An anti-Linux troll. That is all you are. We don't care, the point here is that Microsoft can dish it out, but can't take it. That is just an extension of Bill Gates psyche. I've always been facinated by the way that large organizations reflect the psyche of their deranged leaders. At one place I used to work at, the head of the company was a tyrant who wanted his way. He would play the game of asking the staff what they thought the direction should be. They would bring in analysts from outside to study the output of the staff and have endless committee meetings. But in the end, we always wound up going with what the head of the company wanted in the first place. He didn't care about what the staff wanted, he just paid lip service. Then there is Steve Jobs. He's an asshole with a vision. In fact, I think he'd be proud to know that someone called him that. And his company has direction and consistency. All the signs of a super type-A leader. Then there is Bill the Gates. An over sensitive, insecure and scared manchild. He flipped out when he was parodied in the 80s by a simple cartoon. I am certain that the pie thrown in his face was a huge trauma for him as well. He's the kind of guy who would take all his toys and go home if you made one joke about him. Hence we have Microsoft with a corporate culture that reflects his psyche. They will easily defend their actions by saying that the big bad bully Apple was wrong in suing them for using windows in their OS. But when someone else comes along and tries to do something very similar to them, suddenly the double standard comes up and it's the other guy who is evil. You know what I say? That's Ridick. Plain and simple.
My feelings exactly. It seems to me that the major problem with KDE vs. GNOME vs. Windows XP vs. MacOS comes from the many different ways that people use computers. There is never going to be a "one size fits all" enviroment because there is always going to be something to bitch about with regards to how one feature or another is missing, gets in the way or isn't useful enough, etc... It's all going to depend on how a user uses their machine and the software.
For me GNOME is the best choice since it's easy to write for and has all the features I need to do what I do on my computers. KDE is less satisfying for me because it has more of an "office" or workplace feel, I can't stand C++ and the bindings for other languages are kludgy. I don't use computers to "get work done".
What do I do with my computers? I use computers to create art. My graphics are art, my music is art and my coding is art. That is why most technically saavy artists will always choose GNOME over KDE. It allows one to be so much more creative and original in every way. KDE limits you in some of the same ways that Windows does and holds a creative person back because it doesn't really make it easy to break the rules. All good artists always break the rules.
When I am at my day job, KDE, GNOME and Windows XP are fine because they allow me to do the less important stuff that makes money: administer the network and users where I work. Either environment gets the job done and therefore I have no preference.
The people who proclaim that any of the environments is superior over the other is making the typical mistake in assuming that everyone else works and thinks like they do. That assumption leads to the idea that everyone uses computers to do the same things. This just isn't true and is why there will always be multiple platforms AND turnkey systems.
The only thing I got out of the article is that he doesn't seem to think that being flexible to multiple languages should be a priority. But he's wrong. While KDE has improved somewhat, it's not an environment that most true geeks would want to use. Let me make the point here that true geeks are artists in every sense of the word. With that said, look at it this way:
KDE = An environment for suits and worker bees GNOME = An environment for truly creative spirits
The very "strength" of KDE, as Peterely would percieve it, is something that no true artist would be attracted to: Consistency. A really good visual artist uses many different colors, paints and media. A really great musician will play and compose for many different instruments. (Think Peter Gabriel vs. Michael Bolton. Who is the better musician?) A really great actor will have a lot of flexibility in their roles. (Think Olivier vs. Tom Hanks. Who is the greater actor?) The same can be said of the whole KDE vs. GNOME war. While KDE has added bindings to allow other languages to fit in, it wasn't part of the original design. It's about as creative as a suit assembling a Powerpoint presentation with canned media. GNOME, on the other hand has been the leader in creativity since it's design was one that was built for flexibility. It's a lot more like a professional video producer using Avid and original source materlial to put together a truly creative and original program.
No matter how much ground KDE gains on the "desktop", the truly creative coders will always gravitate towards GNOME. Remember... it's all about flexibility, originality and creatvity. Not... consistency.
Where I work, we use VMS. Sadly it's going away. But, I do have some really cool storie that my boss passed along to me about his experiences with VMS back in the 80s. He worked at a bank where they had a support group for the two different systems they supported. There was the Wang support group and the VMS support group. The Wang support group was made up of 100+ people who were on call 24/7 and were generally in the offices. The VMS support group was... 1 person. Also on call 24/7, but only ever needed to be there during normal work hours becasuse the system "just worked". I've seen the same thing where I work now. We are moving to HP's Unix and most of the VMS guys are dreading it. Even though I love UNIX and Linux, I have to say that VMS is a lot heartier and very easy to support. To be honest, if DEC/Compaq/HP had been smart, they could have had a great competitor to Windows in the server market if they kept the GUI up to date. Hopefully, someone will port Gnome to it and get it to have a bit more of a modern feel for the server monkeys.
Re:Not to be a troll here but...
on
Superbowl XXXVII
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· Score: 1
You are a stupid motherfucker. People like you make me want to leave this cesspool. It just gets worse every day. Fucking jingoist asshole.
Re:It's very simple!
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Superbowl XXXVII
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· Score: 3, Insightful
How does seeing a bunch of commercials help the economy? As it is, I ignore most commercials since they annoy the hell out of me. And... if someone has a commercial that REALLY annoys me, I will either forget what the commercial was for or will be likely to NOT buy their product or service. My wife is the same way. American economy be damned, I'm not just going to buy crap I don't need or want just to help the economy. What kind of retard would buy useless crap? The push to make you buy crap is tremendous and the super bowl just amplifies that. Sorry, but I think the best thing that most people could be doing for our country to be patriotic is protesting the war for oil. Maybe it will wake people up that they've been living in a fantasy with their eyes half closed.
Moderators come on!!! This WAS funny! Don't moderate down if you don't like something, make yourself useful and reply! I think this was damn funny.
Well, I had this idea for a free OS with...
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The 1991 "X-Box"
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· Score: 2, Insightful
... source code that would be exchanged with anyone who want it back in 1989. I used to be on an Atari 16/32 bit forum on the old Cleveland Freenet and had some interesting conversations with other people about making an alternate OS for the Atari that would be freely distributable and completely open since that seeme dot be a good idea at the time. I even chatted with some guys from Helsinki.:) Nothing ever came of it though.
Same as this guy, a lot of people come up with ideas and jot them down every day. Although they may never follow through, it's not impossible. This guy isn't claiming that he invented the XBox, he just had an idea for a PC based game system. Not too far out for 1990. I think this guy is legit and the whiners here are jealous.
I have a ton of concepts that I've written up over the years but have never gotten back to. Maybe one day...
Damn Kxine is butt ugly. But, I can see how it's more usable for noobs. What's always puzzled me is why more people don't take a hint from Windows and use the F1 key to provide help for an application. Yes, there are some who do, most notably on the KDE side of things. But, Here is what I think would make a decent GUI for MPlayer:
1. When you click on the icon to launch it, all you get is a file dialog box and a URL field in case you want to use a stream. 2. Once the file or stream is opened, it prompts you for Fullscreen or windowed mode. 3. In full screen mode a brief message saying "Press F1 to see a keyboard map of the keys that control playback" appears and fades out after 2 seconds, then the media plays. 4. In windowed mode, you have controls for the media that only appear when you are in the display window itself. They overlap the video or the visualization with semi-transparent controls for: -stop -pause -ff -rw -next track -prev track -half size -double size -full screen -open new file/stream -playlist
An that's it. Clean, simple and usable by anyone. The KB should never be forgotten when it can work much better than the GUI for media player functions. I absolutely love MPlayer's ability to scroll through a video in 1 minute and ten minute increments. Along with a progress bar onscreen no less. Much better than a stupdi scroll bar like Windows Media Player, Real, Quicktime, etc...
...that this is an OPINION piece. No matter how much you might violently disagree with what JZW said, none of what he uttered is fact. It's all his opinion.
I am a happy user of MPlayer as it is the best all around media player for Linux in my opinion. With one of the simpler skins, the program operates about 98% perfectly. And if you are one of the people (like me) who is stubborn enough to make use of RedHat 8, it works just fine. The part about not being able to bring the display window to the top may be his fault since he has more than likely chosen a crappy window manager. Metacity in Gnome 2.0 easily allows me to bring MPlayer to the front. The behavior doesn't seem any different than running Windows Media player in Windows and minimizing of maximizing.
As far as the comment about the "horror" of Gnome 2.0. The only thing I can think of that he is referring to is the tendency for certain apps to leak memory. There is a fix for that, and I wish RH would publish it quickly. But for those of you how LOVE Gnome 2.0 as I do and want to keep RH8 on their systems without the memory leak problems, go here:
The only thing I will agree with that I think he MIGHT have been trying to say, but said poorly was this: Joe user will have a hard time trying to get a video to play back on any distro of Linux at this time. That IS true and that is something that needs to be worked on. I kind of wish RedHat would choose a media player to bundle with their distro that handles all the standard audio and video formats. Hopefully, they will choose MPlayer as it seems to be the best player around at the moment.
However, these are all my opinions. I'm just more open to admitting that.
If you liked what I said then befriend me. If you do, I'll befreind you back.
Trolling4Dollars - Part time troll, part time arbiter of wisdom and taste. (Taking a hint from Rush "Blimpboy" Limbaugh's playbook. Brag with no justification)
In the second article (Peter Houston interview) he makes the point that people would be driven to Windows rather than Linux because of integration. I would argue that this is the reason people would likely abandon Windows. It's an "all your eggs in one basket" approach with poor support from the company. Whereas the Linux world allows you to pick and choose what you need to make the system work the way you want it to. But, I will also say this, people are not going to move over to Linux in droves either. A lot of the reasoning behind moving to one platform or another has to do with how you use the systems. For the "day to day" useless work tasks (Office apps, groupware, e-mail, web) that most corporations follow, Microsoft is fine. And considering that a lot of these companies employ IT staff with lesser skills (ie: not programmers), MS Windows is probably the right choice for them. But, when you have talented admins who understand networking, programming and the OS itself, Linux is likely to buy you a lot more uptime, reliability and customizability than Windows.
Now, from MY perspective, Linux is a win for me personally. I use it at home for server and desktops. I am slowly customizing and building my network into a solid entity that operates my home. It has my personality all over it. You just CAN'T do that with Windows. The other thing is that the interview talks a lot about market share and profit. Again, what difference does that make to me and people like me? We don't do this for money, we do it because we like to and because we can. The point that a lot of these people seem to miss is that the "success of Linux" has nothing to do with money. It has to do with the community of people around it who use it to do things they can't do with Windows. No matter if IBM or any other corporation drops their support for Linux, the people who use it will continue to use it until something better comes along. That something better would have to have some compelling features to pull people away too:
-Free as in beer -Free as in speech -Completely customizable in every way -Lots of support for legacy scripts and apps, etc...
One other note. No one knows what the future is going to hold. Back in 1993 I was still using my Atari ST 1040 machine to write papers for college and make music. I still use it to make music, but if you told me that I would have been using a different OS in only a year or two, I probably would have assumed MacOS. Windows would have been a second guess. And UNIX? I had bought the general industry line at the time: "Oh yeah, that old thing. It'll probably be dead in a year or two." You never know what's going to happen.
Herbert and Asimov are PBS to Stephenson's Discovery channel. While they might be good writers in the technical sense, they are terrible STORY TELLERS. That is where Stephenson shines, he tells a good story. When I read Snow Crash back in the early 90s, I was enthralled. Every time I put the book down, I wanted to pick it up again to find out what happened next. When I read some Asimov, I dreaded picking it back up again. His stuff (and Herbert's) are a task to read. Too wordy. Too precise. Give me eye candy and facinating... that's Stephenson.
Another writer I like is David Brin. I read his eco-scifi masterpiece Earth in the late 80s adn still remember it to this day. He can also be wordy and a little pedantic, but the story was compelling and very plausible. If you want to see what 2038 could be like if we don't stop polluting the world now, read this book. (Actually... it's already too late.)
Not a book, but an interesting scifi read: E.M. Forrester's short story "The Machine Stops". Yes... that's the same E.M. Forrester who's books all those crappy chick flicks are based on.;P I didn't know he'd attempted to write anything outside of his usual style until I read a non-fiction book that questioned our society's dependence on computer technology. I believe that book was called Cyberwars by Marc ? Anyway, he mentioned the E.M. Forrester story and I had to check it out. It was pretty good. Go to your local library and check out a collection of E.M. Forrester's short stories, it's bound to have "The Machine Stops".
Speaking of short stories, I would recommend checking out a scifi anthology or two from you library. It's a great way to get introduced to some new writers without having to invest in a complete book. Once you find a few you like, then you can explore their other work.
Finally, I'd also recommend Greg Bear. I absolutely loved his book (a biohorror) "Blood Music". At first I'd only read the short story and thought that was it. Then I found out it was a complete book! Again, another enthralling story that had me wondering what happens next.
Above all... explore your libraries because a lot of them have really good collections of short scifi stories and in general are just the coolest places on earth.;)
I think there are two reasons why people avoid X solutions:
1. They don't have a UNIX environment on the dekstops.
2. They don't know how to properly use X.
In the first case, I would recommend Cygwin's XFree86 Test servers for Windows. One of the latest builds allows rootless mode on a Windows desktop which would make the browser appear to run on the user's desktop. Combined with a theme that resembles Luna or the original Win2K look, the clients shouldn't be able to tell the difference.
The second problem is a little harder to deal with. Unfortunately, X is a little confusing for people not entires familiar with it. The fact that the "server" runs on the client end and the "clients" run on the server end is a very odd proposition. A lot of people also don't seem to be aware of the possibilities of remote execution with X. There is a lot of talk about it, but I don't think people use it in creative ways because they don't understand how to do that.
For this mozilla deployment, X is a natural since it allows for easy centralized management instead of running to each desktop. It's more secure since you can control access to the application servers and the users have no ability to reconfigure the browser since they only have access to the browser on the server and no editing tools. Even better is carrying all this over SSH. The traffic is encrypted and can be compressed. Making this VERY transparent to the user is extremely easy. But you will have to understand X first, which is understanably confusing to a lot of people. It took me a good two years to really understand and start using the power of X.
Server-side: I would set up the needed configuration(s) on one server. Then I would set up a group of "Terminal Servers" that use NFS to mount the custom config(s) and needed binaries on the first server.
Client-side: Set up all the clients to allow connections to display:0 from one of the "Terminal Servers". Set up ssh with authorization keys to avoid the need for passwords, then use ssh to remotely execute Mozilla:
ssh "mozilla --display=client-ip:0"
This command could be set up as an icon on the gnome-panel so the user only needs to click on a button to launch Mozilla.
Interesting read. Of course it uses the typical conservative approach of avoiding the real issues and turning the truth around. Conservatives are VERY good t that, I have to give them credit for being able to twist reality. Unfortunately liberals can't use that since they aren't trying to lie when they talk or write.
In the article, the writer mentions that if Huffington was really interested in doing something to oppose terrorism, she would support the exploration of Alaska for oil. However, that flies right in the face of the environmental concern. But.. one thing that conservatives never seem to want to do is support BOTH sides: Oppose terrorism AND our dependence on oil. Face it, we could easily rid ourselves of the middle east problem by applying the money spent preparing for a war on the develompent of cars that use alternative energy. WE WOULDN'T NEED OIL ANYMORE!! WE WOULDN'T NEED THE MIDDLE EAST ANYMORE!!! The real reason we are on the brink of war is because a small group of selfish, greedy and small-minded men want to stay rich. Take away the oil, and they have to work to find something else to stay on top. (And don't worry your little conservative hearts about that, they will always find some way to stay on top with or without oil.)
At one point in this country we could have had a wonderful mass transit system that would have greatly reduced the need for automobiles. Kind of like they have in Europe. Sure, it's a little less convenient than your own car, but such is life. You HAVE to make sacrifices to actually conserve energy. But, this mass transit project that we COULD HAVE had was dismantled by... THE AUTO INDUSTRY! Now why would that have happened? Maybe a few guys in the right place with the right amount of wealth put a stop to it? Hmmm?? Nah... couldn't be could it?
OK. That's fair. I am more curious about what makes people foe me than anything else. I've had some insightful/informative stuff with this account in the past, but it's awfully hard to get positive moderation when you have "Troll" in your name, which I think is unfair. I have another account I use to post my serious stuff, but I do post hings with this account that are serious too. Mostly because I noticed that my political posts tended to get modded down on the other account. (Liberals aren't too popular these days) Anyway, like I said, I'm more curious. I tend to get annoyed with people who just mod me down or foe me because of my name, when I DO post something insightful that they may not agree with. BTW, I added you as a friend, because I find that to be a comical thing to do to "foes" since I take none of this seriously. To me Slashdot is less a source of news these days thanit used to be. And not because of the user comments.
This is OT, and directed at evilviper. Why dod you "Foe" me? My part-time trolling? Looks like we're on the same side since I don't care for wrongheaded EULAs as well.
Sticking it to "the man" again! Considering the massive problems that we are having in the US with truth in advertising, decent journalism and contractual silencing of critics in other arenas, this is great news! I'm glad to see some logic prevailed. A lot of companies pay lip service to the statement that the "customer is always right". This particular contractual clause was just as tenuous as the stupid "non-compete" clauses that some employers slap down on people. It's ridiculous for any company to think that they can control what an employee does once they have left. Just the same as a company thinking that they can silence unsatisfied customers. Now, if only those anti-SUV ads would start showing up in more places.
Ummm... SUPPOSING that the moon landing WAS fake, couldn't they just fake the Mars landing too? Think about it, the Bush regime would have get alot of funding that they could siphon into their own pockets secretively. Just get George Lucas to do the FX for the landing. But for god's sake, keep him from putting cutesy little aliens everywhere!!! That would be an insult to our intelligence at best, and an insult to martian lifeforms at worst.
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An anti-Linux troll. That is all you are. We don't care, the point here is that Microsoft can dish it out, but can't take it. That is just an extension of Bill Gates psyche. I've always been facinated by the way that large organizations reflect the psyche of their deranged leaders. At one place I used to work at, the head of the company was a tyrant who wanted his way. He would play the game of asking the staff what they thought the direction should be. They would bring in analysts from outside to study the output of the staff and have endless committee meetings. But in the end, we always wound up going with what the head of the company wanted in the first place. He didn't care about what the staff wanted, he just paid lip service. Then there is Steve Jobs. He's an asshole with a vision. In fact, I think he'd be proud to know that someone called him that. And his company has direction and consistency. All the signs of a super type-A leader. Then there is Bill the Gates. An over sensitive, insecure and scared manchild. He flipped out when he was parodied in the 80s by a simple cartoon. I am certain that the pie thrown in his face was a huge trauma for him as well. He's the kind of guy who would take all his toys and go home if you made one joke about him. Hence we have Microsoft with a corporate culture that reflects his psyche. They will easily defend their actions by saying that the big bad bully Apple was wrong in suing them for using windows in their OS. But when someone else comes along and tries to do something very similar to them, suddenly the double standard comes up and it's the other guy who is evil. You know what I say? That's Ridick. Plain and simple.
Moderators on crack yet again. Someone MUST see the humor in this:
RPG=Role Playing Game.
Sooo... saying RPG Game is redundant.
Hence the original story should get a +1 redundant
Above=funny
Unless you are a humor impaired moderator. Remember, just because the word Troll is in my name doesn't mean I am a troll.
The classic RPG game. As in:
Role playing Game Game.
I love redundancy.
+1 Redundant
My feelings exactly. It seems to me that the major problem with KDE vs. GNOME vs. Windows XP vs. MacOS comes from the many different ways that people use computers. There is never going to be a "one size fits all" enviroment because there is always going to be something to bitch about with regards to how one feature or another is missing, gets in the way or isn't useful enough, etc... It's all going to depend on how a user uses their machine and the software.
For me GNOME is the best choice since it's easy to write for and has all the features I need to do what I do on my computers. KDE is less satisfying for me because it has more of an "office" or workplace feel, I can't stand C++ and the bindings for other languages are kludgy. I don't use computers to "get work done".
What do I do with my computers? I use computers to create art. My graphics are art, my music is art and my coding is art. That is why most technically saavy artists will always choose GNOME over KDE. It allows one to be so much more creative and original in every way. KDE limits you in some of the same ways that Windows does and holds a creative person back because it doesn't really make it easy to break the rules. All good artists always break the rules.
When I am at my day job, KDE, GNOME and Windows XP are fine because they allow me to do the less important stuff that makes money: administer the network and users where I work. Either environment gets the job done and therefore I have no preference.
The people who proclaim that any of the environments is superior over the other is making the typical mistake in assuming that everyone else works and thinks like they do. That assumption leads to the idea that everyone uses computers to do the same things. This just isn't true and is why there will always be multiple platforms AND turnkey systems.
The only thing I got out of the article is that he doesn't seem to think that being flexible to multiple languages should be a priority. But he's wrong. While KDE has improved somewhat, it's not an environment that most true geeks would want to use. Let me make the point here that true geeks are artists in every sense of the word. With that said, look at it this way:
KDE = An environment for suits and worker bees
GNOME = An environment for truly creative spirits
The very "strength" of KDE, as Peterely would percieve it, is something that no true artist would be attracted to: Consistency. A really good visual artist uses many different colors, paints and media. A really great musician will play and compose for many different instruments. (Think Peter Gabriel vs. Michael Bolton. Who is the better musician?) A really great actor will have a lot of flexibility in their roles. (Think Olivier vs. Tom Hanks. Who is the greater actor?) The same can be said of the whole KDE vs. GNOME war. While KDE has added bindings to allow other languages to fit in, it wasn't part of the original design. It's about as creative as a suit assembling a Powerpoint presentation with canned media. GNOME, on the other hand has been the leader in creativity since it's design was one that was built for flexibility. It's a lot more like a professional video producer using Avid and original source materlial to put together a truly creative and original program.
No matter how much ground KDE gains on the "desktop", the truly creative coders will always gravitate towards GNOME. Remember... it's all about flexibility, originality and creatvity. Not... consistency.
Where I work, we use VMS. Sadly it's going away. But, I do have some really cool storie that my boss passed along to me about his experiences with VMS back in the 80s. He worked at a bank where they had a support group for the two different systems they supported. There was the Wang support group and the VMS support group. The Wang support group was made up of 100+ people who were on call 24/7 and were generally in the offices. The VMS support group was... 1 person. Also on call 24/7, but only ever needed to be there during normal work hours becasuse the system "just worked". I've seen the same thing where I work now. We are moving to HP's Unix and most of the VMS guys are dreading it. Even though I love UNIX and Linux, I have to say that VMS is a lot heartier and very easy to support. To be honest, if DEC/Compaq/HP had been smart, they could have had a great competitor to Windows in the server market if they kept the GUI up to date. Hopefully, someone will port Gnome to it and get it to have a bit more of a modern feel for the server monkeys.
You are a stupid motherfucker. People like you make me want to leave this cesspool. It just gets worse every day. Fucking jingoist asshole.
How does seeing a bunch of commercials help the economy? As it is, I ignore most commercials since they annoy the hell out of me. And... if someone has a commercial that REALLY annoys me, I will either forget what the commercial was for or will be likely to NOT buy their product or service. My wife is the same way. American economy be damned, I'm not just going to buy crap I don't need or want just to help the economy. What kind of retard would buy useless crap? The push to make you buy crap is tremendous and the super bowl just amplifies that. Sorry, but I think the best thing that most people could be doing for our country to be patriotic is protesting the war for oil. Maybe it will wake people up that they've been living in a fantasy with their eyes half closed.
Moderators come on!!! This WAS funny! Don't moderate down if you don't like something, make yourself useful and reply! I think this was damn funny.
... source code that would be exchanged with anyone who want it back in 1989. I used to be on an Atari 16/32 bit forum on the old Cleveland Freenet and had some interesting conversations with other people about making an alternate OS for the Atari that would be freely distributable and completely open since that seeme dot be a good idea at the time. I even chatted with some guys from Helsinki. :) Nothing ever came of it though.
Same as this guy, a lot of people come up with ideas and jot them down every day. Although they may never follow through, it's not impossible. This guy isn't claiming that he invented the XBox, he just had an idea for a PC based game system. Not too far out for 1990. I think this guy is legit and the whiners here are jealous.
I have a ton of concepts that I've written up over the years but have never gotten back to. Maybe one day...
Damn Kxine is butt ugly. But, I can see how it's more usable for noobs. What's always puzzled me is why more people don't take a hint from Windows and use the F1 key to provide help for an application. Yes, there are some who do, most notably on the KDE side of things. But, Here is what I think would make a decent GUI for MPlayer:
1. When you click on the icon to launch it, all you get is a file dialog box and a URL field in case you want to use a stream.
2. Once the file or stream is opened, it prompts you for Fullscreen or windowed mode.
3. In full screen mode a brief message saying "Press F1 to see a keyboard map of the keys that control playback" appears and fades out after 2 seconds, then the media plays.
4. In windowed mode, you have controls for the media that only appear when you are in the display window itself. They overlap the video or the visualization with semi-transparent controls for:
-stop
-pause
-ff
-rw
-next track
-prev track
-half size
-double size
-full screen
-open new file/stream
-playlist
An that's it. Clean, simple and usable by anyone. The KB should never be forgotten when it can work much better than the GUI for media player functions. I absolutely love MPlayer's ability to scroll through a video in 1 minute and ten minute increments. Along with a progress bar onscreen no less. Much better than a stupdi scroll bar like Windows Media Player, Real, Quicktime, etc...
...that this is an OPINION piece. No matter how much you might violently disagree with what JZW said, none of what he uttered is fact. It's all his opinion.
I am a happy user of MPlayer as it is the best all around media player for Linux in my opinion. With one of the simpler skins, the program operates about 98% perfectly. And if you are one of the people (like me) who is stubborn enough to make use of RedHat 8, it works just fine. The part about not being able to bring the display window to the top may be his fault since he has more than likely chosen a crappy window manager. Metacity in Gnome 2.0 easily allows me to bring MPlayer to the front. The behavior doesn't seem any different than running Windows Media player in Windows and minimizing of maximizing.
As far as the comment about the "horror" of Gnome 2.0. The only thing I can think of that he is referring to is the tendency for certain apps to leak memory. There is a fix for that, and I wish RH would publish it quickly. But for those of you how LOVE Gnome 2.0 as I do and want to keep RH8 on their systems without the memory leak problems, go here:
Fix in RPM format
Grab the appropriate RPMs. To see the bug report, go here:
Bugzilla listing for 76219
The only thing I will agree with that I think he MIGHT have been trying to say, but said poorly was this: Joe user will have a hard time trying to get a video to play back on any distro of Linux at this time. That IS true and that is something that needs to be worked on. I kind of wish RedHat would choose a media player to bundle with their distro that handles all the standard audio and video formats. Hopefully, they will choose MPlayer as it seems to be the best player around at the moment.
However, these are all my opinions. I'm just more open to admitting that.
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Trolling4Dollars - Part time troll, part time arbiter of wisdom and taste. (Taking a hint from Rush "Blimpboy" Limbaugh's playbook. Brag with no justification)
OK. I responded. Where's my karma? ;P
In the second article (Peter Houston interview) he makes the point that people would be driven to Windows rather than Linux because of integration. I would argue that this is the reason people would likely abandon Windows. It's an "all your eggs in one basket" approach with poor support from the company. Whereas the Linux world allows you to pick and choose what you need to make the system work the way you want it to. But, I will also say this, people are not going to move over to Linux in droves either. A lot of the reasoning behind moving to one platform or another has to do with how you use the systems. For the "day to day" useless work tasks (Office apps, groupware, e-mail, web) that most corporations follow, Microsoft is fine. And considering that a lot of these companies employ IT staff with lesser skills (ie: not programmers), MS Windows is probably the right choice for them. But, when you have talented admins who understand networking, programming and the OS itself, Linux is likely to buy you a lot more uptime, reliability and customizability than Windows.
Now, from MY perspective, Linux is a win for me personally. I use it at home for server and desktops. I am slowly customizing and building my network into a solid entity that operates my home. It has my personality all over it. You just CAN'T do that with Windows. The other thing is that the interview talks a lot about market share and profit. Again, what difference does that make to me and people like me? We don't do this for money, we do it because we like to and because we can. The point that a lot of these people seem to miss is that the "success of Linux" has nothing to do with money. It has to do with the community of people around it who use it to do things they can't do with Windows. No matter if IBM or any other corporation drops their support for Linux, the people who use it will continue to use it until something better comes along. That something better would have to have some compelling features to pull people away too:
-Free as in beer
-Free as in speech
-Completely customizable in every way
-Lots of support for legacy scripts and apps, etc...
One other note. No one knows what the future is going to hold. Back in 1993 I was still using my Atari ST 1040 machine to write papers for college and make music. I still use it to make music, but if you told me that I would have been using a different OS in only a year or two, I probably would have assumed MacOS. Windows would have been a second guess. And UNIX? I had bought the general industry line at the time: "Oh yeah, that old thing. It'll probably be dead in a year or two." You never know what's going to happen.
James Herbert? Who's James Herbert? Jeeze! Before ranting, you might want to actually know the author's names... Just a suggestion.
Herbert and Asimov are PBS to Stephenson's Discovery channel. While they might be good writers in the technical sense, they are terrible STORY TELLERS. That is where Stephenson shines, he tells a good story. When I read Snow Crash back in the early 90s, I was enthralled. Every time I put the book down, I wanted to pick it up again to find out what happened next. When I read some Asimov, I dreaded picking it back up again. His stuff (and Herbert's) are a task to read. Too wordy. Too precise. Give me eye candy and facinating... that's Stephenson.
;P I didn't know he'd attempted to write anything outside of his usual style until I read a non-fiction book that questioned our society's dependence on computer technology. I believe that book was called Cyberwars by Marc ? Anyway, he mentioned the E.M. Forrester story and I had to check it out. It was pretty good. Go to your local library and check out a collection of E.M. Forrester's short stories, it's bound to have "The Machine Stops".
;)
Another writer I like is David Brin. I read his eco-scifi masterpiece Earth in the late 80s adn still remember it to this day. He can also be wordy and a little pedantic, but the story was compelling and very plausible. If you want to see what 2038 could be like if we don't stop polluting the world now, read this book. (Actually... it's already too late.)
Not a book, but an interesting scifi read: E.M. Forrester's short story "The Machine Stops". Yes... that's the same E.M. Forrester who's books all those crappy chick flicks are based on.
Speaking of short stories, I would recommend checking out a scifi anthology or two from you library. It's a great way to get introduced to some new writers without having to invest in a complete book. Once you find a few you like, then you can explore their other work.
Finally, I'd also recommend Greg Bear. I absolutely loved his book (a biohorror) "Blood Music". At first I'd only read the short story and thought that was it. Then I found out it was a complete book! Again, another enthralling story that had me wondering what happens next.
Above all... explore your libraries because a lot of them have really good collections of short scifi stories and in general are just the coolest places on earth.
I think there are two reasons why people avoid X solutions:
1. They don't have a UNIX environment on the dekstops.
2. They don't know how to properly use X.
In the first case, I would recommend Cygwin's XFree86 Test servers for Windows. One of the latest builds allows rootless mode on a Windows desktop which would make the browser appear to run on the user's desktop. Combined with a theme that resembles Luna or the original Win2K look, the clients shouldn't be able to tell the difference.
The second problem is a little harder to deal with. Unfortunately, X is a little confusing for people not entires familiar with it. The fact that the "server" runs on the client end and the "clients" run on the server end is a very odd proposition. A lot of people also don't seem to be aware of the possibilities of remote execution with X. There is a lot of talk about it, but I don't think people use it in creative ways because they don't understand how to do that.
For this mozilla deployment, X is a natural since it allows for easy centralized management instead of running to each desktop. It's more secure since you can control access to the application servers and the users have no ability to reconfigure the browser since they only have access to the browser on the server and no editing tools. Even better is carrying all this over SSH. The traffic is encrypted and can be compressed. Making this VERY transparent to the user is extremely easy. But you will have to understand X first, which is understanably confusing to a lot of people. It took me a good two years to really understand and start using the power of X.
Assuming you are a UNIX/Linux environment:
:0 from one of the "Terminal Servers". Set up ssh with authorization keys to avoid the need for passwords, then use ssh to remotely execute Mozilla:
Server-side:
I would set up the needed configuration(s) on one server. Then I would set up a group of "Terminal Servers" that use NFS to mount the custom config(s) and needed binaries on the first server.
Client-side:
Set up all the clients to allow connections to display
ssh "mozilla --display=client-ip:0"
This command could be set up as an icon on the gnome-panel so the user only needs to click on a button to launch Mozilla.
Just a few ideas anyway...
Interesting read. Of course it uses the typical conservative approach of avoiding the real issues and turning the truth around. Conservatives are VERY good t that, I have to give them credit for being able to twist reality. Unfortunately liberals can't use that since they aren't trying to lie when they talk or write.
In the article, the writer mentions that if Huffington was really interested in doing something to oppose terrorism, she would support the exploration of Alaska for oil. However, that flies right in the face of the environmental concern. But.. one thing that conservatives never seem to want to do is support BOTH sides: Oppose terrorism AND our dependence on oil. Face it, we could easily rid ourselves of the middle east problem by applying the money spent preparing for a war on the develompent of cars that use alternative energy. WE WOULDN'T NEED OIL ANYMORE!! WE WOULDN'T NEED THE MIDDLE EAST ANYMORE!!! The real reason we are on the brink of war is because a small group of selfish, greedy and small-minded men want to stay rich. Take away the oil, and they have to work to find something else to stay on top. (And don't worry your little conservative hearts about that, they will always find some way to stay on top with or without oil.)
At one point in this country we could have had a wonderful mass transit system that would have greatly reduced the need for automobiles. Kind of like they have in Europe. Sure, it's a little less convenient than your own car, but such is life. You HAVE to make sacrifices to actually conserve energy. But, this mass transit project that we COULD HAVE had was dismantled by... THE AUTO INDUSTRY! Now why would that have happened? Maybe a few guys in the right place with the right amount of wealth put a stop to it? Hmmm?? Nah... couldn't be could it?
OK. That's fair. I am more curious about what makes people foe me than anything else. I've had some insightful/informative stuff with this account in the past, but it's awfully hard to get positive moderation when you have "Troll" in your name, which I think is unfair. I have another account I use to post my serious stuff, but I do post hings with this account that are serious too. Mostly because I noticed that my political posts tended to get modded down on the other account. (Liberals aren't too popular these days) Anyway, like I said, I'm more curious. I tend to get annoyed with people who just mod me down or foe me because of my name, when I DO post something insightful that they may not agree with. BTW, I added you as a friend, because I find that to be a comical thing to do to "foes" since I take none of this seriously. To me Slashdot is less a source of news these days thanit used to be. And not because of the user comments.
This is OT, and directed at evilviper. Why dod you "Foe" me? My part-time trolling? Looks like we're on the same side since I don't care for wrongheaded EULAs as well.
Sticking it to "the man" again! Considering the massive problems that we are having in the US with truth in advertising, decent journalism and contractual silencing of critics in other arenas, this is great news! I'm glad to see some logic prevailed. A lot of companies pay lip service to the statement that the "customer is always right". This particular contractual clause was just as tenuous as the stupid "non-compete" clauses that some employers slap down on people. It's ridiculous for any company to think that they can control what an employee does once they have left. Just the same as a company thinking that they can silence unsatisfied customers. Now, if only those anti-SUV ads would start showing up in more places.
Ummm... SUPPOSING that the moon landing WAS fake, couldn't they just fake the Mars landing too? Think about it, the Bush regime would have get alot of funding that they could siphon into their own pockets secretively. Just get George Lucas to do the FX for the landing. But for god's sake, keep him from putting cutesy little aliens everywhere!!! That would be an insult to our intelligence at best, and an insult to martian lifeforms at worst.
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Tell that to the gay community. They regularly use Popeye as a gay icon. "I am what I am" and all that jazz.
Rod Munch
Calling all TROLLS!!! To arms!!!!