If your trying to tell me that opera supports standards better than Mozilla (or even IE 6 for that matter). The I'll have no choice but to laugh.
I've been working with CSS for quite a while now. Opera breaks even the most basic code, worse than IE 5 for mac does. Maybe it has changed now (I'm using 5.12). But it wouldn't suppirse me if it was still there.
One strange thing. Use a scrip that creates a small pixel font. You puntch varibles into a.php file, and it gives you the text.
Both on IE 6, and mozilla, The text has been black--just like I set it. But with Opera, it comes up white, with the alpha inversed (letters are transparent, with white BG).
The reversing of the alpha must have something to do with poor.png support. And the white text must be some javascript bug.
Well, although I would never consider the camera on this new PDA as a replacement for my fuji 6900. It would be really nice to to be able to have a camera with me whereever I go. Just incase I see a great shot. A camera doesn't take great shots sitting at home.
It still dosn't have enough storage for MP3z, for the way I would use it. But it's still a nice thing to have. And will get better
The screen is deffinitly something I've been wanting for a while. And if I may say so: It'a about bloody time!;)
The fold out keyboard is deffinitly great. Sometimes I just can't stand graffiti, usaly when I'm writing down an idea or something large.
The only thing I wonder. Is how much thinner they could have gotten it if they had left out the keyboard, camera, and MP3 stuff. It would be interesting to know.
Because maybe they're a bit sick of slashdot? Maybe they're really sick of reading posts like yours--telling them how bad/. has gotten, why Taco is now some sort of sell-out, how dissapointed evereyone is about various/. realated things, having every move--of what was origonaly just a small, cool, pastime--crtitsized by 1000's of people. Having to read flame-mail everyday, etc etc.
Maybe the reason they're still even bothing to do it is because there still is still some fun in it, and it's a good job? Can hardly blame them for thiniking that way if that's the case
"A plane crash could release 44 more times radioactivity than the chernobyl disaster" (talking about if a plane had crashed into a nuclear power plant.
There is a neat diagram that has the following stats:
Amount of radioactive caesium-137 released in terabecquerels:
Windscale fire - 1957: 44
Chernobyl accident 1986: 89,000
Atmospheric nuclear weapons between 1945 and 1980: 740,000
If a plane strikes a high-level waste tank at Sellafield: 4,000,000
That's pretty insane. It's pg.10, issue 2312 - 13 oct 2001 if you want to hunt it down and read the whole thing.
It's easy to understand why you haven't heard much about it, with all the other 'what if's that where going around after sept 11. Probably didn't want to put any ideas into anyone's head.
Sure, chances of a nuclear meltdown might have go down alot, and the plants are safer from that particular threat. Buy my no means, can nuclear power alot safe in general.
Yes. I would like to leave it up to (I use windows alot to, and never hide the taskbar). But all the applications I use are still too dump to see it. Even in windows--as long as you have you taskbar set to be 'always on top'--you never get an applicaion covering it up, getting underneath etc, even when maximised.
User interface design is important. But when Raskin says you ought to design the interface first and then design an OS to support it, it's terribly clear that he has been looking at one problem for so long that he sees everything in terms of it.
But the OS should be designed round the UI. Because for most users, this is what they interact with. And it's the main--if only--interaction they have with the OS. It by far the most important thing. Who cares what's under the hood as long as it's good, relible, and does it's job. Sure, maybe you might care. But you average Joe doesn't.
[Warning: Yet another car anology] It's like how most people don't really care what's under the hood of their car. As long as it got some grunt, is relible and efficent etc. It's considered fine because they don't directly use the engine. However, the controls they use to drive the car are important to them, because they interact with them all the time.
But for the average user. It would be much simpler and faster to use one of those many filename editing programs that it would ever be to learn that peice of code. It could even be faster for a pro to use a properly designed file manupulaion progam that it would be to think up and type that string.
And what if you only wanted to rename half of the files? Or move half of the files to a different folder. A GUI would do this much faster.
I agree. Something to think about: A car is the most time critical interface that most people deal with. Take your eyes off the road for 8 seconds to change the radio station while a child crosses the street. And yet, most people manage NOT to kill someone with their car. These are the same people that bitch and moan about computers being hard to use. Anyway, everyone has a certain ammount of customization to their car. They use their favorite radio station. They adjust the seat. They roll down the windows. They adjust the mirrors. Should these things be standardized? Absolutely not. Sure, I found it a pain to have to adjust the seat after my girlfriend drove me home, but it was definitely better than her driving without reaching the pedals.
Don't be silly. Of course you need to adjust certain things in a car. He nevee said things like adjusting the screen resolution or mouse setting where bad. Your taking his concepts far too literally. A better analogy would if you could customise you car by swapping the pedals around, changing the pattern of gearshift grid, replacing the indicator sticks with buttons on the the seat etc. You still think that that sort of customisation is not going to affect how people drive? How posts like this get a Score:5 is beyond me.
Re:Not as small, but much more capable...
on
Smallest RC Cars?
·
· Score: 1
they've got a little too much acceleration to be used in the office. We've raced them on outside basketball courts...
Hehehe...
My 2cs worth of useless, OT info: Most people who have never seen a real RC car can't understand why you can't or don't want to race your 1:10th scale 4WD modified touring car around inside.
But anyone who has driven one, knows it's like trying to race a top-fuel dragster inside car parking building.;)
But you forget one thing. People aren't tyring to customise to just anything most of the time when it comes to OS X. Some of the most popular hacks are to bring back OS 9 features. Because for most people, OS 9 has a good enough GUI that they never needed hacks to make it productive. Supporting Raskin's theory.
Plus what about other things? Like colours/fonts/mouse settings etc. There is no option for any of those things. But they are also lacking in OS X.
And don't forget this 'customizing is bad' theory, only applies to an otherwise well designed GUI. You only have to play around in OS X for an hour to realise that some of the default features are just plain annoying, and not well designed. The customisations are only really needed becasue the GUI was not well designed in the first place.
You also have to take the theroy with a grain of salt. Sometimes, you just have to have customization, no matter how good the system is. Because everyone uses their computer for different things.
I agree. I didn't notice the prefs pane so much because I'm only on a brand new iBook, with stock RAM, so the prefs pane takes ages to load anyway. I'm sure if I was on a G4 I would have noticed it.
I also might add, that instead of having to hold the mouse in the same spot for a while for the dock to slide out. A better way would be that you could click the side of the screen* as an option. It would be a much more deffinit and faster action.
* I have head this many times before, but it has yet to be put to use.
First of all, not all them things are needed for programming. Here is something that I suspect may trip you up. What you say is true--people are better at different things. Math is difficult for some people, I know this. I don't mean to say that programming is working with math because that isn't at all true. There are more computations that don't deal with math than that deal with math. However, just because you find a certain computation difficult doesn't mean it isn't useful for you. And if you do make your way through a difficult computation wouldn't you like to store this computation into a computer program so that you can have the computer do every succeeding computation for you?
No....You still don't get what I'm trying to tell you. I didn't mean maths specificly. I meant all those kind of things, local, orginised, specific including mathmatical. I don't know one programming language, even something like applescript, where being exact is optional. It's nessesary. You can't have a program what will interperate anything other that deffinits and pure logic. Just look at how much trouble they are having design systems like AI etc, things that don't use exact and logical concepts.
Maybe you need to get out into the real world and have a look around for a while.
This is for security reasons. In order to delete the user, go to terminal and type "sudo rm -rf/Users/shortname\ deleted"
Sorry. But that's just pathetic. You really expect you average Mac user to fire up a terminal, enable the root account, login, then type a set of commands that could easy wipe out the whole harddrive if not entered properly?
Are you by any chance....Insane? Maybe? Just a little?
It's not just that. That's more of a minor thing. It's the fact that if you have a whole lot of shortcuts to folders in the dock (currently the only very poor alternative to pop-up folders), you can't even tell what the hell they are unless you hover over them!!! There is absolutly no excuse for that. Same goes for apps in the dock. Icons are good, but they are not meant to replace text, they compement it. Sometimes they can be used as replacments. But it should always be an option--like windows of all OS's, with the text, text and icons, and icons options.
I won't go into how pop-up folders are so much better than folders in the dock argumment. Unless someone want to.
If you get a box comming up saying that you need an admin password. One would tend to asume that you didn't have admin privileges/was not loged on as an admin. Else why on earth you get box asing you for an admin password if you where already logged on as one?
Also, what the fuck is the ordinary user supposed to think? They never got given an admin password, they just know the username and password that they made when booting OS X for the first time (yes, both are the same, but the point is they don't know that).
The lock idea is goos, there an admin can unlock certian things for each user. But is just seems silly for the admin to have to do such things all the time.
The real problems exists at Apple. Where Steve has throwen the whole concept of Mac OS to the dogs (yes, he doesn't write the code or design the GUI, but he is the CEO, he has the final word).
There's the progress camp:
www.webstandards.org [webstandards.org], that wants everyone to upgrade their browsers and live on the bleeding edge of style sheets (how ironic is it that their bleeding edge stance has been replaced with an "under construction" sign).
No no no! you've got it all wrong. The whole point of webstandards.org is NOT based around moving on to new technology (although that is their solution, and part of the reason). There main goal is browser compatibility. Most of the old browsers are a joke when is comes to standards/compatibility. Their idea is that the best way to move on, is to dump all the older browsers, and use newer browsers, as they support standards better.
And if you had bothered to do your research, you would know that they reason they are currently sleeping is because they are changing there goal. They have already gotten the point across to the browser makers that standards are important. And now they want to focus on the web-designers, and try to get them to make more compatible/standards compliant sites.
There are probably a few things everyone can agree on, like Flash being worthless at best and extremely annoying most of the time.
Yes, Flash is WAY over used in most sites. But is most definitely not useless. It probably the best tool on the web for animated diagrams etc (I have seen a few good uses of flash, they do exist!). Don't blame the tool just because the user abuses it. Plus there are alot of nice sites around that are purely there to be looked as, as art etc. I like them because that's one of my interests/hobbies/passions. Just because you may not like it. it doesn't mean it's useless or bad.
Don't get too caught up in the format details; it's the power of what's driving the web page, and the content, that matters.
No point in having content if the user can't find something, or finds the layout annoying or distracting. After all, design is communication.
I'm sorry but the burden of proof is all yours. I would like some pointers on how people are genetically unable to program.
As I said before. I'm not saying some people can't program, but that some find it alot harder. I'm sure you know all about the whole right/left brain thing and how it affects the way people think and what skills they are good at etc. Go to google and do some research if you don't know, or are unconvinced.
What if you don't call it programming? In the Gimp it is called Script-Fu. I think Photoshop has an equivalent. Emacs uses an extension language. AutoCAD is a leading engineering package and has a built in extension language as well. Apple computers have AppleScript (which reads quite close to english, as I have seen it). Pretty much all operating systems have some sort of a scriptable shell.
What if you don't call it programming? Then it gets called something else. It still dosen't change the fact that it's programming. People aren't suddenly going to understand it better just because the name has been hidden. That's silly. But you already knew that.
Maybe I should have been more clearer. When I meant to say is that some people aren't as good at arithitic, calculations, logic, staistics, numbers etc (all left brain oriented activities). All these things are needed for programming.
What you find is that user applications become more and more powerful and these applications begin to require extensibility at the programming level.
Acctualy, it's quite the opposite. The average person can operate much more complex programs then were around 20 years ago, and not even need to know an ounce of programming.
...or because they blame their brain was born wrong.
I think you need to do your research. I'm sure you've heard of this thing called genetics? And how if affects how people grow?
I'm not saying that people can't learn programming. But that it is an awful lot harder for some people than it is for others. So you can't expect everyone to 'get it'. I know people that are quite computer literate, and that benifits them also in what they do. But even start to mention anything concepts like programming, and it just goes straight over their head.
I'll have a look. Maybe they just jack-up the price of things like that, because the price of the computers themsselves are pretty much eaxctly the same whereever you go.
Oh please....you post screams 'I'm elite' if I ever saw it.
There is no reason why people should need to learn programming. And just because someone can't program. It dosn't mean that they are: a) dumb. Or b) intelligent but affraid/can't be bother to learn programming.
People work in different ways--as I'm sure you know about the whole left brain/right brain/visual/audio/etc--some people simply find programing difficult. I'm partialy in that crowed. I consider my main skill to be design, photography, with a bit of multimedia. But I already know HTML CSS and learning PHP/MySQL. And just today, I managed to get MySQL installed on OS X using a terminal. I did it. But I found it hard, I can do PHP, but I still can spend ages dicking around fixing errors that any basic programer would spotted straight away. I have trouble deciding how to layout scripts, structure databases, and just general programing stuff. I do kinda like it, it's like a puzzle. But after completeing a task, I usaly find myself saying 'fuck that, I'm glade I did it. But I'm never doing that again!'. If it was just becasue I was still leaning. That feeling would have gone a while ago.
I'm simply not that good at programming. I find it hard to focas on specifics etc. I have trouble taking ideas and putting them into deffinition like a programmer has to. I have trouble translating an idea into something that is real/logial/complete/stuctured/specific/etc (as you can probably tell from my post). My brain simply is not geared that well to do it. I can do it, but is's alot harder that it would be for someone else who is good at programming.
Maybe you shouldn't get all your stuff from apple. Just what you need: Bare minimum RAM, one good HD, or a really small one, no monitor etc. etc. and get the rest else where. We all know that apple charges heaps for extras.
What pissises me off though is the stuff that is apple only. I just found about the an A/V cable for my iBook will cost NZ$100, when if it was made my any ordernary company would prolly only cost $20. Maybe $60 for a fancy gold plated one. But most certinly not $100!
BTW. Does anyone know if anybody else make an A/V cable similar to the one needed for the iBook?
It looks like I'll only be able to add 256MB, bringing it to a total of 384MB.
You can get 512MB SODIMMS that will fit the iBook. But it's very expensive from what I hear. But if can get it. I will give me boot to 640MB, that would be nice!
Thanks for the window compression tip.
Slashdot Mirror
If your trying to tell me that opera supports standards better than Mozilla (or even IE 6 for that matter). The I'll have no choice but to laugh.
I've been working with CSS for quite a while now. Opera breaks even the most basic code, worse than IE 5 for mac does. Maybe it has changed now (I'm using 5.12). But it wouldn't suppirse me if it was still there.
One strange thing. Use a scrip that creates a small pixel font. You puntch varibles into a .php file, and it gives you the text.
Both on IE 6, and mozilla, The text has been black--just like I set it. But with Opera, it comes up white, with the alpha inversed (letters are transparent, with white BG).
The reversing of the alpha must have something to do with poor .png support. And the white text must be some javascript bug.
It still dosn't have enough storage for MP3z, for the way I would use it. But it's still a nice thing to have. And will get better
The screen is deffinitly something I've been wanting for a while. And if I may say so: It'a about bloody time! ;)
The fold out keyboard is deffinitly great. Sometimes I just can't stand graffiti, usaly when I'm writing down an idea or something large.
The only thing I wonder. Is how much thinner they could have gotten it if they had left out the keyboard, camera, and MP3 stuff. It would be interesting to know.
And who wrote these particlar history books that you are refering to?
And how do you plan to install those cards into a laptop?
Don't be silly. We all know what sunlight is: light from the sun.
The real question is: What's the sun? And why haven't I seen it before? And why does it 'tan' others but not me?
Maybe the reason they're still even bothing to do it is because there still is still some fun in it, and it's a good job? Can hardly blame them for thiniking that way if that's the case
"A plane crash could release 44 more times radioactivity than the chernobyl disaster" (talking about if a plane had crashed into a nuclear power plant.
There is a neat diagram that has the following stats:
Amount of radioactive caesium-137 released in terabecquerels:
That's pretty insane. It's pg.10, issue 2312 - 13 oct 2001 if you want to hunt it down and read the whole thing.
It's easy to understand why you haven't heard much about it, with all the other 'what if's that where going around after sept 11. Probably didn't want to put any ideas into anyone's head.
Sure, chances of a nuclear meltdown might have go down alot, and the plants are safer from that particular threat. Buy my no means, can nuclear power alot safe in general.
Yes. I would like to leave it up to (I use windows alot to, and never hide the taskbar). But all the applications I use are still too dump to see it. Even in windows--as long as you have you taskbar set to be 'always on top'--you never get an applicaion covering it up, getting underneath etc, even when maximised.
But the OS should be designed round the UI. Because for most users, this is what they interact with. And it's the main--if only--interaction they have with the OS. It by far the most important thing. Who cares what's under the hood as long as it's good, relible, and does it's job. Sure, maybe you might care. But you average Joe doesn't.
[Warning: Yet another car anology] It's like how most people don't really care what's under the hood of their car. As long as it got some grunt, is relible and efficent etc. It's considered fine because they don't directly use the engine. However, the controls they use to drive the car are important to them, because they interact with them all the time.
And what if you only wanted to rename half of the files? Or move half of the files to a different folder. A GUI would do this much faster.
Don't be silly. Of course you need to adjust certain things in a car. He nevee said things like adjusting the screen resolution or mouse setting where bad. Your taking his concepts far too literally.
A better analogy would if you could customise you car by swapping the pedals around, changing the pattern of gearshift grid, replacing the indicator sticks with buttons on the the seat etc. You still think that that sort of customisation is not going to affect how people drive?
How posts like this get a Score:5 is beyond me.
Hehehe...
My 2cs worth of useless, OT info: ;)
Most people who have never seen a real RC car can't understand why you can't or don't want to race your 1:10th scale 4WD modified touring car around inside.
But anyone who has driven one, knows it's like trying to race a top-fuel dragster inside car parking building.
Plus what about other things? Like colours/fonts/mouse settings etc. There is no option for any of those things. But they are also lacking in OS X.
And don't forget this 'customizing is bad' theory, only applies to an otherwise well designed GUI. You only have to play around in OS X for an hour to realise that some of the default features are just plain annoying, and not well designed. The customisations are only really needed becasue the GUI was not well designed in the first place.
You also have to take the theroy with a grain of salt. Sometimes, you just have to have customization, no matter how good the system is. Because everyone uses their computer for different things.
I also might add, that instead of having to hold the mouse in the same spot for a while for the dock to slide out. A better way would be that you could click the side of the screen* as an option. It would be a much more deffinit and faster action.
* I have head this many times before, but it has yet to be put to use.
No....You still don't get what I'm trying to tell you. I didn't mean maths specificly. I meant all those kind of things, local, orginised, specific including mathmatical. I don't know one programming language, even something like applescript, where being exact is optional. It's nessesary. You can't have a program what will interperate anything other that deffinits and pure logic. Just look at how much trouble they are having design systems like AI etc, things that don't use exact and logical concepts.
Maybe you need to get out into the real world and have a look around for a while.
Sorry. But that's just pathetic. You really expect you average Mac user to fire up a terminal, enable the root account, login, then type a set of commands that could easy wipe out the whole harddrive if not entered properly?
Are you by any chance....Insane? Maybe? Just a little?
It's not just that. That's more of a minor thing. It's the fact that if you have a whole lot of shortcuts to folders in the dock (currently the only very poor alternative to pop-up folders), you can't even tell what the hell they are unless you hover over them!!! There is absolutly no excuse for that. Same goes for apps in the dock. Icons are good, but they are not meant to replace text, they compement it. Sometimes they can be used as replacments. But it should always be an option--like windows of all OS's, with the text, text and icons, and icons options.
I won't go into how pop-up folders are so much better than folders in the dock argumment. Unless someone want to.
If you get a box comming up saying that you need an admin password. One would tend to asume that you didn't have admin privileges/was not loged on as an admin. Else why on earth you get box asing you for an admin password if you where already logged on as one?
Also, what the fuck is the ordinary user supposed to think? They never got given an admin password, they just know the username and password that they made when booting OS X for the first time (yes, both are the same, but the point is they don't know that).
The lock idea is goos, there an admin can unlock certian things for each user. But is just seems silly for the admin to have to do such things all the time.
The real problems exists at Apple. Where Steve has throwen the whole concept of Mac OS to the dogs (yes, he doesn't write the code or design the GUI, but he is the CEO, he has the final word).
No no no! you've got it all wrong. The whole point of webstandards.org is NOT based around moving on to new technology (although that is their solution, and part of the reason). There main goal is browser compatibility. Most of the old browsers are a joke when is comes to standards/compatibility. Their idea is that the best way to move on, is to dump all the older browsers, and use newer browsers, as they support standards better.
And if you had bothered to do your research, you would know that they reason they are currently sleeping is because they are changing there goal. They have already gotten the point across to the browser makers that standards are important. And now they want to focus on the web-designers, and try to get them to make more compatible/standards compliant sites.
There are probably a few things everyone can agree on, like Flash being worthless at best and extremely annoying most of the time.
Yes, Flash is WAY over used in most sites. But is most definitely not useless. It probably the best tool on the web for animated diagrams etc (I have seen a few good uses of flash, they do exist!). Don't blame the tool just because the user abuses it. Plus there are alot of nice sites around that are purely there to be looked as, as art etc. I like them because that's one of my interests/hobbies/passions. Just because you may not like it. it doesn't mean it's useless or bad.
Don't get too caught up in the format details; it's the power of what's driving the web page, and the content, that matters.
No point in having content if the user can't find something, or finds the layout annoying or distracting. After all, design is communication.
PS. Sorry if there's a double post.
As I said before. I'm not saying some people can't program, but that some find it alot harder. I'm sure you know all about the whole right/left brain thing and how it affects the way people think and what skills they are good at etc. Go to google and do some research if you don't know, or are unconvinced.
What if you don't call it programming? In the Gimp it is called Script-Fu. I think Photoshop has an equivalent. Emacs uses an extension language. AutoCAD is a leading engineering package and has a built in extension language as well. Apple computers have AppleScript (which reads quite close to english, as I have seen it). Pretty much all operating systems have some sort of a scriptable shell.
What if you don't call it programming? Then it gets called something else. It still dosen't change the fact that it's programming. People aren't suddenly going to understand it better just because the name has been hidden. That's silly. But you already knew that.
Maybe I should have been more clearer. When I meant to say is that some people aren't as good at arithitic, calculations, logic, staistics, numbers etc (all left brain oriented activities). All these things are needed for programming.
What you find is that user applications become more and more powerful and these applications begin to require extensibility at the programming level.
Acctualy, it's quite the opposite. The average person can operate much more complex programs then were around 20 years ago, and not even need to know an ounce of programming.
I think you need to do your research. I'm sure you've heard of this thing called genetics? And how if affects how people grow?
I'm not saying that people can't learn programming. But that it is an awful lot harder for some people than it is for others. So you can't expect everyone to 'get it'. I know people that are quite computer literate, and that benifits them also in what they do. But even start to mention anything concepts like programming, and it just goes straight over their head.
I'll have a look. Maybe they just jack-up the price of things like that, because the price of the computers themsselves are pretty much eaxctly the same whereever you go.
There is no reason why people should need to learn programming. And just because someone can't program. It dosn't mean that they are: a) dumb. Or b) intelligent but affraid/can't be bother to learn programming.
People work in different ways--as I'm sure you know about the whole left brain/right brain/visual/audio/etc--some people simply find programing difficult. I'm partialy in that crowed. I consider my main skill to be design, photography, with a bit of multimedia. But I already know HTML CSS and learning PHP/MySQL. And just today, I managed to get MySQL installed on OS X using a terminal. I did it. But I found it hard, I can do PHP, but I still can spend ages dicking around fixing errors that any basic programer would spotted straight away. I have trouble deciding how to layout scripts, structure databases, and just general programing stuff. I do kinda like it, it's like a puzzle. But after completeing a task, I usaly find myself saying 'fuck that, I'm glade I did it. But I'm never doing that again!'. If it was just becasue I was still leaning. That feeling would have gone a while ago.
I'm simply not that good at programming. I find it hard to focas on specifics etc. I have trouble taking ideas and putting them into deffinition like a programmer has to. I have trouble translating an idea into something that is real/logial/complete/stuctured/specific/etc (as you can probably tell from my post). My brain simply is not geared that well to do it. I can do it, but is's alot harder that it would be for someone else who is good at programming.
What pissises me off though is the stuff that is apple only. I just found about the an A/V cable for my iBook will cost NZ$100, when if it was made my any ordernary company would prolly only cost $20. Maybe $60 for a fancy gold plated one. But most certinly not $100!
BTW. Does anyone know if anybody else make an A/V cable similar to the one needed for the iBook?
It looks like I'll only be able to add 256MB, bringing it to a total of 384MB. You can get 512MB SODIMMS that will fit the iBook. But it's very expensive from what I hear. But if can get it. I will give me boot to 640MB, that would be nice!
Thanks for the window compression tip.