I'd really like to see the open source community do something to make using linux not just a valuable tool, but a real computing joy. I stopping use windows because I hated windows, why would I want to use a desktop that reminds me of something i hate? I'd like to see some true innovation in ease of use on the desktop with linux. Pretty icons and colors are nice, but if they don't work in a very strategic and coherant way, you break your metaphore. I have limted experience with using any linux desktops, but why when you have the freedom to do any interface you want, would you borrow so much from the company that you can view as the enemy in microsoft. Give linux a face, maybe do somehting different, let a user sit down and know he/she is on linux.
For the years I have jumped from OS to OS, I can always remember the way my gui's worked.
The start menu is ok, but I don't think thats always where the action is....lets be creative and smart!
Anyone who has done a really complicated visionary presentation knows that you can fake 90% of your material and resutlts before the real deal comes out. Furthermore, when it actually comes to make your product, its never as cool as the presentation you boastfully displated.
I didn't think this was a very cool presentation, so I'd hate to see what the final results of this crap would be. We all also know how M$ likes to make big promises and never deliever on them the way they should.
Incedentally, I'd like to point out that the Mac OS has supported large quanities of multiple displays for years. M$ just makes shitty knock offs of everything else then can steal.
I have a mac.com account and I just bought a domain and webspace hosting from sharpweb services. For $6 a month I get email accounts, 50 meg of web space and 1 gig of data transfer and my domain name. Thats $72 dollars a year. Sure its not all slick like my mac.com account, but its more feature rich.
Its a shame to see them do such a thing to loyal customers who fell in love with Free iTools and who'd love to stick that in the face of all my Windows loving co-workers. People have switched because of iTools. For them to charge for everything is bullshit. They should, at the very least have free email and offer a "preview" version of the service. If not, they just look evil. I've had my mac.com email address since day 1.
Maybe they will just be saving money on power consumption?:) I can be a sucker for the apple propaganda in hopes that it can sweep intel/ms based stuff away.
Why, do you suppose Genentech decided to go the PowerPC route if x86 can be so much faster?
I've also heard that the x86 based processors don't work as well with multiple CPUs or in clusters as do the PowerPCs.
Power4 machines are PowerPC/risc (although I could be wrong)..that has to count for something. I don't think motolorla is putting down the money or time for clusters the way that IBM is.
Additionaly, my comments weren't directed at objective/factual commintary, but at those who pass off apple as a passing fad or some joke of a computer. I personally use both a WinXP box and a Mac OS X laptop. (but the wintel box was free)
Consistantly, Apple has been making strides to create a platform that is ideal for scientific applications like this. The Altivec processing unit allows the G4 to handle 256bit chunks of data at a time and process it fast. The large cache will allow the process to never starve for info from ram. Optimized number crunching aps for Mac smoke (most) anything else out there, and certainly anything on the x86 side of computing.
Further more, anyone out there who complains about wintel and isn't up to their neck in open source development should back off on the Apple bashing. Here is a company who is, at the very least, trying to innovate or just evolve computing to be better for everyone. (while making money, as any business is designed to) Unintelligent Apple bashing is getting pretty old by now. Why don't you come up with some factual arguements..or better yet, go to an Apple store and use one for a while. Start the terminal..find out just how half-baked windows is compared to OS X and how easy the Mac OS is compared to the hair pulling fun of linux. (yes I know red had can be installed by a monkey, but if you break it, good luck for any newbie)
Don't watch TV, don't buy CDs, Don't read the newspapers. Get out, talk to people, create a subset of culture devoid of copyright bull. The OSS community is a sign that the coperate world hasn't serviced the needs of potentional consumers. This community, with out a doubt, consists of the smartest people out there. They supply the infomation channels now, but that can all change really fast. If the slashdotters have been modivated enough to replace most of their computing experience with an open, free one, why not take that experience and expand it to all more areas where we aren't happy. It's just a thought, but it could work. forget the industry who things you are a thief. They only want your money.
Opera cheats. Its a fast browser, no doubt, but its not as fast as they claim it is. Although, user experience is what software is all about. So, whatever works for you. I just wanted to make public that is hard to get a real benchmark on Opera because it cheats when it reports page load/ render times.
I am intern/ net admin at a private all boys high school. A few students orginized the logistics of the event and requested that all students raise like $35, most of which was given to the red cross. We have 800 students in the school, and about 50 showed up for the event. We brought most of the larger TVs into the library and set up a gallery of video game machines. We had a local supermarket donate a rediculous amount of food. 3 of us (IT pros) worked the event, i was in charge of LAN games. Unreal Tournament was the most popular game, and I even had a chance to play and frag the floppy jamming little punks for a few hours. We had a few kids playing age of emipres and we had a few games of Starcraft going. We had a great chill out room with a projector, surround sound and movies. We even came very close to landing DDR (dance dance revolution). The event was great, and although it was a pain to get things going at first, once the show was on the road, things ran well. All students had parents sign a release form.
Since I work at a private school, I suppose we are a special case, and our students are usually very trustworthy and well behaved, but from my experience, students eat this up and understand just how special those kind of events are. Also, I don't think you'll run into too much trouble with the geeky class of student, aside from playing techno just a little too loud.
Scott
Slashdot Mirror
I'd really like to see the open source community do something to make using linux not just a valuable tool, but a real computing joy. I stopping use windows because I hated windows, why would I want to use a desktop that reminds me of something i hate? I'd like to see some true innovation in ease of use on the desktop with linux. Pretty icons and colors are nice, but if they don't work in a very strategic and coherant way, you break your metaphore. I have limted experience with using any linux desktops, but why when you have the freedom to do any interface you want, would you borrow so much from the company that you can view as the enemy in microsoft. Give linux a face, maybe do somehting different, let a user sit down and know he/she is on linux.
For the years I have jumped from OS to OS, I can always remember the way my gui's worked.
The start menu is ok, but I don't think thats always where the action is....lets be creative and smart!
Anyone who has done a really complicated visionary presentation knows that you can fake 90% of your material and resutlts before the real deal comes out. Furthermore, when it actually comes to make your product, its never as cool as the presentation you boastfully displated.
I didn't think this was a very cool presentation, so I'd hate to see what the final results of this crap would be. We all also know how M$ likes to make big promises and never deliever on them the way they should.
Incedentally, I'd like to point out that the Mac OS has supported large quanities of multiple displays for years. M$ just makes shitty knock offs of everything else then can steal.
I have a mac.com account and I just bought a domain and webspace hosting from sharpweb services. For $6 a month I get email accounts, 50 meg of web space and 1 gig of data transfer and my domain name. Thats $72 dollars a year. Sure its not all slick like my mac.com account, but its more feature rich.
Its a shame to see them do such a thing to loyal customers who fell in love with Free iTools and who'd love to stick that in the face of all my Windows loving co-workers. People have switched because of iTools. For them to charge for everything is bullshit. They should, at the very least have free email and offer a "preview" version of the service. If not, they just look evil. I've had my mac.com email address since day 1.
Maybe they will just be saving money on power consumption? :) I can be a sucker for the apple propaganda in hopes that it can sweep intel/ms based stuff away.
..that has to count for something. I don't think motolorla is putting down the money or time for clusters the way that IBM is.
Why, do you suppose Genentech decided to go the PowerPC route if x86 can be so much faster?
I've also heard that the x86 based processors don't work as well with multiple CPUs or in clusters as do the PowerPCs.
Power4 machines are PowerPC/risc (although I could be wrong)
Additionaly, my comments weren't directed at objective/factual commintary, but at those who pass off apple as a passing fad or some joke of a computer. I personally use both a WinXP box and a Mac OS X laptop. (but the wintel box was free)
Consistantly, Apple has been making strides to create a platform that is ideal for scientific applications like this. The Altivec processing unit allows the G4 to handle 256bit chunks of data at a time and process it fast. The large cache will allow the process to never starve for info from ram. Optimized number crunching aps for Mac smoke (most) anything else out there, and certainly anything on the x86 side of computing.
Further more, anyone out there who complains about wintel and isn't up to their neck in open source development should back off on the Apple bashing. Here is a company who is, at the very least, trying to innovate or just evolve computing to be better for everyone. (while making money, as any business is designed to) Unintelligent Apple bashing is getting pretty old by now. Why don't you come up with some factual arguements..or better yet, go to an Apple store and use one for a while. Start the terminal..find out just how half-baked windows is compared to OS X and how easy the Mac OS is compared to the hair pulling fun of linux. (yes I know red had can be installed by a monkey, but if you break it, good luck for any newbie)
Just a piece of my mind.
Its easy folks...boycott.
Don't watch TV, don't buy CDs, Don't read the newspapers. Get out, talk to people, create a subset of culture devoid of copyright bull. The OSS community is a sign that the coperate world hasn't serviced the needs of potentional consumers. This community, with out a doubt, consists of the smartest people out there. They supply the infomation channels now, but that can all change really fast. If the slashdotters have been modivated enough to replace most of their computing experience with an open, free one, why not take that experience and expand it to all more areas where we aren't happy. It's just a thought, but it could work. forget the industry who things you are a thief. They only want your money.
Opera cheats. Its a fast browser, no doubt, but its not as fast as they claim it is. Although, user experience is what software is all about. So, whatever works for you. I just wanted to make public that is hard to get a real benchmark on Opera because it cheats when it reports page load/ render times.
I am intern/ net admin at a private all boys high school. A few students orginized the logistics of the event and requested that all students raise like $35, most of which was given to the red cross. We have 800 students in the school, and about 50 showed up for the event. We brought most of the larger TVs into the library and set up a gallery of video game machines. We had a local supermarket donate a rediculous amount of food. 3 of us (IT pros) worked the event, i was in charge of LAN games. Unreal Tournament was the most popular game, and I even had a chance to play and frag the floppy jamming little punks for a few hours. We had a few kids playing age of emipres and we had a few games of Starcraft going. We had a great chill out room with a projector, surround sound and movies. We even came very close to landing DDR (dance dance revolution). The event was great, and although it was a pain to get things going at first, once the show was on the road, things ran well. All students had parents sign a release form. Since I work at a private school, I suppose we are a special case, and our students are usually very trustworthy and well behaved, but from my experience, students eat this up and understand just how special those kind of events are. Also, I don't think you'll run into too much trouble with the geeky class of student, aside from playing techno just a little too loud. Scott