I remember hearing about that 'deal' a few years ago...likely on/. too.
I wonder how long SpyGlass (right company?) was to be paid a percentage of IE sales? If it was for perpetuity (not likely), then they may have a case that it's a product for 'sale' when the new version of Windows ships as IE is no longer freely downloadable...?
One thing that will really screw up the VB crowd moving to GTK+ is the way that windows are designed. Designing a window for GTK/Gnome (optionally using Glade) means building a hierarcy of widgets in containers. In Windows with VB, you just put the widget where you want it.
GTK/Gnome is more 'difficult'** up front but reduces the work by the programmer when it comes to resizing a window. Windows is 'easier' up front but makes the programmer painfully aware of the location of widgets after the fact (window resizing, etc).
Personally, once you've gotten over the 'lack of free form design' shock, I like the GTK/Gnome approach much better.
**I haven't coded anything for Windows in a few years, so things may have changed with.Net and WinForms (?) in the meantime. I also don't think the GTK way is difficult...it's just different.
Although it can be powerful, it's not always a good measure. There was an article here a few years ago that made some interesting points about SLOC. I'll paraphrase (butcher) here:
Which is better? 1. A programmer that writes 1000 LOC/day with 100 bugs 2. A programmer that writes 100 LOC/day with 1 bug 3. A programmer that removes LOC from existing product to remove bugs created by programmer 1 or 2
The article blew me away at the time, as I really hadn't heard anyone talk (write) like that before. It makes perfect sense to me.
Doesn't it make you sad that in one state (can't remember which) only 17% of the votes actually counted? That's downright pathetic!
As a Canadian, I have to admit that I'm not entirely pleased with the outcome of this election either. I don't think Kerry would have made a spectacular leader by any means. I do think he could have reversed some (not all, by any means) of the damage done in the last 4 years...That and any monkey couldn't be worse than Bush...
Having one of the dumbest men to ever lead a country be _re-elected_ should scare the rest of the world. Sleep tight, don't let the WMD bite!
Ripit is a nice wrapper script for ripping discs to a hard drive. It'll do Ogg or Mp3, set the tags and filenames however you want, etc. I think it would even do directory structures fairly easily, but I haven't tried...
Seriously? I think the users would just happily type in the password...Most of this stuff masquerades as legit software, so they wouldn't even think twice about punching in a password.
Because that would just cause braindead developers to continue to do things wrong. Firefox is gaining momentum lately...a little message from the DHS gets people's attention much better than I ever did. I've since switched several people to firefox (they all love tabs, etc now).
The more people we switch, the more people who will complain that websites are broken.
Things will get better/are getting better. FOSS software should be relentless in its pursuit of implementing standards completely, and sticking to them. If we start tossing in hacks to support other broken software, we've already lost.
-Ben
Re:Great to see Realistic Musicians ...
on
TMBG on DRM
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
That's exactly true! Personally, I love owning an original CD. I make a point of still purchasing originals for my favourite bands. I find that having the cover art and liner notes is sometimes an intrinsic part of the album (eg: Neil Young - Greendale).
What I do hate is that most of the moeny I pay for an original disc never gets anywhere near the artists that I love. Hopefully this can change. I'll still buy albums from artists I love if they were to distribute them directly. I'd even pay (almost) the same price a label wants to charge, if only the entire profit went to the artists.
I was still able to do admin for the CS departments' Sun Hardware and Solaris while in school. I've been out since 2002. A group of 3 of us managed to take pretty good care of things while we were there...they even paid us a nominal amount.
I believe the reason has to do with commision rates. Here in Canada, we have FutureShop, which apparently operates on a similar basis to BestBuy in the states. Their salespeople really push the Extended Warranty plans (it's quite disgusting what they'll do to get you to buy one).
An aquaintance of mine works at the local outlet, and has told me that they recieve a larger percentage commission for selling an Extended Warranty than they do on the product, thus increased motivation to sell them.
I've also heard that FutureShop is moving to a different employee structure within their buildings where only one or two people per department will be commissioned, and the rest will be straight salary. Apparently, while they're determining which employees will be commissioned and which won't, the salespeople are even more cutthroat than ever...
I really try to avoid FutureShop for most things, but unfortunately they're the only place to easily get certain things when you need them quickly.
It'd be nice to see all these aggressive bix box shops take a hike, but I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.
Although not something many people will have used, the Novell GroupWise 6 webaccess portal also breaks Konq...although after logging in, it works just fine.
I read an article (source unknown, passed on from a co-worker) yesterday that ranked tech support from 7 major laptop manufacturers. The asked each company 3 questions (posed as regular users), each of which was answered by a different tech. IBM was ranked the worst in this case, as they basically said: "we don't do software support, call Microsoft."
As much as that's enough to get a poor tech support rating, I believe it's what all major companies should do. Concentrate on the hardware, and let MS support their own software. Maybe if MS dealt with more of the regular users of their software, certain things would get fixed faster.
It would be interesting to see the ratio of support calls to major companies broken down into hardware vs. software problems. My money says upwards of 80% of the calls are windows related (not always windows fault, but windows related). That's a huge amount of money for a company to spend, when in essence, their product is working fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Been watching Gnome lately? That seems to be the approach they're taking...
-Ben
How is the post office these days?
-Ben
I remember hearing about that 'deal' a few years ago...likely on /. too.
I wonder how long SpyGlass (right company?) was to be paid a percentage of IE sales? If it was for perpetuity (not likely), then they may have a case that it's a product for 'sale' when the new version of Windows ships as IE is no longer freely downloadable...?
-Ben
One thing that will really screw up the VB crowd moving to GTK+ is the way that windows are designed. Designing a window for GTK/Gnome (optionally using Glade) means building a hierarcy of widgets in containers. In Windows with VB, you just put the widget where you want it.
.Net and WinForms (?) in the meantime. I also don't think the GTK way is difficult...it's just different.
GTK/Gnome is more 'difficult'** up front but reduces the work by the programmer when it comes to resizing a window. Windows is 'easier' up front but makes the programmer painfully aware of the location of widgets after the fact (window resizing, etc).
Personally, once you've gotten over the 'lack of free form design' shock, I like the GTK/Gnome approach much better.
**I haven't coded anything for Windows in a few years, so things may have changed with
-Ben
You must mean ITT...?
-Ben
You must be new here...
-Ben
Check this link out...Windows supports a hosts file too, and the linked page has the instructions:
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
-Ben
You must be running for Congress...?
-Ben
They'd know what SP2 was after calling Dell's tech support due to the Auto Update that hosed their spyware-ridden SP1 install...
For the record: SP2 != 'magic bullet'
-Ben
Although it can be powerful, it's not always a good measure. There was an article here a few years ago that made some interesting points about SLOC. I'll paraphrase (butcher) here:
Which is better?
1. A programmer that writes 1000 LOC/day with 100 bugs
2. A programmer that writes 100 LOC/day with 1 bug
3. A programmer that removes LOC from existing product to remove bugs created by programmer 1 or 2
The article blew me away at the time, as I really hadn't heard anyone talk (write) like that before. It makes perfect sense to me.
-Ben
Doesn't it make you sad that in one state (can't remember which) only 17% of the votes actually counted? That's downright pathetic!
As a Canadian, I have to admit that I'm not entirely pleased with the outcome of this election either. I don't think Kerry would have made a spectacular leader by any means. I do think he could have reversed some (not all, by any means) of the damage done in the last 4 years...That and any monkey couldn't be worse than Bush...
Having one of the dumbest men to ever lead a country be _re-elected_ should scare the rest of the world. Sleep tight, don't let the WMD bite!
-Ben
Ripit is a nice wrapper script for ripping discs to a hard drive. It'll do Ogg or Mp3, set the tags and filenames however you want, etc. I think it would even do directory structures fairly easily, but I haven't tried...
http://mmj.dk/ripit/
-Ben
Someday, I'll be able to get a cell phone that actually sounds decent...
Are companies adding these features simply to hide the huge inadequacy of their products at their primary function?
-Ben
Seriously? I think the users would just happily type in the password...Most of this stuff masquerades as legit software, so they wouldn't even think twice about punching in a password.
-Ben
I'd mod that +1 Scary!
-Ben
I'm not dead yet.
-Ben
I always kind of thought that it meant pawned...similar to owned, but even more derogatory?
-Ben
Because that would just cause braindead developers to continue to do things wrong. Firefox is gaining momentum lately...a little message from the DHS gets people's attention much better than I ever did. I've since switched several people to firefox (they all love tabs, etc now).
The more people we switch, the more people who will complain that websites are broken.
Things will get better/are getting better. FOSS software should be relentless in its pursuit of implementing standards completely, and sticking to them. If we start tossing in hacks to support other broken software, we've already lost.
-Ben
That's exactly true! Personally, I love owning an original CD. I make a point of still purchasing originals for my favourite bands. I find that having the cover art and liner notes is sometimes an intrinsic part of the album (eg: Neil Young - Greendale).
What I do hate is that most of the moeny I pay for an original disc never gets anywhere near the artists that I love. Hopefully this can change. I'll still buy albums from artists I love if they were to distribute them directly. I'd even pay (almost) the same price a label wants to charge, if only the entire profit went to the artists.
-Ben
I was still able to do admin for the CS departments' Sun Hardware and Solaris while in school. I've been out since 2002. A group of 3 of us managed to take pretty good care of things while we were there...they even paid us a nominal amount.
-Ben
drunk@home.always is a good one a friend of mine uses...since I saw him use it, I've inserted it in a few spots myself...
-Ben
I believe the reason has to do with commision rates. Here in Canada, we have FutureShop, which apparently operates on a similar basis to BestBuy in the states. Their salespeople really push the Extended Warranty plans (it's quite disgusting what they'll do to get you to buy one).
An aquaintance of mine works at the local outlet, and has told me that they recieve a larger percentage commission for selling an Extended Warranty than they do on the product, thus increased motivation to sell them.
I've also heard that FutureShop is moving to a different employee structure within their buildings where only one or two people per department will be commissioned, and the rest will be straight salary. Apparently, while they're determining which employees will be commissioned and which won't, the salespeople are even more cutthroat than ever...
I really try to avoid FutureShop for most things, but unfortunately they're the only place to easily get certain things when you need them quickly.
It'd be nice to see all these aggressive bix box shops take a hike, but I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.
-Ben
Although not something many people will have used, the Novell GroupWise 6 webaccess portal also breaks Konq...although after logging in, it works just fine.
-Ben
Isn't 5.1 DVD-Audio just around the corner? That's been a rumor I've seen several times, anyway.
It's time to get rid of these pesky non-DRM'd CD's anyway! <groan%gt;
-Ben
I read an article (source unknown, passed on from a co-worker) yesterday that ranked tech support from 7 major laptop manufacturers. The asked each company 3 questions (posed as regular users), each of which was answered by a different tech. IBM was ranked the worst in this case, as they basically said: "we don't do software support, call Microsoft."
As much as that's enough to get a poor tech support rating, I believe it's what all major companies should do. Concentrate on the hardware, and let MS support their own software. Maybe if MS dealt with more of the regular users of their software, certain things would get fixed faster.
It would be interesting to see the ratio of support calls to major companies broken down into hardware vs. software problems. My money says upwards of 80% of the calls are windows related (not always windows fault, but windows related). That's a huge amount of money for a company to spend, when in essence, their product is working fine.
Just my $0.02 CDN
-Ben