mod support for Rollercoaster Tycoon.
Some companies totally "get" modding (like ID Software, Epic and Valve and to a large extent Microsoft) and some sort of "get" modding e.g. Electronic Arts which kinda supports modding in Battlefield and The Sims and doesnt support it at all in any meaningfull way in most of their other games (for example, there is little to no official modding support towards the Command & Conquer line of games or Lord Of The Rings Battle For Middle Earth)
Then there are companies (like blizzard) that are downright hostile to modding (just look at how much trouble they have gone to to make the game data for Warcraft III, Starcraft, Diablo II etc hard to get at, not to mention the bnetd case)
Lets ignore vista starter and look at the other 5 editions.
:) ultimate. People who need media functionality (or who own a 360 and want to connect to it) buy the media pack. People who need mobility buy the mobility pack. And enterprises who need the enterprise tools get and use that.
IMO, 5 editions is way too many.
What they should have is this:
1.Vista Home. Same as current Home Basic but with Aeroglass UI as an optional component (i.e. people on lower spec machines dont have to install it, everyone else can). Should be better designed this time so that the things "missing" from XP home that made some apps not work (something about security I think) are all there in Vista Home. Especially, proper support for setting file permissions and for using Vista Home in a reduced privilage environment should be present.
2.Vista Media Pack. Includes all the media functions (DVD creating, HD movie maker, xbox 360 connect, photo features, PVR type functionality etc) currently in Vista Home Premium.
3.Vista Mobility Pack. Includes Tablet PC, PC-PC Sync etc.
4.Vista Business (or Vista Pro). Includes the business features currently in Vista Business including backup, encrypted file system, remote desktop (I dont know of very many home users who need Remote Desktop and those who do can buy Vista Pro/Vista Business), web server, fax, domains, offline folders, multiprocessor support etc. Not sure if they should keep the mobility stuff in Vista Business or have business users buy the Mobility pack. Certainly they should take out all the media functionality (premuim games in Vista Business??? Who needs that...) and have business users who DO need it buy the Vista Media Pack to get that functionality.
Enterprise customers would get Vista Business too under their big multi-site licence deals.
5.Vista Enterprise tools. This would come with the unix stuff, the copy of Virtual PC, the enterprise level disk encryption and the other stuff currently in "Vista Enterprise". Big enterprises who actually need this stuff would be able to get (and use this) under the same site licence they have for windows.
6.Windows Vista Ultimate. Would include everything. Essentially Vista Business + Vista Media Pack + Vista Mobility Pack + Vista Enterprise tools.
Essentially, you now have the following versions of Vista:
Windows Vista Home for home users
Windows Vista Business (or Windows Vista Pro) for business users
Windows Vista Ultimate (for those who have to have it all)
Plus these addons
Windows Vista Media Pack (for those who need Media Center, DVD authoring, HD movie maker, xbox 360 connect etc)
Windows Vista Mobillity Pack (for those who need tablet PC, PC-PC Sync etc etc)
Windows Vista Enterprise Tools (for business users who need the advanced stuff)
Much less customer confusion. Home users buy home, business users buy business & geeks & gurus & etc buy (or pirate
Much simpler (IMO) than all the distinctions between Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. Plus it provides upcharge opertunities later on if someone decides they DO in fact need the other stuff (e.g. the media functionality)
I regularly frequent the official Atari Rollercoaster Tycoon forums and there seems to be a bit of wallpapering/shills going on there. For example, there are always people who say "most people dont care about making this ride better" or "casual gamers dont want scenery importing" or otherwise come up with an excuse as to why xyz bug doesnt in fact need to be fixed or why xyz feature suggestion shouldnt be implemented. (to be honest, I actually do think that some of the feature suggestions shouldnt be implemented)
Generally, these people seem to do their best to make RCT look good and make it seem like the problems with it are in fact not problems. Its not known for sure but its suspected (by some top community members) that some of these people are in fact shills for Atari and Frontier.
The question is, why organizations like the FCC listen when its such a small group complaining in the first place?
This is like those cases where one person living next to a live music venue is enough to get governments to force the venue to stop playing live music (or loud music) even though all the other people in the area dont give a stuff about the music.
BUT only if industries other than the music industry get their cut too (What about all the people with pirated movies, games, ebooks, software and so on on their blank CDs?)
AND if everyone whos copyright is being violated gets their cut for said violations
I know of several places here in Perth (australia) where I dont get cellphone service (or didnt last time I was there) and where I had to move outside to get it. (the last case I can remember was when I was inside a k-mart store and had to go outside the store to get service)
I seriously doubt that the MPAA is going to do something as stupid as locking disks to players.
Why? Because of Blockbuster.
Blockbuster (and the rental market as a whole) are too big in this day and age to be ignored.
Chernobal happened because of human error and government not spending enough on safety.
Modern recators are MUCH safer than reactors like Chernobal and Three Mile Island.
The problem for the chinese government is that Wikipedia is:
A.a site that prides itself on being neutral whenever possible and presenting the facts only without presenting any opinion.
and B.Editable by anyone from anywhere.
Having the facts presented with no bias is the one thing that the chinese government DOESNT want because it might actually make enough chinese hate their government that we end up with a "peoples revolution" (ala the revolution in Yugoslavia that ousted Milosovitch)
And, given point B, it is impossible to censor wikipedia (because its impossible to be sure that you have found all the things the chinese government doesnt like) so the only option is to ban it altogether.
The only thing I dont like about Diablo II is that even if you press all the potion buttons and drink potions as fast as you can, you can still die quite easliy. I dont know if its because of the way the game is coded (i.e. checking for keyboard events happens less often than running monster AI) or if its a design feature (I do notice that when you drink a healing potion the health appears as a very translucent red mark in your health bar which then takes a few seconds to "fill up to full")
The last time I did anything that even remotly resembles fishing is when I built fishing boats in Empire Earth :)
I second this notion.
When I was a kid, I had an electroincs kit that was basicly a box with all the components layed out on it and then springs attacked to all the lugs.
You pushed a wire into the springs and connected circuts.
There was also another kit that I had that had a blue board with a bunch of holes and you basicly used screws to hold the components in place (then you unscrewed them and put them away for later use). I still remember when I was using this kit as part of some extra-curricular electronics course of some kind and the teacher at school thought that the ice-cream container with the foam in it and the electronic bits sticking out of the foam was dangerous (memory of that is hazy so I dont know the exact details anymore)
The site says "one physical CPU", microsoft may treat dual core CPUs as one physical CPU for this purpose.
:) the Ultimate edition (or one of the business editions).
Also, in any case, single core CPUs (some of which include technology like Hyperthreading) are going to be the dominant purchase for the home market for a while yet.
Gamers wanting to run Vista on their tricked out X86-64 Dual Core PC with more fans than an Eminem concert will buy (or pirate
Most businesses will get the Business version (with small businesses getting the Small Business version).
Large corporations will get the Enterprise version (the kind that already have world-wide site licences for XP)
Most home users will get the Home Basic version (that comes with their new Dell or whatever they buy) with some opting for the more expensive Home Premium edition (generally those wanting the extra media functionality in the Home Premuim edition)
Starter edition is the same thing (basicly) as Windows XP Starter Edition and is intended for users in certain countries as a way to help thwart piracy.
Most normal users dont need to care about Starter Edition or the N versions.
The thing I like about the NX-01 is that if you remove all the "trek" tech like the warp drive and the photon torpedos and the transporters and so on, all the other stuff (the consoles, the displays, the living quarters, the cargo storage, the doors and so on) are all items that could exist in the real world. For example, the display monitors that are all over the ship can be bought from just about any computer/electronics store (even the software could be written if you took the time to do it) and the doors exist too (the automatic doors on the front of the building I work in are fairly close, just replace the glass with metal and the automatic opening thing with a button to open it.
one of my biggest pet peves about IE is the way it handles MIME types (other browsers are probobly guilty of this to some extent too).
I cant find the RFC itself but I seem to recall that the standards for HTTP and MIME and stuff say that the client should treat what the server returns in the Content-Type header as authoratitive and not try to "guess" the content type from the filename or file contents. But, IE (and probobly other browsers although IE is the worst offender) ignores the spec and attempts to guess the file type from the filename and content anyway.
A good solution to the problems of ActiveX is to implement a whitelist of domains that are "ok" for ActiveX download and usage and then block everything else.
For example a sysadmin could add *.mycompany.com and *.microsoft.com to the list but block all else.
This will solve the problem for corporate intranets that need IE and ActiveX controls for corporate crap whilst still keeping the network safe from external ActiveX controls. And, if the corporation doesnt need ActiveX for anything, they can just disable it alltogether. Make all this controlable from group policy and, problem solved.
How does a filter tell the difference between nancycallahan and deathtoallah?
Or deathtoallah2005?
A human can tell the difference but a machine cant.
Anyone know if there is any reference in the chinese language wikipedia to Tianmin Square (and specifically to the famous tanks photograph)?
If it was a government request to block access to the video, google would have done what they usually do and said "access to this is blocked because the government told is to do it" (just like you get when you access some content in china or when you access blocked nazi content in various parts of europe)\