..to allow the typical Windows users to easily rename a file without having him or her remember the particular extension of the file.
Think of a noob trying to change the name of a file: "Image1.jpg" would become "Picture of my Dog Fluffy".
Of course after changing the name and eliminating the file extension, the file would no longer work with the user's favorite program, and chaos would ensue. MS merely nipped that problem before it started (and created another problem in the process!)
Vista fixed this. Now, when you rename a file, it highlights everything except the extension, so when you start typing, the extension isn't overwritten.
So, this is no longer a valid excuse for extensions being hidden by default.
I don't use windows much, but does it have anything resembling launchers for gnome?
My point is, if you make a launcher in gnome you can give it any icon you want and any filename you want and have it run any command you want. If windows has something like that then I would say the extension problem is moot.
Windows calls them shortcuts, and they've been around since at least Windows 3.0 in 1990. Nearly everything on the desktop is a shortcut.
Granted, in Windows, they have a little "right-turn" arrow on their lower-right corner to denote that they're shortcuts... unless the user turns those off.
As for the iWork vs. Office scenario, academic discounts are a *wonderful* thing. Or how about just OpenOffice.org? I've got that on my flash drive, for if I need to do work on someone else's computer, since there's no guarantee they'll have anything I can use. And fine, hardware costs being equal, TCO still isn't radically different.
Those aren't the only discounts either. If your employer has a volume license, they may have opted into the Employee Purchase Program, which offers discounts on things like Office.
I know my employer has, even though I don't use Office at home.
[citation needed] Seriously. It's not like I paid for my A/V software. It's not like I run scans when I'm using the system, so my work isn't being slowed.
Ok, but that either means one of many things:
A) You pirated your AV software, which, being illegal, should include the full retail price when figuring out total cost of ownership
B) You have a free AV, which, might not be protecting you enough (depending on which AV you have) And either way, you aren't necessarily 100% protected without it being scanned often
As much as I hate to defend Microsoft, they do make an anti-virus program... but can't bundle it with Windows or give it away for free because Symantec has made it known that they will pursue antitrust actions if Microsoft does.
While Windows does have more software choices, a Mac is going to be able to do a whole lot more out of the box. And third party software is about the same price, but first party isn't. You can get iWork for about $50, while Office costs much more.
Well, if users are stupid enough to click on something labeled partyinvite.doc (really partyinvite.doc.exe) when file extensions for every other file are hidden, what makes you think they'll notice partyinvite.doc.exe?
Windows really needs to push 64bit, as a box with a quad core processor and 8gb of ram will be standard in 2010. On that hardware, 7 should run fairly well (until the average user has used it for 6 months).
That quote in the story is way out of context. Ulrich's words were: "Any change will negatively impact well designed architectures for the sole benefit of this embedded crap."
He claims random crap like that all the time when he refuses to fix bugs.
Stack Overflow has a question from last year titled Worst PHP practice found in your experience?. Earlier today, I submitted the answer whose summary is "The worst practice in PHP is having the language's behavior change based on a settings file."
I hate to say it, but this wouldn't be the first time on/. when an article was submitted with a link that was a year or more older and the article made it to the main page. Particularly since the article the GP linked to is a year old to the day.
I can only imagine the submitter/approver looked at the date, say May 6th, and went "OMG, that's today!!!111"
er... um... how can I tell you this... that 70+ years is actually the rest of the author's life PLUS another 70 years (to benefit their descendants). Or 95 years for works for hire (such as anything created by a corporation).
... after all, MSDOS had huge popularity and it was totally useless compared the the Atari ST or MacOS or whatever - much less friendly and much harder to use.
MSDOS was from another era. An era in which the primary users of computers were businesses. IBM had a lot of clout in those days, and thus IBM (and clones) were the dominant computers in offices.
Today, personal computers are aimed as much at home users as they are at business users. Heck, probably more!
The advent of the World Wide Web and how quickly it pushed out the services that came before it, such as Gopher, is a testament as to how much more important GUIs were even in the 90s.
I've heard of other game mods that have taken that long. For instance, I'm fairly sure my copy of Half-Life: Game of the Year Edition came with an advertisement for the then-in-development Team Fortress 2 (and a copy of Team Fortress Classic in the box). In 1999.
The same Team Fortress 2 that came out using a different game engine (Source) and art style in 2007.
I'm taking basic college level chemistry and, forget kids not being prepared to go to college, the MAJORITY of my chemistry class cannot do FRACTIONS and PERCENTAGES.
That sounds like a problem with the college to me. I know that when I entered college, I had to take math, reading, and writing exams. Any course requiring any of these would require a specific score or higher (out of 10). If you don't, you were blocked from taking said class.
I know that I personally scored Reading 9, Writing 8, and Math 9.
CHEM125 (Basic Chemistry) required Reading 5, Writing 4, and Math 5 (or MATH107 Introductory Algebra concurrently). MATH107 required Reading 5, Writing 2, and Math 4 (or a 2.0 in MATH050 PreAlgebra). MATH050 required Reading 3, Writing 2, and Math 3.
If you didn't have at least a Math 3, there's no way to take these courses. Sorry, you're out of luck!
Go ahead, yank 'em all back. Worldwide, the five RIRs (AfriNIC, ARIN, APNIC, LACNIC, RIPE) go through 12-14/8s per year. Don't give yourself a charley-horse patting yourself on the back because you managed to move out the exhaustion date by 8 months.
[citation needed]
Actually, the citation should point to IANA's master list, but that disproves your statement, not supports it.
I thought IPv6 split the network and local address segments right down the middle (i.e. each is 64-bit).
Geez, no wonder adoption of IPv6 is having so much trouble... they don't even include important information such as the size of the network identifier in the IPv6 Addressing RFC (RFC 3513: Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Addressing Architecture, obsoletes RFC 2373)
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There's a tool named TweakUI that Microsoft makes that can disable or change the transparency levels of the shortcut icon.
Lets call this "trusted computing" and only let certain people modify that data. ...after some consideration, that plan doesn't sound so good.
Vista fixed this. Now, when you rename a file, it highlights everything except the extension, so when you start typing, the extension isn't overwritten.
So, this is no longer a valid excuse for extensions being hidden by default.
Windows calls them shortcuts, and they've been around since at least Windows 3.0 in 1990. Nearly everything on the desktop is a shortcut.
Granted, in Windows, they have a little "right-turn" arrow on their lower-right corner to denote that they're shortcuts... unless the user turns those off.
Those aren't the only discounts either. If your employer has a volume license, they may have opted into the Employee Purchase Program, which offers discounts on things like Office.
I know my employer has, even though I don't use Office at home.
As much as I hate to defend Microsoft, they do make an anti-virus program... but can't bundle it with Windows or give it away for free because Symantec has made it known that they will pursue antitrust actions if Microsoft does.
Three things:
1. According to the Apple Store, iWork '09 is $79.
2. Microsoft Works 9 is $40. Works doesn't contain anything like Keynote or Powerpoint, but then again, it includes a database program instead.
3. Office Home and Student 2007 (Windows) and Office Home and Student 2008 (OSX) are $150.
Well, if users are stupid enough to click on something labeled partyinvite.doc (really partyinvite.doc.exe) when file extensions for every other file are hidden, what makes you think they'll notice partyinvite.doc.exe?
Cool, I'm ahead of the curve!
It's so far in the future that the counter overflowed and is already up to -9!
I can see why he might be confused, though, as the Apple toolchain has gcc, autoconfig, automake, and autoheader in it.
bconway posted 4 citations earlier.
In a galaxy far, FAR away?
I do have a Windows PC, yes.
I also have a Linux PC that doesn't have a GUI (well, it does, but I don't use it).
Want to make a guess as to which one I'm posting here from?
Stack Overflow has a question from last year titled Worst PHP practice found in your experience?. Earlier today, I submitted the answer whose summary is "The worst practice in PHP is having the language's behavior change based on a settings file."
Great minds think alike!
Hey, I can't imagine that would be asked a lot or anything. There's no way that would be in the PHP FAQ!
Oh wait...
I hate to say it, but this wouldn't be the first time on /. when an article was submitted with a link that was a year or more older and the article made it to the main page. Particularly since the article the GP linked to is a year old to the day.
I can only imagine the submitter/approver looked at the date, say May 6th, and went "OMG, that's today!!!111"
Fun fact: arrays are not objects in PHP*. Not surprisingly, this means that they don't have properties or methods.
*Another poster already pointed out that PHP does have array objects, and having looked, array objects DO have an append method.
er... um... how can I tell you this... that 70+ years is actually the rest of the author's life PLUS another 70 years (to benefit their descendants). Or 95 years for works for hire (such as anything created by a corporation).
MSDOS was from another era. An era in which the primary users of computers were businesses. IBM had a lot of clout in those days, and thus IBM (and clones) were the dominant computers in offices.
Today, personal computers are aimed as much at home users as they are at business users. Heck, probably more!
The advent of the World Wide Web and how quickly it pushed out the services that came before it, such as Gopher, is a testament as to how much more important GUIs were even in the 90s.
I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico!
By car insurance, I mean computer OS. By Geico, I mean Ubuntu.
I've heard of other game mods that have taken that long. For instance, I'm fairly sure my copy of Half-Life: Game of the Year Edition came with an advertisement for the then-in-development Team Fortress 2 (and a copy of Team Fortress Classic in the box). In 1999.
The same Team Fortress 2 that came out using a different game engine (Source) and art style in 2007.
Because it's a frickin' blizzard!
What's next, "why is the sun so hot?"
That sounds like a problem with the college to me. I know that when I entered college, I had to take math, reading, and writing exams. Any course requiring any of these would require a specific score or higher (out of 10). If you don't, you were blocked from taking said class.
I know that I personally scored Reading 9, Writing 8, and Math 9.
CHEM125 (Basic Chemistry) required Reading 5, Writing 4, and Math 5 (or MATH107 Introductory Algebra concurrently). MATH107 required Reading 5, Writing 2, and Math 4 (or a 2.0 in MATH050 PreAlgebra). MATH050 required Reading 3, Writing 2, and Math 3.
If you didn't have at least a Math 3, there's no way to take these courses. Sorry, you're out of luck!
[citation needed]
Actually, the citation should point to IANA's master list, but that disproves your statement, not supports it.
I thought IPv6 split the network and local address segments right down the middle (i.e. each is 64-bit).
Geez, no wonder adoption of IPv6 is having so much trouble... they don't even include important information such as the size of the network identifier in the IPv6 Addressing RFC (RFC 3513: Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Addressing Architecture, obsoletes RFC 2373)