> I think it would be better to teach these children how to use LaTeX.
Hahaha! Sorry but I have seen students and teachers have enough trouble with Microsoft Office, let alone with LaTeX. It does create beautiful output but when you sit a student down in front of Notepad and tell them to create a document they wouldn't even know/remember where to begin.
I think a lot of people outside the education sector have very little idea how inexperienced some computer users are.
When I was installing the driver for my MP3 player I noticed what looked like the driver signing alert flash onto the screen, but then the installation program 'pressed' the accept button for me:-\ I wasn't too worried as I would have accepted it anyway, but it seemed a little worrying that it could be bypassed. It was a Creative player if anyone is curious or has any details.
The GNUStep desktop doesn't work or act at all like Windows. It acts like NextStep, which Apple incorporated into Mac OS X. It is fast, light, and very intuitive and pleasing to use. Gorm is a development environment for GNUStep, similar to Kdevelop/QTdevelop (I forget which it is called) for KDE or the Interface Builder for Mac OS X.
> Or asking microsoft to give out a free reader so poor people could > get access to the state's documents.
That's another issue that could be solved by the OpenOffice.org team -- how about creating/promoting cross-platform, small document viewers similar to Microsoft's for people that would be put off by a 300MB download of the full office suite?
> Driver for the IBM Hard Drive Active Protection System (HDAPS), an > accelerometer found in most modern Thinkpads (LWN article)
I read an interesting article about this in Linux Format recently. Apparently the people who were working to get this protection system functional found that they could also use the data from it to calculate the exact orientation of the laptop. They created a demo where an image of a laptop stays parallel to the ground whichever way up you hold the laptop. At least, thats what the article seemed to indicate. I don't have any links to back it up.
What is America's public transport system like? The town I live in and the one I work in, whilst only being 6 miles apart, have a lot of bus connections between them and across them, and I never have any trouble finding a bus to somewhere. Are the buses over there quite bad, or is it more to do with an attitude that everyone must have a car?
Google already has the option to send mail as if from another address, and almost all mail servers can forward recieved email to a different address. This is exactly what I do -- all my personal mail (*@muzz.co.uk) is sent through sendmail to my google address, and all outgoing mail is re-written with my personal address. For how to do this, see
I agree that Microsoft make some good software, but some of their better stuff is slightly less mainstream. A perfect example is ActiveSync; I love seing photos synched across the wireless network as soon as I take them, and the same with emails, contacts... everything. I think that is the only thing I miss from Windows when I am using my Linux box at home.
> *Everything* Google do is a way to make people look at more adverts.
Slightly off-topic I know, but partly relevant. When Gmail was first released everyone was saying how awful it is that they would be scanning your emails and printing ads. Yet I've been using Gmail for about two weeks and haven't seen any ads yet, and the only ad-blocking software I use is Firefox's pop-up blocker. Is this normal?
I used to block ads all the time, using a userContent.css file from http://www.gozer.org/mozilla/ad_blocking/ but now I don't bother so much. If I turn off GIF animation and block pop-ups then that's enough of the annoyances dealt with that I can put up with the rest. A static ad on a webpage doesn't bother me, just like a static ad in a magazine doesn't. Flash ads are dealt with by not having flash installed (which also means that any website that chooses to use flash for the main part of their site, for navigation, or for 'click to enter' pages loses my custom).
They could possibly block by IP address, which I believe they did until recently for access to the Radio broadcasts, but I don't know if they will or not. Personally I support the BBC keeping it for British residents, as we have paid for the content to be produced. It's a shame that America seems to believe it has an unwavering right to every other country's content sometimes.
The extra keys and extra buttons on mice I can agree with, but I can't see how anyone can prefer a mouse without a scroll wheel to one with one. Using a mouse without one, or worse using a mouse with one where X doesn't have it configured, feels so difficult.
Mac OS X is nice enough if you use it as it is -- a Mac system. As a UNIX system it's pretty bad, with a dozen-and-one things either not working or being very difficult. I love my Mac but I hate using it in UNIX environments, where I prefer a Linux or FreeBSD machine.
> I have yet to hear someone complaining about > copyrights say, "I'll show them. I'll learn to > play an instrument and compose my own music."
I have just started learning to play Bass, and plan to put all recordings I make (if I get good enough to create my own music) onto my website for people to listen to if they wish. I currently have a few practice recordings on there but they are of me playing other people's songs. I cannot code and am not the best documentation writer, but I can practice playing and hope people enjoy listening to it.
I had a Tungsten W all in one device and had problems with it. It was a nice device and lovely to type on, but the phone part was shite. Also, you can't really use a PDA to send a text message when it's raining, in case it damages it. My current phone is much better as a phone, and I now only use the PDA functions of the Tungsten.
Admitedly you still need to restart X, whereas in Windows the graphics layer is such an integral part of the OS it can't be restarted separately. You can't load a new graphics driver in Linux without restarting X or logging out/in, but this is what Microsoft appears to be aiming for with Windows.
This is what I'm assuming from the summary however; I haven't RTFA yet.
> Even if TigerDirect loses (and they will), > they benefit greatly from all the press > coverage
Not always -- I had never heard of Tiger Direct before today, but since reading this thread and all the comments on how crap they are I know never to buy from them.
> whether the people who make the technology > can be sued for contributory copyright > infringement
Great! Let's sue Microsoft/Apple/Real/etc. for letting the evil pirates copy and distribute their CDs as MP3s. I mean, if you want to copy a CD to your computer you're obviously doing it for illegal reasons, right?
Slashdot Mirror
> I think it would be better to teach these children how to use LaTeX.
Hahaha! Sorry but I have seen students and teachers have enough trouble with Microsoft Office, let alone with LaTeX. It does create beautiful output but when you sit a student down in front of Notepad and tell them to create a document they wouldn't even know/remember where to begin.
I think a lot of people outside the education sector have very little idea how inexperienced some computer users are.
*whoosh*
When I was installing the driver for my MP3 player I noticed what looked like the driver signing alert flash onto the screen, but then the installation program 'pressed' the accept button for me :-\ I wasn't too worried as I would have accepted it anyway, but it seemed a little worrying that it could be bypassed. It was a Creative player if anyone is curious or has any details.
Sorry, yea I was getting mixed up. Even so, 75MB is still a lot for most people, and I could see a use for portable viewer applications.
The GNUStep desktop doesn't work or act at all like Windows. It acts like NextStep, which Apple incorporated into Mac OS X. It is fast, light, and very intuitive and pleasing to use. Gorm is a development environment for GNUStep, similar to Kdevelop/QTdevelop (I forget which it is called) for KDE or the Interface Builder for Mac OS X.
> Or asking microsoft to give out a free reader so poor people could
> get access to the state's documents.
That's another issue that could be solved by the OpenOffice.org team -- how about creating/promoting cross-platform, small document viewers similar to Microsoft's for people that would be put off by a 300MB download of the full office suite?
> Driver for the IBM Hard Drive Active Protection System (HDAPS), an
> accelerometer found in most modern Thinkpads (LWN article)
I read an interesting article about this in Linux Format recently. Apparently the people who were working to get this protection system functional found that they could also use the data from it to calculate the exact orientation of the laptop. They created a demo where an image of a laptop stays parallel to the ground whichever way up you hold the laptop. At least, thats what the article seemed to indicate. I don't have any links to back it up.
What is America's public transport system like? The town I live in and the one I work in, whilst only being 6 miles apart, have a lot of bus connections between them and across them, and I never have any trouble finding a bus to somewhere. Are the buses over there quite bad, or is it more to do with an attitude that everyone must have a car?
> Yes, I understand how to do forwarding. But that assumes you have a
> mail infrastructure in place that allows you to do that.
In that case I apologise, I misunderstood your post.
Google already has the option to send mail as if from another address, and almost all mail servers can forward recieved email to a different address. This is exactly what I do -- all my personal mail (*@muzz.co.uk) is sent through sendmail to my google address, and all outgoing mail is re-written with my personal address. For how to do this, see
e r=20616&topic=1571
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answ
I agree that Microsoft make some good software, but some of their better stuff is slightly less mainstream. A perfect example is ActiveSync; I love seing photos synched across the wireless network as soon as I take them, and the same with emails, contacts... everything. I think that is the only thing I miss from Windows when I am using my Linux box at home.
> *Everything* Google do is a way to make people look at more adverts.
Slightly off-topic I know, but partly relevant. When Gmail was first released everyone was saying how awful it is that they would be scanning your emails and printing ads. Yet I've been using Gmail for about two weeks and haven't seen any ads yet, and the only ad-blocking software I use is Firefox's pop-up blocker. Is this normal?
I used to block ads all the time, using a userContent.css file from http://www.gozer.org/mozilla/ad_blocking/ but now I don't bother so much. If I turn off GIF animation and block pop-ups then that's enough of the annoyances dealt with that I can put up with the rest. A static ad on a webpage doesn't bother me, just like a static ad in a magazine doesn't. Flash ads are dealt with by not having flash installed (which also means that any website that chooses to use flash for the main part of their site, for navigation, or for 'click to enter' pages loses my custom).
They could possibly block by IP address, which I believe they did until recently for access to the Radio broadcasts, but I don't know if they will or not. Personally I support the BBC keeping it for British residents, as we have paid for the content to be produced. It's a shame that America seems to believe it has an unwavering right to every other country's content sometimes.
The extra keys and extra buttons on mice I can agree with, but I can't see how anyone can prefer a mouse without a scroll wheel to one with one. Using a mouse without one, or worse using a mouse with one where X doesn't have it configured, feels so difficult.
Mac OS X is nice enough if you use it as it is -- a Mac system. As a UNIX system it's pretty bad, with a dozen-and-one things either not working or being very difficult. I love my Mac but I hate using it in UNIX environments, where I prefer a Linux or FreeBSD machine.
> I have yet to hear someone complaining about
> copyrights say, "I'll show them. I'll learn to
> play an instrument and compose my own music."
I have just started learning to play Bass, and plan to put all recordings I make (if I get good enough to create my own music) onto my website for people to listen to if they wish. I currently have a few practice recordings on there but they are of me playing other people's songs. I cannot code and am not the best documentation writer, but I can practice playing and hope people enjoy listening to it.
"Warning: Do not eat iPod Mini"
I had a Tungsten W all in one device and had problems with it. It was a nice device and lovely to type on, but the phone part was shite. Also, you can't really use a PDA to send a text message when it's raining, in case it damages it. My current phone is much better as a phone, and I now only use the PDA functions of the Tungsten.
Admitedly you still need to restart X, whereas in Windows the graphics layer is such an integral part of the OS it can't be restarted separately. You can't load a new graphics driver in Linux without restarting X or logging out/in, but this is what Microsoft appears to be aiming for with Windows.
This is what I'm assuming from the summary however; I haven't RTFA yet.
> Even if TigerDirect loses (and they will),
> they benefit greatly from all the press
> coverage
Not always -- I had never heard of Tiger Direct before today, but since reading this thread and all the comments on how crap they are I know never to buy from them.
> Or .dupes, but that is another story.
And another story.
And another story...
MAC APP TESTER OUTPUT
d ldr
=====================
We have identified that 90% of the programs you have running are unavailable on the Macintosh platform. These programs were:
Bonzi Buddy
CoolWebSearch
DateTime
Gator
W32/Bagle.
W32/Netsky.p@MM
...
> Grammatically, it should be, "Gates do good
> marketing jobs in Microsoft.
Not if the gates are working as a team on a single job. Not that gates do work or whatever but you get the idea.
> whether the people who make the technology
> can be sued for contributory copyright
> infringement
Great! Let's sue Microsoft/Apple/Real/etc. for letting the evil pirates copy and distribute their CDs as MP3s. I mean, if you want to copy a CD to your computer you're obviously doing it for illegal reasons, right?