Well, I'll definitely give you the more versatile part. But, I want something quiet (there's enough noise in the computer room as it is!) and this router does use less power than the typical PC... well I suppose if I used a P233MMX system as a router it wouldn't be that bad on power, but used parts, meh, bad luck lately with used stuff. At least with a NEW network appliance I'm (in theory) getting a higher reliability device.
... since my router started randomly reloading a few days ago. I wonder if Cisco will release a patched version of the IOS that's free, cause I cannot afford the "cisco tax". I bought that router while I was a student ( and in the cisco academy program ) to practice with the IOS. I had been using the router for my cable connection since then. But, if I cannot get a free update I'll be going to get one of those inexpensive linksys or netgear routers for my home connection now.
Well, that's why I bought a used Mac. This way I didn't have to fork out quite so much cash and still have OS X.;)
It's definitely no worse than Windows, and it certainly has yet to really be targeted by viruses & worms.
So for now, it's cool. OS X on my Mac, Linux/WinXP dual boot on my PC. And my webserver runs strickly Linux.
Re:Shifting types & saving content to a remote
on
Steganography with Flickr
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· Score: 2, Informative
Yes, but would you want to upload pictures (stego or not) that are going to be modified by Flickr? If you are using Flickr as a backup and they modify the files, it is not exactly a great backup idea. I like my files to stay the away I uploaded them, and I am sure you would, too.
It configured everything automatically except the sound, which I had to tweak some config files for (no worse than when I've had sound problems in Windows).
I don't know what former soviet bloc you got your sound hardware from, but just about every sound card / sound device works just fine out of the box on windows.
Bzzt! If your sound hardware was produced AFTER the release date of Windows XP (meaning Soundcard XYZ didn't even exist when MS was accepting drivers for Windows XP from OEMs), chances are you'll be loading the driver from the CD that came with your sound card... A minor technicality, but one I felt I needed to express.
The only reason I had to do cliched Linux stuff like recompiling the kernel was to get my Orinoco card working in monitor mode. Desktop users don't care about that, only people who want to run WiFi hacking utilities.
Right - desktop users don't care bout Wi-Fi. Gimme a freakin break...
No, give me a freaking break... You didn't even correctly read what he wrote! If you don't care about using Wi-Fi hacking utilities, then you don't need to recompile the kernel. Good grief - pay attention!
Keeping the system up to date is actually easier than Windows, since I can run a single apt-get and upgrade everything (OS components + apps) to the current version.
As opposed to automatic download and installs for windows updates which happen without any user interaction at all?
Oh, I'll give you that Automatic Updates on Windows is extremely easy... unfortunately it's that same service that I got burned on when the lastest rollup package for SP4 borked my 2000 Server... and no I don't have another identical server to test stuff on (It's a hobby site, after all). One very NICE thing about linux is that I can stick in, say Knoppix, and repair my system when it's not bootable. For free. Wanna do that with an NT/2K/XP/2K3 box? Go buy a commercial app so you can access those NTFS disks from something other than Windows.
There are definitely some gaps in terms of things like no Photoshop on Linux, but the OS itself is fine for desktop use now IMO.
And Excel, and Outlook/Exchange and games and well supported drivers and about 1000 other apps that you can't get on Linux.
While not an easy solution, there is WINE, which allows quite a few apps to work acceptably. No well supported drivers? Only if you pick generic/crappy hardware with companies that are barely on the map. Matter of fact, build a system using an Nforce based motherboard and an Nvidia graphics card, and you'll have a completely working system. I've thrown various flavors of Linux on off the wall hardware combinations and almost always come up with a working solution. And while commercial games may be limited, I've got Neverwinter Nights and UT 2004 on my Linux box right now. Hmm, some older games I have for linux: Sim City 3000 Unlimited, Quake 3 Arena, and Terminus (had a linux version on the CDs).
On the flipside - just about everything userland app on Linux is available on windows - Cygwin anyone? Emacs... VNC... etc... You're telling me that the KERNEL is enough to get people to switch and give up all of that software? Uh-huh... What color is the sky in your universe?
Cygwin is good, I'll give you that. However, there are several OSS apps on Windows that I have never had work properly. Keep in mind here, I'm talking about OSS apps outside of Cygwin here. For example, WAMP (Windows + Apache + MySQL + PHP) has been a pain for me, because PHP has never worked for me on Windows. MySQL and Apache are great, but PHP on Windows has always eluded me and I gave up. I can get it to work on Linux with no problems. I got Perl working on Windows, but it was kinda wierd.
The bbs community may be gone, but in some respects, its be replaced with a wider audience.
Not entirely gone... just more or less an underground community now. There's several old BBS software packages that have been ported from their x86 DOS versions into Win32 and Linux versions and run via telnet (and soon ssh). I happen to run Synchronet BBS software (which is open source) for my BBS, which I started a little over two years ago because I had always wanted to run one when I was a kid, logging into everyone else's systems (via 2400 baud).
See, the cool thing is that old BBS software is adding in newer technologies and becoming more "modern" while keeping the good old terminal around, too. For instance, Synchronet has (in addition to ye old telnet & console) it's own built in web, mail, irc, and news services -- to name a few.
Long live the BBS!:)
- Steve, sysop of the Bit Bucket BBS
Yeah, no shit... I've got a Windows 2000 server here that I cannot fully patch, there's a particular patch that upon installation and reboot I get a blue screen of death halfway in the boot process. As such, I cannot install that patch. Firewall on the server plus ACLs on the router plus cross my fingers! heh.
It could be a hardware driver... problem is this machine is well... dated. Yet not that dated... It was common server hardware when Windows 2000 was released. I have the latest drivers I could find for the system. Just of the hell of it, I "acquired" a Server 2003 CD and tried to boot off of it. It locks up halfway through loading drivers... (blech!)
(FYI, it's an Intel server motherboard w/ 2x PIII 600E slot 1 procs. Has built in adaptec scsi w/ optional raidportIII addon card and I'm using the RAID5 functionality.)
And I have been pleased with the service. I previously had Time Warner's Road Runner service but switched to Earthlink because Road Runner kept adding "free services" onto our monthly service (like free access to Nascar's site) yet the monthly rate went up once they added a few more "freebies". Right. If I had cared about the "freebies" I might have stayed and justified the monthly price, but I just don't care about the extras they are providing. I just want internet access!
So, I am down to paying $41.95/month for Earthlink vs. Road Runner's $54.95/month! That's a savings of $13/month and $156/year! The quality of service hasn't gone down and I'm paying less!
Satisfied Earthlink customer.
That or if you just hate playing on consoles. Keyboard + mouse 4-ever! I hate console controllers. Trying to play Pariah on Xbox with those controllers vs having a mouse and keyboard and playing it on my PC is worlds different. I'm 10x better with a mouse than a thumbstick when it comes to aiming.
You are correct that you can mount an NTFS partition as a directory... AFTER you've installed the OS. What the parent was getting at is that the OS itself can be distributed over multiple partitions and during the install. I suppose you could make a new partition and copy the entire Program Files directory over to it, then remount that NTFS partition as C:\Program Files, but that's just annoying.
The point is that for Windows to have the equivalent functionality, you'd have to create x number of partitions that you're going to use (not a problem) and then have the installer ask you which directories they should be mounted on, i.e. C:\Windows, C:\Program Files, etc... (*bzzzt* can't do that during the install... maybe in a future version of Windows Server?) and then the installer would go about copying files and setting up Windows.
... *grabs laptop and dashes out the door* I only live 20 minutes from Dayton so this is definitely a Good Thing. I will be trying this out next time I'm in Dayton (probably tomorrow).
My first linux distro was Red Hat 5.0, and I stayed a Red Hat user all the way until RHL9.
I tried FC1 when it came out, and I'm sorry to say it but the overall quality of the distro went down -- it's definitely beta quality (I don't care what you FC supporters say, I saw too many "stupid" bugs that just shouldn't have been there... mostly apps under KDE/Gnome. And patches were slow for the bugs I wanted fixed.) We had a production quality OS under RHL.
I had been learning Slackware for a while at the point FC1 came out so I jumped to Slackware. However, seeing as I had missed having a nicely automated package manager (yes, depenencies suck, but I did miss RPM believe it or not) so when Gentoo became popular and I heard about Portage, I jumped to Gentoo. Today I'm a happy Gentoo user.
Well actually you only need to uncheck the top two. Disabling or replacing context menus is a pet peeve so I uncheck that one too. (I should have proof read before hitting submit).
Just turn off javascript in the browser you use. If a site requires javascript then don't go there.
That is not a viable option. 95% of the sites I (and almost every other web user) visit use javascript in some way, shape, or form. I don't want to take the mindset of "Flash is evil, images are a waste of bandwidth, java is pathetic (even though it is, but that's beside the point). The Internet is full of crap so I should just use Lynx." I like to see things other than plain text and images. I can deal with a couple of pop-up ads here and there until the next version of Firefox comes out.
Well, here is what I do in Firefox. I haven't received any pop-ups (yet). In the options dialog, under "Web Features" you'll find that on the far right across from the "Enable Javascript" checkbox is a button that says, "Advanced."
"Allow scripts to: " (remove check marks next to the following)
"Move or resize existing windows"
"Raise or lower windows"
"Disable or replace context menus"
I also uncheck "Hide the status bar" but that's a personal preference.
After unchecking those along with having the pop-up blocker enabled I no longer get any pop-ups. And I really don't see unchecking those having any profound viewability problems on the web. If a site needs to resize your window, it's usually because they want to open a pop-up along side it.:P Same goes for raising/lowering too.
You do know that you can do a stage 3 install & use prebuilt packages these days, don't you? You only have to compile the kernel. Later when you update/upgrade the system you can compile the components being upgraded/updated. Let's face it: even though many of us linux geeks like to compile stuff from scratch (stage 1 baby!) Portage is really damn cool. You've got a huge repository of packages from which to choose. All of which are just an emerge away!;) Pretty painless management as I've experienced it.
Oh and while I'm on it, Gentoo is already working on a GUI frontend for installation. That will make the stage 3 w/ prebuilt packages install quite painless.
Even if you have a 19" or 21" main screen, you'll appreciate the extra space. and you'll never go back
Actually, you'll have less space (on your desk!).;) Though, I agree that having an extra monitor is great. OTOH, if you happen to use LCD flat panels instead of monitors, then it's not entirely a feasible option!
As a side note: I do like "warm" tube amps for certain circumstances. Like my Marshall tube amp of course, which in combination with my Ibanez guitar and a couple DiMarzio pickups sounds really sweet.:)
Why don't you forget all the technology and just do a Java based chat room that looks like a BBS. You can host it on a server and people access it via a wireless internet connection. Just give out login and passwords to only local people. Other than not dialing in with a modem you'd never be able to tell the difference. The only thing that makes your network unique is that it is geographically constrained. If you can't manage to screen users based on geography find another way, such as having them pick up a login written on a piece of paper at a central place.
Better yet, why not just run a real, modern 32bit BBS? There are both *nix and windows versions and it's opensource;) Plus, it uses the mozilla team's javascript engine, so you can write your own modules to extend the functionality quickly (the IRC service included with synchronet is written in javascript). I'm currently writing a new command shell for my BBS using JS. And of course, Synchronet runs nearly all of the old 16bit DOS doors (easier to achieve on Windows but not impossible on *nix using a dos emulator). I run LORD, Trade Wars, Clans, and other older games on my BBS that are (interestingly) still popular (over 150 user accounts and climbing - not bad for a new BBS started a year ago in the post-BBS era!)
OK, slightly OT, but we're still talking UI design. Since you brought up windows:
"The Windows UI might be easy for you, but I have trouble finding the "preferences dialog". Do you right click on "my computer", find it under the start menu, or what? I've used 3.1, NT, 95, 98, and 2000. The controls, if they exist, were in different places in each of them for most things. When it comes to Winblows, I'm lost and generally can't find the answer with a quick Google search. This is learned behavior, not a matter of "some intelligence" and it goes away quickly."
Now, MS does keep some things in weird places, but "preferences dialog", better known as "folder options" (and has been called this in every version since 95 & NT4) is actually not that hard to find. NT4/95/98 all keep "Folder Options" under the "View" menu on any folder window including Network Neighborhood, My Computer, and even Control Panel. You can find it pretty much everywhere. For 2000,XP, and ME, they moved the "Folder Options" to the new "Tools" menu, which was added for Internet explorer 5 and up.
A couple of Microsoft bashes though: I do think that "Folder Options" makes more sense under the "View" menu. Also, For 95/98/NT4, you could find "Folder Options" on the start menu under "settings" which I also thought that made sense but MS removed that from XP/2000/ME, taking step backwards again.
I learned to group windows by its UI and the IE version it shipped with for support reasons (phone support -ain't it fun?). Ever since IE was integrated into Windows, you see little quirks as to the location of certain dialogs based on changes made to IE. Here's how I classify Windows:
Win95/WinNT4: Obviously the systems had many differences underneath, but navigating the UI was the same. Pre IE integration. (Until you installed IE4 w/ Active desktop). Dialogs were mostly uniform, except where NT4 had to deviate due to underlying differences (Control panel isn't identical, there's no device manager, etc...).
Win98: IE4 but Active desktop was now "polished". (active desktop on 95/NT was UGLY looking!). Dialogs uniform.
WinME/2K: Same UI - IE 5.x - Dialogs uniform.
WinXP/2003: Same IE version, but 2003 defaults to something not-luna, yet not 100% windows classic interface either (don't need luna on a frickin server anyway). XP: Luna by default, but you can make it behave like 2003. Dialogs uniform.
If GNOME were designed for usability, why does its file manager want to open up so many windows when I'll end up closing most of them?
Double-middle click to open the folder and close the current one. Ctrl+W will close the folder. Ctrl+Shift+W will close all parent folders. It only opens the folders you ask for.
OK, can we get any further from easy to use than that? If Gnome is aiming to make their desktop easy to use for the novice (i.e. Windows users) you have to realize that a double-middle click has to be one of the the most unintuitive things for them. I personally wouldn't have a problem with it, but I'd still rather do everything in a single window. I do PC support and I've seen people who have used windows for YEARS and don't know that you can right-click and get helpful context menus just about everywhere. And don't even try to get them to do a right-click & drag, ha! It's the same reason Apple still ships single-button mice with their computers to this day!
As far as key combinations go, how many regular (non power users) use 3 key combinations? I've seen secretaries that only know 2 combinations in windows/office - ctrl-c and ctrl-v (which is very interesting, since nearly all windows applications list the shortcut keys next to the choice on the menus!). Also, if you have a keyboard with the windows & application keys ( and most PC users do), there's a good number of 2 key combos you can do with it yet regular users never even touch that key. It's the same deal.
Browser mode folder windows violate these rules by replacing physical object (folder, represented on screen by a window) contents with new set of icons every time the user opens a new folder, and not retaining folders' state (view mode, sort order, icon placement).
Say what? My icons don't change everytime - Windows or KDE. I'm really not sure what he's getting at here.
This is pretty much opinion though: You may like your icons in every folder to stay where you put it. I prefer them to always be sorted in alphabetical order. If I reshuffle them, I want them auto sorted back to alphabetical order when I reopen the folder. Especially since I have a lot of crap (more than one screenfull) and it's much easier to find alphabetized. I alphabetize my file cabinet, after all! (How's that for your real life analogy?) The exception is my desktop, where icons should stay where I place them (so I can see that nice wallpaper I put up).
Sometimes they even abuse the physical metaphor of tabbed browsing by opening multiple pages - not subpages of the same web site! - in multiple tabs of a browser window. I even know few people who never open more than one browser window, viewing all pages in tabs; I hope they do not try to glue a daily set of newspapers together before reading them...
I personally see nothing wrong with opening multiple pages in tabs. A person that has to put up with limited desktop resolution looks at tabs as a god send allowing you to only have to keep one window open and no minimize/maximize between windows. When I read/. I open the articles in another tab so that I can go back and forth (cut & paste) like I'm doing now.
It's really hard to use a spatial file browser if someone keeps his or her files in a ten-folder-deep structure. Browser-mode file browsers hide the lack of thought and organisation in the filesystem structure; spatial ones do not. Folder structure should be simple and as shallow as possible, and the "master" folders (something like My Images or My Music folders known from Windows) should have their own shortcuts on a GNOME panel, so that playing your favourite song would only require opening My Music from the panel, opening the appriopriate album folder and double-clicking a file icon, instead of browsing straight from the home directory (or, worse, the root one) through several levels of subfolders.
While I agree that ten folders is too deep, just because someone keeps a folder stucture deeper than say three levels doesn't mean it's not organized or a lack of thought. Come see my anal retentive layout of the files and you'll see what I mean. I tend to categorize and then sub-categorize such that it's not uncommon for me to reach 4-5 folders deep.
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Well, I'll definitely give you the more versatile part. But, I want something quiet (there's enough noise in the computer room as it is!) and this router does use less power than the typical PC... well I suppose if I used a P233MMX system as a router it wouldn't be that bad on power, but used parts, meh, bad luck lately with used stuff. At least with a NEW network appliance I'm (in theory) getting a higher reliability device.
Plus, I've already purchased it. :P
... since my router started randomly reloading a few days ago. I wonder if Cisco will release a patched version of the IOS that's free, cause I cannot afford the "cisco tax". I bought that router while I was a student ( and in the cisco academy program ) to practice with the IOS. I had been using the router for my cable connection since then. But, if I cannot get a free update I'll be going to get one of those inexpensive linksys or netgear routers for my home connection now.
Yay, I now have a $500 cisco paper weight.
Well, that's why I bought a used Mac. This way I didn't have to fork out quite so much cash and still have OS X. ;)
It's definitely no worse than Windows, and it certainly has yet to really be targeted by viruses & worms.
So for now, it's cool. OS X on my Mac, Linux/WinXP dual boot on my PC. And my webserver runs strickly Linux.
Yes, but would you want to upload pictures (stego or not) that are going to be modified by Flickr? If you are using Flickr as a backup and they modify the files, it is not exactly a great backup idea. I like my files to stay the away I uploaded them, and I am sure you would, too.
How much denial is there here?
How much bullshit are you about to spout here?
It configured everything automatically except the sound, which I had to tweak some config files for (no worse than when I've had sound problems in Windows).
I don't know what former soviet bloc you got your sound hardware from, but just about every sound card / sound device works just fine out of the box on windows.
Bzzt! If your sound hardware was produced AFTER the release date of Windows XP (meaning Soundcard XYZ didn't even exist when MS was accepting drivers for Windows XP from OEMs), chances are you'll be loading the driver from the CD that came with your sound card... A minor technicality, but one I felt I needed to express.
The only reason I had to do cliched Linux stuff like recompiling the kernel was to get my Orinoco card working in monitor mode. Desktop users don't care about that, only people who want to run WiFi hacking utilities.
Right - desktop users don't care bout Wi-Fi. Gimme a freakin break...
No, give me a freaking break... You didn't even correctly read what he wrote! If you don't care about using Wi-Fi hacking utilities, then you don't need to recompile the kernel. Good grief - pay attention!
Keeping the system up to date is actually easier than Windows, since I can run a single apt-get and upgrade everything (OS components + apps) to the current version.
As opposed to automatic download and installs for windows updates which happen without any user interaction at all?
Oh, I'll give you that Automatic Updates on Windows is extremely easy... unfortunately it's that same service that I got burned on when the lastest rollup package for SP4 borked my 2000 Server... and no I don't have another identical server to test stuff on (It's a hobby site, after all). One very NICE thing about linux is that I can stick in, say Knoppix, and repair my system when it's not bootable. For free. Wanna do that with an NT/2K/XP/2K3 box? Go buy a commercial app so you can access those NTFS disks from something other than Windows.
There are definitely some gaps in terms of things like no Photoshop on Linux, but the OS itself is fine for desktop use now IMO.
And Excel, and Outlook/Exchange and games and well supported drivers and about 1000 other apps that you can't get on Linux.
While not an easy solution, there is WINE, which allows quite a few apps to work acceptably. No well supported drivers? Only if you pick generic/crappy hardware with companies that are barely on the map. Matter of fact, build a system using an Nforce based motherboard and an Nvidia graphics card, and you'll have a completely working system. I've thrown various flavors of Linux on off the wall hardware combinations and almost always come up with a working solution. And while commercial games may be limited, I've got Neverwinter Nights and UT 2004 on my Linux box right now. Hmm, some older games I have for linux: Sim City 3000 Unlimited, Quake 3 Arena, and Terminus (had a linux version on the CDs).
On the flipside - just about everything userland app on Linux is available on windows - Cygwin anyone? Emacs... VNC... etc... You're telling me that the KERNEL is enough to get people to switch and give up all of that software? Uh-huh... What color is the sky in your universe?
Cygwin is good, I'll give you that. However, there are several OSS apps on Windows that I have never had work properly. Keep in mind here, I'm talking about OSS apps outside of Cygwin here. For example, WAMP (Windows + Apache + MySQL + PHP) has been a pain for me, because PHP has never worked for me on Windows. MySQL and Apache are great, but PHP on Windows has always eluded me and I gave up. I can get it to work on Linux with no problems. I got Perl working on Windows, but it was kinda wierd.
Not entirely gone... just more or less an underground community now. There's several old BBS software packages that have been ported from their x86 DOS versions into Win32 and Linux versions and run via telnet (and soon ssh). I happen to run Synchronet BBS software (which is open source) for my BBS, which I started a little over two years ago because I had always wanted to run one when I was a kid, logging into everyone else's systems (via 2400 baud).
You can find the Synchronet BBS packages at http://www.synchro.net
See, the cool thing is that old BBS software is adding in newer technologies and becoming more "modern" while keeping the good old terminal around, too. For instance, Synchronet has (in addition to ye old telnet & console) it's own built in web, mail, irc, and news services -- to name a few.
Yeah, no shit... I've got a Windows 2000 server here that I cannot fully patch, there's a particular patch that upon installation and reboot I get a blue screen of death halfway in the boot process. As such, I cannot install that patch. Firewall on the server plus ACLs on the router plus cross my fingers! heh.
It could be a hardware driver... problem is this machine is well... dated. Yet not that dated... It was common server hardware when Windows 2000 was released. I have the latest drivers I could find for the system. Just of the hell of it, I "acquired" a Server 2003 CD and tried to boot off of it. It locks up halfway through loading drivers... (blech!)
(FYI, it's an Intel server motherboard w/ 2x PIII 600E slot 1 procs. Has built in adaptec scsi w/ optional raidportIII addon card and I'm using the RAID5 functionality.)And I have been pleased with the service. I previously had Time Warner's Road Runner service but switched to Earthlink because Road Runner kept adding "free services" onto our monthly service (like free access to Nascar's site) yet the monthly rate went up once they added a few more "freebies". Right. If I had cared about the "freebies" I might have stayed and justified the monthly price, but I just don't care about the extras they are providing. I just want internet access! So, I am down to paying $41.95/month for Earthlink vs. Road Runner's $54.95/month! That's a savings of $13/month and $156/year! The quality of service hasn't gone down and I'm paying less! Satisfied Earthlink customer.
That or if you just hate playing on consoles. Keyboard + mouse 4-ever! I hate console controllers. Trying to play Pariah on Xbox with those controllers vs having a mouse and keyboard and playing it on my PC is worlds different. I'm 10x better with a mouse than a thumbstick when it comes to aiming.
exactly which app is that screen shot from? I gotta know! :)
You are correct that you can mount an NTFS partition as a directory... AFTER you've installed the OS. What the parent was getting at is that the OS itself can be distributed over multiple partitions and during the install. I suppose you could make a new partition and copy the entire Program Files directory over to it, then remount that NTFS partition as C:\Program Files, but that's just annoying.
The point is that for Windows to have the equivalent functionality, you'd have to create x number of partitions that you're going to use (not a problem) and then have the installer ask you which directories they should be mounted on, i.e. C:\Windows, C:\Program Files, etc... (*bzzzt* can't do that during the install... maybe in a future version of Windows Server?) and then the installer would go about copying files and setting up Windows.
... *grabs laptop and dashes out the door* I only live 20 minutes from Dayton so this is definitely a Good Thing. I will be trying this out next time I'm in Dayton (probably tomorrow).
My first linux distro was Red Hat 5.0, and I stayed a Red Hat user all the way until RHL9.
I tried FC1 when it came out, and I'm sorry to say it but the overall quality of the distro went down -- it's definitely beta quality (I don't care what you FC supporters say, I saw too many "stupid" bugs that just shouldn't have been there... mostly apps under KDE/Gnome. And patches were slow for the bugs I wanted fixed.) We had a production quality OS under RHL.
I had been learning Slackware for a while at the point FC1 came out so I jumped to Slackware. However, seeing as I had missed having a nicely automated package manager (yes, depenencies suck, but I did miss RPM believe it or not) so when Gentoo became popular and I heard about Portage, I jumped to Gentoo. Today I'm a happy Gentoo user.
Well actually you only need to uncheck the top two. Disabling or replacing context menus is a pet peeve so I uncheck that one too. (I should have proof read before hitting submit).
Well, here is what I do in Firefox. I haven't received any pop-ups (yet). In the options dialog, under "Web Features" you'll find that on the far right across from the "Enable Javascript" checkbox is a button that says, "Advanced."
"Allow scripts to: " (remove check marks next to the following)
- "Move or resize existing windows"
- "Raise or lower windows"
- "Disable or replace context menus"
I also uncheck "Hide the status bar" but that's a personal preference.After unchecking those along with having the pop-up blocker enabled I no longer get any pop-ups. And I really don't see unchecking those having any profound viewability problems on the web. If a site needs to resize your window, it's usually because they want to open a pop-up along side it. :P Same goes for raising/lowering too.
You do know that you can do a stage 3 install & use prebuilt packages these days, don't you? You only have to compile the kernel. Later when you update/upgrade the system you can compile the components being upgraded/updated. Let's face it: even though many of us linux geeks like to compile stuff from scratch (stage 1 baby!) Portage is really damn cool. You've got a huge repository of packages from which to choose. All of which are just an emerge away! ;) Pretty painless management as I've experienced it.
Oh and while I'm on it, Gentoo is already working on a GUI frontend for installation. That will make the stage 3 w/ prebuilt packages install quite painless.
No lie there! When I turn on my Athlon XP 3000+ system, this room's temperature rises 5 degrees F.
Actually, you'll have less space (on your desk!). ;) Though, I agree that having an extra monitor is great. OTOH, if you happen to use LCD flat panels instead of monitors, then it's not entirely a feasible option!
I, too, prefer a good Logitech over pretty much every other mouse on the planet. ;)
This guy needs moded interesting!
As a side note: I do like "warm" tube amps for certain circumstances. Like my Marshall tube amp of course, which in combination with my Ibanez guitar and a couple DiMarzio pickups sounds really sweet. :)
All your Linux are belong to us!
Better yet, why not just run a real, modern 32bit BBS? There are both *nix and windows versions and it's opensource ;) Plus, it uses the mozilla team's javascript engine, so you can write your own modules to extend the functionality quickly (the IRC service included with synchronet is written in javascript). I'm currently writing a new command shell for my BBS using JS. And of course, Synchronet runs nearly all of the old 16bit DOS doors (easier to achieve on Windows but not impossible on *nix using a dos emulator). I run LORD, Trade Wars, Clans, and other older games on my BBS that are (interestingly) still popular (over 150 user accounts and climbing - not bad for a new BBS started a year ago in the post-BBS era!)
OK, slightly OT, but we're still talking UI design. Since you brought up windows:
Now, MS does keep some things in weird places, but "preferences dialog", better known as "folder options" (and has been called this in every version since 95 & NT4) is actually not that hard to find. NT4/95/98 all keep "Folder Options" under the "View" menu on any folder window including Network Neighborhood, My Computer, and even Control Panel. You can find it pretty much everywhere. For 2000,XP, and ME, they moved the "Folder Options" to the new "Tools" menu, which was added for Internet explorer 5 and up.
A couple of Microsoft bashes though: I do think that "Folder Options" makes more sense under the "View" menu. Also, For 95/98/NT4, you could find "Folder Options" on the start menu under "settings" which I also thought that made sense but MS removed that from XP/2000/ME, taking step backwards again.
I learned to group windows by its UI and the IE version it shipped with for support reasons (phone support -ain't it fun?). Ever since IE was integrated into Windows, you see little quirks as to the location of certain dialogs based on changes made to IE. Here's how I classify Windows:
OK, can we get any further from easy to use than that? If Gnome is aiming to make their desktop easy to use for the novice (i.e. Windows users) you have to realize that a double-middle click has to be one of the the most unintuitive things for them. I personally wouldn't have a problem with it, but I'd still rather do everything in a single window. I do PC support and I've seen people who have used windows for YEARS and don't know that you can right-click and get helpful context menus just about everywhere. And don't even try to get them to do a right-click & drag, ha! It's the same reason Apple still ships single-button mice with their computers to this day!
As far as key combinations go, how many regular (non power users) use 3 key combinations? I've seen secretaries that only know 2 combinations in windows/office - ctrl-c and ctrl-v (which is very interesting, since nearly all windows applications list the shortcut keys next to the choice on the menus!). Also, if you have a keyboard with the windows & application keys ( and most PC users do), there's a good number of 2 key combos you can do with it yet regular users never even touch that key. It's the same deal.
Say what? My icons don't change everytime - Windows or KDE. I'm really not sure what he's getting at here.
This is pretty much opinion though: You may like your icons in every folder to stay where you put it. I prefer them to always be sorted in alphabetical order. If I reshuffle them, I want them auto sorted back to alphabetical order when I reopen the folder. Especially since I have a lot of crap (more than one screenfull) and it's much easier to find alphabetized. I alphabetize my file cabinet, after all! (How's that for your real life analogy?) The exception is my desktop, where icons should stay where I place them (so I can see that nice wallpaper I put up).
I personally see nothing wrong with opening multiple pages in tabs. A person that has to put up with limited desktop resolution looks at tabs as a god send allowing you to only have to keep one window open and no minimize/maximize between windows. When I read /. I open the articles in another tab so that I can go back and forth (cut & paste) like I'm doing now.
While I agree that ten folders is too deep, just because someone keeps a folder stucture deeper than say three levels doesn't mean it's not organized or a lack of thought. Come see my anal retentive layout of the files and you'll see what I mean. I tend to categorize and then sub-categorize such that it's not uncommon for me to reach 4-5 folders deep.