And let's talk defaults, not "I have X enabled", since that seems to be a common argument against open source ("most users won't spend time configuring/enabling/compiling/optimizing, and so won't get the benefits").
Well in my case it's a work computer so I don't do much to "tweak" it. This version of Word came with that option enabled so I assume it was a default behavior but I couldn't guarantee that so I didn't say it was.
Particularly because of it's UI (for example, double-space is two clicks, not six).
Do you mean five in Word or were you talking about another word processor? Word: Format -> Paragraph -> Line Spacing -> Double (this is a stretch as it's really only a single click but I am giving you the benefit of the doubt) -> OK
Although I have the Formatting toolbar enabled and it's only two clicks for me.
Why would it lure people from Microsoft? People don't just use Office because they are forced into it. They use it because the alternatives suck. Yeah, Abiword is smaller and faster and takes up a little bit less RAM but it doesn't work as well as Word. Yeah, StarOffice/OO are open-source and free but they don't have the features that Word does.
People use MSFT because they are already locked in. Word does what they want it to do (and sometimes a lot more than they want it to). Just because Sun gets to set the standard in XML doesn't mean that Office users are going to give two shits... As long as their Word documents continue to open and they can continue to email DOC attachments to their email instead of just typing in the body of the email they are happy.
What will lure people away from Office is something that is somehow BETTER than Office. It will be free, it will be marketed, and it will be seven levels above Office in functionality. Honestly, as great as the OSS alternatives seem they just aren't Office/Word. You have to create a superior product and then market it. That's where OSS falls behind.
Everyone thinks that Firefox is so great. People weren't switching because they didn't know about it. Once IE vulnerabilities started showing up left and right they were alerted to the fact by mass media marketing. Sure, some people saw it and moved and even more didn't because they don't get their news from anything but the scrolling ticker below Survivor and The Apprentice...
Is there a chance this will go the same way as DVD region-protection?
You mean in active use right? Because most DVDs I run into are region encoded. You know that most people don't know what region encoding is right? You know that most people don't give a shit either right?
They put in their DVD that they bought at Target/Walmart for $9.97 and they watch it. Region encoding doesn't affect them any so they just don't care.
They aren't going to care about HDTV broadcast flags either because they just don't need to care about it. It won't affect them.
Yeah, the geeks/videophiles are going to be up in arms about it because they understand their rights and they want to exercise them. The general public, OTOH, just wants to be blissfully unaware.
Yeah, great, you are preaching to the choir and you are posting to Slashdot. Way to look like you are practicing what you preach...
People don't want to go outside. They don't want to be active. They certainly don't want to care about the broadcast flag.
People aren't going to know that the broadcast flag infringes on their rights because they don't know their rights and they don't care to know them. They want to sit down on their couch as soon as they come home and let the cable TV wash over them.
Thinking, being active, and life without TV is something that most people could not handle. Talking about religion? No way! That's no PC. Talking about politics? You mean talking about who is going to be voted off Survivor right? Because voting isn't important to people.
I don't see the difference between this and what we have already. At least with VoIP we can have software install to ignore most of it.
Basically whitelist everyone you know. If you don't know them they get forwarded to voicemail and you can check their phone number before you listen to their message.
Easy enough to block them. If they have no caller ID information auto-block.
If it looks like, walks like, and talks like... It is...
I don't give a shit what they say. We are fighting a war, we are paying for a war, and we are not exactly winning anything. Please let's stop the sugar-coating.
That being said, why does it seem that no one had a clue about what to do with Iraq once the war was over?
I'm sorry to say that the war isn't over but you're still 100% right that we don't have a clue.
It seems fairly obvious to me that they are less concerned with making sure that the Iraqis are happy with their new situation than making sure it benefits the "winners".
Percentages of employees that follow the security rules... "More than half" was about 75%. I'm surprised it's that high. People here go through the 9 interations of their passwords in the same day so they can keep the same one for the year. Some people just use password1 - password9... Ugh.
Re:Joe Sixpack is looking for "useful life"
on
Less Might Be More
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I am a geek and I am looking for a useful life. Hell, I was running my machines with 128MB of RAM until I found some on the side of the road (no joke) and my father gave me some of his slower RAM when he upgraded MBs on my mother's machine.
I have been using a Abit BP6 2x400 Celeron w/128 (and now 384MB) since the boards were released (sometime in 1999?)
I don't want to upgrade. This machine runs XP just fine and it is only feeling slower now that I use a 2.66ghz w/1024MB at work. I wouldn't have noticed the slightest difference if I was only using a P3-700.
I am all for using a machine until it's dead. My machines aren't for games or graphics. They're for work and they do that well:)
McCain's measure would require broadcasters to air only digital television signals by 2009 and help consumers who rely on traditional television sets buy devices that would convert digital back into a format that they could watch.
"Consumers who rely on over-the-air television, particularly those of limited economic means, should be assisted," according to the draft obtained by Reuters.
How about we just not mandate that the signals go all digital? I have said it before... The taxpayers are getting fucked TWICE on this deal. We have to pay for the mandate to happen and we have to pay for the fucking digital tuners as well all for something that I really don't care to have anyway. TV isn't that important as it is, especially stuff that comes OTA so why do we need to waste billions of dollars on this technology? Just so I can watch the Vikings lose or the Simpsons have another bad season in digital quality? No thanks... How about you spend that money on regulating the corporations that deliver content over cable and telephone? Personally I am more interested in that digital information.
And because I don't want a digital set/tuner I won't be able to watch TV without it. I am assuming I wouldn't be one of those people that are considered acceptable for help...
The combative former shipping lawyer will succeed Jay Berman as head of the lobby group the IPFI - the international version of the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) - and he defended both the the lawsuits and file poisoning at the In The City music conference in Manchester this week. (emphasis mine)
Coincidence on their choice of abbreviations? I think not.
He'd be more sympathetic to songwriters, he said, the day that record companies had "50 per cent margins". In fact, he claimed that record companies spend more on R&D than technology companies, because of the marketing spend required to create a hit [*]. The implication was clear: the success of an artist was down to the Shock and Awe bombing of the record company's marketing team, which is very expensive.
I can guarantee you a hit every time. Let me listen to the song. If the song sucks I'll tell you that. Then you can go and pay off every one of your little radio stations owned by ClearChannel and Inifinity (and various other conglomerates) and they can play the sucky song over and over again until people like it. If the song is good the artists should go on tour and make their own money as they have talent and they don't need your pay-offs.
"For 79p you've got a work of art that's like a Picasso, only one that's as close to the original as you can get," he said. [**]
To each their own on musical tastes but man, fucking Picasso is painting a gigantic brown-eye all over the inside of his grave after that comment.
Isn't there something the music purchasers can do to stop this asshole from taking over? Write letters, boycott, something?
I know where to get the music from for free. My point was that the blurb seemed to be claiming that the library was extensive because it included titles that you might not see elsewhere.
I am willing to bet that the serial killer has excellent medical and killing skills... That same person also has a greater chance of committing a crime than your average joe off the street.
So, yeah, the hacker might have great talent in his specialty and he might even be worth your time to keep on your side as a defensive measure but you have to remember that he does have a good chance of still committing another crime.
Everyone deserves a second chance (especially when they were young and stupid as you do tend to grow up after your late teens/early twenties) but I'd do it with some heavy handed caution.
I'm an anonymous user because I'm advertising on Slashdot for my own company! I figured this would make the main page because I said "no DRM" and "Linux" in the blurb. I did happen to forget the magic words "Apple iPod" though... Bummer.
192k VBR is nowhere even close to CD quality. Yeah, your ears clouded by your mind might be telling you that it's CD quality but it's not even in the same ballpark. No MP3 is close to CD quality. Yeah, they're acceptable and probably sound better than iTMS' tracks but they are NOT CD quality.
Subscriptions are a joke. I am forced into buying $10 worth of music (40 tracks or not) when I might only want 99 cents worth.
With a main page that reads "Start downloading your FREE MP3s today and take two weeks to decide if you like eMusic. If you're not 100% satisfied simply cancel before your trial period ends and you'll never pay a dime. Keep the 50 FREE MP3s as a gift for checking out eMusic." something worries me. Perhaps because it sounds something like BMG or Time Life Home Videos. Any "club" subscription sounds like a scam.
I don't like the fact that they claim they have "the highest quality MP3s" when they are only using 192 VBR. As far as I know that's not the highest they can go... A quick search for "Grateful Dead" came back with nothing. A lot of other crap but no Dead. For the blurb to claim that there is a lot of music seems like a marketing lie.
Keep the advertising off the main page. Yeah, that goes for the iPods too.
The extra hurdle is the fact that they hold 50+GB per disc. With recent crackdowns on bandwith hogs on Comcast with unknown boundaries and DSL ISPs setting known limits I see this as being the major deterrent to pirates.
Now, of couse you can head over to your local Blockbuster and possibly burn the disc yourself from their copy (if it's possible) but I have a feeling that the media costs might not justify you doing that at least for several years.
They were stupid if they thought they were going to make money on them. Have you seen an LCD TV? They are very very small and they are very expensive. I have seen them side by side with standard TV sets and the newer plasma and other expensive alternatives and they just don't look good.
I myself was suckered into buying a low-end 27" TV from Apex. It's only needed as a secondary TV but the price was right. Why should I spend $1000 on a 15" LCD when I can spend $200 on a 27" with DVD built in?
What I'm more concerned with is whether or not the battery can be replaced without returning the unit.
Yeah, it's great to have a Lithium Ion but what happens when it stops recharging? Am I going to be able to easily replace it or am I going to have to return it to the manufacturer only for them to tell me it's out of warranty and there's nothing they can do?
I have had too many devices' batteries go south without an acceptable replacement route.
I used to live in Bowling Green, OH and while I was searching around for caches to do in the area (and talking to someone I knew from Toledo) I was directed and half stumbled upon this cache. Basically you need to take pictures from the air of an assigned number. The cache owner didn't particularly care how you accomplished that (whether it was by plane or some more inventive means).
Well, this group did it with helium balloons, ethernet cable, and a webcam. Just as inventive, a lot less solder, and if your picture taking device falls you aren't completely out of luck as it may actually survive the fall.
The only difference I see is that you aren't going to be able to have pictures with the same quality which is certainly a bummer but the coolness/geek factor certainly is way up there:)
Whether the funding for a space elevator comes from the private or public sector, governments from all around the world will surely be involved. Why? Because the damn thing is so tall. One reference I picked off the 'net says it would extend 62,000 miles.
Well companies from all over the world at least as they are the ones that need to help with the building materials.
Slashdot Mirror
And let's talk defaults, not "I have X enabled", since that seems to be a common argument against open source ("most users won't spend time configuring/enabling/compiling/optimizing, and so won't get the benefits").
Well in my case it's a work computer so I don't do much to "tweak" it. This version of Word came with that option enabled so I assume it was a default behavior but I couldn't guarantee that so I didn't say it was.
Particularly because of it's UI (for example, double-space is two clicks, not six).
Do you mean five in Word or were you talking about another word processor? Word: Format -> Paragraph -> Line Spacing -> Double (this is a stretch as it's really only a single click but I am giving you the benefit of the doubt) -> OK
Although I have the Formatting toolbar enabled and it's only two clicks for me.
People using MSFT and people using Office are two different things.
You may be locked in to using MSFT via licensing but you aren't always locked in to using Office.
Why would it lure people from Microsoft? People don't just use Office because they are forced into it. They use it because the alternatives suck. Yeah, Abiword is smaller and faster and takes up a little bit less RAM but it doesn't work as well as Word. Yeah, StarOffice/OO are open-source and free but they don't have the features that Word does.
People use MSFT because they are already locked in. Word does what they want it to do (and sometimes a lot more than they want it to). Just because Sun gets to set the standard in XML doesn't mean that Office users are going to give two shits... As long as their Word documents continue to open and they can continue to email DOC attachments to their email instead of just typing in the body of the email they are happy.
What will lure people away from Office is something that is somehow BETTER than Office. It will be free, it will be marketed, and it will be seven levels above Office in functionality. Honestly, as great as the OSS alternatives seem they just aren't Office/Word. You have to create a superior product and then market it. That's where OSS falls behind.
Everyone thinks that Firefox is so great. People weren't switching because they didn't know about it. Once IE vulnerabilities started showing up left and right they were alerted to the fact by mass media marketing. Sure, some people saw it and moved and even more didn't because they don't get their news from anything but the scrolling ticker below Survivor and The Apprentice...
Is there a chance this will go the same way as DVD region-protection?
You mean in active use right? Because most DVDs I run into are region encoded. You know that most people don't know what region encoding is right? You know that most people don't give a shit either right?
They put in their DVD that they bought at Target/Walmart for $9.97 and they watch it. Region encoding doesn't affect them any so they just don't care.
They aren't going to care about HDTV broadcast flags either because they just don't need to care about it. It won't affect them.
Yeah, the geeks/videophiles are going to be up in arms about it because they understand their rights and they want to exercise them. The general public, OTOH, just wants to be blissfully unaware.
Yeah, great, you are preaching to the choir and you are posting to Slashdot. Way to look like you are practicing what you preach...
People don't want to go outside. They don't want to be active. They certainly don't want to care about the broadcast flag.
People aren't going to know that the broadcast flag infringes on their rights because they don't know their rights and they don't care to know them. They want to sit down on their couch as soon as they come home and let the cable TV wash over them.
Thinking, being active, and life without TV is something that most people could not handle. Talking about religion? No way! That's no PC. Talking about politics? You mean talking about who is going to be voted off Survivor right? Because voting isn't important to people.
I don't see the difference between this and what we have already. At least with VoIP we can have software install to ignore most of it.
Basically whitelist everyone you know. If you don't know them they get forwarded to voicemail and you can check their phone number before you listen to their message.
Easy enough to block them. If they have no caller ID information auto-block.
If it looks like, walks like, and talks like... It is...
I don't give a shit what they say. We are fighting a war, we are paying for a war, and we are not exactly winning anything. Please let's stop the sugar-coating.
That being said, why does it seem that no one had a clue about what to do with Iraq once the war was over?
I'm sorry to say that the war isn't over but you're still 100% right that we don't have a clue.
It seems fairly obvious to me that they are less concerned with making sure that the Iraqis are happy with their new situation than making sure it benefits the "winners".
Hmm. Not much faith all around.
Percentages of employees that follow the security rules... "More than half" was about 75%. I'm surprised it's that high. People here go through the 9 interations of their passwords in the same day so they can keep the same one for the year. Some people just use password1 - password9... Ugh.
I am a geek and I am looking for a useful life. Hell, I was running my machines with 128MB of RAM until I found some on the side of the road (no joke) and my father gave me some of his slower RAM when he upgraded MBs on my mother's machine.
:)
I have been using a Abit BP6 2x400 Celeron w/128 (and now 384MB) since the boards were released (sometime in 1999?)
I don't want to upgrade. This machine runs XP just fine and it is only feeling slower now that I use a 2.66ghz w/1024MB at work. I wouldn't have noticed the slightest difference if I was only using a P3-700.
I am all for using a machine until it's dead. My machines aren't for games or graphics. They're for work and they do that well
Depending on where you live it could be like hanging a clove of garlic around your neck or a piece of rare meat.
Even though I'm a geek if I saw a blinged out geektoy I'd still point and laugh. Since when did we want to be mainstream?
McCain's measure would require broadcasters to air only digital television signals by 2009 and help consumers who rely on traditional television sets buy devices that would convert digital back into a format that they could watch.
"Consumers who rely on over-the-air television, particularly those of limited economic means, should be assisted," according to the draft obtained by Reuters.
How about we just not mandate that the signals go all digital? I have said it before... The taxpayers are getting fucked TWICE on this deal. We have to pay for the mandate to happen and we have to pay for the fucking digital tuners as well all for something that I really don't care to have anyway. TV isn't that important as it is, especially stuff that comes OTA so why do we need to waste billions of dollars on this technology? Just so I can watch the Vikings lose or the Simpsons have another bad season in digital quality? No thanks... How about you spend that money on regulating the corporations that deliver content over cable and telephone? Personally I am more interested in that digital information.
And because I don't want a digital set/tuner I won't be able to watch TV without it. I am assuming I wouldn't be one of those people that are considered acceptable for help...
The combative former shipping lawyer will succeed Jay Berman as head of the lobby group the IPFI - the international version of the Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) - and he defended both the the lawsuits and file poisoning at the In The City music conference in Manchester this week. (emphasis mine)
Coincidence on their choice of abbreviations? I think not.
He'd be more sympathetic to songwriters, he said, the day that record companies had "50 per cent margins". In fact, he claimed that record companies spend more on R&D than technology companies, because of the marketing spend required to create a hit [*]. The implication was clear: the success of an artist was down to the Shock and Awe bombing of the record company's marketing team, which is very expensive.
I can guarantee you a hit every time. Let me listen to the song. If the song sucks I'll tell you that. Then you can go and pay off every one of your little radio stations owned by ClearChannel and Inifinity (and various other conglomerates) and they can play the sucky song over and over again until people like it. If the song is good the artists should go on tour and make their own money as they have talent and they don't need your pay-offs.
"For 79p you've got a work of art that's like a Picasso, only one that's as close to the original as you can get," he said. [**]
To each their own on musical tastes but man, fucking Picasso is painting a gigantic brown-eye all over the inside of his grave after that comment.
Isn't there something the music purchasers can do to stop this asshole from taking over? Write letters, boycott, something?
I know where to get the music from for free. My point was that the blurb seemed to be claiming that the library was extensive because it included titles that you might not see elsewhere.
I didn't see any Dead so I'm not impressed.
I am willing to bet that the serial killer has excellent medical and killing skills... That same person also has a greater chance of committing a crime than your average joe off the street.
So, yeah, the hacker might have great talent in his specialty and he might even be worth your time to keep on your side as a defensive measure but you have to remember that he does have a good chance of still committing another crime.
Everyone deserves a second chance (especially when they were young and stupid as you do tend to grow up after your late teens/early twenties) but I'd do it with some heavy handed caution.
I'm an anonymous user because I'm advertising on Slashdot for my own company! I figured this would make the main page because I said "no DRM" and "Linux" in the blurb. I did happen to forget the magic words "Apple iPod" though... Bummer.
192k VBR is nowhere even close to CD quality. Yeah, your ears clouded by your mind might be telling you that it's CD quality but it's not even in the same ballpark. No MP3 is close to CD quality. Yeah, they're acceptable and probably sound better than iTMS' tracks but they are NOT CD quality.
Subscriptions are a joke. I am forced into buying $10 worth of music (40 tracks or not) when I might only want 99 cents worth.
With a main page that reads "Start downloading your FREE MP3s today and take two weeks to decide if you like eMusic. If you're not 100% satisfied simply cancel before your trial period ends and you'll never pay a dime. Keep the 50 FREE MP3s as a gift for checking out eMusic." something worries me. Perhaps because it sounds something like BMG or Time Life Home Videos. Any "club" subscription sounds like a scam.
I don't like the fact that they claim they have "the highest quality MP3s" when they are only using 192 VBR. As far as I know that's not the highest they can go... A quick search for "Grateful Dead" came back with nothing. A lot of other crap but no Dead. For the blurb to claim that there is a lot of music seems like a marketing lie.
Keep the advertising off the main page. Yeah, that goes for the iPods too.
The extra hurdle is the fact that they hold 50+GB per disc. With recent crackdowns on bandwith hogs on Comcast with unknown boundaries and DSL ISPs setting known limits I see this as being the major deterrent to pirates.
Now, of couse you can head over to your local Blockbuster and possibly burn the disc yourself from their copy (if it's possible) but I have a feeling that the media costs might not justify you doing that at least for several years.
They were stupid if they thought they were going to make money on them. Have you seen an LCD TV? They are very very small and they are very expensive. I have seen them side by side with standard TV sets and the newer plasma and other expensive alternatives and they just don't look good.
I myself was suckered into buying a low-end 27" TV from Apex. It's only needed as a secondary TV but the price was right. Why should I spend $1000 on a 15" LCD when I can spend $200 on a 27" with DVD built in?
What I'm more concerned with is whether or not the battery can be replaced without returning the unit.
Yeah, it's great to have a Lithium Ion but what happens when it stops recharging? Am I going to be able to easily replace it or am I going to have to return it to the manufacturer only for them to tell me it's out of warranty and there's nothing they can do?
I have had too many devices' batteries go south without an acceptable replacement route.
The only way to stop drugs is to realize that it is a social problem and legislate against it. Use enforcement to stop drugs in their tracks.
I used to live in Bowling Green, OH and while I was searching around for caches to do in the area (and talking to someone I knew from Toledo) I was directed and half stumbled upon this cache. Basically you need to take pictures from the air of an assigned number. The cache owner didn't particularly care how you accomplished that (whether it was by plane or some more inventive means).
:)
Well, this group did it with helium balloons, ethernet cable, and a webcam. Just as inventive, a lot less solder, and if your picture taking device falls you aren't completely out of luck as it may actually survive the fall.
The only difference I see is that you aren't going to be able to have pictures with the same quality which is certainly a bummer but the coolness/geek factor certainly is way up there
Targeting systems just ruin the sport in it.
What fun is that?
I'm still waiting for foam to fill the car when you have an accident... Sandra is hot.
Whether the funding for a space elevator comes from the private or public sector, governments from all around the world will surely be involved. Why? Because the damn thing is so tall. One reference I picked off the 'net says it would extend 62,000 miles.
Well companies from all over the world at least as they are the ones that need to help with the building materials.