A lot of people seem to dislike Quicktime, bashing it as slow, buggy or just not feeling right on the Windows platform... like it's kind of not meant to be there or something...
I fully understand these comments, QT on Windows is not too good (although I still prefer it to WMP). So it's so much more of a shame that on OSX QT is a totally different app - it works pretty damn well, and QT6 is fairly remarkably good. I have all three main media players on my Mac, WMP, RealOne, and QT, and you really do notice the difference when you are forced to use WMP or RO, buggy choppy playback now and then, nasty interfaces, streaming doesn't work as well, no instant on streaming etc.
Apparently QT is the number 1 downloaded media player, and this is great, but Apple should get the Windows port up to scratch, and show the Windows guys a little something about Apple's quality.
As for mobile phone related media - I think Apple saw this coming all along, I mean look at their recent courting of Sony Ericsson (sp?) at the Macworld expo, they had the CEO of the group up to talk, and exclusively showed off the T68i. I think Apple wants a piece of this market, and we'll be seeing them diversify more and more (as they have been doing very well recently at both ends of the scale, with the iPod and XServe, both new products in new areas for the company.).
Personally I absolutely adored the Rama series of books by Arthur C Clarke, and the universe that that was set in.
Absolutely fantatic writing, and great characterisation (man I was tearful when Richard died at the hands of the altered robots in that cell), I think this deserves a place down here.
If we had not become so used to being walked all over little by little by the record companies, this would be strongly and outrageously objected to by the affected communities. Imagine if we had not been introduced to the so far lame and piecemeal anti-copying/playing tech that exists at the moment, and Sony comes up with an announcement like this - there would be wide real-world public outrage!
To ostracise computing communities in this way is nothing short of disgusting - and it should be corporate responsibility to bring all under the same umbrella. Will this be a good thing or a bad thing for Sony? I do't know, but what I do know is that from the moment this technology is used Sony will have lost one CD-purchasing consumer (me) simply becasue of my choice of computing platform (Macintosh). Does this affect me? Well, slightly yes it does, but I am sure that if I want a song bad enough there will be a way for me to get it, but on the whole I'm hoping it affects Sony more than anyone else.
Mac users (and possible Linux users?) are a very media-based group of people, there are so many Mac-based graphic designers, film editors, 3d artists, animators etc. These creative people love music! The two go hand in hand! So what are these people going to do in the CD-store? Are they going to change their computing platform so they can listen to music on their machines, or simply not buy the (Sony) CD?
I simply don't get how this could be a *benefit* to Sony.
We should speak out about restrictive technologies such as these - is there a consolidated action group for such things? If so, where can I join?
I've had an oportunity to use Microsoft's Tablet PC in person - A week or two ago a MS trailer was on the grounds of my University (Plymouth UK) mainly to shout about.Net, but they had a couple of TablePC's in the trailer too, one was an Acer, and I think the other was a Sharp.
These are my personal impressions, your mileage may vary.
First of all the handwriting recognition is not amazing. It does a fair job if you print in capitals, but writing joined up as neatly as possible gave unusable results. The recognition system really should have been better for the simple fact that when using a TabletPC you are not going to be leaning the device on table, but standing holding it in one hand with the pen in your other. This contributes to wobble (try writing neatly on a paper notepad with a pen while standing - notice your handwriting isn't so great?). So for a device like this, this is an important point - it should have been better, and as it is, I guess it's only *just* about passable.
My other complaint about the handwriting is that the screens on both devices were very smooth, and this meant that there was very little tactile feedback when writing, which promotes large scribbly handwriting. Notice how when you use a normal pen and paper there is resistance as you write? This is not present and promotes bad handwriting.
But enough about the handwriting - I really don't see how this is a revolutionary product. It's a laptop with handwriting recognition (and some have no keyboards).
That is about it - and because of the form factor being so small on most of the available devices you lose out on a whole lot of functionality (DVD, good graphics HW, CD burning, Large HDD etc etc etc.)
Plus, on the two devices Microsoft was showing off (so presumably the best two available devices) the battery life was appalling - at around 1 - 2 hours. For a portable device like this to succeed, we need to see 'day's use' longevity, which will probably realistically mean 6 -8 hours. So what gives, there are fully fledged notebooks available with TWICE the battery life of this device, which is supposed to be more personal and available 24/7 than a notebook.
Plus (and it could be because I only had it for 20 mins) the way that Windows Tablet edition responds to the pen is very confusing, you write away and all of a sudden it thinks you are trying to press buttons, and all sorts of stuff gets clicked on, then it'll calm down for the last couple of words of your sentence and go back to recognising handwriting.
And what's more, the two MS employees openly stated their pessimism for the devices, and admitted they had no idea how to use the interface.
Plus - with the devices that are simply going to be like a notebook without the keyboard half (rather than the notebook like ones that have an actual keyboard that folds around to the back of the screen) how on earth is the screen protected? A pouch? A cover? If so - this seems more ungainly than a conventional ultralight notebook (Vaio, PowerBook G4 etc).
And the things are *heavy*.
Sorry, but I was very underwhelmed by the Tablet PC, and find it surprising to hear of this reaction (cheering, clapping) from *anybody* let alone people who you'd expect to understand more about the industry
There is nothing special about the Tablet PC, it's *just a small notebook with handwriting recognition* - and my final justification is that apparently the devices will cost *A LOT* - thousands of GBP.
-Peter
There are much wider implications involved rather than a simple browser here - IE means a lot psychologically to Microsoft, it's a product that it fought very hard (and very dirty) to have succeed against Netscape, and also to some extent the DoJ, and Microsoft is currently loving the fact it's the de facto browser shipping with both of the two most popular desktop operating systems on Earth (Mac OS & Windows).
For Apple to devote time and money towards developing a competing browser is going to be seen as a rather aggressive move by Apple, and with the 1997 MS/Apple deal timed out now, Apple has to be cautious to maintain the support of MS as an ISV (take Office away from Apple and it's in trouble).
But on the other hand, Apple is in an extremely strong position, it has 4.5 billion USD in the bank, it has award winning products that the world seems to be fawning over, it's FINALLY got itself an ultra modern OS, it's diverging at both extremes of the industry (iPod and XServe), and despite the tech slump with a combined worldwide economic slowdown, the company is amazingly still turning a healthy profit. The knowledge of this newfound stability is likely to fuel Job's fire for radicalism that has in the past produced both fantastically innovative products, and also almost ruined the company - what will it do this time? Who knows, but all the signs point to Apple getting back up for round two vs MS - starting with the little tremors such as the page dedicated to educating Windows users as to the superiority of Mac OSX that went live on the Apple site a couple of months ago, and recently Job's commented during an interview with the BBC on doubling Apple's marketshare in very positive terms.
It seems the future is anything but certain, and only a fool would resign Apple to it's current position in the industry - if Apple does have new browser plans underway, you can be sure that it's part of a much larger move back into the limelight.
THese are indeed awesome machines, but there's even more good things in store - I believe the G5 will be launched at New York '02, about July time, MW Tokyo in March is a little too soon, especially looking at these specs of the new machines.
Still if you want an Apple, the time has NEVER been better.
Better still - if you want a kickass computer the time has never been better to buy Apple.
I think those that are sceptical about doing away with this overlapping window method of presenting things on screen are so inclined because, no, we havent actually come up with anything usable that's better, basically becasue we're not really trying (and not because it's not out there). You just have to remember what the critics said about the Macintosh and the way it presented information, they slagged it to the ground, but its the basic way everything works today.
There was an indepth article on future user interface paradigms at www.thenakededge.net .
Seen both Ti and i books, i personally prefer the TiBook... but that's personally.
As for the G$'s warming up, they have an awesomely high-end part inside, and are so ass-smackingly thin, it's not suprising - but don't worry about it, it's in the Apple design spec, the titanium case is designed to act as a large surrounding heatsink, and dissipate the heat of the machine, so if your TiBook gets hot, don't worry bout it. It makes a nice heater.
If you check out the Apple site, you can see that pretty soon (if not already?) Office v.X will be released for Macintosh. And apparently, is very very good, and includes lot's of OSX like things, such as the tool-panels zipping in and out with a genie effect etc.
...What's that noise?.... Oh, that's the noise of PC users lamenting the fact that Macintosh gets the latest version of Office months before the PC......;)
I must admit that there are certain aspects about the classic MacOS that I find frustrating, and which I feel that Windows implements better
As this entire thread is about OS X 10.1, it's totally redundant that you bring up the faults of OS9, especially considering that the faults you mention are now non-existant in X.
I could quite easily begin comparing Windows 95 to OSX - and guess which would come off better, see what I mean?
The task bar is a much better idea (IMHO) than the app menu
App menu now replaced by Dock in X, making this a rather outdated comment.
Another issuse that comes up when comparing the classic MacOS to Windows is memory management. And I gotta side with Windows on this one
Again... *sigh*.. this is an OS9 related comment, X has *awesome* memory management - and no, this is not the same as how much memory the OS uses.
As for ejecting a CD, I did find it frustrating at first, and still don't like not having a physical eject button.
Christ, have we not said enough about ejecting cd's already?
Apple's OS X 10.1 upgrade policy is pissin' me off...
ould you expand on this comment? What exactly is pissing you off? Personally, I believe they've done it perfectly - I mean, despite having a completely different kernel and all the other surrounding parts of the OS being completely different to OS9, they managed to get in the Classic mode, which does a fine job of running classic apps, as long as they don't have much need to control exotic peripherals - AND keep the OS9 apps running pretty much full-speed. Also, shipping both OS9 & X is the perfect thing to do - in fact, I can't see a single thing about Apples upgrade policy that could create a problem, unless you mean the $20 shipping charge for the upgrade - which doesn't count if you get it from an Apple store or reseller.
Bin Laden and his al-Qa'eda organisation should be though of as a cousin to the militant ruling Taliban authority.
We should help ourselves by using sense to understand that clobbering a combined 'super-enemy' called 'Afghanistan and its contents' is detrimental to our cause, and un-productive militarily.
Instead, the combined military forces seem to be going about the situation in the best way, Bin Laden/al-Qa'eda should be dealt with in the best way for an underground rooted network, which possibly spans not only Afganistan but neighbouring and maybe more foreign nations.
You cannot tackle the Taliban in the same way, they can (and evidently are) being pursued in a more effective way for a more entrenched authority.
---
As a side note, I like to watch CNN and other US news channels here in Britain, as it gives us a great sense of your national state. I do however urge you to also employ other news-sources (such as the famously impartial BBC (bbc.co.uk)) as the dramatisation and... well... cheesyness (sorry) of CNN sometimes turns my stomach.... maybe it's being brought up on the bbc that's done it:|
Personally this problem is one that is obviously escalating and getting quite out of hand. Therefore, I think we should welcome not only government sponsored efforts to prevent this offensive and irritating "pop-up fiend", but also employ a myriad of client-side measures. Those saying the problem should be handles in one paricular way are missing some of the point, both the browser vendors and the government have a part to play in ensuring that this doesn't become a more serious problem.
Some people have said that this action amounts to the silencing of freedom of speech. It doesn't, these websites full of adverts are there for you to read if you wish, and this guy's particular little set of sites would still be up and running for you to view if he hadn't have made them so intrusive, offensive and irriating to the accidental visitor.
Now I'm using DSL these popups have gotten even worse, with a 56k modem I used to be able to close the popups before the replicating javascript had fully loded into the page, and they'd just close quietly. With a faster connection it soon becomes insanity.
My recomendations are thus...
1. Create a specific option in browsers to prevent the opening of new 'popup' windows.
2. Set the default level of prevention at ONE pop-up window per visit to a specific domain.
3. By default prevent all 'Hydra' windows (close one, another pops up initiated by the OnClose event. Or even worse, another pops up right away on the OnLoad event). There is *no* legitimate use of 'hydra' popups except to baffle and irritate and confuse.
Like many slashdotters I view the internet as more than an 'online service'. It has it's own environment, it's own communities and it's own culture. Albeit dramatic, this practise of pop-ups pollutes and clutters the internet (and is spreading to ever more legitimate sites) to the extent that my mother or younger sisters panic and don't know what to do when they seemingly can't close the browser for new windows popping up (they don't know about the task manager, and wouldn't remember how to use it if i told them).
We must remember that these things may be a nuisance to us, is distressing and offputting to people who are less well acquanted with the workings of the internet, and for these people to be turned (even frightened) away by such things flies in the face of the open nature and 'information for all' philosophy that I am sure we as slashdotters and web-users hold very dear.
you want to have an Aqua theme for Mozilla so you can use it on OS X and have it look like it belongs
If you have an application (Mozilla) running under OSX - the one thing it would be ludicrous to have would be a 'theme' for it so it looked like an OSX app.
To clarify - this is like having a Skin for a windows app.... that made it look like, well, a windows app. See?
To make mozilla look like an OSX app, you just need to 'Carbonize' the app, and this means the (previously OS9) app takes advantage of all the great things, inc. Aqua, that X offers. Apparently carbonizing is perfectly simple to do, indeed while Aqua was still a perfect secret (and indeed it's believed that not more than 20 people worked on it) microsoft managed to Carbonize Internet Explorer, just by following a few of Apples instructions. They didn't know what they had done until Jobs took the cover off Aqua at Macworld a year ago - so you see, Carbonizing is really quite easy, and *much* better than skinning a Classic app to *look* like it's Carbonized.
V Slightly off topic I know but...
I have always been interested in why my Mac couldn't do something that my PC took for granted (don't get me wrong, I love my Mac). On my PC, I can use a CD-RW and burn a dozen files, the next day I can insert the same CD-RW, and add a dozen more to those already burnt on there, the next day I could add some more... ad infinitum until the disc is full, or you erase some of the files.
Why on Mac's (and apparently in OS X 10.1 too)) do you have to erase the entire CD before writing new stuff?
I have asked Apple, and that elicited the fantastic non-response "because". So I'm hoping you knowledgeable slashdotters can help me out, because as far as I can see, there doesn't seem to be any big problem involved here, and I was kinda hoping this feature would be in 10.1.
My mouse comes with 16-buttons and four independent scroll-wheels, this allows me not only to scroll vertically, but horizontally, diagonally, and to zoom in and out.
Other integrated features include a complete 128-key keyboard and surround-sound.
Instead of optical technology, my mouse uses Extra-Sensory-Perception (R) to give better tracking. But it's most useful feature is the great satellite transceiver which allows me TRUE wireless operation from a distance of thousands of miles - which is great for when i'm away on business I can tell ya.
It has a compartment for a miniature hashish plantation, glows neon, and hovers.
Thinking about Linux, I had always assumed that the wisdom behind a Linux port was not so that people could play Quake at home on their Linux box, but so that Linux machines could be used as Quake servers.
This brought me on to thinking about MacOs, as some have already mentioned in this thread. With MacOS X based on Unix and not a proprietary kernel any more, surely this will aid porting of games, with both Linux and OS X based around similar operating systems it should add credence not only for id, but for other games developers to see the 'alternative' operating system market as more financially viable.
If i'm not mistaken, using Unix with such a powerful and complete layer of OpenGL built into the operating system was more than just a design feature, but a serious attempt at attracting games developers to give quality support for the platform.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of people seem to dislike Quicktime, bashing it as slow, buggy or just not feeling right on the Windows platform... like it's kind of not meant to be there or something...
I fully understand these comments, QT on Windows is not too good (although I still prefer it to WMP). So it's so much more of a shame that on OSX QT is a totally different app - it works pretty damn well, and QT6 is fairly remarkably good. I have all three main media players on my Mac, WMP, RealOne, and QT, and you really do notice the difference when you are forced to use WMP or RO, buggy choppy playback now and then, nasty interfaces, streaming doesn't work as well, no instant on streaming etc.
Apparently QT is the number 1 downloaded media player, and this is great, but Apple should get the Windows port up to scratch, and show the Windows guys a little something about Apple's quality.
As for mobile phone related media - I think Apple saw this coming all along, I mean look at their recent courting of Sony Ericsson (sp?) at the Macworld expo, they had the CEO of the group up to talk, and exclusively showed off the T68i. I think Apple wants a piece of this market, and we'll be seeing them diversify more and more (as they have been doing very well recently at both ends of the scale, with the iPod and XServe, both new products in new areas for the company.).
Personally I absolutely adored the Rama series of books by Arthur C Clarke, and the universe that that was set in.
Absolutely fantatic writing, and great characterisation (man I was tearful when Richard died at the hands of the altered robots in that cell), I think this deserves a place down here.
-Nex
If we had not become so used to being walked all over little by little by the record companies, this would be strongly and outrageously objected to by the affected communities. Imagine if we had not been introduced to the so far lame and piecemeal anti-copying/playing tech that exists at the moment, and Sony comes up with an announcement like this - there would be wide real-world public outrage!
To ostracise computing communities in this way is nothing short of disgusting - and it should be corporate responsibility to bring all under the same umbrella. Will this be a good thing or a bad thing for Sony? I do't know, but what I do know is that from the moment this technology is used Sony will have lost one CD-purchasing consumer (me) simply becasue of my choice of computing platform (Macintosh). Does this affect me? Well, slightly yes it does, but I am sure that if I want a song bad enough there will be a way for me to get it, but on the whole I'm hoping it affects Sony more than anyone else.
Mac users (and possible Linux users?) are a very media-based group of people, there are so many Mac-based graphic designers, film editors, 3d artists, animators etc. These creative people love music! The two go hand in hand! So what are these people going to do in the CD-store? Are they going to change their computing platform so they can listen to music on their machines, or simply not buy the (Sony) CD?
I simply don't get how this could be a *benefit* to Sony.
We should speak out about restrictive technologies such as these - is there a consolidated action group for such things? If so, where can I join?
-Nex
I've had an oportunity to use Microsoft's Tablet PC in person - A week or two ago a MS trailer was on the grounds of my University (Plymouth UK) mainly to shout about .Net, but they had a couple of TablePC's in the trailer too, one was an Acer, and I think the other was a Sharp.
These are my personal impressions, your mileage may vary.
First of all the handwriting recognition is not amazing. It does a fair job if you print in capitals, but writing joined up as neatly as possible gave unusable results. The recognition system really should have been better for the simple fact that when using a TabletPC you are not going to be leaning the device on table, but standing holding it in one hand with the pen in your other. This contributes to wobble (try writing neatly on a paper notepad with a pen while standing - notice your handwriting isn't so great?). So for a device like this, this is an important point - it should have been better, and as it is, I guess it's only *just* about passable.
My other complaint about the handwriting is that the screens on both devices were very smooth, and this meant that there was very little tactile feedback when writing, which promotes large scribbly handwriting. Notice how when you use a normal pen and paper there is resistance as you write? This is not present and promotes bad handwriting.
But enough about the handwriting - I really don't see how this is a revolutionary product. It's a laptop with handwriting recognition (and some have no keyboards).
That is about it - and because of the form factor being so small on most of the available devices you lose out on a whole lot of functionality (DVD, good graphics HW, CD burning, Large HDD etc etc etc.)
Plus, on the two devices Microsoft was showing off (so presumably the best two available devices) the battery life was appalling - at around 1 - 2 hours. For a portable device like this to succeed, we need to see 'day's use' longevity, which will probably realistically mean 6 -8 hours. So what gives, there are fully fledged notebooks available with TWICE the battery life of this device, which is supposed to be more personal and available 24/7 than a notebook.
Plus (and it could be because I only had it for 20 mins) the way that Windows Tablet edition responds to the pen is very confusing, you write away and all of a sudden it thinks you are trying to press buttons, and all sorts of stuff gets clicked on, then it'll calm down for the last couple of words of your sentence and go back to recognising handwriting.
And what's more, the two MS employees openly stated their pessimism for the devices, and admitted they had no idea how to use the interface.
Plus - with the devices that are simply going to be like a notebook without the keyboard half (rather than the notebook like ones that have an actual keyboard that folds around to the back of the screen) how on earth is the screen protected? A pouch? A cover? If so - this seems more ungainly than a conventional ultralight notebook (Vaio, PowerBook G4 etc).
And the things are *heavy*.
Sorry, but I was very underwhelmed by the Tablet PC, and find it surprising to hear of this reaction (cheering, clapping) from *anybody* let alone people who you'd expect to understand more about the industry
There is nothing special about the Tablet PC, it's *just a small notebook with handwriting recognition* - and my final justification is that apparently the devices will cost *A LOT* - thousands of GBP. -Peter
There are much wider implications involved rather than a simple browser here - IE means a lot psychologically to Microsoft, it's a product that it fought very hard (and very dirty) to have succeed against Netscape, and also to some extent the DoJ, and Microsoft is currently loving the fact it's the de facto browser shipping with both of the two most popular desktop operating systems on Earth (Mac OS & Windows). For Apple to devote time and money towards developing a competing browser is going to be seen as a rather aggressive move by Apple, and with the 1997 MS/Apple deal timed out now, Apple has to be cautious to maintain the support of MS as an ISV (take Office away from Apple and it's in trouble). But on the other hand, Apple is in an extremely strong position, it has 4.5 billion USD in the bank, it has award winning products that the world seems to be fawning over, it's FINALLY got itself an ultra modern OS, it's diverging at both extremes of the industry (iPod and XServe), and despite the tech slump with a combined worldwide economic slowdown, the company is amazingly still turning a healthy profit. The knowledge of this newfound stability is likely to fuel Job's fire for radicalism that has in the past produced both fantastically innovative products, and also almost ruined the company - what will it do this time? Who knows, but all the signs point to Apple getting back up for round two vs MS - starting with the little tremors such as the page dedicated to educating Windows users as to the superiority of Mac OSX that went live on the Apple site a couple of months ago, and recently Job's commented during an interview with the BBC on doubling Apple's marketshare in very positive terms. It seems the future is anything but certain, and only a fool would resign Apple to it's current position in the industry - if Apple does have new browser plans underway, you can be sure that it's part of a much larger move back into the limelight.
THese are indeed awesome machines, but there's even more good things in store - I believe the G5 will be launched at New York '02, about July time, MW Tokyo in March is a little too soon, especially looking at these specs of the new machines.
Still if you want an Apple, the time has NEVER been better.
Better still - if you want a kickass computer the time has never been better to buy Apple.
-Nex
I think those that are sceptical about doing away with this overlapping window method of presenting things on screen are so inclined because, no, we havent actually come up with anything usable that's better, basically becasue we're not really trying (and not because it's not out there). You just have to remember what the critics said about the Macintosh and the way it presented information, they slagged it to the ground, but its the basic way everything works today.
There was an indepth article on future user interface paradigms at www.thenakededge.net .
Totally... 100%... Unashamedly... Completely... Wholly... **AGREED**
Seen both Ti and i books, i personally prefer the TiBook... but that's personally.
As for the G$'s warming up, they have an awesomely high-end part inside, and are so ass-smackingly thin, it's not suprising - but don't worry about it, it's in the Apple design spec, the titanium case is designed to act as a large surrounding heatsink, and dissipate the heat of the machine, so if your TiBook gets hot, don't worry bout it. It makes a nice heater.
If you check out the Apple site, you can see that pretty soon (if not already?) Office v.X will be released for Macintosh. And apparently, is very very good, and includes lot's of OSX like things, such as the tool-panels zipping in and out with a genie effect etc.
...What's that noise?.... Oh, that's the noise of PC users lamenting the fact that Macintosh gets the latest version of Office months before the PC...... ;)
I must admit that there are certain aspects about the classic MacOS that I find frustrating, and which I feel that Windows implements better
As this entire thread is about OS X 10.1, it's totally redundant that you bring up the faults of OS9, especially considering that the faults you mention are now non-existant in X.
I could quite easily begin comparing Windows 95 to OSX - and guess which would come off better, see what I mean?
The task bar is a much better idea (IMHO) than the app menu
App menu now replaced by Dock in X, making this a rather outdated comment.
Another issuse that comes up when comparing the classic MacOS to Windows is memory management. And I gotta side with Windows on this one
Again... *sigh*.. this is an OS9 related comment, X has *awesome* memory management - and no, this is not the same as how much memory the OS uses.
As for ejecting a CD, I did find it frustrating at first, and still don't like not having a physical eject button.
Christ, have we not said enough about ejecting cd's already?
Apple's OS X 10.1 upgrade policy is pissin' me off...
ould you expand on this comment? What exactly is pissing you off? Personally, I believe they've done it perfectly - I mean, despite having a completely different kernel and all the other surrounding parts of the OS being completely different to OS9, they managed to get in the Classic mode, which does a fine job of running classic apps, as long as they don't have much need to control exotic peripherals - AND keep the OS9 apps running pretty much full-speed. Also, shipping both OS9 & X is the perfect thing to do - in fact, I can't see a single thing about Apples upgrade policy that could create a problem, unless you mean the $20 shipping charge for the upgrade - which doesn't count if you get it from an Apple store or reseller.
To say Bin Laden IS the Taliban is shortsighted.
:|
Bin Laden and his al-Qa'eda organisation should be though of as a cousin to the militant ruling Taliban authority.
We should help ourselves by using sense to understand that clobbering a combined 'super-enemy' called 'Afghanistan and its contents' is detrimental to our cause, and un-productive militarily.
Instead, the combined military forces seem to be going about the situation in the best way, Bin Laden/al-Qa'eda should be dealt with in the best way for an underground rooted network, which possibly spans not only Afganistan but neighbouring and maybe more foreign nations.
You cannot tackle the Taliban in the same way, they can (and evidently are) being pursued in a more effective way for a more entrenched authority.
---
As a side note, I like to watch CNN and other US news channels here in Britain, as it gives us a great sense of your national state. I do however urge you to also employ other news-sources (such as the famously impartial BBC (bbc.co.uk)) as the dramatisation and... well... cheesyness (sorry) of CNN sometimes turns my stomach.... maybe it's being brought up on the bbc that's done it
Personally this problem is one that is obviously escalating and getting quite out of hand. Therefore, I think we should welcome not only government sponsored efforts to prevent this offensive and irritating "pop-up fiend", but also employ a myriad of client-side measures. Those saying the problem should be handles in one paricular way are missing some of the point, both the browser vendors and the government have a part to play in ensuring that this doesn't become a more serious problem.
Some people have said that this action amounts to the silencing of freedom of speech. It doesn't, these websites full of adverts are there for you to read if you wish, and this guy's particular little set of sites would still be up and running for you to view if he hadn't have made them so intrusive, offensive and irriating to the accidental visitor.
Now I'm using DSL these popups have gotten even worse, with a 56k modem I used to be able to close the popups before the replicating javascript had fully loded into the page, and they'd just close quietly. With a faster connection it soon becomes insanity.
My recomendations are thus... 1. Create a specific option in browsers to prevent the opening of new 'popup' windows. 2. Set the default level of prevention at ONE pop-up window per visit to a specific domain. 3. By default prevent all 'Hydra' windows (close one, another pops up initiated by the OnClose event. Or even worse, another pops up right away on the OnLoad event). There is *no* legitimate use of 'hydra' popups except to baffle and irritate and confuse.
Like many slashdotters I view the internet as more than an 'online service'. It has it's own environment, it's own communities and it's own culture. Albeit dramatic, this practise of pop-ups pollutes and clutters the internet (and is spreading to ever more legitimate sites) to the extent that my mother or younger sisters panic and don't know what to do when they seemingly can't close the browser for new windows popping up (they don't know about the task manager, and wouldn't remember how to use it if i told them).
We must remember that these things may be a nuisance to us, is distressing and offputting to people who are less well acquanted with the workings of the internet, and for these people to be turned (even frightened) away by such things flies in the face of the open nature and 'information for all' philosophy that I am sure we as slashdotters and web-users hold very dear.
you want to have an Aqua theme for Mozilla so you can use it on OS X and have it look like it belongs
If you have an application (Mozilla) running under OSX - the one thing it would be ludicrous to have would be a 'theme' for it so it looked like an OSX app.
To clarify - this is like having a Skin for a windows app.... that made it look like, well, a windows app. See?
To make mozilla look like an OSX app, you just need to 'Carbonize' the app, and this means the (previously OS9) app takes advantage of all the great things, inc. Aqua, that X offers. Apparently carbonizing is perfectly simple to do, indeed while Aqua was still a perfect secret (and indeed it's believed that not more than 20 people worked on it) microsoft managed to Carbonize Internet Explorer, just by following a few of Apples instructions. They didn't know what they had done until Jobs took the cover off Aqua at Macworld a year ago - so you see, Carbonizing is really quite easy, and *much* better than skinning a Classic app to *look* like it's Carbonized.
V Slightly off topic I know but... I have always been interested in why my Mac couldn't do something that my PC took for granted (don't get me wrong, I love my Mac). On my PC, I can use a CD-RW and burn a dozen files, the next day I can insert the same CD-RW, and add a dozen more to those already burnt on there, the next day I could add some more... ad infinitum until the disc is full, or you erase some of the files. Why on Mac's (and apparently in OS X 10.1 too)) do you have to erase the entire CD before writing new stuff? I have asked Apple, and that elicited the fantastic non-response "because". So I'm hoping you knowledgeable slashdotters can help me out, because as far as I can see, there doesn't seem to be any big problem involved here, and I was kinda hoping this feature would be in 10.1.
My mouse comes with 16-buttons and four independent scroll-wheels, this allows me not only to scroll vertically, but horizontally, diagonally, and to zoom in and out. Other integrated features include a complete 128-key keyboard and surround-sound. Instead of optical technology, my mouse uses Extra-Sensory-Perception (R) to give better tracking. But it's most useful feature is the great satellite transceiver which allows me TRUE wireless operation from a distance of thousands of miles - which is great for when i'm away on business I can tell ya. It has a compartment for a miniature hashish plantation, glows neon, and hovers.
Thinking about Linux, I had always assumed that the wisdom behind a Linux port was not so that people could play Quake at home on their Linux box, but so that Linux machines could be used as Quake servers.
This brought me on to thinking about MacOs, as some have already mentioned in this thread. With MacOS X based on Unix and not a proprietary kernel any more, surely this will aid porting of games, with both Linux and OS X based around similar operating systems it should add credence not only for id, but for other games developers to see the 'alternative' operating system market as more financially viable.
If i'm not mistaken, using Unix with such a powerful and complete layer of OpenGL built into the operating system was more than just a design feature, but a serious attempt at attracting games developers to give quality support for the platform.