Microsoft is powerful enough that they might be able to get away with refusing to implement DRM. What could the music and film industry do? Not release on PC-compatible media at all??
I think Microsoft might be able to win that one if they tried. Instead, they went the path of least resistance (or so they believe). The only way that Microsoft could do what you are saying is if they were to buy all the record companies. They may have the money to do that. I'm not sure if the FTC would approve it, though. Just being "powerful" isn't enough.
I wonder if they have some sort of Agreement about Non-Disclosure. Hmm...wonder what you'd call it? Golly, I have to write this up and get to the patent office. Seems like this might be a ridiculously common notion that is used in all sorts of different disciplines. I'll make a mint! Of course they have an NDA for developers. Have you heard the old saying about "two can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead"?
You can't ship copies of a "secret OS" to thousands of peope all over the world and not have screen shots to show up on the internet. NDA or no NDA.
I couldn't disagree with you more. The reason why Windows didn't do this to begin with is because Apple had a patent on it.
The reason why it it needs to be there is to make it quick/easy to navigate to a pull down menu. Apple's pull down menus are much more efficient to use than the ones in Windows. There is a ton of time and motion studies that prove this.
If they had gotten rid of the menu bar being the way it is, then I and a lot of other people would have found some other OS to use, or just refused to upgrade from MacOS 9. And probably written angry letters to Apple. And maybe picketted in front of their headquarters. And WE were the ones keeping them in business during those dark days- not you and your gauche lot.
11. Windows in OS X - current OS X is idiotic. System 9 made sense - drag by any edge, resize by the corner, double-click the menubar to "windowshade" in place - once to peek behind a window, and again, without moving the mouse to put put the window back. Now, most windows can only be moved by the menubar - if you have a screen full of overlapping windows, all of the "moveable" regions are clustered at the top of the screen where they are most likely to overlap. Double-clicking a menubar minimizes windows to the "Dock", but then you have to move the mouse all the way there to put it back. idiotic all around. I think you mean "Title bar", not "Menu bar". The menu bar is at the top of the screen. The Title bar contains the title of the window - and it doesn't contain pull down menus (although in many apps you can get a popup menu by command clicking the title of the window). You move a window by dragging its title bar.
You could buy her Office for Mac, or you could download the free NeoOffice suite. I have Word on my computer at home and I use NeoOffice at work and it deals with Word files pretty well.
Pages is OK if you just need a good, simple word processor and don't care about compatibility with anyone else. My eleven year old daughter uses it to write reports for school. It is fine for that.
If you are getting Word files, you need to use Word for Mac or an equivalent program like NeoOffice.
Put Away is NOT silly. It was very useful if you put something into the trash and then changed your mind, but couldn't quite remember where it was previously.
I miss the classic Finder. In some ways it was better than what we have now.
I don't particularly care for the Dock or for Expose. I don't like having spotlight taking up space on the Menu bar. And I want my application menu back (which I actually have using ASM - but because of SpotLight it doesn't get the corner like it is supposed to).
Some of us are still bitching because the OS X Finder isn't more like the classic Finder. And then we go and install third party extensions to make it more like the classic Finder. And we like it that way.
New things sometimes take some getting used to. Those of us who have been using the Mac for 20 years find OS X to be pretty familiar and comfotable, although there are certainly things they changed from the old MacOS where I disagree with their choices. (For example, I liked the old Finder better.)
Every time I use Windows or Linux, its less comfortable for me because I'm not used to it. Plus, there are lots of details that Apple hides that are exposed in Windows and it feels "sloppy" to me - like if I bought a house and there was no dry wall up and they said "If you had drywall - you couldn't see the wiring". The fact is, I don't want to see the wiring.
Let me give an example to illustrate things that I find to be weird in Windows. In Windows XP, right click your desktop and choose Properties. Then choose settings and click "Advanced". On my computer, there is a tab in this panel that has stuff related to the video card. On that tab, there are controls for adjusting the OpenGL settings. Currently, I'm developing on application for both Windows and Mac that uses some OpenGL graphics. I am not a graphics scientist, nor do I really want to be one. I just want my app to work. So I've found that sometimes the open gl accelerations in my app don't work on Windows. When this happens, I usually need to adjust the open gl settings for the particular machine/video card confirguration. Usually this involves really cryptic stuff like "Flipping Mode" and there isn't any explanation in the dialog as to what "Flipping Mode" actually is or does. But you can set it to "Auto Select" or "Block Transfer". Do not reply to this post with an explanation of Flipping Mode because that isn't the point. The point is, why in the world do they even have this setting exposed? No user is going to care what flipping mode is. The modes the user cares about are "working" vs. "not working". And they never want to be in the "not working" mode. Between Dell, NVidia, and Microsoft, someone should have figured out what the right flipping mode is and it should set to that automatically, not have the responsibility for this shoved off on the end user.
And yes, you can buy replacement video cards for a Macintosh pro desktop system. You can plug them in yourself. And you still won't be seeing a dialog to set Flipping Mode.
I'm sure I'll get lots of comments telling me I'm an idiot because "hey, more choices are better". Well, in my opinion, more choices are not always better when it comes to esoteric choices about Flipping Mode. I just want my video card to work. Even as a developer, I want to be able to just stick to writing OpenGL code and not have to worry about whether the customer's video card is going to be configured correctly. And on MacOS X, I can sleep at night knowing that we aren't going to get those tech support calls in the first place because Apple worked with the video card vendor and made sure that graphics hardware is always going to be configured properly.
That said, usually on most Windows systems, the default settings for the video card will be the right ones. But just having the dialog box there seems weird to me - which may be because I'm a Mac guy.
Which is to say that you get used to something and other systems are not going to be as comfortable to you.
It is hard to be secretive about an OS when you pretty much have to give copies to developers if you want third party applications to not break when you ship the new OS.
You try telling anyone whose life savings were vaporized by the fallout from Enron and such that white-collar criminals aren't dangerous. Try telling anyone who actually had to sit through 'Miss Congeniality' that this guy isn't dangerous.
A genuine atheist doesn't feel hatred towards religious people. An atheist can feel any damn way he or she wants to about religious people. Hate, love, indifference, whatever.
Yeah, good point. Now, please explain why their natural predators are mostly wiped out. Does it have anything to do with guys with guns? The predators were wiped out - that's a fact, not a political statement. Public policy can either deal with that fact, or ignore it and face disasterous consequences. When you base policy on wishful thinking, you get things like the current war in Iraq.
And the misfortune of the wild animal, slaughtered for fun? Is that humorous to you instead? I'm sure the deer would all appreciate it if we quit hunting them and just let them starve to death due to overpopulation since their natural preditors are mostly wiped out.
Why not let them join the infantry sniper teams then. Sounds like a good idea to me. If they can do the job, why do people want to discriminate against the blind?
True for floating ice, but there is also ice that is on land in the form of glaciers which will probably melt and run off into the ocean. Like in Greenland and Canada and places like that.
Just look at the raw percentage of the US population who are uninsured and cannot afford health care (16%). She offers to hand that over, she'll have the vote of every one of those people.
First of all, she's a political whore who got burned on universal health care before. She wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole unless a 10 foot poll indicated to her that there's broad political support for it (in which case, as a political whore, she would do an immediate about-face and embrace it).
Secondly, that 16% you mention is also, sadly, made up of the population that's least likely to vote at all.
-Eric
Yeah, you totally nailed it. If I were the republicans, or even a democratic challenger to her I would totally be all like "yeah, just like you gave us universal health coverage last time" and that would be the end of it. She might as well have gotten drunk and driven the universal health coverage off a bridge.
Slashdot Mirror
I think Microsoft might be able to win that one if they tried. Instead, they went the path of least resistance (or so they believe). The only way that Microsoft could do what you are saying is if they were to buy all the record companies. They may have the money to do that. I'm not sure if the FTC would approve it, though. Just being "powerful" isn't enough.
You can't ship copies of a "secret OS" to thousands of peope all over the world and not have screen shots to show up on the internet. NDA or no NDA.
I couldn't disagree with you more. The reason why Windows didn't do this to begin with is because Apple had a patent on it.
The reason why it it needs to be there is to make it quick/easy to navigate to a pull down menu. Apple's pull down menus are much more efficient to use than the ones in Windows. There is a ton of time and motion studies that prove this.
If they had gotten rid of the menu bar being the way it is, then I and a lot of other people would have found some other OS to use, or just refused to upgrade from MacOS 9. And probably written angry letters to Apple. And maybe picketted in front of their headquarters. And WE were the ones keeping them in business during those dark days- not you and your gauche lot.
You could buy her Office for Mac, or you could download the free NeoOffice suite. I have Word on my computer at home and I use NeoOffice at work and it deals with Word files pretty well.
Pages is OK if you just need a good, simple word processor and don't care about compatibility with anyone else. My eleven year old daughter uses it to write reports for school. It is fine for that.
If you are getting Word files, you need to use Word for Mac or an equivalent program like NeoOffice.
Put Away is NOT silly. It was very useful if you put something into the trash and then changed your mind, but couldn't quite remember where it was previously.
I miss the classic Finder. In some ways it was better than what we have now.
I don't particularly care for the Dock or for Expose. I don't like having spotlight taking up space on the Menu bar. And I want my application menu back (which I actually have using ASM - but because of SpotLight it doesn't get the corner like it is supposed to).
Microsoft, apparently. It shows up by default every time I try to do a goddamn file search!
I find that the Search dialog in Windows takes a lot of clicks to use. Is it just me, or could that thing stand to be improved?Some of us are still bitching because the OS X Finder isn't more like the classic Finder. And then we go and install third party extensions to make it more like the classic Finder. And we like it that way.
New things sometimes take some getting used to. Those of us who have been using the Mac for 20 years find OS X to be pretty familiar and comfotable, although there are certainly things they changed from the old MacOS where I disagree with their choices. (For example, I liked the old Finder better.)
Every time I use Windows or Linux, its less comfortable for me because I'm not used to it. Plus, there are lots of details that Apple hides that are exposed in Windows and it feels "sloppy" to me - like if I bought a house and there was no dry wall up and they said "If you had drywall - you couldn't see the wiring". The fact is, I don't want to see the wiring.
Let me give an example to illustrate things that I find to be weird in Windows. In Windows XP, right click your desktop and choose Properties. Then choose settings and click "Advanced". On my computer, there is a tab in this panel that has stuff related to the video card. On that tab, there are controls for adjusting the OpenGL settings. Currently, I'm developing on application for both Windows and Mac that uses some OpenGL graphics. I am not a graphics scientist, nor do I really want to be one. I just want my app to work. So I've found that sometimes the open gl accelerations in my app don't work on Windows. When this happens, I usually need to adjust the open gl settings for the particular machine/video card confirguration. Usually this involves really cryptic stuff like "Flipping Mode" and there isn't any explanation in the dialog as to what "Flipping Mode" actually is or does. But you can set it to "Auto Select" or "Block Transfer". Do not reply to this post with an explanation of Flipping Mode because that isn't the point. The point is, why in the world do they even have this setting exposed? No user is going to care what flipping mode is. The modes the user cares about are "working" vs. "not working". And they never want to be in the "not working" mode. Between Dell, NVidia, and Microsoft, someone should have figured out what the right flipping mode is and it should set to that automatically, not have the responsibility for this shoved off on the end user.
And yes, you can buy replacement video cards for a Macintosh pro desktop system. You can plug them in yourself. And you still won't be seeing a dialog to set Flipping Mode.
I'm sure I'll get lots of comments telling me I'm an idiot because "hey, more choices are better". Well, in my opinion, more choices are not always better when it comes to esoteric choices about Flipping Mode. I just want my video card to work. Even as a developer, I want to be able to just stick to writing OpenGL code and not have to worry about whether the customer's video card is going to be configured correctly. And on MacOS X, I can sleep at night knowing that we aren't going to get those tech support calls in the first place because Apple worked with the video card vendor and made sure that graphics hardware is always going to be configured properly.
That said, usually on most Windows systems, the default settings for the video card will be the right ones. But just having the dialog box there seems weird to me - which may be because I'm a Mac guy.
Which is to say that you get used to something and other systems are not going to be as comfortable to you.
It is hard to be secretive about an OS when you pretty much have to give copies to developers if you want third party applications to not break when you ship the new OS.
He should take a hit on credibility. He maybe should be fired. But I agree that physically injuring him is probably more than he deserves.
I thought Republicans believed in just borrowing the money the government needs forever because deficits don't matter.
Not everyone who lives on/near the beach is rich.
True for floating ice, but there is also ice that is on land in the form of glaciers which will probably melt and run off into the ocean. Like in Greenland and Canada and places like that.
Good point. Why can't they make a windshield that doesn't fucking break every time a pebble falls off the rock in front of me?
I don't know.. "Microsoft is teh suck" is a pretty good description of the past, present, and future of Microsoft and its products.
First of all, she's a political whore who got burned on universal health care before. She wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole unless a 10 foot poll indicated to her that there's broad political support for it (in which case, as a political whore, she would do an immediate about-face and embrace it).
Secondly, that 16% you mention is also, sadly, made up of the population that's least likely to vote at all.
-Eric
Yeah, you totally nailed it. If I were the republicans, or even a democratic challenger to her I would totally be all like "yeah, just like you gave us universal health coverage last time" and that would be the end of it. She might as well have gotten drunk and driven the universal health coverage off a bridge.