I can agree with this, also Tech Support for classmates at school.
I have a 500 MHz Pentium 3 running Windows 98 SE, and my dad (and mom recently) uses Outlook to retrieve his email. Now it's bad enough that we have a PPPoE dialer that requires a certain delay before the regular dial-up networking will work--so I have to explain to connect separately. Then, since Outlook stores half of its settings in the registry, half in one settings file, half under user profiles, and half up its ass, I have to on occasion spend hours logging in and out and in and out changing each user's settings separately.
And I must have pissed off the computer gods, because every time Outlook stops working, it's at 11PM on a school night and my dad is sure it's my problem. Recently he hasn't woken me up late at night to fix problems, but then he says "Oh, Outlook wasn't working last night, can you fix it?" So I log in and it works-"Dad, it works--did you do anything differently?" "No, I dunno..." Luckily it doesn't recur over and over, just once in a while.
Then there's my Mom. She's your typical anti-geek:
She cowers and asks "What did you do?!?" when you minimize her work.
She refers to Internet Explorer's icon as "the E," when she uses it at work, but can't figure out whether to click the "E" icon labeled "Internet" or the Dial-Up Networking shortcut labeled "Connect to Internet."
Well it was Flamebait to some M1 and I M2'ed that M1 Unfair! Your post was Informative even though it [gasp]praised Windows!
The layered model is a lot better than a bunch of functions. When I write just simple programs that have many different interfaces (like a SMSAIM gateway in perl) I find it a lot easier to divide things up into separate parts that interact with specific things. Like all the AIM code was named (I didn't go very far, but it was organized) starting with aim_, and when the command-processing part (cmd_) wanted to send a message received by the email-processing part (pop3_) over AIM, it called aim_send_msg instead of directly calling the AIM connection object.
Sorry the post's a little offtopic, but I'm agreeing with what you said.
I keep a colony of dust bunnies inside my tower case. It was a $99 upgrade when we bought it, but I figure it'll sell for about $437.24 on eBay now--they're growing pretty big!
Oh, you're not the first one to say that... just hope the mods don't find this offtopic (probably is). It's too bad, it also converts all other HTML (DIV for example) into tables so you can't mess around with stuff. Oh well...
--Tom
He's nuts, he couldn't have written this, he's a clone,::insert jokes:: mod +1 Funny
Well I dunno, this sounds *pretty* lame.
Speed: This claim sounds pretty preposterous. The only things I can think of are KeepAlive (only works sometimes) and caching pages ahead of time. Maybe it constantly keeps connecting to the server so when you click a link it doesn't have to connect. Maybe it uses some form of ranking to figure out what links to download first. I don't have a clue how it works, but it sounds pretty amazing and/or fake. I would like a copy if it works though;D.
Media Players: Sure, I can include the installation files too. But built-in?!? Again, it sounds pretty nice, but I don't think that Real, Apple (QuickTime), or Microsoft (Windows Media) would be pretty open to a 16?-year-old hacking/borrowing their code to make a browser that can view their media format, without their choice of spyware installed.
For most people the only metadata they ever consider is the name of a file, and this is often poorly named.
I understand it perfectly, from my cousin telling me "I can't find that convo right now, I just ran my hand across the keyboard to make a file name." or my brother using "int eqw;" as a loop counter (no purposeful meaning). I have had the same problem, because I have a Win98 box and depending on who's logged on (I'm inevitably too lasy to change users, and the box has about this 0 much RAM) My Documents is not always my documents. Thus I end up saving files in the root of C: (cat/dev/slashdot/resulting/flames |/dev/null)
Forcing me to enter metadata, or at least making it easier (like Word has an option to pop up the File Summary box before you save) makes life easier for me. I often have the problem that I give a file a good name but then can't remember it. I have tried organizing all my stuff into tons of folders, but I end up getting tired of double-clicking 5 times to get to stuff about my science project, for example. Also, one flaw with any Category system (like Palm OS's address book) is that sometimes things fall into two or more categories. I would simply like a metadata system with customizable fields, so I can specify a Subject field for school things but specify a Project field for programming notes, etc... Also the ability to have categories and add/remove things from each.
Then an interface that lets me look through the stuff by categories/fields, and uses sort of a "sort by what it is!" idea to sort them, i.e. recent things first, but give me the ability to change the priority of stuff, so I can write something important and find it six months later, or jot down a website URL and not have it get in my way looking for other stuff.
You have a good point. Your post is a little troll, but it's very true. If someone's addicted to a computer game, it's their problem. If Sony programmed rewards that only showed up for a character after 72 hours of continuous playing time, that would be trying to addict/harm people. I haven't played it, but I've played other similar games--I'm not really interested in them...
But I do think a "sleep" system could help. Sony has had to deal with at least one suicide from an addict, and they should try to help people not get addicted.
A chess network that a friend of mine uses tells you the percentage of your life (since you signed up) that you have spent on it. Perhaps something like this, weighted from short and long term, so if you play for a week straight after you get it it stops you, but as you play for longer times it kicks you off or stops you after a shorter length of time. Perhaps an average of the week, month, and all playing time.
I know, where you visit a site and like on Yahoo! mail, you point to check mail and it says javascript:checkmail() arghhhhhhhhh!! it's annoying, cuz sometimes i wanna open in a new window, *with* a scrollbar, toolbar, address bar, and resizing!
This sounds sorta like when my cousin used Expage (it's crap--it changes all occurences of SRC to --- so you can't use other ppl's images, but a bit of javascript [irony] fixed that) to make a page, and he put a form to "sign up" with a username and password... i asked him where they will go, he said "i dunno, i'll figure it out later".
Sounds great! I am considering buying one myself for Christmas this year, putting a better distro on it, setting up a router on my DSL connection and running an Apache web server.
Finally, Walmart does something smart in their electronics department!
Well, this was gonna be first post, but by the time I typed it there were at least 15 posts =\ too many damn slashdotters;) j/k slashdot ROCKS!
Ya got a point there! It doesn't do anything except walk around. I've always wanted a Lego robot that can walk around, find people, and shoot Nerf darts at them. I heard of someone who actually used a Lego robot to defend his office supplies in his cubicle;)
A smaller, better, more useful robot would be one of these. My parents might still pay me for doing it--beep beep done! Yay.
Because detecting changes in frequency is simple, but radio is harder to tell; also, internet radio is buffered, so by the time you hear it degrading, the action you did 10 seconds ago when it was working well are severly degraded by the time they get there. I would counter that hearing a frequency change indicate how fast and responsive the network is working is better than listening to music--people have different senses of how good music is. I usually listen to pretty crappy MP3 files (64 KBPs, usually) so I don't really mind much unless the player really brings out the high static noise. But I can easily hear frequencies, just like everyone!
1. Figure out misuse simple pattern of comments on Slashdot that get modded up 2. Tell poster that they copied the overused pattern where it doesn't apply. 3. ???
Oh, I wasn't suggesting that you could link a GameCube game to a GBA game playing on a GameCube--that obviously wouldn't work since it would be emulating a GBA while running another game.
It is obvious. If you are using the piece of hardware mentioned in the article, it has a disc which simply has the software to do what the hardware needs, i.e. controller, screen, etc... connections. But if you use, for example, one of their Pokemon games that interfaces with a Gameboy game to use part of your game save, the GameCube and GBA games both have code written in to allow them to talk to each other.
Yes, exactly. They need to be able to charge money for WiFi/802.11b/whatever access. Now that I think about it, a group of providers could create a nice pile of hotspots in metropolitan areas, and we can have Richchet-style 802.11b access. This would be awesome, and probably dirt cheap for the providers! My reply to a reply to the parent of the parent (=D no need to click [Parent] anymore! =D) explains how manufacturers won't sell phones that lose them money, and doing it this way would be good--but manufacturers might be iffy at creating phones that can limit which 802.11b networks a phone can use.
Now I'm feeling pretty pathetic with my TDMA cingular phone =( Oh well, I'm only 13, I'll live...;D
Mobile phone manufacturers make phones for the customer, but if a phone company knows a phone has features on it that they could run over the network (i.e. net access, if it can be done w/o the cell ntwk then they lose money), then they won't get as much money and they will sell another phone. Many phone service companies only sell a few (cingular has 5-6 in the store I went to) models of phones that cover a nice range of manufacturers (an Ericsson, a couple Motorolas, and a few Nokias [I have a Motorola 120t]) and make a good scale of low- to high-end. But like I said, if it lets people use the net w/o their network, it will be a while before they can afford to lose the business. The people who have the money/geekiness to use the wireless web enough to make them money are also the people who would spend money on a phone like this--so it takes away their best customers!
A phone that can use other networks like 802.11b, Bluetooth, etc... which won't earn them money, or...
A phone that *always* uses their network and as such will *always* earn them money for your traffic.
Personally, I agree with your point but I know myself that #2 will probably happen. I would love a PDA, especially, that can roam between Wired Ethernet, Bluetooth, 802.11b, GPRS, CDPD, etc... to get the best connection. But it's just not in the best interest of the service providers. Oh well.
Yeah, it's cool! The thing that I see that sets it apart from the RadioShack models is the ability to scan for an open frequency and transmit. That's FREAKING AWESOME!
How is that wrong? Taxes take away money. Usually it's "Just my $0.02", so he said "Just my $0.005 (danged taxes)." because he had to pay money. Profit - expense (such as taxes) = net profit, for example, $0.02 - $0.015 = $0.005.
I think part of it is that Bluetooth simply allows devices to exchange data and files. However, standards for particular devices (like USB has a disk-drive protocol and Firewire has a DV protocol) such as cell phones have not been created.
If they ever do, you could have one device with a nice juicy screen, headphones, LED alerts, ringer, etc... that can arbitrate all your sensory input for you;D so you can surf the web and listen to MP3's, and this one device will control your others. It would have a menu screen that lists the devices you have, and you can select them to control them. A split-screen mode would allow you to split the screen (duh) between a cell phone browser and mp3 player controls, or a TV guide app on the PDA part and a universal remote.
Then you would have an alerts screen, and each device could register alerts. There would be another step between an event and an action--you would define actions as alerts and then link them to events, so you can program an email on your PDA and a voicemail on your cell phone to have the same sound. Modes, programmable with days of the week and times (also manually) will let you tell everything to pipe down while you're at work, but turn back up outside on the way home; an option in the Date Book of the PDA part would have a "Set my alert mode to:" check/list box.
Then, an Audio setting would allow you to change the order of preference in which your devices' audio can be heard. This is like what was said, that your MP3 player would pause (please not just mute, that's dumb!) when your phone rang, and turn back on when you're done. Web pages with audio (gag yuck pukey) would have an even lower preference so they don't interrupt your good music.
This could probably be put into a Treo or maybe another Palm OS device, but the point of this would be to drop the hardware problems with convergence by allowing you to fling your cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, and other toys in your backpack while using one, not-too-powerful but well-designed box to control everything.
I know this has gone a little off-topic, but it's related to Bluetooth because you need wireless networking to do it.
You have an excellent point there--even if her computer exploded, you could (as they say on PBS) go to your local public library and use a computer there to check your email. She could have done that too...
Then again, it's fucked up for the ISP to deny her access because *they* made a mistake. Simply said, they *shouldn't* make mistakes.
Well, AOL still ends up charging people for accounts 12+ months after they cancel them (read: not cancelling them and hoping they decide to "resubscribe" soon)--i cancelled AOL 2 weeks ago, and the account's officially gone as of thursday--now let's see if they stop charging!
Slashdot Mirror
What is the biggest hurdle, in your opinion, for Linux to be on everyone's desktop?
I can agree with this, also Tech Support for classmates at school.
I have a 500 MHz Pentium 3 running Windows 98 SE, and my dad (and mom recently) uses Outlook to retrieve his email. Now it's bad enough that we have a PPPoE dialer that requires a certain delay before the regular dial-up networking will work--so I have to explain to connect separately. Then, since Outlook stores half of its settings in the registry, half in one settings file, half under user profiles, and half up its ass, I have to on occasion spend hours logging in and out and in and out changing each user's settings separately.
And I must have pissed off the computer gods, because every time Outlook stops working, it's at 11PM on a school night and my dad is sure it's my problem. Recently he hasn't woken me up late at night to fix problems, but then he says "Oh, Outlook wasn't working last night, can you fix it?" So I log in and it works-"Dad, it works--did you do anything differently?" "No, I dunno..." Luckily it doesn't recur over and over, just once in a while.
Then there's my Mom. She's your typical anti-geek:
- She cowers and asks "What did you do?!?" when you minimize her work.
- She refers to Internet Explorer's icon as "the E," when she uses it at work, but can't figure out whether to click the "E" icon labeled "Internet" or the Dial-Up Networking shortcut labeled "Connect to Internet."
And so on...Well it was Flamebait to some M1 and I M2'ed that M1 Unfair! Your post was Informative even though it [gasp] praised Windows!
The layered model is a lot better than a bunch of functions. When I write just simple programs that have many different interfaces (like a SMSAIM gateway in perl) I find it a lot easier to divide things up into separate parts that interact with specific things. Like all the AIM code was named (I didn't go very far, but it was organized) starting with aim_, and when the command-processing part (cmd_) wanted to send a message received by the email-processing part (pop3_) over AIM, it called aim_send_msg instead of directly calling the AIM connection object.
Sorry the post's a little offtopic, but I'm agreeing with what you said.
I keep a colony of dust bunnies inside my tower case. It was a $99 upgrade when we bought it, but I figure it'll sell for about $437.24 on eBay now--they're growing pretty big!
Oh, you're not the first one to say that... just hope the mods don't find this offtopic (probably is). It's too bad, it also converts all other HTML (DIV for example) into tables so you can't mess around with stuff. Oh well... --Tom
He's nuts, he couldn't have written this, he's a clone, ::insert jokes:: mod +1 Funny
Well I dunno, this sounds *pretty* lame.
Speed: This claim sounds pretty preposterous. The only things I can think of are KeepAlive (only works sometimes) and caching pages ahead of time. Maybe it constantly keeps connecting to the server so when you click a link it doesn't have to connect. Maybe it uses some form of ranking to figure out what links to download first. I don't have a clue how it works, but it sounds pretty amazing and/or fake. I would like a copy if it works though ;D.
Media Players: Sure, I can include the installation files too. But built-in?!? Again, it sounds pretty nice, but I don't think that Real, Apple (QuickTime), or Microsoft (Windows Media) would be pretty open to a 16?-year-old hacking/borrowing their code to make a browser that can view their media format, without their choice of spyware installed.
I wonder if the writer surfs slashdot?
--Tom
I understand it perfectly, from my cousin telling me "I can't find that convo right now, I just ran my hand across the keyboard to make a file name." or my brother using "int eqw;" as a loop counter (no purposeful meaning). I have had the same problem, because I have a Win98 box and depending on who's logged on (I'm inevitably too lasy to change users, and the box has about this 0 much RAM) My Documents is not always my documents. Thus I end up saving files in the root of C: (cat /dev/slashdot/resulting/flames | /dev/null)
Forcing me to enter metadata, or at least making it easier (like Word has an option to pop up the File Summary box before you save) makes life easier for me. I often have the problem that I give a file a good name but then can't remember it. I have tried organizing all my stuff into tons of folders, but I end up getting tired of double-clicking 5 times to get to stuff about my science project, for example. Also, one flaw with any Category system (like Palm OS's address book) is that sometimes things fall into two or more categories. I would simply like a metadata system with customizable fields, so I can specify a Subject field for school things but specify a Project field for programming notes, etc... Also the ability to have categories and add/remove things from each.
Then an interface that lets me look through the stuff by categories/fields, and uses sort of a "sort by what it is!" idea to sort them, i.e. recent things first, but give me the ability to change the priority of stuff, so I can write something important and find it six months later, or jot down a website URL and not have it get in my way looking for other stuff.
Just my two cents...
You have a good point. Your post is a little troll, but it's very true. If someone's addicted to a computer game, it's their problem. If Sony programmed rewards that only showed up for a character after 72 hours of continuous playing time, that would be trying to addict/harm people. I haven't played it, but I've played other similar games--I'm not really interested in them...
But I do think a "sleep" system could help. Sony has had to deal with at least one suicide from an addict, and they should try to help people not get addicted.
A chess network that a friend of mine uses tells you the percentage of your life (since you signed up) that you have spent on it. Perhaps something like this, weighted from short and long term, so if you play for a week straight after you get it it stops you, but as you play for longer times it kicks you off or stops you after a shorter length of time. Perhaps an average of the week, month, and all playing time.
Just my $0.02
I know, where you visit a site and like on Yahoo! mail, you point to check mail and it says javascript:checkmail() arghhhhhhhhh!! it's annoying, cuz sometimes i wanna open in a new window, *with* a scrollbar, toolbar, address bar, and resizing!
This sounds sorta like when my cousin used Expage (it's crap--it changes all occurences of SRC to --- so you can't use other ppl's images, but a bit of javascript [irony] fixed that) to make a page, and he put a form to "sign up" with a username and password... i asked him where they will go, he said "i dunno, i'll figure it out later".
Sounds great! I am considering buying one myself for Christmas this year, putting a better distro on it, setting up a router on my DSL connection and running an Apache web server.
Finally, Walmart does something smart in their electronics department!
Well, this was gonna be first post, but by the time I typed it there were at least 15 posts =\ too many damn slashdotters ;) j/k slashdot ROCKS!
Ya got a point there! It doesn't do anything except walk around. I've always wanted a Lego robot that can walk around, find people, and shoot Nerf darts at them. I heard of someone who actually used a Lego robot to defend his office supplies in his cubicle ;)
A smaller, better, more useful robot would be one of these. My parents might still pay me for doing it--beep beep done! Yay.
Because detecting changes in frequency is simple, but radio is harder to tell; also, internet radio is buffered, so by the time you hear it degrading, the action you did 10 seconds ago when it was working well are severly degraded by the time they get there. I would counter that hearing a frequency change indicate how fast and responsive the network is working is better than listening to music--people have different senses of how good music is. I usually listen to pretty crappy MP3 files (64 KBPs, usually) so I don't really mind much unless the player really brings out the high static noise. But I can easily hear frequencies, just like everyone!
1. Figure out misuse simple pattern of comments on Slashdot that get modded up
2. Tell poster that they copied the overused pattern where it doesn't apply.
3. ???
It's a long-standing joke, relax!
1. Create computer 2. ??? 3. PROFIT!!!!!!!
Oh, I wasn't suggesting that you could link a GameCube game to a GBA game playing on a GameCube--that obviously wouldn't work since it would be emulating a GBA while running another game.
It is obvious. If you are using the piece of hardware mentioned in the article, it has a disc which simply has the software to do what the hardware needs, i.e. controller, screen, etc... connections. But if you use, for example, one of their Pokemon games that interfaces with a Gameboy game to use part of your game save, the GameCube and GBA games both have code written in to allow them to talk to each other.
Yes, exactly. They need to be able to charge money for WiFi/802.11b/whatever access. Now that I think about it, a group of providers could create a nice pile of hotspots in metropolitan areas, and we can have Richchet-style 802.11b access. This would be awesome, and probably dirt cheap for the providers! My reply to a reply to the parent of the parent (=D no need to click [Parent] anymore! =D) explains how manufacturers won't sell phones that lose them money, and doing it this way would be good--but manufacturers might be iffy at creating phones that can limit which 802.11b networks a phone can use.
Now I'm feeling pretty pathetic with my TDMA cingular phone =( Oh well, I'm only 13, I'll live... ;D
Mobile phone manufacturers make phones for the customer, but if a phone company knows a phone has features on it that they could run over the network (i.e. net access, if it can be done w/o the cell ntwk then they lose money), then they won't get as much money and they will sell another phone. Many phone service companies only sell a few (cingular has 5-6 in the store I went to) models of phones that cover a nice range of manufacturers (an Ericsson, a couple Motorolas, and a few Nokias [I have a Motorola 120t]) and make a good scale of low- to high-end. But like I said, if it lets people use the net w/o their network, it will be a while before they can afford to lose the business. The people who have the money/geekiness to use the wireless web enough to make them money are also the people who would spend money on a phone like this--so it takes away their best customers!
That is a good idea but consider this:
Which does a service provider make more money on?
Personally, I agree with your point but I know myself that #2 will probably happen. I would love a PDA, especially, that can roam between Wired Ethernet, Bluetooth, 802.11b, GPRS, CDPD, etc... to get the best connection. But it's just not in the best interest of the service providers. Oh well.
Yeah, it's cool! The thing that I see that sets it apart from the RadioShack models is the ability to scan for an open frequency and transmit. That's FREAKING AWESOME!
"Just my $0.005 (danged taxes)."
How is that wrong? Taxes take away money. Usually it's "Just my $0.02", so he said "Just my $0.005 (danged taxes)." because he had to pay money. Profit - expense (such as taxes) = net profit, for example, $0.02 - $0.015 = $0.005.
Take 1st grade math again.
No, he meant that he only has $0.005 because he paid the other $0.015 in taxes. If he had said "inflation", then $0.05 would be right.
Have a nice Trolly day,
Tom
I think part of it is that Bluetooth simply allows devices to exchange data and files. However, standards for particular devices (like USB has a disk-drive protocol and Firewire has a DV protocol) such as cell phones have not been created.
If they ever do, you could have one device with a nice juicy screen, headphones, LED alerts, ringer, etc... that can arbitrate all your sensory input for you ;D so you can surf the web and listen to MP3's, and this one device will control your others. It would have a menu screen that lists the devices you have, and you can select them to control them. A split-screen mode would allow you to split the screen (duh) between a cell phone browser and mp3 player controls, or a TV guide app on the PDA part and a universal remote.
Then you would have an alerts screen, and each device could register alerts. There would be another step between an event and an action--you would define actions as alerts and then link them to events, so you can program an email on your PDA and a voicemail on your cell phone to have the same sound. Modes, programmable with days of the week and times (also manually) will let you tell everything to pipe down while you're at work, but turn back up outside on the way home; an option in the Date Book of the PDA part would have a "Set my alert mode to:" check/list box.
Then, an Audio setting would allow you to change the order of preference in which your devices' audio can be heard. This is like what was said, that your MP3 player would pause (please not just mute, that's dumb!) when your phone rang, and turn back on when you're done. Web pages with audio (gag yuck pukey) would have an even lower preference so they don't interrupt your good music.
This could probably be put into a Treo or maybe another Palm OS device, but the point of this would be to drop the hardware problems with convergence by allowing you to fling your cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, and other toys in your backpack while using one, not-too-powerful but well-designed box to control everything.
I know this has gone a little off-topic, but it's related to Bluetooth because you need wireless networking to do it.
See ya,
Tom
You have an excellent point there--even if her computer exploded, you could (as they say on PBS) go to your local public library and use a computer there to check your email. She could have done that too...
Then again, it's fucked up for the ISP to deny her access because *they* made a mistake. Simply said, they *shouldn't* make mistakes.
Well, AOL still ends up charging people for accounts 12+ months after they cancel them (read: not cancelling them and hoping they decide to "resubscribe" soon)--i cancelled AOL 2 weeks ago, and the account's officially gone as of thursday--now let's see if they stop charging!
Oh shut up... It's not censorship, you can read at -1, just set it in Preferences.