Does the 3950 have dual U160 SCSI? I doubt it for $129. No, it is in fact an U2W card! Compare like with like! Try the Adaptec 39160, at $340!
Of course, the best thing is to compare like with like as much as possible: the tyan S2510U3NG: Dual LAN, U160 (1 channel I think), ATA onboard video, etc: $470. Less than the AMD motherboard, but the AMD motherboard is new, and the processors cost less for more.
Pricewatch sucks. No search within these results option.
I thought that the GBA processor was 16MHz, but then again, finding this information has been really hard, so maybe it is 60- 75MHz.
The GBA has a single chip, with an on-board ARM7 CPU, Z80 CPU (8MHz, for audio and backwards compatibility) and graphics.
Re:Games: XFree86 with DRI, or Linux FBDev?
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XFree 4.1.0 Out
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· Score: 1
XFree86 is an X11 system for Unix systems, not just Linux. Linux has a kernel framebuffer device (can anyone say Windows?), whereas other Unix variants leave the drivers up to XFree86.
Also, anything in the kernel would have to be under the GPL. Say goodbye to NVidia support.
XFree86 4.0.3 does not include Mach64 render code, so there is no anti-aliasing or anything.
The README states that you can update to 4.1 from 4.0.2, but it doesn't mention if it is possible to update to 4.1 from 4.0.3.
At home, I am running 4.0.3 on a Voodoo 4500, and it is *nice*. Excellent font anti-aliasing, and fast to boot. At work, because of the ATI card, it works, but without anti-aliasing, so everything looks crap. I have a TFT monitor at work, so Render + sub-pixel antialiasing would be great - anyone know if sub-pixel antialiasing works in Render?
Called TRUFORM, this technology provides stunning image quality without the need for tonnes of polygons, and can be used to make older games look amazingly good.
I will let the article speak for itself, particularly the images which shows that it really work.
TRUFORM can replace pixel shaders apparently. Anyway, Matrox will have to have something more than "real bumps" to get more of the market back. The G550 is a stopgap though, about the level of the GeForce 2 MX, just to get Matrox more revenues through the door this year in preparation to next years "killer" graphics chip.
Of course I'm just a ignorant, savage american what do I know. All the smart people come from Europe and Canada.
Many people argie that the death penalty reduces the state (and hence the people) to the level of the criminal, and I agree with this to some extent.
I agree with you that getting Cable TV, etc, for committing a crime is abhorrent. I don't think that prisoners should have many rights at all (the punishment for a crime should be the removal of those rights that you abused when you committed the crime). Certainly not pool rooms, personal TVs, clean clothes, and the like.
Now does the civilised world want prisons for those who violated the right to live (but where the state will not reduce itself to the level of the criminal and kill them, and certainly not put it on TV - that is sick and twisted, and a sign of the end of civilisation when entertainment involves death)? How about pits in the ground? A remote island where they can fend for themselves against viscous wildlife (Real Survivor - live on Fox)?
Certainly prisoners who are expected to be released one day from prison should not be dehumanised, but rehabilitated so that they are not a threat once released. But should $70,000 per prisoner per year be paid for those prisoners who will die in prison for their crime? Why not make a large concrete lined pit, cover it with electric fencing, and stick those prisoners in there, with individual cells, and crappy food each day, so that they can muse and think about their crime every minute of the day?
Forgive me, it's just so hard to keep track of what I'm supposed to be for and against.:(
You are an American. You are an individual.
Think for yourself what is wrong and what is right? If X has spent time and money developing Y, then why should Z come along and steal/copy Y? That is theft, pure and simple.
If you worked and earned enough money to buy a 60" Plasma TV, and somebody stole it, would you be totally pissed off or not?
If you worked and developed an algorithm that enabled you to solved polynomial time problems in log-N time (something that could make you a billionaire), would you be totally pissed off if someone stole it and became a billionaire instead? Of course, Slashdot would love it if you GPL'd the code, and patented the code, and then only allowed free software projects to use your ideas, but if you could make billions? nah.
I have used both Gnome and KDE extensively, and I am currently running KDE 2.1.1 (or whatever) because it is way better, and does AA fonts. Gnome just looks too 'earthy' for my liking!
However, can anyone tell me why running konsole requires me to go online? I run it, and instead of just running, it appears to want to send data somewhere, hence the going online. (I have the machine running KDE on an internal network, connected to the Windows machine that has the modem, running ICS). aterm, xterm, rxvt, etc don't do this, this is purely a KDE thing (in fact I think a lot of KDE software does this, not just konsole).
Now when KOffice matures a bit, I think that there will be even more software from the KDE developers that is top quality. It is currently too rough, and has very limited import and export options at the moment (I wanted to save a KIllustrator picture as a bitmap image (any format) at a certain DPI, no such luck).
Still, both environments have their pluses and their minuses. The continued rivalry is only good for those of us who want a usable Unix desktop system.
Konqueror is great as well. Now if only it put a little more space between lines of text...
it becomes crystal clear that all the GPL'd code is in a self-contained DLL
Which is entirely besides the fact of the whole matter, which is that the main application knows about and actively makes use of the GPL code in the library, and hence anyone with half a brain (read: half a jury if you are lucky) will conclude that the library is part of the application. Or are you arguing that khtml is not a part of konqueror? Or that the windows HTML library is not a part of IE? (initially, Microsoft would now let you think that it is part of windows, and IE is one tool that uses it)
Dynamic or static does not affect the above. I can't link against unknown library X if I don't know what it does can I? I need to know what it does in order to use it, and make it a part of the application.
To win this, the FSF side has to show that a program that uses an open-source DLL is a "derivative work" based on the DLL.
Nope, the FSF has to prove that the copyright holder did not intend to have his code wrapped up in a library and used by a closed source program, and hence he chose the GPL.
Anyway, maybe all Windows programs that link to kernel32.dll are windows (or kernel32.dll) derivatives - however Windows is not GPL, and this is an entirely different matter! Actually, this stands to reason when you think about it - it is like extending a class in Java. Maybe.
Why couldn't they just make an LGPL library that wrapped the GPL library and link to that instead? How does glibc get to be LGPL, surely it has hooks into the GPLd kernel, which should really make it GPL, right?
The kernel has its own LGPL (Linus' GPL:) ), in that he allows lesser licenses to use its hooks.
You can't make an LGPL wrapper library around a GPL library unless the copyright holder permits it.
Nope, as the script would not be including these programs into its own memory space (as a linked library would do), but in their own, doing their own thing.
Also, they are arguably core OS utilities as well. If you took a non core OS GPL utility (say an application that did X), and wrote your closed source program that called X for part (or all) of its functionality, then provided that program as part of the distribution, then what is the situation? The program isn't linked in to your own program in any way, however your program is arguably a derived work. The same goes for pipes and CORBA, etc.
The GPL has to sort these issues out now - GPL software distribution terms and conditions, like:
You may only distribute this code/application as part of a GPL'd application unless the code does not provide functionality to said application, but rather provides an additional facility. (e.g., supplying emacs with a ray tracer, or something).
1. Their program will not work as advertised though. This they are advertising the GPL code as a feature of the program, and that could be seen legally to be an indicator that the code is part of the software, not an independent program that doesn't affect the closed source software at all.
2.Customer's don't care - of course not, even if they are breaking copyright law by proxy! Now they would care if the law was like that for handling stolen property (whether or not you knew it was stolen, it is taken away from you, and you go to court).
Just my opinions. The GPL has specified what to do about DLLs already - hence the LGPL. It has yet to decide what to do about CORBA/pipes/etc - other methods of possibly using GPL code in closed source products.
Remember above all - the GPL was chosen by the author and copyright holder of the software as his preferred means of distributing the software. He didn't choose the LGPL.
If you had a closed source application, with a plug-in architecture, and somebody made a GPL plugin, then how does the GPL view this? The closed-source app is now making use of GPL code, however the programmers did not intend this obviously.
Now in the Vidomi case, their application replies heavily on the GPL code for a lot of its functionality, whereas in this case the GPL code is only adding some extra user-desired functionality. Now how if the GPL plugin added some great functionality, then I do not think that the plugin could ever be distributed as a part of the application, nor the application advertised as having the GPL'd plugin's functionality, otherwise the GPL would be being broken.
Still, expect Vidomi to argue that it is a plug-in, and that contrary to the application making use of it, it is in fact the reverse - the applications plugin API means that the GPL plugin is in fact making use of the application!
As for the Vidomi case, it is clear cut. They are breaking the GPL. DLL or not, it is providing core functionality to the software. Konqueror works without kHTML (albeit it does nothing!), their software works without the GPL'd DLL (barely, it appears).
The code is not LGPL'd, which would allow the software to link to it, it is GPL'd. Now I am a BSD man myself, but I respect the wishes of people who want to use the GPL to share their work in an environment where other people can use it as long as they don't change it or share their changes with the copyright holder - the author, and follow the GPL in its entirity (excepting special excusions granted by the author).
Vidomi has made the GPL code available, but they haven't followed the GPL in its entirity, and the author has not made any special exclusions. This is the kind of small case that the GPL needs to set a precedent before taking up the larger GPL abusers (allegedly).
It is hard be be clear and to the point when doing law stuff. That is why I am a programmer, not a lawyer. And can't/. make this text area bigger?:)
I have been fighting Gnome, Mozilla and KDE for a week. This resulted in 20 crashes in a morning, followed by a swift reinstall of the OS, no more Mozilla, and sticking with a simple KDE and Konqueror (which is quite a good browser actually, much better than Mozilla).
Now, it makes a killer programming box. emacs, kwrite, etc are great editors for Perl and Java amongst others, and I even got anti-aliasing working on the Voodoo 4500 at home (but not on the ATI at work). KWord and co. still crash far too often. Kmail doesn't grok IMAP. Mozilla is a slug on dope. How can I guarantee a good Word format conversion?
However it is improving. Many Linux distros can install a reasonable desktop from scratch. However, for a lot of things, where are the GUI interfaces? If they exist, they suck in many cases.
Microsoft know about making an easy to use system. Apple moreso. I have no objections to text files for configuration (in fact I encourage it for the obvious reasons), however software installation on Unix is a mess - splattering files all over the place, urgh. Software should install in a single location, in a chroot jail if possible, by default. Think Apple OS X bundles.
The Unix file system is a horror for most non-unix people./usr?/etc? you what? Apple have hidden this away from the user in Max OS X, and this needs to be done in Unix (or more to the point, KDE and Gnome).
Also, OS updates need to be better and easier for the average user. To update FreeBSD requires that you write a cvsup configuration file, and run cvsup! Don't make a mistake though, or your computer will get knackered.
Still, I remember the days of the Amiga. That was a sensible computer in terms of user friendliness, GUI features, file system and configuration. QNX has also impressed me recently, but it needs to support more hardware.
Final point: As the Unix desktop improves, so does Windows. However, Microsoft may finally shoot themselves in the foot with their licensing. If you don't need to mess with the internals of a Unix system (you get someone else to set it up for you), then things are straightforward (until you buy new hardware) for most people. Click on the pretty icon to run the work processor.
I'm not interested in waking up baked by microwaves
You will know when you are being microwaved though - all those AOL CDs will start arcing electricity before frazzling themselves to death. Should give you ample time to get into your metal lined anti-microwave-attack bunker.
I never thought that AOL CDs were a worldwide early-warning system against Microwave attacks from nasty dictatorships.
I do agree with the first two options (although not with the third as I think that is abusing the system badly - maybe Coke will pay ICANN and Verisign to reserve coke.tld in all namespaces in the future (even coke.book or coke.museum or whatever silly TLDs are released) whatever their Trademark covers).
However, if uk.com is accidentally not reregistered, then there will be an awful lot of angry customers of uk.com when their domains stop working. I imagine similar services exist for other countries, de.com? fr.com? eu.com I know exists...
Perfect as Verisign just start their own "uk.com" service using the reserved word because "The domain just wasn't reregistered - your credit card was never authorised (never entered into the terminal more like) - sorry, nothing we can do"...
In the UK, the first two rules already exist, hence there is only one 1 letter domain (x.co.uk), and a few 2 letter domains (bt.co.uk, f9.co.uk) that were allocated before Nominet came in to manage the namespace. It works quite well, and gets rid of confusion. You cannot have gov.co.uk, or nhs.co.uk, or org.co.uk, as the third-level-domain conflicts with an second-level-domain.
Re:Palm == Dragonball = 320x240 res
on
PDAs, PDAs
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· Score: 1
Actually the Dragonball chipset in its more recent incarnations can drive a 640x512 screen.
Scaled by 1.5x display?
on
PDAs, PDAs
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· Score: 2
I can't imagine that this would look good on many applications, especially games and graphical programs. You would get pixel doubling every other pixel, making a horrible jagged appearance.
Hopefully the font is scaled up by 1.5x in a sensible manner, so it doesn't appear jagged.
I guess we will find out on Monday, when the device is officially announced. Nice to see the Palm series finally getting some features that people have been crying out for. No more stupid 160x160 screen - I won a Palm IIIc, and although it is nice enough, each pixel is huge, making for a very blocky display (about 60dpi). This new Palm will increase the resolution to about 90dpi, which is a far more acceptable resolution for working on.
What gets me is the state of games on the Palm Pilot. You have a fast processor (for handheld games at least, a Gameboy is only 8MHz max (ignoring GBA here), and Palms range from 16MHz to 33MHz. The screen ain't exactly huge and memory hungry either, so why are most games poor equivalents of 1980's naffness? Isn't there a decent API available on the Palm for games programming, featuring direct access to screen memory instead of via the Palm OS APIs? I ain't expecting Quake, but Wolfenstein should be possible...
I think a certain Peter Monyneax would be very offended to read that comment about his company.
You know, a company where people come into work at 1pm, work until 5pm, go home for food, pub for fun, then back into work at midnight to work another few hours at the best time for coding!
Updated today on Freshmeat. These tools are more for the administration side than the user side of course, but what do they want in a front-end? Maybe a web-based template based website creation tool? Web based email for their domain name? You are asking for an answer to a vague question...
The P4 was released a year early. Why do I say that? The evidence is quite clear:
New socket packaging coming for the P4 one year after launch
Die shrink to more manageable scalable core - P4 was designed as a 0.13u chip
PIII's were not scaling up to the expected 1.5GHz in order to compete with the Athlon at the time
Athlon was screaming along
No new processor meant an extra year for AMD to ramp up the performance, sales and resellers. It would have been AMD 1.5GHz vs. 1.0GHz PIII, a no brainer purchase for anybody, and AMD would have been raking in the money
So Intel released a beta processor, a prerelease effort. The P4's architecture has many good points, but only above 2GHz. I am ignoring the CPU-protect feature (halving the speed when the CPU gets too hot - this is a cooler issue, not a CPU issue, I would like my CPU to protect itself! However Intel should have written that their CPU dumps 73W max at 1.5GHz).
What I would hope for is an optimised P4 later this year, i.e., the real release version. At 0.13u, with more L2 cache, etc, the P4 will actually start to be a better platform. Shame that they are going to couple it will PC100 SDRAM with the first SDRAM chipset, but then again, maybe they have fixed that bandwidth hogging problem...
Still, the extra problems are not doing anything for Intels reputation. IT managers are starting to notice that there is more beyond Intel, Athlons are starting to ship to corporates instead of PIIIs. Integrated motherboards for AMD processors are starting to appear by the bucket load (KM133, SiS730, etc).
So, AMD for me this year. Can't wait for summer and beyond - Dual AMD processor action! Now, what do I need one of those for?
Instead they are lining up an initiative to treat their customers as copyright breaking thieves
Makes me think of a future Linux advert:
Linux - because you are innocent until proven guilty. (with imagery os happy families watching their holiday videos or whatever)
Windows - because you are a low life cheating thieving scumball. (with images of business people not being able to copy essential data, "I need this movie NOW! Why won't this machine let me have it?", then images of families not being able to see the home movies with a requestor saying "You are not allowed to copy digital content" "But its OUR content!")
Slashdot Mirror
Does that Tyan dual PIII have 64-bit PCI?
Does it have *dual* ethernet ports?
Try the Tyan S2510NG: 64-bit PCI, video, dual ethernet, etc: $370
Does the 3950 have dual U160 SCSI? I doubt it for $129. No, it is in fact an U2W card! Compare like with like! Try the Adaptec 39160, at $340!
Of course, the best thing is to compare like with like as much as possible: the tyan S2510U3NG: Dual LAN, U160 (1 channel I think), ATA onboard video, etc: $470. Less than the AMD motherboard, but the AMD motherboard is new, and the processors cost less for more.
Pricewatch sucks. No search within these results option.
The Tyan is a more expensive board, but ~$200 boards are coming using the AMD760MP (or 760MPX) chipset.
The MPX is the same as the MP, but does 64-bit PCI at 66MHz, not 64-bit PCI at 33MHz.
I just want the good stuff from nForce with the good stuff from the 760MPX put together in one great chipset.
I thought that the GBA processor was 16MHz, but then again, finding this information has been really hard, so maybe it is 60- 75MHz.
The GBA has a single chip, with an on-board ARM7 CPU, Z80 CPU (8MHz, for audio and backwards compatibility) and graphics.
XFree86 is an X11 system for Unix systems, not just Linux. Linux has a kernel framebuffer device (can anyone say Windows?), whereas other Unix variants leave the drivers up to XFree86.
Also, anything in the kernel would have to be under the GPL. Say goodbye to NVidia support.
XFree86 4.0.3 does not include Mach64 render code, so there is no anti-aliasing or anything.
The README states that you can update to 4.1 from 4.0.2, but it doesn't mention if it is possible to update to 4.1 from 4.0.3.
At home, I am running 4.0.3 on a Voodoo 4500, and it is *nice*. Excellent font anti-aliasing, and fast to boot. At work, because of the ATI card, it works, but without anti-aliasing, so everything looks crap. I have a TFT monitor at work, so Render + sub-pixel antialiasing would be great - anyone know if sub-pixel antialiasing works in Render?
An overview is here.
The press release is here.
I will let the article speak for itself, particularly the images which shows that it really work.
TRUFORM can replace pixel shaders apparently. Anyway, Matrox will have to have something more than "real bumps" to get more of the market back. The G550 is a stopgap though, about the level of the GeForce 2 MX, just to get Matrox more revenues through the door this year in preparation to next years "killer" graphics chip.
Many people argie that the death penalty reduces the state (and hence the people) to the level of the criminal, and I agree with this to some extent.
I agree with you that getting Cable TV, etc, for committing a crime is abhorrent. I don't think that prisoners should have many rights at all (the punishment for a crime should be the removal of those rights that you abused when you committed the crime). Certainly not pool rooms, personal TVs, clean clothes, and the like.
Now does the civilised world want prisons for those who violated the right to live (but where the state will not reduce itself to the level of the criminal and kill them, and certainly not put it on TV - that is sick and twisted, and a sign of the end of civilisation when entertainment involves death)? How about pits in the ground? A remote island where they can fend for themselves against viscous wildlife (Real Survivor - live on Fox)?
Certainly prisoners who are expected to be released one day from prison should not be dehumanised, but rehabilitated so that they are not a threat once released. But should $70,000 per prisoner per year be paid for those prisoners who will die in prison for their crime? Why not make a large concrete lined pit, cover it with electric fencing, and stick those prisoners in there, with individual cells, and crappy food each day, so that they can muse and think about their crime every minute of the day?
You are an American. You are an individual.
Think for yourself what is wrong and what is right? If X has spent time and money developing Y, then why should Z come along and steal/copy Y? That is theft, pure and simple.
If you worked and earned enough money to buy a 60" Plasma TV, and somebody stole it, would you be totally pissed off or not?
If you worked and developed an algorithm that enabled you to solved polynomial time problems in log-N time (something that could make you a billionaire), would you be totally pissed off if someone stole it and became a billionaire instead? Of course, Slashdot would love it if you GPL'd the code, and patented the code, and then only allowed free software projects to use your ideas, but if you could make billions? nah.
However, can anyone tell me why running konsole requires me to go online? I run it, and instead of just running, it appears to want to send data somewhere, hence the going online. (I have the machine running KDE on an internal network, connected to the Windows machine that has the modem, running ICS). aterm, xterm, rxvt, etc don't do this, this is purely a KDE thing (in fact I think a lot of KDE software does this, not just konsole).
Now when KOffice matures a bit, I think that there will be even more software from the KDE developers that is top quality. It is currently too rough, and has very limited import and export options at the moment (I wanted to save a KIllustrator picture as a bitmap image (any format) at a certain DPI, no such luck).
Still, both environments have their pluses and their minuses. The continued rivalry is only good for those of us who want a usable Unix desktop system.
Konqueror is great as well. Now if only it put a little more space between lines of text...
Which is entirely besides the fact of the whole matter, which is that the main application knows about and actively makes use of the GPL code in the library, and hence anyone with half a brain (read: half a jury if you are lucky) will conclude that the library is part of the application. Or are you arguing that khtml is not a part of konqueror? Or that the windows HTML library is not a part of IE? (initially, Microsoft would now let you think that it is part of windows, and IE is one tool that uses it)
Dynamic or static does not affect the above. I can't link against unknown library X if I don't know what it does can I? I need to know what it does in order to use it, and make it a part of the application.
Nope, the FSF has to prove that the copyright holder did not intend to have his code wrapped up in a library and used by a closed source program, and hence he chose the GPL.
Anyway, maybe all Windows programs that link to kernel32.dll are windows (or kernel32.dll) derivatives - however Windows is not GPL, and this is an entirely different matter! Actually, this stands to reason when you think about it - it is like extending a class in Java. Maybe.
Hot Brain
The kernel has its own LGPL (Linus' GPL :) ), in that he allows lesser licenses to use its hooks.
You can't make an LGPL wrapper library around a GPL library unless the copyright holder permits it.
Waiting for the Slashdot clock to let me post...
Also, they are arguably core OS utilities as well. If you took a non core OS GPL utility (say an application that did X), and wrote your closed source program that called X for part (or all) of its functionality, then provided that program as part of the distribution, then what is the situation? The program isn't linked in to your own program in any way, however your program is arguably a derived work. The same goes for pipes and CORBA, etc.
The GPL has to sort these issues out now - GPL software distribution terms and conditions, like:
You may only distribute this code/application as part of a GPL'd application unless the code does not provide functionality to said application, but rather provides an additional facility. (e.g., supplying emacs with a ray tracer, or something).
1. Their program will not work as advertised though. This they are advertising the GPL code as a feature of the program, and that could be seen legally to be an indicator that the code is part of the software, not an independent program that doesn't affect the closed source software at all.
2.Customer's don't care - of course not, even if they are breaking copyright law by proxy! Now they would care if the law was like that for handling stolen property (whether or not you knew it was stolen, it is taken away from you, and you go to court).
Just my opinions. The GPL has specified what to do about DLLs already - hence the LGPL. It has yet to decide what to do about CORBA/pipes/etc - other methods of possibly using GPL code in closed source products.
Remember above all - the GPL was chosen by the author and copyright holder of the software as his preferred means of distributing the software. He didn't choose the LGPL.
If you had a closed source application, with a plug-in architecture, and somebody made a GPL plugin, then how does the GPL view this? The closed-source app is now making use of GPL code, however the programmers did not intend this obviously.
Now in the Vidomi case, their application replies heavily on the GPL code for a lot of its functionality, whereas in this case the GPL code is only adding some extra user-desired functionality. Now how if the GPL plugin added some great functionality, then I do not think that the plugin could ever be distributed as a part of the application, nor the application advertised as having the GPL'd plugin's functionality, otherwise the GPL would be being broken.
Still, expect Vidomi to argue that it is a plug-in, and that contrary to the application making use of it, it is in fact the reverse - the applications plugin API means that the GPL plugin is in fact making use of the application!
As for the Vidomi case, it is clear cut. They are breaking the GPL. DLL or not, it is providing core functionality to the software. Konqueror works without kHTML (albeit it does nothing!), their software works without the GPL'd DLL (barely, it appears).
The code is not LGPL'd, which would allow the software to link to it, it is GPL'd. Now I am a BSD man myself, but I respect the wishes of people who want to use the GPL to share their work in an environment where other people can use it as long as they don't change it or share their changes with the copyright holder - the author, and follow the GPL in its entirity (excepting special excusions granted by the author).
Vidomi has made the GPL code available, but they haven't followed the GPL in its entirity, and the author has not made any special exclusions. This is the kind of small case that the GPL needs to set a precedent before taking up the larger GPL abusers (allegedly).
It is hard be be clear and to the point when doing law stuff. That is why I am a programmer, not a lawyer. And can't /. make this text area bigger? :)
I have been fighting Gnome, Mozilla and KDE for a week. This resulted in 20 crashes in a morning, followed by a swift reinstall of the OS, no more Mozilla, and sticking with a simple KDE and Konqueror (which is quite a good browser actually, much better than Mozilla).
Now, it makes a killer programming box. emacs, kwrite, etc are great editors for Perl and Java amongst others, and I even got anti-aliasing working on the Voodoo 4500 at home (but not on the ATI at work). KWord and co. still crash far too often. Kmail doesn't grok IMAP. Mozilla is a slug on dope. How can I guarantee a good Word format conversion?
However it is improving. Many Linux distros can install a reasonable desktop from scratch. However, for a lot of things, where are the GUI interfaces? If they exist, they suck in many cases.
Microsoft know about making an easy to use system. Apple moreso. I have no objections to text files for configuration (in fact I encourage it for the obvious reasons), however software installation on Unix is a mess - splattering files all over the place, urgh. Software should install in a single location, in a chroot jail if possible, by default. Think Apple OS X bundles.
The Unix file system is a horror for most non-unix people.
Also, OS updates need to be better and easier for the average user. To update FreeBSD requires that you write a cvsup configuration file, and run cvsup! Don't make a mistake though, or your computer will get knackered.
Still, I remember the days of the Amiga. That was a sensible computer in terms of user friendliness, GUI features, file system and configuration. QNX has also impressed me recently, but it needs to support more hardware.
Final point: As the Unix desktop improves, so does Windows. However, Microsoft may finally shoot themselves in the foot with their licensing. If you don't need to mess with the internals of a Unix system (you get someone else to set it up for you), then things are straightforward (until you buy new hardware) for most people. Click on the pretty icon to run the work processor.
Second Final Word: printing.
I never thought that AOL CDs were a worldwide early-warning system against Microwave attacks from nasty dictatorships.
I do agree with the first two options (although not with the third as I think that is abusing the system badly - maybe Coke will pay ICANN and Verisign to reserve coke.tld in all namespaces in the future (even coke.book or coke.museum or whatever silly TLDs are released) whatever their Trademark covers).
However, if uk.com is accidentally not reregistered, then there will be an awful lot of angry customers of uk.com when their domains stop working. I imagine similar services exist for other countries, de.com? fr.com? eu.com I know exists...
Perfect as Verisign just start their own "uk.com" service using the reserved word because "The domain just wasn't reregistered - your credit card was never authorised (never entered into the terminal more like) - sorry, nothing we can do"...
In the UK, the first two rules already exist, hence there is only one 1 letter domain (x.co.uk), and a few 2 letter domains (bt.co.uk, f9.co.uk) that were allocated before Nominet came in to manage the namespace. It works quite well, and gets rid of confusion. You cannot have gov.co.uk, or nhs.co.uk, or org.co.uk, as the third-level-domain conflicts with an second-level-domain.
Actually the Dragonball chipset in its more recent incarnations can drive a 640x512 screen.
I can't imagine that this would look good on many applications, especially games and graphical programs. You would get pixel doubling every other pixel, making a horrible jagged appearance.
Hopefully the font is scaled up by 1.5x in a sensible manner, so it doesn't appear jagged.
I guess we will find out on Monday, when the device is officially announced. Nice to see the Palm series finally getting some features that people have been crying out for. No more stupid 160x160 screen - I won a Palm IIIc, and although it is nice enough, each pixel is huge, making for a very blocky display (about 60dpi). This new Palm will increase the resolution to about 90dpi, which is a far more acceptable resolution for working on.
What gets me is the state of games on the Palm Pilot. You have a fast processor (for handheld games at least, a Gameboy is only 8MHz max (ignoring GBA here), and Palms range from 16MHz to 33MHz. The screen ain't exactly huge and memory hungry either, so why are most games poor equivalents of 1980's naffness? Isn't there a decent API available on the Palm for games programming, featuring direct access to screen memory instead of via the Palm OS APIs? I ain't expecting Quake, but Wolfenstein should be possible...
I think a certain Peter Monyneax would be very offended to read that comment about his company.
You know, a company where people come into work at 1pm, work until 5pm, go home for food, pub for fun, then back into work at midnight to work another few hours at the best time for coding!
http://www.chaogic.com/vhost/
Updated today on Freshmeat. These tools are more for the administration side than the user side of course, but what do they want in a front-end? Maybe a web-based template based website creation tool? Web based email for their domain name? You are asking for an answer to a vague question...
So Intel released a beta processor, a prerelease effort. The P4's architecture has many good points, but only above 2GHz. I am ignoring the CPU-protect feature (halving the speed when the CPU gets too hot - this is a cooler issue, not a CPU issue, I would like my CPU to protect itself! However Intel should have written that their CPU dumps 73W max at 1.5GHz).
What I would hope for is an optimised P4 later this year, i.e., the real release version. At 0.13u, with more L2 cache, etc, the P4 will actually start to be a better platform. Shame that they are going to couple it will PC100 SDRAM with the first SDRAM chipset, but then again, maybe they have fixed that bandwidth hogging problem...
Still, the extra problems are not doing anything for Intels reputation. IT managers are starting to notice that there is more beyond Intel, Athlons are starting to ship to corporates instead of PIIIs. Integrated motherboards for AMD processors are starting to appear by the bucket load (KM133, SiS730, etc).
So, AMD for me this year. Can't wait for summer and beyond - Dual AMD processor action! Now, what do I need one of those for?
Makes me think of a future Linux advert:
Linux - because you are innocent until proven guilty. (with imagery os happy families watching their holiday videos or whatever)
Windows - because you are a low life cheating thieving scumball. (with images of business people not being able to copy essential data, "I need this movie NOW! Why won't this machine let me have it?", then images of families not being able to see the home movies with a requestor saying "You are not allowed to copy digital content" "But its OUR content!")