We're talking average consumer though, not the 'status symbol' brigade. People who have a smallish budget and just want a PC (they might not have one already or have had theirs for years).
People with slow Win98 boxes will find a PC with an AMD, 256-512MB RAM runs well, it'll do DVD and DIVX and basic games. I can only see that machine being too slow for experienced users who want to play 3D games and encode video.
Do average consumers really care about the speed of a computer? most of them are more likely to be looking at the cost of a computer and what they can do with it.
Now a business is more likely to consider a fast computer if it increases productivity, but then a business is more likely to be clued up about hardware and not be believing the claims of an advert.
Ultimately the selection of a computer will be based on if it can do what you want for the right price, there are certain pieces of software that aren't available for non-Windows systems and so speed counts for nothing if you need that software.
Good to see there's more reasons for than against open source use. There's always reasons for and against using anything. With open source becoming more popular there must be some major reasons against using Microsoft software that outway the advantages.
Being locked into using a software suite due to the secrecy of the file format and the costs are two of the major ones.
Instead of having Wifi access point perhaps in future each device will act as a repeater for a few other clients and a gnutella style network will be formed.
Everyone would be walking around with a Wifi access point then. Extend the technology to mobile phones and you could solve some coverage problems.
Well I don't know what would have happened without Microsoft, each of these branches can be explored. I like to think that ARM and the Acorn would have taken off a bit more too, not to mention PSION and others.
Is this sort of plane small enough to be invisible to current radar?
Currently this isn't an issue since the range of it is so small, but a small stealth bomber dropping a chemical or biological agent could be pretty dangerous.
Trouble with this story is you've left out Compaq who were the ones responsible for cloning the IBM PC (was nothing to do with Microsoft); You've also left out Sony, Nintendo, Sega etc.., Nintendo and Sega were doing consoles back in the 8-bit days.
Also you seem to think Commodore was brought down by Microsoft when it could be argued they self destructed thanks to the poor vision of people like Medhi Ali (remember the A600) who were happy to just reuse the same Amiga chipset (albeit with minor tweaks) for decades to come.
You also don't think Linux would have been born? Microsoft were largely still unknown in the home computer market in the early 1990s and so Linux would probably still have been created. Of course it might not have had the same levels of success, but Linux was created simply because it wasn't that easy to get a Unix style OS for Intel hardware.
Two reasons why people tend to prefer their search engine isn't the wing of some IT giant. They want quality results, hopefully without too much commercial advertising and bias. People use such engines to search for information on various subjects, not so they can be bombarded with advertising, such a search engine would be doomed to failure.
Why would Microsoft (with its vast budget) add annoyances like adverts to their search engine when it would be accepted more by its users if it was ad-free. After all they could have made IE ad-ware but chose to charge nothing for it.
Office doesn't always format its own documents right when importing docs created with a previous version of Office. Microsoft have the benefit of the file formats too! something which the OO guys have.
Anyway, if large organisations all switch to OO and migrate their documents (which all companies do when moving systems) they'll fix their docs and won't go back to Office.
If everyone sticks to 1.x then 2.x won't get enough testing and bug reports. Of course you'd be silly to deploy 2.x if it's going to fall over miserably, but developers should have a box with 2.x installed for testing it and possibly assisting with bug reports.
Those chip makers who say they don't want to release information on their chipsets without a NDA had better take note. They're likely to miss out supplying chips for "Designed for Linux" style PCs.
But can you imagine the fun you'd have with ARexx these days with viruses? I know the Amiga didn't really suffer that many of them (mostly the old bootblock viruses in the floppy disk days) but imagine an Email app with an ARexx port:)
KDE does have DCOP which lets you add script functionality to your apps as well as link separate apps together. It's just not as well utilised as it should be (from a users perspective).
I did a usability study of GIMP 1.3 running on Windows and most people who had Photoshop experience soon got the hang of it.
Finally they've added a menu onto each project window, but it is still lacking in one way, the number of entries on the window bar. Each tool dock creates its own entry which causes clutter. It should be possible to have one entry but who knows, maybe this isn't possible with current versions of GTK? Photoshop does this by having the dock windows within a container window.
Other minor niggles, the icons are much improved over v1.2 but I still find them a bit unclear. The knife icon for cropping resembles a brush and I don't really see how a drop of water represents Blur/Sharpen?
While I do like the new dock and the tabs, it's unusable if you resize the toolbox window into a very narrow strip. Meaning at the resolution I run at (1152x864) it takes up around a fifth of the screen width.
KDE is a bit easier for users who have spent a lot of time on Windows. The first logon to a KDE desktop presents the Desktop wizard where you can choose if you want Windows or MAC style key and mouse shortcuts. This is a big plus for KDE.
Yep, the EU has seriously underestimated the fine. This isn't a small price fixing scam, this is one of the largest software companies in the world abusing its dominant position. The effects of what Microsoft do affect most people involved in IT.
By that I take it to mean that the parsing and rendering of pages is faster, not that there's some trickery to download data faster. Every little helps I guess though.
Slashdot Mirror
We're talking average consumer though, not the 'status symbol' brigade. People who have a smallish budget and just want a PC (they might not have one already or have had theirs for years).
People with slow Win98 boxes will find a PC with an AMD, 256-512MB RAM runs well, it'll do DVD and DIVX and basic games. I can only see that machine being too slow for experienced users who want to play 3D games and encode video.
Do average consumers really care about the speed of a computer? most of them are more likely to be looking at the cost of a computer and what they can do with it.
Now a business is more likely to consider a fast computer if it increases productivity, but then a business is more likely to be clued up about hardware and not be believing the claims of an advert.
Ultimately the selection of a computer will be based on if it can do what you want for the right price, there are certain pieces of software that aren't available for non-Windows systems and so speed counts for nothing if you need that software.
I've heard about controllers for manipulating the position of objects in 3D/CAD applications before.
Eg. Magellan 3D
Link
Good to see there's more reasons for than against open source use. There's always reasons for and against using anything. With open source becoming more popular there must be some major reasons against using Microsoft software that outway the advantages.
Being locked into using a software suite due to the secrecy of the file format and the costs are two of the major ones.
Instead of having Wifi access point perhaps in future each device will act as a repeater for a few other clients and a gnutella style network will be formed.
Everyone would be walking around with a Wifi access point then. Extend the technology to mobile phones and you could solve some coverage problems.
Well I don't know what would have happened without Microsoft, each of these branches can be explored. I like to think that ARM and the Acorn would have taken off a bit more too, not to mention PSION and others.
Is this sort of plane small enough to be invisible to current radar?
Currently this isn't an issue since the range of it is so small, but a small stealth bomber dropping a chemical or biological agent could be pretty dangerous.
Trouble with this story is you've left out Compaq who were the ones responsible for cloning the IBM PC (was nothing to do with Microsoft); You've also left out Sony, Nintendo, Sega etc.., Nintendo and Sega were doing consoles back in the 8-bit days.
Also you seem to think Commodore was brought down by Microsoft when it could be argued they self destructed thanks to the poor vision of people like Medhi Ali (remember the A600) who were happy to just reuse the same Amiga chipset (albeit with minor tweaks) for decades to come.
You also don't think Linux would have been born? Microsoft were largely still unknown in the home computer market in the early 1990s and so Linux would probably still have been created. Of course it might not have had the same levels of success, but Linux was created simply because it wasn't that easy to get a Unix style OS for Intel hardware.
Two reasons why people tend to prefer their search engine isn't the wing of some IT giant. They want quality results, hopefully without too much commercial advertising and bias. People use such engines to search for information on various subjects, not so they can be bombarded with advertising, such a search engine would be doomed to failure.
Why would Microsoft (with its vast budget) add annoyances like adverts to their search engine when it would be accepted more by its users if it was ad-free. After all they could have made IE ad-ware but chose to charge nothing for it.
Office doesn't always format its own documents right when importing docs created with a previous version of Office. Microsoft have the benefit of the file formats too! something which the OO guys have.
Anyway, if large organisations all switch to OO and migrate their documents (which all companies do when moving systems) they'll fix their docs and won't go back to Office.
If everyone sticks to 1.x then 2.x won't get enough testing and bug reports. Of course you'd be silly to deploy 2.x if it's going to fall over miserably, but developers should have a box with 2.x installed for testing it and possibly assisting with bug reports.
Those chip makers who say they don't want to release information on their chipsets without a NDA had better take note. They're likely to miss out supplying chips for "Designed for Linux" style PCs.
But can you imagine the fun you'd have with ARexx these days with viruses? I know the Amiga didn't really suffer that many of them (mostly the old bootblock viruses in the floppy disk days) but imagine an Email app with an ARexx port :)
KDE does have DCOP which lets you add script functionality to your apps as well as link separate apps together. It's just not as well utilised as it should be (from a users perspective).
Perhaps a small grid with one half blurred?
CinePaint (formerly known as FilmGimp) has been used in quite a few well known films and was forked from Gimp 1.x.
Link to CinePaint
I did a usability study of GIMP 1.3 running on Windows and most people who had Photoshop experience soon got the hang of it.
Finally they've added a menu onto each project window, but it is still lacking in one way, the number of entries on the window bar. Each tool dock creates its own entry which causes clutter. It should be possible to have one entry but who knows, maybe this isn't possible with current versions of GTK? Photoshop does this by having the dock windows within a container window.
Other minor niggles, the icons are much improved over v1.2 but I still find them a bit unclear. The knife icon for cropping resembles a brush and I don't really see how a drop of water represents Blur/Sharpen?
While I do like the new dock and the tabs, it's unusable if you resize the toolbox window into a very narrow strip. Meaning at the resolution I run at (1152x864) it takes up around a fifth of the screen width.
But it's much better than 1.2 anyway!!!
If you like Gnome yes, but for KDE purists like me it made using KDE harder as the expected behaviour of certain things couldn't be relied upon.
KDE is a bit easier for users who have spent a lot of time on Windows. The first logon to a KDE desktop presents the Desktop wizard where you can choose if you want Windows or MAC style key and mouse shortcuts. This is a big plus for KDE.
Nope, they tweaked KDE to make it look like Gnome and did some other changes to make it work with Gnome config tools.
Some with be keen to backup their DVD collection, I just hope this will be possible.
Yep, the EU has seriously underestimated the fine. This isn't a small price fixing scam, this is one of the largest software companies in the world abusing its dominant position. The effects of what Microsoft do affect most people involved in IT.
They're already considering forcing Microsoft to remove media player, open some source as well as fining them.
If there's a bandwagon moving Microsoft have to jump on it.
Remove the HDD and lock it in a safe.
Install a lock on the case, cut the wire from the start button to the motherboard, insert keyswitch like the old keyboard locks.
Should just about do it.
By that I take it to mean that the parsing and rendering of pages is faster, not that there's some trickery to download data faster. Every little helps I guess though.
Lets just hope some foolish bank doesn't install Wifi into their ATMs to allow their service engineer to do checks much easier.