People JUST want to listen to the music. Nothing more.
Are you kidding? If the design ethic of 95% of the various mp3 players out there says anything, it says that people want something that looks like it popped out of an anime movie. Case in point. Obviously, people will pay $40 more than a similar "size" shuffle because unlike the shuffle, it looks like this one will play music, tune radio, and shoot 300 meters of wire to the next highrise so you can slide down and rescue the babes.
Oh wait. People aren't buying these all that much. People actually do want something that isn't designed to appeal to 14 yo boys and look like an action figure accesory. apparently, Apple chose rightly when they decided to design for adults.
In my opening tirade, I did mention the Consumer Protection Division of our state AG's office. Next time around, I will do something like that -- after sending AT&T a corresponding bill for my time (I'm a lawyer -- it'll be a lot more than $12.27).
How about companies that use technology to track whether you are a customer and haven't paid your bill, but can't get their system to work? It's the non-customer who pays (either time or money). Case in point, 3.5 years ago I cancelled my AT&T phone service. Yesterday, I had to deal with them billing me the final bill yet again. Last summer, and the summer before, and other times as well, I've been told that the problem is permanently corrected and I won't have any more problems. Yeah right, I'm keeping my copy the cancled check for $12.27 dated January 16, 2002.
At the end of my hourlong session on the phone, the lady then asked:
Can I interest you in our phone...
At which point I cut her off stating I was a life-long non-customer of AT&T based on this experience. Then she launched right into:
How about broadband....
At which point I said again something like: "I'll never ever even consider AT&T - I want you guys to delete me from your DB completely, don't just flag me as closed. Never call me, never send me mail, don't email... don't even think about me!'
The lady on the phone actually giggled when I said "don't even think about me!"
I'm sure I'll get to reuse the joke next summer when the AT&T bills start coming again (I ignore them and wait for the calls to start -- I figure it costs AT&T more money that way).
It's a fast loader and looks nice -- except what in the world caused them to make the toolbar a floating easily lost and hidden separate window? It really ruins the whole experience when you have to hunt for the toolbar among all the open windows. The toolbar should be placed inside the edit window, not outside it like gimp.
It has it's own usability issues, but there is an AbiWord version or OSX. Load up time is very fast (as in 4.5x faster on an ancient iBook) -- their manner of handling the toolbar completely blows however and ruins the whole thing (it's in a separate floating toolbar -- leads to not having the tools immediately available in the document you are working on).
I know the Cube is way faster, but it reminds me of an iBook, 300mhz G3, I recently fixed. NeoOffice takes about 90 seconds to load on that old beast with inadequate memory. Truth is, it barely functions. AbiWord loads up in under 20 seconds and is quite responsive. It's almost perfect but has a serious flaw that ruins everything -- a the toolbar "floats" rather than appears in the doucument's window. The title bar is initially loaded under the menu bar, which is fine. Unfortunately, it gets hidden by open documents and requires a manual resize of the document window. Granted, the old iBooks were pretty low res, but that certainly keeps AbiWord out of the running for my powerbook.
When it comes to word processor apps, nothing I've seen or used has ever come near the vast superiority of WordPerfect.
100% correct. I used it way back in the DOS days, and there's nothing more powerful than "reveal codes" to fix some nagging formatting issue. It was just so easy to delete whatever bit of junk was making the document behave badly. And as a lawyer, WP provided some really nice features. Like easily making pleading paper (numbers down the L side). OOo just doesn't do this right. Sure it has "line numbering" -- but if you intermix single and double spacing, the line numbering follows suit (this is required in legal briefs -- quotes exceding 3 lines length are traditionally single spaced with a hanging indent). The line numbering needs to be double spaced regardless of what spacing is used in the body text. The only option is to make the pleading paper line numbers into a background image -- but then you have to muck around with the L margin because the line numbers image is placed to the right of the margin -- right where the text is causing other problems. I so miss WordPerfect -- it made life so much easier.
Will students be able to email, chat, and play games on their laptops?
Chat, IM, games, and email software will be removed from all computers. Student use of email, chatting, IM, and game playing is a direct violation of the KASD computer policy. Students who violate the computer policy will be disciplined.
For cryin' out loud -- that covers about 90% of what computers are used for. Personally, I despise children, but even I wouldn't consider such restrictions. Giving a kid a laptop, and then saying "you can't use it" (for all intents and purposes), is like giving an 8 year old a bowl of ice cream and saying "you can only smell it." Neither rule will be followed. Anyone with a dog's IQ would know that.
I was looking at airport cards for an old mac earlier today. One guy seemed to have a fairly good "buy it now" price -- about the going rate. Except S&H in the US was $28. From San Diego! USPS priority mail would be what, $5? It's obviously a gimmick to get bidders who forget to make sure the seller's mailing charges are in the realm of sanity. Fucking ebayers. 90% Cheats and louts.
Furthermore the bit about playing music in certain categories is very unlike playlists.
You haven't discovered "smart playlists" yet then have you? Instead of manually selecting songs, you can do things like, "play all songs rated 4 stars or more; from categories containing the word folk and downtempo but not death-metal; which haven't been played in the last 2 weeks; and have been played more than 10 times." You make it is as broad or narrow as you want, from a single category to a highly selective subcategory.
In the 10-page suit obtained by AppleInsider, lawyers for Contois said that David Contois conceived of and developed a computer interface for playing music on an internal or external computer-responsive music device, which he then exhibited at the 1995 COMDEX trade show and the 1996 NAMM music industry trade show.
It's so hard because it doesn't work on docked items. For example, I'm typing this in Safari, cmd-tab to ical (docked). Although I get the menu at the top of the screen, I don't see the window. I have to click on ical or it's window to actually see my calendar.
And worse, if I have a couple Safari windows open for example, I can't cmd-` between all the windows, only the ones that aren't in the dock will respond.
The reason it's so hard for everyone is that it is hard to keep a mental note of which programs are open in windows and which are docked, or worse, which windows of open programs are docked. Wasteful use of brainspace, and annoying.
I like my powerbook well enough, but pasting and app switching totally blows. Linux has Apple beat to a pulp in that respect.
You speak the truth brother. Kodak always seemed muddy and grey to me -- whites were light grey and blacks were dark grey. But Ilford papers -- those were black, white, and every shade in between. Gorgeous stuff.
Before I posted, I should have checked to make sure those papers are still made. It's been many years now that my enlarger has resided in a closet. The first summer I got into photography, I disolved the skin on my fingertips (no tongs, no gloves) down to the point at which it was painful to touch anything at all for week. Those were the days....;-)
Ilford fine grain semi-matte was always way better than any muddy paper kodak made.
Or Portriga -- Agfa is good too.
Re:Take THAT, space science nay-sayers!
on
Glass In Spaaaaace
·
· Score: 1
OK, I know it's a joke but I just love being a wet blanket. Obviously, the glass we make on earth is fine for coke bottles. It's also plain that this guy wants to make glass that will be unique from that made on earth in the hope that it's special properties will have special applications.
How about "Transparent Aluminum"?
In Earth-orbit, it turns out, these molten liquids don't crystallize as easily as they do on Earth. It's easier for glass to form. So not only can you make glass that's less contaminated, you can also form it from a wider variety of melts.
But why is that important? What's wrong with glass made of silica?
...
Another example: Glass made of metal can be remarkably strong and corrosion-resistant. And you don't need to machine it into the precise, intricate shapes needed, say, for a motor. You can just mold or cast it.
Care to explain how to enable it in Aqua apps (I mean everything, from highlight copies to the clipboard, to middle-click pasting, not just the last half). What does google tell me? Lot's of people ask this question. Aqua to Aqua middle click paste doesn't happen (don't tell me about X11 -- I know it works there, I'm talking A to A). How about Apple's site -- some people ask the question but again, where can I find instructions on enabling Aqua to Aqua middle-click paste? Show me.
Well, I never have had to copy something from two separate pages at once, but I often want to copy two things from one source. X11 works better for me.
Wait -- there's a problem. How do I set it up so that what I highlight goes into the clipboard (and idealy, set it up so that ctrl-c goes to one clipboard and the immediate highlight to another). I think OSX is still crippled in this regard.
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Are you kidding? If the design ethic of 95% of the various mp3 players out there says anything, it says that people want something that looks like it popped out of an anime movie. Case in point. Obviously, people will pay $40 more than a similar "size" shuffle because unlike the shuffle, it looks like this one will play music, tune radio, and shoot 300 meters of wire to the next highrise so you can slide down and rescue the babes.
Oh wait. People aren't buying these all that much. People actually do want something that isn't designed to appeal to 14 yo boys and look like an action figure accesory. apparently, Apple chose rightly when they decided to design for adults.
What the hell is IE doing in gnome? That has to be a form of desecration.
In my opening tirade, I did mention the Consumer Protection Division of our state AG's office. Next time around, I will do something like that -- after sending AT&T a corresponding bill for my time (I'm a lawyer -- it'll be a lot more than $12.27).
How about companies that use technology to track whether you are a customer and haven't paid your bill, but can't get their system to work? It's the non-customer who pays (either time or money). Case in point, 3.5 years ago I cancelled my AT&T phone service. Yesterday, I had to deal with them billing me the final bill yet again. Last summer, and the summer before, and other times as well, I've been told that the problem is permanently corrected and I won't have any more problems. Yeah right, I'm keeping my copy the cancled check for $12.27 dated January 16, 2002.
...
....
... don't even think about me!'
At the end of my hourlong session on the phone, the lady then asked:
Can I interest you in our phone
At which point I cut her off stating I was a life-long non-customer of AT&T based on this experience. Then she launched right into:
How about broadband
At which point I said again something like: "I'll never ever even consider AT&T - I want you guys to delete me from your DB completely, don't just flag me as closed. Never call me, never send me mail, don't email
The lady on the phone actually giggled when I said "don't even think about me!"
I'm sure I'll get to reuse the joke next summer when the AT&T bills start coming again (I ignore them and wait for the calls to start -- I figure it costs AT&T more money that way).
It's a fast loader and looks nice -- except what in the world caused them to make the toolbar a floating easily lost and hidden separate window? It really ruins the whole experience when you have to hunt for the toolbar among all the open windows. The toolbar should be placed inside the edit window, not outside it like gimp.
It has it's own usability issues, but there is an AbiWord version or OSX. Load up time is very fast (as in 4.5x faster on an ancient iBook) -- their manner of handling the toolbar completely blows however and ruins the whole thing (it's in a separate floating toolbar -- leads to not having the tools immediately available in the document you are working on).
I know the Cube is way faster, but it reminds me of an iBook, 300mhz G3, I recently fixed. NeoOffice takes about 90 seconds to load on that old beast with inadequate memory. Truth is, it barely functions. AbiWord loads up in under 20 seconds and is quite responsive. It's almost perfect but has a serious flaw that ruins everything -- a the toolbar "floats" rather than appears in the doucument's window. The title bar is initially loaded under the menu bar, which is fine. Unfortunately, it gets hidden by open documents and requires a manual resize of the document window. Granted, the old iBooks were pretty low res, but that certainly keeps AbiWord out of the running for my powerbook.
100% correct. I used it way back in the DOS days, and there's nothing more powerful than "reveal codes" to fix some nagging formatting issue. It was just so easy to delete whatever bit of junk was making the document behave badly. And as a lawyer, WP provided some really nice features. Like easily making pleading paper (numbers down the L side). OOo just doesn't do this right. Sure it has "line numbering" -- but if you intermix single and double spacing, the line numbering follows suit (this is required in legal briefs -- quotes exceding 3 lines length are traditionally single spaced with a hanging indent). The line numbering needs to be double spaced regardless of what spacing is used in the body text. The only option is to make the pleading paper line numbers into a background image -- but then you have to muck around with the L margin because the line numbers image is placed to the right of the margin -- right where the text is causing other problems. I so miss WordPerfect -- it made life so much easier.
GP post was a joke. See, he's saying that the true criminals are the politicians who make stupid laws.
For cryin' out loud -- that covers about 90% of what computers are used for. Personally, I despise children, but even I wouldn't consider such restrictions. Giving a kid a laptop, and then saying "you can't use it" (for all intents and purposes), is like giving an 8 year old a bowl of ice cream and saying "you can only smell it." Neither rule will be followed. Anyone with a dog's IQ would know that.
No shit. I got detention in 85 for not wearing socks. Kids these days don't know how easy they have it.
I'm not joking BTW. I really did get detention for not wearing socks.
Mr. AC -- quite likely one of the best observations to be made in this thread.
I was looking at airport cards for an old mac earlier today. One guy seemed to have a fairly good "buy it now" price -- about the going rate. Except S&H in the US was $28. From San Diego! USPS priority mail would be what, $5? It's obviously a gimmick to get bidders who forget to make sure the seller's mailing charges are in the realm of sanity. Fucking ebayers. 90% Cheats and louts.
You haven't discovered "smart playlists" yet then have you? Instead of manually selecting songs, you can do things like, "play all songs rated 4 stars or more; from categories containing the word folk and downtempo but not death-metal; which haven't been played in the last 2 weeks; and have been played more than 10 times." You make it is as broad or narrow as you want, from a single category to a highly selective subcategory.
RTFA.
It's so hard because it doesn't work on docked items. For example, I'm typing this in Safari, cmd-tab to ical (docked). Although I get the menu at the top of the screen, I don't see the window. I have to click on ical or it's window to actually see my calendar.
And worse, if I have a couple Safari windows open for example, I can't cmd-` between all the windows, only the ones that aren't in the dock will respond.
The reason it's so hard for everyone is that it is hard to keep a mental note of which programs are open in windows and which are docked, or worse, which windows of open programs are docked. Wasteful use of brainspace, and annoying.
I like my powerbook well enough, but pasting and app switching totally blows. Linux has Apple beat to a pulp in that respect.
You speak the truth brother. Kodak always seemed muddy and grey to me -- whites were light grey and blacks were dark grey. But Ilford papers -- those were black, white, and every shade in between. Gorgeous stuff.
Before I posted, I should have checked to make sure those papers are still made. It's been many years now that my enlarger has resided in a closet. The first summer I got into photography, I disolved the skin on my fingertips (no tongs, no gloves) down to the point at which it was painful to touch anything at all for week. Those were the days
Ilford fine grain semi-matte was always way better than any muddy paper kodak made.
Or Portriga -- Agfa is good too.
How about "Transparent Aluminum"?
Care to explain how to enable it in Aqua apps (I mean everything, from highlight copies to the clipboard, to middle-click pasting, not just the last half). What does google tell me? Lot's of people ask this question. Aqua to Aqua middle click paste doesn't happen (don't tell me about X11 -- I know it works there, I'm talking A to A). How about Apple's site -- some people ask the question but again, where can I find instructions on enabling Aqua to Aqua middle-click paste? Show me.
How can it be broken if I love it? My opinion is truth! Didn't you get the memo?
Well, I never have had to copy something from two separate pages at once, but I often want to copy two things from one source. X11 works better for me.
Wait -- there's a problem. How do I set it up so that what I highlight goes into the clipboard (and idealy, set it up so that ctrl-c goes to one clipboard and the immediate highlight to another). I think OSX is still crippled in this regard.
But this is automagically done in linux. I thought with OSX, I didn't have to config it? Everything "just works". Still - running off to try.