For apps, the biggest missing one is Trillian. I really hate Gaim
Why? What is it that Trillian does and Gaim doesn't?
For games, you can't go very far away from "everything runs" and have it still be acceptable.
Since you already have Windows, dual-booting seems like a viable option. I guess it depends if you have the space.
Any computer that's fast enough to play games reasonably should also boot fast enough that this doesn't matter too much.
My Windows has Firefox, ClamAV, and games. That's it. My Linux has everything else, including games and movies, that work with Linux. I haven't had to reboot enough for it to be annoying. Seriously, 2-3 minutes to play a game I'll probably be playing for the next hour or so is definitely worth it.
That's what UT2004 did. Great idea, beautifully executed, except that they mistyped one of the CDs, so it asks you for CD 3 instead of CD 2 or somesuch.
In my opinion, the download is still the best option, because then it's in your package manager, it gets automatically updated with the rest of your system -- at least on Gentoo, anyway.
But regarding the grandparent, it's always confused the hell out of me. I mean, seriously, why not use OpenGL+SDL, even if you won't port it yourself? Worst case they have Wine, or you can be gentlemen and compile it with WineLib. Or do it with.NET/Java and OpenGL+SDL, and you suddenly don't have to port it at all, it just plays.
You could say the same thing for email, were it not for ISP support, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and more. The nice thing about both email and Jabber is it lets me run my own server, under my control, using whatever client/server software I want, and still talk to everyone who just wants to pick a free solution off the Internet or take what their ISP gives them.
Except that there is a correlation between when these exit polls are horribly off and whether Diebold machines were being used.
Besides, it's all beside the point. If there really is no rigging going on, then WHY do you care if we make the system secure? WHY would you want it to be insecure -- so laughably insecure that my 15-year-old brother could break it easily, and just as easily think of a way to not make it so fucking insecure?
Except exit polls are generally pretty reliable. The discrepancies seem to show up where we have electronic voting machines -- other than that, exit poles are a very good predictor of who's going to win.
I'm not sure about this, though, it's been awhile since I gave up on this subject. Fortunately, enough people hate Bush now (with good reason) to actually mass riot if the election is rigged again.
Let me tell you the story of average joe. He comes home from work 'average joe jr' has decided he wants a computer. Much beging ensues.
So Average Joe can have a Mac for himself and a PC for Average Joe Jr. More expensive, but it means nothing Joe Jr does will screw up Joe's work.
Also that game looks pretty fun I can play it too.
On the son's computer.
And that's ignoring dual boot.
Then the software problem. Even software I bought 15 years ago has a pretty good chance of running on my computer today. Can you REALLY say that for a mac app?
Can you REALLY say that for any app? I have to deal with people's POS DOS apps from time to time, and trust me -- of the ones that actually run, most don't do it well. Ever try printing over the network from a DOS app?
For the Mac, we have Classic. Although you're right, not all OS X apps are "Tiger compatible". But then, no one buys a computer to run ALL the software they own. For most, it's one or two unique apps that just have to work, and then a bunch of generic ones.
Also everyone is bleeting on about the new Aero interface like it is something bad.
Well, even if it is good, as you just said, Apple has it already, working on yesterday's hardware. MS, who knows if it'll work on tomorrow's hardware?
They want to be able to setup a computer in 15 minutes.
Disk images and network drives.
They want to be able to manage things from 1 computer.
Disk images, network drives, and VNC.
They want ease of SETUP
Setup is pretty damned easy. And then there's -- you guessed it -- disk images and network drives.
Does Apple have anything like Active Directory, or Novel?
Does most Linux? There are plenty of people who love Linux. They must have just figured out a different way of doing things.
Even though Apple stuff will work its not 'what everyone knows'.
Even though Vista stuff will work, it's not "what everyone knows".
What you know from windows 3.0 works fairly well all the way through windows xp.
IT people and security-conscious people hate this. The reason they waited till Vista to stop having everyone run as admin is that people were still writing WinXP apps the way they wrote Win3.0 apps.
Now not to be totaly neg the dual boot thing is interesting. But will people buy a mac because it has it?
If they don't need games, then they'll buy a mac because it has virtualization, also. Some people have it set up so you flick your hand over the ambient light sensor to flip between Windows and OS X.
You may get some people that jump over. Will they in a 'perfect' storm? I seriously doubt it.
So do I, but it would be nice if it was even as much a storm as Firefox was. Firefox is making a lot of people's lives easier, and it's forcing MS to fix some issues with Explorer.
I know people who still use windows 98 on their 233 mhz computers with 32 meg of ram. They say 'oh I should get another computer' but they never will. Not until the 233 burns itself out.
Unless they have to run some software that doesn't exist for the 233. And more and more developers are saying "Fuck 98, fuck IE, and fuck people who can't be bothered to install.NET. I'm doing this the right way, not the runs-on-grandma's-PC way."
After all, look at what's happening with DirectX 10.
- Big response doesn't mean I like you. Could just be I'm amused. But I'll keep this one short.
- I made you my enemy because if you really are as immature as I think, I don't want to hear much else you have to say. The Foe system makes it easy to filter you out.
- 2 replies wasn't proof that you were stupid. It had to do with what was in the second reply -- it really wasn't necessary.
- controlling fear is easier than not having fear, but not as healthy. Same with anger.
- holding tears back can do more harm than good, even as strength to someone else -- it's good for them to realize you're human.
No, it doesn't really matter that much to me. I share my opinions out of generosity. Especially here -- maybe I will make you a better person. I doubt it, but there is a chance for you to learn something from me, and for me to learn something from you.
You're right, better to be happy than to "be a man". In fact, better to have, show, and share emotion than to put on a show, and somehow convince yourself it's for the sake of others. Although I guess that's better than what I thought, which is holding your emotions inside to prove you're a man, to satisfy your ego.
You're not my only one, I have one other. I will go through later and see which ones I want to keep.
Ah. So after I call my lawyer, I call the media. Like he did. The difference is, first you kick them, bring them down, then you execute them. You don't take the beating until you have an opening for an instant kill.
I loved the Superman movie, especially Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. Too often he plays the psychotic with a heart of gold, it was fun to see him play the psychotic evil man, for once.
Anyway, scroll up a bit and read about Sturgeon's Law. Movies are no worse than they've ever been.
Probably 1% or so of everything is absolutely golden, pure genius. The trick is to know where to look to avoid the crap and watch the good stuff, because after all, no one wants to sit through 90 "Wild Wild West"s and an additional 9 "The Matrix: Reloaded"s to find the 1 "American Beauty".
Of course, tastes differ. You know what I mean, even if you loved Wild Wild West and hated American Beauty.
Well, we'll see, but I still suspect that third-parties will make it work on Windows, even if MS doesn't, and MS holding back adoption will only hurt them, especially when people can tri-boot Windows, Linux, or OSX86, and Doom 4 / Quake 5 / World of Starcraft works flawlessly, with all the shiny new graphical effects, on all but one of those.
I know I'm a little late to be starting a new thread, but reading that story, I didn't hear any mention of the Miranda being read, or any charges being filed...
Here's how it would go if it was me being arrested...
"Ok, I'm going to waive my right to remain silent (which you didn't read to me) and call your bluff. This is a bullshit charge. Am I free to go, or is it time to call my lawyer?"
We may have to go to hard numbers, but often what people miss with these comparisons is just that -- specs.
I actually got my Mac for a wholly different reason. I'd otherwise much prefer a decent PC laptop with a working Linux, because I can get a quite low-end PC laptop. But I wanted the 17" screen for watching anime on, so at that point, it wasn't a huge enough savings to justify it -- and the mac looked better, and currently this Powerbook is the best laptop I've ever seen, including the MacBooks, for my purposes.
After all, I remember living with a 200 mhz computer. This 1.6666 ghz PowerPC is more than fast enough when I don't have OS X to slow it down.
I think for this to work (good idea) it would require a comapny like MS to "play ball"
Like hell it would.
USB keychain drives are a pefect example. On Win98, you need driver software, but on any recent Mac, Windows, or Linux, just plug it in and it works. I have, in fact, NEVER had a bit of USB Mass Storage not work out of the box on Linux. True, it's not as standardized as we like -- uhci vs ohci, for instance -- but it's getting better, there's only one ehci.
No, all this needs is a working implementation with a killer feature, so it becomes so insanely obvious that it's the right way to go that MS either complies on its own, or consumers bitch loudly at them and threaten to Switch, and then MS complies.
How do you explain the USB situation, otherwise? And keychain drives aren't all -- hard drives also work -- hell, any USB keyboard/mouse should work out of the box as a USB HID -- that means exactly one driver for "usb mice" and one for "usb keyboards".
I guess what it really needs is to be more clearly defined and to be economical. For instance, having the "universal driver" be something loaded off Flash and into the OS would not work, especially when we're talking about 64-bit.
So the real reasons are most likely technical, and not "MS is a monopoly."
The basic thing I do is lay some ground rules for whether I will fix a computer.
For instance: If there is enough space to backup an image of the OS, I create that backup, and lay Ground Rules of:
Run the automagic backup program and make sure it's working. (Best if it's automated, but hey.)
Every time you install/configure something on Windows that's important (and going to be a pain to do again), including Windows Updates, you should:
Backup your data
Restore the software image
Restore your data
Install/configure new software
Confirm that it works
Backup your data
Backup the software image
Yes, that's a pain, so do it once every couple of months. But have a schedule, and stick to it.
If you've proven that you cannot be trusted to choose software, do NOT install software without permission. Ideally, you won't be allowed to -- you should have a very limited account.
Don't use Internet Explorer to look at porn. Use Firefox for that, if you must.
Don't use Internet Explorer to visit any site you don't trust.
Please, just don't use Internet Explorer, period.
Now, if these instructions didn't work, or if you didn't follow them, here's the rules for when I swing by to help out:
I am the boss. I'm willing to work with you to find something that's easy for me and works for you. But at the end of the day, it's my way, or I don't help. I don't have to be doing this.
This is a favor. That means you don't get to complain to me that I'm doing it wrong. Instead, you get to do me a favor in return -- bake me cookies, bring me tea and coffee. I don't have to be doing this.
I'm going to need access. Either tell me any passwords I'll have to know, or log me in (type your password, I won't look) and change it to something temporary that I can use. I refuse to come find you and get you to type your password every time I have to reboot -- which will probably be a lot.
Let me drive. This was a phrase an old boss used, and it means "Give me the keyboard, and let me sit down." Chances are, the solution to your problem is something you really don't want to learn how to do by yourself.
If I have something to teach you, then I'll let you sit down, because that makes it easier for you to remember. But follow my instructions exactly. I can point you to some hilarious but disturbing examples of what happens when you do what you think I mean, and not what I said.
Do what I say, exactly. My mother has this insanely irritating habit of finishing my sentences for me, and she has never, ever been right that I can remember. Let me put it this way -- I say "Now I want you to..." and she says "Do this?" I shout "NO" just as she anihilates what we were doing, and we have to start over. The problem is, she gets deeper and deeper into the wrong thing because she assumes she knows what I'm trying to say.
I am your tech while I'm here. Unless I tell you to, do NOT go to another person for help while I'm here. "I'm not sure you know what you're talking about here, let me call Jim." Only not quite so obviously, but that is what you're saying when you want to call Jim and I don't. Look, if I don't know what I'm talking about, I'll say so, and I'll tell you to call Jim or whoever you need to call.
I know more than you do about this problem. It's arrogant, but true. Feel free to offer your advice, but unless I defer to your greater knowledge of BloatyAppX, you don't get to second-guess me. If we've got to reinstall Windows from scratch, then that's what we'll do. It will be a huge pain in the ass, but not as much as it would for me to fix it in the state it's in. If you don't like it, I stop helping.
These are not intended to be as oppressive as they are. I'm actually fairly nice, cheerful, helpful, knowledgeable, and understanding.
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Why? What is it that Trillian does and Gaim doesn't?
Since you already have Windows, dual-booting seems like a viable option. I guess it depends if you have the space.
Any computer that's fast enough to play games reasonably should also boot fast enough that this doesn't matter too much.
My Windows has Firefox, ClamAV, and games. That's it. My Linux has everything else, including games and movies, that work with Linux. I haven't had to reboot enough for it to be annoying. Seriously, 2-3 minutes to play a game I'll probably be playing for the next hour or so is definitely worth it.
That's what UT2004 did. Great idea, beautifully executed, except that they mistyped one of the CDs, so it asks you for CD 3 instead of CD 2 or somesuch.
.NET/Java and OpenGL+SDL, and you suddenly don't have to port it at all, it just plays.
In my opinion, the download is still the best option, because then it's in your package manager, it gets automatically updated with the rest of your system -- at least on Gentoo, anyway.
But regarding the grandparent, it's always confused the hell out of me. I mean, seriously, why not use OpenGL+SDL, even if you won't port it yourself? Worst case they have Wine, or you can be gentlemen and compile it with WineLib. Or do it with
It's not that hard.
You could say the same thing for email, were it not for ISP support, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and more. The nice thing about both email and Jabber is it lets me run my own server, under my control, using whatever client/server software I want, and still talk to everyone who just wants to pick a free solution off the Internet or take what their ISP gives them.
I wish I had mod points. Our gambling is more secure than our government? Seriously, America, WTF is up with your priorities?
Except that there is a correlation between when these exit polls are horribly off and whether Diebold machines were being used.
Besides, it's all beside the point. If there really is no rigging going on, then WHY do you care if we make the system secure? WHY would you want it to be insecure -- so laughably insecure that my 15-year-old brother could break it easily, and just as easily think of a way to not make it so fucking insecure?
Got to be incredibly neutral, so either George Washington (can't argue with that), or "YourVotes B. Worthless"...
Except exit polls are generally pretty reliable. The discrepancies seem to show up where we have electronic voting machines -- other than that, exit poles are a very good predictor of who's going to win.
I'm not sure about this, though, it's been awhile since I gave up on this subject. Fortunately, enough people hate Bush now (with good reason) to actually mass riot if the election is rigged again.
Yeah, I should get back to work... After this next... Shit, time to go home. Oops!
BAD headline! BAD!
NOT AIM!
So Average Joe can have a Mac for himself and a PC for Average Joe Jr. More expensive, but it means nothing Joe Jr does will screw up Joe's work.
On the son's computer.
And that's ignoring dual boot.
Can you REALLY say that for any app? I have to deal with people's POS DOS apps from time to time, and trust me -- of the ones that actually run, most don't do it well. Ever try printing over the network from a DOS app?
For the Mac, we have Classic. Although you're right, not all OS X apps are "Tiger compatible". But then, no one buys a computer to run ALL the software they own. For most, it's one or two unique apps that just have to work, and then a bunch of generic ones.
Well, even if it is good, as you just said, Apple has it already, working on yesterday's hardware. MS, who knows if it'll work on tomorrow's hardware?
Disk images and network drives.
Disk images, network drives, and VNC.
Setup is pretty damned easy. And then there's -- you guessed it -- disk images and network drives.
Does most Linux? There are plenty of people who love Linux. They must have just figured out a different way of doing things.
Even though Vista stuff will work, it's not "what everyone knows".
IT people and security-conscious people hate this. The reason they waited till Vista to stop having everyone run as admin is that people were still writing WinXP apps the way they wrote Win3.0 apps.
If they don't need games, then they'll buy a mac because it has virtualization, also. Some people have it set up so you flick your hand over the ambient light sensor to flip between Windows and OS X.
So do I, but it would be nice if it was even as much a storm as Firefox was. Firefox is making a lot of people's lives easier, and it's forcing MS to fix some issues with Explorer.
Unless they have to run some software that doesn't exist for the 233. And more and more developers are saying "Fuck 98, fuck IE, and fuck people who can't be bothered to install .NET. I'm doing this the right way, not the runs-on-grandma's-PC way."
After all, look at what's happening with DirectX 10.
- Big response doesn't mean I like you. Could just be I'm amused. But I'll keep this one short.
- I made you my enemy because if you really are as immature as I think, I don't want to hear much else you have to say. The Foe system makes it easy to filter you out.
- 2 replies wasn't proof that you were stupid. It had to do with what was in the second reply -- it really wasn't necessary.
- controlling fear is easier than not having fear, but not as healthy. Same with anger.
- holding tears back can do more harm than good, even as strength to someone else -- it's good for them to realize you're human.
No, it doesn't really matter that much to me. I share my opinions out of generosity. Especially here -- maybe I will make you a better person. I doubt it, but there is a chance for you to learn something from me, and for me to learn something from you.
You're right, better to be happy than to "be a man". In fact, better to have, show, and share emotion than to put on a show, and somehow convince yourself it's for the sake of others. Although I guess that's better than what I thought, which is holding your emotions inside to prove you're a man, to satisfy your ego.
You're not my only one, I have one other. I will go through later and see which ones I want to keep.
Ah. So after I call my lawyer, I call the media. Like he did. The difference is, first you kick them, bring them down, then you execute them. You don't take the beating until you have an opening for an instant kill.
And again, the problem of taste.
I loved the Superman movie, especially Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. Too often he plays the psychotic with a heart of gold, it was fun to see him play the psychotic evil man, for once.
Anyway, scroll up a bit and read about Sturgeon's Law. Movies are no worse than they've ever been.
10% of everything is not crap.
Probably 1% or so of everything is absolutely golden, pure genius. The trick is to know where to look to avoid the crap and watch the good stuff, because after all, no one wants to sit through 90 "Wild Wild West"s and an additional 9 "The Matrix: Reloaded"s to find the 1 "American Beauty".
Of course, tastes differ. You know what I mean, even if you loved Wild Wild West and hated American Beauty.
Believe it or not, the same happens in reverse, too. That's right -- women do send men real-world stuff...
Well, we'll see, but I still suspect that third-parties will make it work on Windows, even if MS doesn't, and MS holding back adoption will only hurt them, especially when people can tri-boot Windows, Linux, or OSX86, and Doom 4 / Quake 5 / World of Starcraft works flawlessly, with all the shiny new graphical effects, on all but one of those.
But it seems you are afraid of posting as yourself, Anonymous Coward. And I'd guess you're also afraid of getting picked on or hit on.
Seriously, why is someone who will judge you so easily worth your time at all?
Or maybe the WoW community is worse than I thought. I played a much smaller MMO...
I know I'm a little late to be starting a new thread, but reading that story, I didn't hear any mention of the Miranda being read, or any charges being filed...
Here's how it would go if it was me being arrested...
"Ok, I'm going to waive my right to remain silent (which you didn't read to me) and call your bluff. This is a bullshit charge. Am I free to go, or is it time to call my lawyer?"
We may have to go to hard numbers, but often what people miss with these comparisons is just that -- specs.
I actually got my Mac for a wholly different reason. I'd otherwise much prefer a decent PC laptop with a working Linux, because I can get a quite low-end PC laptop. But I wanted the 17" screen for watching anime on, so at that point, it wasn't a huge enough savings to justify it -- and the mac looked better, and currently this Powerbook is the best laptop I've ever seen, including the MacBooks, for my purposes.
After all, I remember living with a 200 mhz computer. This 1.6666 ghz PowerPC is more than fast enough when I don't have OS X to slow it down.
Yes, people did post "Maybe he has an illegal copy."
Anyway, it's irrelevant. The real person who needs to eat crow is Paul Thurrott.
Like hell it would.
USB keychain drives are a pefect example. On Win98, you need driver software, but on any recent Mac, Windows, or Linux, just plug it in and it works. I have, in fact, NEVER had a bit of USB Mass Storage not work out of the box on Linux. True, it's not as standardized as we like -- uhci vs ohci, for instance -- but it's getting better, there's only one ehci.
No, all this needs is a working implementation with a killer feature, so it becomes so insanely obvious that it's the right way to go that MS either complies on its own, or consumers bitch loudly at them and threaten to Switch, and then MS complies.
How do you explain the USB situation, otherwise? And keychain drives aren't all -- hard drives also work -- hell, any USB keyboard/mouse should work out of the box as a USB HID -- that means exactly one driver for "usb mice" and one for "usb keyboards".
I guess what it really needs is to be more clearly defined and to be economical. For instance, having the "universal driver" be something loaded off Flash and into the OS would not work, especially when we're talking about 64-bit.
So the real reasons are most likely technical, and not "MS is a monopoly."
What, you want some more?
Or maybe you're right, there is the warm, tingly feeling...
The basic thing I do is lay some ground rules for whether I will fix a computer.
For instance: If there is enough space to backup an image of the OS, I create that backup, and lay Ground Rules of:
Yes, that's a pain, so do it once every couple of months. But have a schedule, and stick to it.
Now, if these instructions didn't work, or if you didn't follow them, here's the rules for when I swing by to help out:
These are not intended to be as oppressive as they are. I'm actually fairly nice, cheerful, helpful, knowledgeable, and understanding.
What's my Mac do that your PC can't? Well, my Mac can kick your PC's ass.