"[...]The move exposes a wider Microsoft monopoly that European governments accept,[...]"
I'm not sure you understand that Switzerland is not part of the EU. The quote you took from the article seems to imply that using "European governments".
The menu has a simple structure which can be understood instantly and extrapolates indefinitely.
Except MS has made some consistency errors in the past: Insert > Name > Define Names - Delete (IIRC) to delete a defined name. Stupid. OOo now mimics this too.
Given Word's penchant for "everything including 5 kitchen sinks" in available functionality, it doesn't scale well to the icon/ribbon concept.
And it doesn't scale well for the 'menu' concept either.
In Eclipse you have a (not so well known) shortcut 'Ctrl+Shift+L' that opens a pop-up 'Key Assist' with all mapped actions plus their shortcuts. Why not extend such a thing and make it searchable? Ctrl+Shift+L and then type "Sav" causing the list to shorten to "Save", "Save As" etc. Hit Enter and the action is executed.
Knowing MS, they would have problems being consistent with synonyms and closely related concepts like file/document, search/find,...
It matters according to The Open Group, they are a consortium including several Unix vendors (Sun, IBM, HP, Apple...). It doesn't matter to Linus or RMS, I presume.
It matters because as long as GNU/Linux isn't standardised, and can subtly change behaviour between releases, you don't have a stable platform to target.
You mean that all that software running on my server, desktop, laptop and netbook must be completely rewritten every 6 months, when Ubuntu has a new release? Not to mention all the other distributions.
Can you give some real life examples why this standardization is would be a major improvement?
We've never had a problem opening an ms office document with ms office. Ever.
Yeah, right. Then you're not using bullets and numbering, all your documents are under 20 pages, you don't care about formatting, you don't include any images.
I once wrote a simple, short manual for a demo product, to be given at a potential customer. A lot of screen shots with a little text in between. Saving after each insert - it was crashing every 10 minutes and repositioning the images at the beginning of the document several times - I finally gave up and used OpenOffice instead. That was in '03 - Word 2000 IRC, complete and utter crap.
I once could not use Outlook (OK, not Word) anymore due to the fact that while typing the enter key activated the 'OK' button on an 'Installation on demand' dialog for some image or dictionary component. On a laptop. From then on Outlook crashed every time until a reinstall when I returned. And the pst file was corrupt. That was the final straw, I decided MS products raised my TCO beyond 'reasonable'.
Open office failed in the first day it was tested so it was thrown out the window.
BS. Word failed in the first second, so I threw it out the window with Windows. There you go. That's not a factual statement, that's FUD.
Point was it is not well defined. Its like "architecture" or "web 2.0" or "beautiful": everybody knows exactly what it means - but everybody has a different idea of what it is...
No. The standard mouse since 2005 is called Mighty Mouse and has 4 configurable buttons - although you can't visually distinguish them (that actually is a flaw). Prices start at $999 for a MacBook, not $2000.
I still prefer working on my Ubuntu desktop and laptop, though.
Configurable. There are actually 4 active "buttons" on the mighty mouse. In "System Preferences" - you can even launch apps/scripts with a single click...
Not if you were a pirate on a galleon. They'd understand where the black powder is stored, that you need room to wash ashore - and they very probably never heared about baths and rooms to place them in.
He certainly wasn't a fan of Franco, but it might be appropriate to emphasise Stalin a bit more in your list.
I doubt Stalin was a real ideologist, more a successful, ruthless opportunist, I believe. Marx, Lenin, Trotsky on the other hand would fit better in my list... Now if I was to make a list of the most evil men in history, he might fit in easily.
In '97 the city of Antwerp started the "Witte Tornados" (White Tornadoes - Dutch isn't that hard) keeping the city clean and providing entry level jobs for people that would otherwise be probably unemployed and living of social benefits. About 150 of them.
That's 150 persons with increased self esteem.
That's 150 persons having a positive contribution instead of being a liability.
That's about 6000 hours of extra cleaning per month - and it has the added effect that it encourages people to not throw things on the street with all the rest of the litter.
If you would do the same with those problem children/mums that might be a similar positive experience? (minus that being an actual job) you don't have to let go one of the 150...
But then again, you probably just went for a joke?
So you give one (1) anecdotal example that says "welfare state does not create the problem" and from there draw the conclusion "welfare state does create the problem"? I think you just introduced a whole new class of logical fallacies.
Scary though it it, the government thinks what it's doing is best for the people - which is a marked difference from the novel.
Cromwell's dictatorship
Robespierre's terror in the French revolution (Committee of Public Safety - how ironic in this context)
the Spanish Inquisition
the Crusades
Hitler's "Final Solution"
Communism
were all motivated by "doing the best for (their own) people".
Orwell fought in the Spanish civil war with the republicans against the fascists. In his time there were dictators like Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, Hitler,... so it is easy to understand where the inspiration and fear came from.
Slashdot Mirror
"[...]The move exposes a wider Microsoft monopoly that European governments accept,[...]"
I'm not sure you understand that Switzerland is not part of the EU. The quote you took from the article seems to imply that using "European governments".
In the EU, Neelie Kroes would get a fit...
[...] I think it really is a much more logical system for working with a word processor.
Can you explain why? Or is it an emotional thing?
The menu has a simple structure which can be understood instantly and extrapolates indefinitely.
Except MS has made some consistency errors in the past: Insert > Name > Define Names - Delete (IIRC) to delete a defined name. Stupid. OOo now mimics this too.
Given Word's penchant for "everything including 5 kitchen sinks" in available functionality, it doesn't scale well to the icon/ribbon concept.
And it doesn't scale well for the 'menu' concept either.
In Eclipse you have a (not so well known) shortcut 'Ctrl+Shift+L' that opens a pop-up 'Key Assist' with all mapped actions plus their shortcuts. Why not extend such a thing and make it searchable? Ctrl+Shift+L and then type "Sav" causing the list to shorten to "Save", "Save As" etc. Hit Enter and the action is executed.
Knowing MS, they would have problems being consistent with synonyms and closely related concepts like file/document, search/find,...
Try VLC, open source, works on OS X, Solaris and Windows too, does streaming, conversions,... Really rocks.VLC's website.
Then what are all those Windows CE devices doing?
Crashing?
YES Extreme Stupidity
It matters according to The Open Group, they are a consortium including several Unix vendors (Sun, IBM, HP, Apple...). It doesn't matter to Linus or RMS, I presume.
You mean that all that software running on my server, desktop, laptop and netbook must be completely rewritten every 6 months, when Ubuntu has a new release? Not to mention all the other distributions.
Can you give some real life examples why this standardization is would be a major improvement?
Which still comes back to the fact that Slashdot just isn't important enough for Microsoft to waste time or money astroturfing.
They advertise here.
We've never had a problem opening an ms office document with ms office. Ever.
Yeah, right. Then you're not using bullets and numbering, all your documents are under 20 pages, you don't care about formatting, you don't include any images.
I once wrote a simple, short manual for a demo product, to be given at a potential customer. A lot of screen shots with a little text in between. Saving after each insert - it was crashing every 10 minutes and repositioning the images at the beginning of the document several times - I finally gave up and used OpenOffice instead. That was in '03 - Word 2000 IRC, complete and utter crap.
I once could not use Outlook (OK, not Word) anymore due to the fact that while typing the enter key activated the 'OK' button on an 'Installation on demand' dialog for some image or dictionary component. On a laptop. From then on Outlook crashed every time until a reinstall when I returned. And the pst file was corrupt. That was the final straw, I decided MS products raised my TCO beyond 'reasonable'.
Open office failed in the first day it was tested so it was thrown out the window.
BS. Word failed in the first second, so I threw it out the window with Windows. There you go. That's not a factual statement, that's FUD.
Cloud computing is real[...]
Point was it is not well defined. Its like "architecture" or "web 2.0" or "beautiful": everybody knows exactly what it means - but everybody has a different idea of what it is...
No. The standard mouse since 2005 is called Mighty Mouse and has 4 configurable buttons - although you can't visually distinguish them (that actually is a flaw). Prices start at $999 for a MacBook, not $2000.
I still prefer working on my Ubuntu desktop and laptop, though.
Configurable. There are actually 4 active "buttons" on the mighty mouse. In "System Preferences" - you can even launch apps/scripts with a single click...
Excellent idea, let's save all those rats! I know, the rats don't set off the mines, but still.
If you're familiar with logic, you'll note that the phrase "exploding ipod" is a subset of "anything".
Perhaps, but a lawyer would still plead you ended up with "nothing" so you could talk about it.
I think that reputation is not only due to marketing. They consistently make user friendly UI's, so as a user you feel the "computer cares for you".
72 free downloads at Virgin records
Not if you were a pirate on a galleon. They'd understand where the black powder is stored, that you need room to wash ashore - and they very probably never heared about baths and rooms to place them in.
Hmm, making children.
He certainly wasn't a fan of Franco, but it might be appropriate to emphasise Stalin a bit more in your list.
I doubt Stalin was a real ideologist, more a successful, ruthless opportunist, I believe. Marx, Lenin, Trotsky on the other hand would fit better in my list... Now if I was to make a list of the most evil men in history, he might fit in easily.
In '97 the city of Antwerp started the "Witte Tornados" (White Tornadoes - Dutch isn't that hard) keeping the city clean and providing entry level jobs for people that would otherwise be probably unemployed and living of social benefits. About 150 of them.
That's 150 persons with increased self esteem.
That's 150 persons having a positive contribution instead of being a liability.
That's about 6000 hours of extra cleaning per month - and it has the added effect that it encourages people to not throw things on the street with all the rest of the litter.
If you would do the same with those problem children/mums that might be a similar positive experience? (minus that being an actual job) you don't have to let go one of the 150...
But then again, you probably just went for a joke?
[...] in Australia [...] as a teacher with kids from the rough side of town [...]
Just exile them to England, seems fair to me...
roll on independence and the referendum in 2010 is all i can say
A small question before picking sides: what would be the impact on whisky prices?
Is it?
So you give one (1) anecdotal example that says "welfare state does not create the problem" and from there draw the conclusion "welfare state does create the problem"? I think you just introduced a whole new class of logical fallacies.
Scary though it it, the government thinks what it's doing is best for the people - which is a marked difference from the novel.
were all motivated by "doing the best for (their own) people".
Orwell fought in the Spanish civil war with the republicans against the fascists. In his time there were dictators like Mussolini, Franco, Stalin, Hitler,... so it is easy to understand where the inspiration and fear came from.