But recently I bought a Sony Clie SJ33 as a birthday gift for probably the most amazing, beautiful girl in the world, and after seeing her daily use with it, I've changed my mind on this.
Changed your mind on your lady or on the handheld?
Uh. Screen real estate, moron. You can't always drag from point A to point B without some trickery. Yes, moves work within the same volume. There are reasons to only have one finder window open, or to cross volumes.
Also, I work with keyboard shortcuts. Did you know that when you copy from one directory on one volume, and then try to paste on another volume, thet paste function is no longer active? Then I MUST drag. I don't like mousing to do things I could have done in much faster with the keyboard.
The biggest problem I have with Macmall is their print catalogues.
First, every system page has about 9 squares of 'selling up' extra products like printers, RAM, etc. This should be limited to things directly related to the system.
Second, everything has an exclaimation point after it. If I ended every sentence with an exclaimation point vocally, I'd scream all the time. Big turn-off
Third, everything is 'ONLY $xxx'. It's not ONLY, sorry. Yes, I know that you display the only price for that product. That's cool and all, but I assume that the cost is limited to $xxx. 'Only' means nothing to me. It doesn't mean you beat all the competition. It just means you don't understand that price, not words sway people.
Fourth, your memory installation prices are far from 'Free'. If I offered to take your free stick and wanted to install it myself, you wouldn't like that. The memory costs money, but I'm willing to bet the cost covers the memory, and you get the systems from Apple that way, nothing 'custom' about it.
The Apple Store appears to be more usable to me. For starters, I can click on a picture of an iPod and jump right to the iPod page, instead of the digital lifestyle device page. This link used to be in the upper left of the old store.
I can see and pick from pictures of Apple products instead of going to a 'software' page and first. This is a big usability plus.
All of the laptops and systems are laid out and ready to be clicked upon.
If you want cluttered design, pick up a MacMall catalog, or visit the MacMall site, both grand examples of clutter and inappropriate exclaimation.
Terse? Not really. I find PostgreSQL's shell to be far easier to connect to and use than mySQL's shell. Indeed, PostgreSQL has *very* verbose help, which is a major bonus during development. I can find nothing terse about it. I couldn't figure out mySQL, but PostgreSQL's documentation got me up and running in about 10 minutes.
Oh that would be wonderful if we get a cocoa finder. With the rumours of 'piles' in 10.3, I think a re-write is in the works. I find myself using the CLI to move files about because a) finder is slow and b) finder has no equivalent of a 'move' (cut+paste vs. copy+paste)
That most of the companies with product placements in BladeRunner were killed by 'The BladeRunner Curse', but now you are telling me that J. F. Sebastian may be cured by then? OK, time to re-make the movie!
Much better to go with semi-precious stones. Can you imagine the trouble over losing a ring worth over $1000? It still surprises me that this is often the most expensive item a person wears. Certainly there are more useful things one can buy or do to show one's devotion.
11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.
Apple did have a 2.8% sales loss last quarter. This is the only cause for concern at the moment. Sales are down, profit is up. Sounds like they found more cost-effective ways of building systems, or they are selling more software than hardware.
Sounds like when a guy in the office told me that Windows "Has more w4r3z." The reason for more "w4r3z" on Windows is manifold: 1) Bigger market share 2) Less competent developers. There must be 15-20 shareware programs to stitch images into.AVI files, but I have to say that none of them work in a sensible manner. Then you have dozens of applications that don't even follow the windows UI spec, or [Creative Labs] apps that throw out the entire widget set and roll their own.
Or you can be using an app that doesn't select properly and ends up chunking an entire webpage into the buffer. I did this once. I ended up flooding pages of text into a webpage, simply because I started my selection a hair to far left in my browser window. Since then, I learned to be very careful about such things.
Translucency adds the ability to read something in the background and type it in the foreground. I use this all the time when I have a terminal window open, and a web browser in the background. I can position the terminal properly and get an effective doubling of that real-estate. It's not just a clever hack. it has a use. We aren't talking transparent eTerms here, we're talking about real transparency.
The Dell Lattitude D800, not the inspiron is the more accurate comparison. At $2500, it is $200 more than the 15" Powerbook. Though.. one could argue that the Precision M50 is closer to the performance of the Powerbook, and costs 3500.
I think it is important to point out that the 2-3 times the *typical* cost will also yield you 2-3 times the *typical* stability and usability of comparable machines. Maybe there is an Apple luxury tax, but Apple users are more likely to be satisified.
Beside context menus fitting the closest location to the mouse, I find they superfluous and utterly useless 99% of the time. Most context menus bits are 'cut, paste, copy, undo' and essentially waste the user's time. Even in browsers, they are a bit of a waste. In Safari (depending on having tabs turned on or not, and depending on how your tabs are set-up) you can either 'right-click' and get the context menu with 'open in new tab', 'open', etc. or you can hold combinations of modifiers and execute a single click. Cut and paste, mentioned above, are easier to accomplish with a left-handed sequence. That's the reason for putting them under zxcv! Now, this may not be perfect for the minority of users using their left hands to mouse (because I know many left-handed people who their right hand for mousing) but there is always the context menu!
I'm not a big fan of the start menu on OS X. It just doesn't fit the NeXT-ish paradigm to me. The dock is nice, but you have to hold on the Applications folder to bring up the directory, and there is a pause when going into utilities as it loads all the icons. TigerLaunch caches only the icons one needs, and does so quickly. The ability to place/remove checks next to found programs to enable/disable them is nice too. Ranchero rocks.
I only need one button. Seriously. If I need another button, I'll hit command or control or option. That's four buttons and I get to keep one hand on the keyboard.
Slashdot Mirror
I was home sick (non-SARS, thankyewveramuch) ....
Yes, we all know it was for ebola.
Practical, but doesn't work too well in this post 9-11 society.
Now we know you are Jon Katz in disguise!
But recently I bought a Sony Clie SJ33 as a birthday gift for probably the most amazing, beautiful girl in the world, and after seeing her daily use with it, I've changed my mind on this.
Changed your mind on your lady or on the handheld?
Uh. Screen real estate, moron. You can't always drag from point A to point B without some trickery. Yes, moves work within the same volume. There are reasons to only have one finder window open, or to cross volumes.
Also, I work with keyboard shortcuts. Did you know that when you copy from one directory on one volume, and then try to paste on another volume, thet paste function is no longer active? Then I MUST drag. I don't like mousing to do things I could have done in much faster with the keyboard.
The biggest problem I have with Macmall is their print catalogues.
First, every system page has about 9 squares of 'selling up' extra products like printers, RAM, etc. This should be limited to things directly related to the system.
Second, everything has an exclaimation point after it. If I ended every sentence with an exclaimation point vocally, I'd scream all the time. Big turn-off
Third, everything is 'ONLY $xxx'. It's not ONLY, sorry. Yes, I know that you display the only price for that product. That's cool and all, but I assume that the cost is limited to $xxx. 'Only' means nothing to me. It doesn't mean you beat all the competition. It just means you don't understand that price, not words sway people.
Fourth, your memory installation prices are far from 'Free'. If I offered to take your free stick and wanted to install it myself, you wouldn't like that. The memory costs money, but I'm willing to bet the cost covers the memory, and you get the systems from Apple that way, nothing 'custom' about it.
The Apple Store appears to be more usable to me. For starters, I can click on a picture of an iPod and jump right to the iPod page, instead of the digital lifestyle device page. This link used to be in the upper left of the old store.
I can see and pick from pictures of Apple products instead of going to a 'software' page and first. This is a big usability plus.
All of the laptops and systems are laid out and ready to be clicked upon.
If you want cluttered design, pick up a MacMall catalog, or visit the MacMall site, both grand examples of clutter and inappropriate exclaimation.
Terse? Not really. I find PostgreSQL's shell to be far easier to connect to and use than mySQL's shell. Indeed, PostgreSQL has *very* verbose help, which is a major bonus during development. I can find nothing terse about it. I couldn't figure out mySQL, but PostgreSQL's documentation got me up and running in about 10 minutes.
Yeah, I found creating a db to be as easy. The psql buffer editor/front-end does a great job of explaining everything verbosely as well.
Oh that would be wonderful if we get a cocoa finder. With the rumours of 'piles' in 10.3, I think a re-write is in the works. I find myself using the CLI to move files about because a) finder is slow and b) finder has no equivalent of a 'move' (cut+paste vs. copy+paste)
Alias isn't sci-fi/fantasy?
Please read the rest of the website for examples of how much not better the guy who runs it is than B&B.
That most of the companies with product placements in BladeRunner were killed by 'The BladeRunner Curse', but now you are telling me that J. F. Sebastian may be cured by then? OK, time to re-make the movie!
I think society has you a bit trained about what is acceptable. I put it simply: Diamonds are murder. Diamonds support terror.
So-called conflict diamonds are re-sourced via Amsterdam, just like oil from Iraq was re-routed via Turkey. Diamonds only have value because of their monopoly status, too. Please think of this before committing to diamonds.
Much better to go with semi-precious stones. Can you imagine the trouble over losing a ring worth over $1000? It still surprises me that this is often the most expensive item a person wears. Certainly there are more useful things one can buy or do to show one's devotion.
...maybe, "DARPA Confirms it"?
11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.
Apple did have a 2.8% sales loss last quarter. This is the only cause for concern at the moment. Sales are down, profit is up. Sounds like they found more cost-effective ways of building systems, or they are selling more software than hardware.
Sounds like when a guy in the office told me that Windows "Has more w4r3z." The reason for more "w4r3z" on Windows is manifold: 1) Bigger market share 2) Less competent developers. There must be 15-20 shareware programs to stitch images into .AVI files, but I have to say that none of them work in a sensible manner. Then you have dozens of applications that don't even follow the windows UI spec, or [Creative Labs] apps that throw out the entire widget set and roll their own.
Keep your w4r3z. I don't want them.
Or you can be using an app that doesn't select properly and ends up chunking an entire webpage into the buffer. I did this once. I ended up flooding pages of text into a webpage, simply because I started my selection a hair to far left in my browser window. Since then, I learned to be very careful about such things.
Translucency adds the ability to read something in the background and type it in the foreground. I use this all the time when I have a terminal window open, and a web browser in the background. I can position the terminal properly and get an effective doubling of that real-estate. It's not just a clever hack. it has a use. We aren't talking transparent eTerms here, we're talking about real transparency.
The Dell Lattitude D800, not the inspiron is the more accurate comparison. At $2500, it is $200 more than the 15" Powerbook. Though.. one could argue that the Precision M50 is closer to the performance of the Powerbook, and costs 3500.
I think it is important to point out that the 2-3 times the *typical* cost will also yield you 2-3 times the *typical* stability and usability of comparable machines. Maybe there is an Apple luxury tax, but Apple users are more likely to be satisified.
Apple is a hardware company that also makes their own software. The hardware has always come before the software, Apple I to present.
Beside context menus fitting the closest location to the mouse, I find they superfluous and utterly useless 99% of the time. Most context menus bits are 'cut, paste, copy, undo' and essentially waste the user's time. Even in browsers, they are a bit of a waste. In Safari (depending on having tabs turned on or not, and depending on how your tabs are set-up) you can either 'right-click' and get the context menu with 'open in new tab', 'open', etc. or you can hold combinations of modifiers and execute a single click. Cut and paste, mentioned above, are easier to accomplish with a left-handed sequence. That's the reason for putting them under zxcv! Now, this may not be perfect for the minority of users using their left hands to mouse (because I know many left-handed people who their right hand for mousing) but there is always the context menu!
I'm not a big fan of the start menu on OS X. It just doesn't fit the NeXT-ish paradigm to me. The dock is nice, but you have to hold on the Applications folder to bring up the directory, and there is a pause when going into utilities as it loads all the icons. TigerLaunch caches only the icons one needs, and does so quickly. The ability to place/remove checks next to found programs to enable/disable them is nice too. Ranchero rocks.
I only need one button. Seriously. If I need another button, I'll hit command or control or option. That's four buttons and I get to keep one hand on the keyboard.