One big thing I noticed is that W2K takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to start up on the exact same hardware at work compared to XP. Both load all the "startup items" junk up after the desktop appears too, so I do believe MS included a bunch of startup optimizations for XP.
Converse anecdote from Canada... one time a parking cop came about an illegally parked car. When writing the ticket he discovered the plate had, instead of letters and numbers, a stylized lion. Not knowing what else to do, he drew out the plate as best he could and left the ticket on the windshield.
The car belonged to the then-governor general (the queen's representative here, and technically the country's head-of-state). The image on the licence plate was the GG's symbol of office.
Far, far better to apologize when you're wrong, than to ignore (and if that doesn't work, deny) that there was ever an issue.
Too often these days big media are guilty of going the ignore/deny route. That the BBC at least attempts to rectify incidents of bad reporting puts them heads and shoulders above most others, because let's face it, no media outlet is always correct, especially where biases may affect the reporting.
You get all that for free without even a remotely justifiable massive terrorist attack to boot.
I had to snort at that ridiculous statement. Remember the IRA during its "glory days"? They may not have killed as many people in total, but given the attacks over many years it's no wonder there's surveillance everywhere (not that it's been necessarily effective--change in political landscape has far more to do with the lack of attacks these days).
Administrators of WebSphere v5.0.x products, take note: some seem to choke on this date rollover.
Yesterday our Websphere Portal server (v5.0.2), on both development and production systems, started refusing to install, update or delete portlets, and the serverStatus.sh command couldn't find any server instances running, even though they clearly were.
Setting the date back to, say, March 1, instantly "fixed" these problems. Obviously this is only a workaround. (yes, the problems re-appeared when the clock was set back to March 18.)
It's only because of this Slashdot post that I even thought to check the date. Who would've guessed one of IBM's enterprise products would have the analogue of the Y2K bug in it...
Forget it; this is tanamount to saying to millions of Mac and Linux people, "use Windows because it has greater market share."
I use Windows all day but a Mac at home, and using the control key as the "action" key is about the worst ergonomic choice possible for power users.
If you one-hand your shortcuts like most power users do (instead of pressing control/cmd with finger of one hand and the second key with finger from the other hand), you hit the command key with your thumb. Might need to tuck it under your hand, say for cmd-v, but not a problem since the thumb is the strongest digit on your hand and hey, it's opposable.
Windows? You use your damn pinky finger! The weakest digit possible! Try hitting control-v or ctl-b with your left hand, and you'll find your hand stretching very unnaturally, even on an ergonomic keyboard.
Not only that, OSX installs pretty damn quickly too.
My 4-year old, dual-533 MHz PowerMac fresh-installed the latest OSX (10.3 Panther) in 15 minutes flat. Installing XP on a Athlon 2800 took over half an hour, not counting the 5 minutes it took to boot off the CD and copy the files first (OSX install CD booted in about 2 minutes).
Also, XP install stopped in the middle of the process maybe twice to input time or some such. I had no idea this would happen the first time I installed it, so it was just sitting idle for 20 minutes!
Why this can't wait until after everything's installed, like OSX, I have no idea.
To the GP, trust me, OSX installation is much less of a hassle than XP.
BSG gets around 2.4M viewers per episode too. At least if you believe the Nielson ratings.
If your impication is that BSG isn't all that hot because it's got roughly the same number of viewers as Enterprise, then you should remember that BSG airs on the SciFi channel in the US, which has significantly less coverage than UPN does. Therefore, numbers that are great for SciFi aren't that good for UPN.
For reference, the Stargate Atlantis premiere on Sci Fi was their first ever show to break 3 million viewers (source)
But for some unfathomable reason the AT keyboard standard has transposed the top and bottom rows...
Unfathomable? Take one look at a calculator and it instantly becomes obvious. I can't say for certain since it predates my time, but I'll bet tape calculators used by accountants existed for some time before the numeric keypad was standard on keyboards.
Once that happened, it was far more logical to model the keypad after the calculator pad, since you're more likely to be punching in numbers in a spreadsheet, than punching in phone numbers into the computer.
If this is the case, comparing softare patents to agricultural patents (which Monsanto uses to fine and even jail often-innocent farmers with) should kill any support by EU agricultural ministries for SW patents in a heartbeat.
There's absolutely no reason to assume this. I have 5 friends and two brothers who are into engineering or computers, about half of them programming--and though most are aware of/., I'm the only one who reads it regularly.
Just tried it myself on Safari v125.9 on 10.3.5; unfortunately the spoof worked.
Hovering over the actual link showed microsoft.com in the status bar, but clicking it did indeed go to google.
However, I can click outside the link on the same line (thanks to the table spanning the entire width of the article box), and it'll go to microsoft.com as indicated in the status bar when howevering over the line.
You forgot something else: LAME DUCK SESSIONS OF CONGRESS!
For those outside the USA this is a session of congress after an election before the new congress sets. This is when the guys who lost punish the voters for removing them from office! It is also so far from an election that most people forget to pay those who betray them during such sessions in the voting booth.
Derivations of the British parliamentary system seem to be much better in this respect. In Canada, for example, the government is dissolved when an election is called, and any bills not yet passed die on the table. This has meant good bills as well as bad ones have been lost, but it does mean that an outgoing government can't pass "revenge bills".
We also have more than two viable party choices;-)
I can't speak for the parent, but recall the howls of rage that came from Apple/Mac users when the Quicktime 4 interface came to light. Brushed metal window that ate up screen space? A miniscule on-screen thumb wheel for volume control instead of a slider!?
Apple isn't immune to bad interface design, but more often than not they get things right, and compared to the rest of the field there's almost no contest.
It's convention to secure the form itself because unless you look at the HTML code and look at the form's action, you don't *know* that the form will be sent to a secured server.
This of course assumes that the submit button is actually a button; if it's an image then the URL with https *might* display in the status bar, but still, how many people know an https connection means it's secure? They look for a lock icon instead.
Funny thing though--he lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. U.S. legislation has no bearing on this, barring political pressure to "harmonize" our respective copyright laws (Canada's are a bit more sane for the time being).
I originally envisioned a touch-screen keyboard that would automatically display the keyset specified in your profile.
But for those who hate having no tactile feedback (I'd be one of them), how about a "smart" keyboard designed specifically for these public access terminals, where each key has a cheap LCD or OLED, and displays the characters on the keys as appropriate for your keyboard profile.
Your keyboard is currently showing QWERTY but you want to switch to Dvorak? No problem! A quick menu selection and your smart keyboard has changed the key displays to match the Dvorak layout. No more guessing which key types which letter, or having to paste letter stickers onto the keys.
The basic keyboard form factor is pretty universal (after all, even 2-byte characters are typed using a US-style keyboard) so a smart keyboard could be deployed anywhere in the world without worrying about localizing the keys.
If large numbers of workers are *forced* to work from home when they don't want to, they may ver well demand that the company pay at least part of their housing costs. Maybe even electricity costs to run the computer they'd normally be using at the office.
I guess you can argue there's a handy tradeoff for the worker--less time commuting, less fuel and maintenance costs for car, more time with family, etc.
Can you use this new script to purchase and download full tunes from the iTMS?
No? Then pray tell why Apple would spend the time, effort and money to make a browser front-end for those who by definition cannot spend money on their service.
As for why no iTMS for Linux or pre-2000 Windows, another poster mentioned having to port the libraries and such to Linux; and I'm sure Win98/ME not using the NT codebase from which 2000 and XP are derived was a factor as well.
Hmm... CRTC content oppression versus US corporate oppression... I'll take the CRTC, thanks. Especially since most programming these days are reality TV crap. We don't even have cable anymore, that's how bad we think the shows on TV are these days. I don't even bother downloading episodes for shows we can't get on network TV.
We do actually. The tar sands in the province of Alberta contain more than enough oil to sustain civilization for awhile--problem is that it's harder to extract and process than mid-east oil wells.
Lest your prez gets any wacky ideas though, I can assure you that we DO NOT have any weapons of mass destruction!;-)
Slashdot Mirror
One big thing I noticed is that W2K takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to start up on the exact same hardware at work compared to XP. Both load all the "startup items" junk up after the desktop appears too, so I do believe MS included a bunch of startup optimizations for XP.
Converse anecdote from Canada... one time a parking cop came about an illegally parked car. When writing the ticket he discovered the plate had, instead of letters and numbers, a stylized lion. Not knowing what else to do, he drew out the plate as best he could and left the ticket on the windshield.
The car belonged to the then-governor general (the queen's representative here, and technically the country's head-of-state). The image on the licence plate was the GG's symbol of office.
Admittedly, it was a rookie cop...
Far, far better to apologize when you're wrong, than to ignore (and if that doesn't work, deny) that there was ever an issue.
Too often these days big media are guilty of going the ignore/deny route. That the BBC at least attempts to rectify incidents of bad reporting puts them heads and shoulders above most others, because let's face it, no media outlet is always correct, especially where biases may affect the reporting.
I had to snort at that ridiculous statement. Remember the IRA during its "glory days"? They may not have killed as many people in total, but given the attacks over many years it's no wonder there's surveillance everywhere (not that it's been necessarily effective--change in political landscape has far more to do with the lack of attacks these days).
Administrators of WebSphere v5.0.x products, take note: some seem to choke on this date rollover.
Yesterday our Websphere Portal server (v5.0.2), on both development and production systems, started refusing to install, update or delete portlets, and the serverStatus.sh command couldn't find any server instances running, even though they clearly were.
Setting the date back to, say, March 1, instantly "fixed" these problems. Obviously this is only a workaround. (yes, the problems re-appeared when the clock was set back to March 18.)
It's only because of this Slashdot post that I even thought to check the date. Who would've guessed one of IBM's enterprise products would have the analogue of the Y2K bug in it...
I use Windows all day but a Mac at home, and using the control key as the "action" key is about the worst ergonomic choice possible for power users.
If you one-hand your shortcuts like most power users do (instead of pressing control/cmd with finger of one hand and the second key with finger from the other hand), you hit the command key with your thumb. Might need to tuck it under your hand, say for cmd-v, but not a problem since the thumb is the strongest digit on your hand and hey, it's opposable.
Windows? You use your damn pinky finger! The weakest digit possible! Try hitting control-v or ctl-b with your left hand, and you'll find your hand stretching very unnaturally, even on an ergonomic keyboard.
Not only that, OSX installs pretty damn quickly too.
My 4-year old, dual-533 MHz PowerMac fresh-installed the latest OSX (10.3 Panther) in 15 minutes flat. Installing XP on a Athlon 2800 took over half an hour, not counting the 5 minutes it took to boot off the CD and copy the files first (OSX install CD booted in about 2 minutes).
Also, XP install stopped in the middle of the process maybe twice to input time or some such. I had no idea this would happen the first time I installed it, so it was just sitting idle for 20 minutes!
Why this can't wait until after everything's installed, like OSX, I have no idea.
To the GP, trust me, OSX installation is much less of a hassle than XP.
If your impication is that BSG isn't all that hot because it's got roughly the same number of viewers as Enterprise, then you should remember that BSG airs on the SciFi channel in the US, which has significantly less coverage than UPN does. Therefore, numbers that are great for SciFi aren't that good for UPN.
For reference, the Stargate Atlantis premiere on Sci Fi was their first ever show to break 3 million viewers (source)
Just like lottery tickets, it's not a tax if you're willingly forking it over ;-)
Unfathomable? Take one look at a calculator and it instantly becomes obvious. I can't say for certain since it predates my time, but I'll bet tape calculators used by accountants existed for some time before the numeric keypad was standard on keyboards.
Once that happened, it was far more logical to model the keypad after the calculator pad, since you're more likely to be punching in numbers in a spreadsheet, than punching in phone numbers into the computer.
If this is the case, comparing softare patents to agricultural patents (which Monsanto uses to fine and even jail often-innocent farmers with) should kill any support by EU agricultural ministries for SW patents in a heartbeat.
There's absolutely no reason to assume this. I have 5 friends and two brothers who are into engineering or computers, about half of them programming--and though most are aware of /., I'm the only one who reads it regularly.
Just tried it myself on Safari v125.9 on 10.3.5; unfortunately the spoof worked.
Hovering over the actual link showed microsoft.com in the status bar, but clicking it did indeed go to google.
However, I can click outside the link on the same line (thanks to the table spanning the entire width of the article box), and it'll go to microsoft.com as indicated in the status bar when howevering over the line.
For those outside the USA this is a session of congress after an election before the new congress sets. This is when the guys who lost punish the voters for removing them from office! It is also so far from an election that most people forget to pay those who betray them during such sessions in the voting booth.
Derivations of the British parliamentary system seem to be much better in this respect. In Canada, for example, the government is dissolved when an election is called, and any bills not yet passed die on the table. This has meant good bills as well as bad ones have been lost, but it does mean that an outgoing government can't pass "revenge bills".
We also have more than two viable party choices ;-)
I can't speak for the parent, but recall the howls of rage that came from Apple/Mac users when the Quicktime 4 interface came to light. Brushed metal window that ate up screen space? A miniscule on-screen thumb wheel for volume control instead of a slider!?
Apple isn't immune to bad interface design, but more often than not they get things right, and compared to the rest of the field there's almost no contest.
It's convention to secure the form itself because unless you look at the HTML code and look at the form's action, you don't *know* that the form will be sent to a secured server.
This of course assumes that the submit button is actually a button; if it's an image then the URL with https *might* display in the status bar, but still, how many people know an https connection means it's secure? They look for a lock icon instead.
Funny thing though--he lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. U.S. legislation has no bearing on this, barring political pressure to "harmonize" our respective copyright laws (Canada's are a bit more sane for the time being).
If they try to spin it as "sales lost due to piracy", it would mean Starforce's anti-piracy system isn't working.
I originally envisioned a touch-screen keyboard that would automatically display the keyset specified in your profile.
But for those who hate having no tactile feedback (I'd be one of them), how about a "smart" keyboard designed specifically for these public access terminals, where each key has a cheap LCD or OLED, and displays the characters on the keys as appropriate for your keyboard profile.
Your keyboard is currently showing QWERTY but you want to switch to Dvorak? No problem! A quick menu selection and your smart keyboard has changed the key displays to match the Dvorak layout. No more guessing which key types which letter, or having to paste letter stickers onto the keys.
The basic keyboard form factor is pretty universal (after all, even 2-byte characters are typed using a US-style keyboard) so a smart keyboard could be deployed anywhere in the world without worrying about localizing the keys.
If large numbers of workers are *forced* to work from home when they don't want to, they may ver well demand that the company pay at least part of their housing costs. Maybe even electricity costs to run the computer they'd normally be using at the office.
I guess you can argue there's a handy tradeoff for the worker--less time commuting, less fuel and maintenance costs for car, more time with family, etc.
That same thinking is one of the many reasons Voyager went down the tubes. The Borg *were* great, but they overused them and wussified them.
At the time of First Contact they were still kick-ass though, considering they'd just been re-imagined with better makeup and costumes.
Can you use this new script to purchase and download full tunes from the iTMS?
No? Then pray tell why Apple would spend the time, effort and money to make a browser front-end for those who by definition cannot spend money on their service.
As for why no iTMS for Linux or pre-2000 Windows, another poster mentioned having to port the libraries and such to Linux; and I'm sure Win98/ME not using the NT codebase from which 2000 and XP are derived was a factor as well.
The same way you're getting all our doctors--offer to pay them scandalous amounts of money to move south ;-)
Hmm... CRTC content oppression versus US corporate oppression... I'll take the CRTC, thanks. Especially since most programming these days are reality TV crap. We don't even have cable anymore, that's how bad we think the shows on TV are these days. I don't even bother downloading episodes for shows we can't get on network TV.
Lest your prez gets any wacky ideas though, I can assure you that we DO NOT have any weapons of mass destruction! ;-)