Ok -- this is Slashdot -- I think we all understand the 7-layer model.
The IP network would be worthless without the higher level protocols and services. Likewise, there's a whole stack of further inventions, developments and products of world-wide research that the IP concept grew from.
My point is, when it comes to the Internet, Nationalism (for that's what this is) is ugly. There's a pissing contest going on here and it's just plain dumb.
We're talking about root DNS. That's all. It's fucking pathetic that neither the powers that be, nor us/. plebs can discuss sensibly the best management of these (13?) servers that would be most beneficial for the global interoperability of the internet.
Instead, it's deteriorated to "We invented it! It's ours!". Don't behave as if the spread of the internet was pure altruism. It's spread because it made money for companies all over the globe. The internet may have been a US invention, but its current breadth, penetration and sheer utility is a product of global contribution. And that's why the people and corporations (and yes, if they've been paying attention, even the governments) of nations outside the US have a vested interest in the DNS.
And conversely, wouldn't it be much safer for us potential consumers of smut to have access to the official Government Sanctioned list of Non-Deviant Pornography?
'Cos... y'know... I wouldn't want to break the law by viewing anything 'deviant'.
Looking forward to Microsoft RoboCop v1.0 (SP3, plus KB990212 to address the gun-holster jamming caused by the earlier KB990112 patch for the 'erroneous firing into crowds of civilians' issue).
Absolutely no compelling reason to upgrade, in my experience (which obviously isn't the same as others).
I spend a large portion of my working day writing stuff that interfaces with Windows on some low-ish levels. Nothing like driver writing, but a lot of system management stuff, scripting, network mapping, AD stuff, system scripting. I'm up to my ears in API stuff most of the time.
Most of the tools I create have 9x and NT versions, for obvious reasons. 99.999 times out of 100 the 2K and XP versions are identical. IIRC, in 3 years, there's been only one instance of XP actually offering me something apparently better than 2k -- and that was a more complete implementation of the WMI classes. Although funnily enough, the WMI method proved to be less reliable than the "Registry Key Change + API Call" method I was using in 2K... so I used that in XP also.
Windows 2000 is as stable as I could wish for, even on my modern system (a Sempron-based beastie). I don't see any software (apart from Microsoft's own browser, apparently) which requires XP over 2K. From where I'm sitting, Microsoft's carrot to get me to use XP is "Look! Shiny!", and the stick to punish me for using 2K is "Bad Man! No IE7 for you!".... to which my reply is, "So what?"
Security? I browse with Firefox, and my PC lives behind a firewall (well, an ipfw-configured iMac). Although in all honesty the PC's turned into a Wintendo, so spends all its time running World of Warcraft at the moment. All the day to day stuff happens on the my Mac Mini.
People are keenly sensitive to custom. Even if you think you're being perfectly poilite for how your neighbourhood behave, you could unwittingly appear rude or arrogant in others. 'Neighbourhood' was a deliberate choice of word: the idea applies equally to regions of a single country and nations on different continents.
I've day-tripped to France (I live in Kent, UK). I have little more than schoolboy French, but I make the effort. More often than not, I have to resort to "Excuse-moi, parlez vous anglais?". Often, we struggle along in our respective pidgin English or French... but luckily many people in north-west France seem to have better English than my French!
It's the little things that count. If you walk into a shop, you always greet the shop keeper. Always. Back home, I'd only occasionally do that, and even then it'd just be a hurried smile and a 'Hi' as I rush through the checkout. Do that in France, and people are gonna think you're rude.
Even here in the UK, you say pleases and thankyou's to people who serve you. Sure, you don't greet in the same way the French do, but you *do* adhere to some basic courtesy. In some cultures, that's not the case. It's not unusual to find the "They're being paid to serve me, so they do not require thanking" custom, and of course the flip-side, "I'm being paid to serve them, why should they thank me?".
Basically, understand that things just work differently everywhere. When you go abroad, you most likely will cause offence at some point or another, be you American, French, British, German, Nigerian, Guatemalan, Whatever-the-hell-an. The best you can do is live, learn, and try to hold off on being judgemental until you've got a half-decent grasp on how others lead their lives.
My road is part of a council estate. These were built in the late 1940's-late 1950's (luckily pre-dating the god-awful mid-late 60's tower-blocks and concrete rat-runs). Many hundreds of such areas were built around here (the South East) during that time. Largely residential, and often extensions of what were originally small towns or villages pre-WW2.
I'm simply astonished that post-war Britain had the resources, talent and equipment to build such high-quality houses, roads and infrastructure at an acceptable cost.... yet now we can't.
One thousand, eight hundred years experience in laying paved, cambered, drained roads on this poxy little island... and the current state of the art is to lay a road that cracks after one winter?
If we could afford it 40 years ago, why can't we now? Where's the progress? They also recently replaced the original 1940's street lights. I'm betting at least one will have fallen down within 3 years.
It isn't the inconvenience of construction, which isn't really all that great. It's simply the amazement that we seem to have forgotten (or can't be bothered to apply) the basic principles of making roads.
TrainOwnerCo: Hey, TrackOwnerCo, we've got some spankin' new trains that can go $BIGNUM/mph. But we need your shitty old track relaid.
TrackOwnerCo: Ok.
TrackOwnerCo: Hey, TrackReplacerCo, We need this stretch of track here replaced.
TrackReplacerCo: Alrighty. That'll cost £REASONABLE and take REASONABLE_BLAH days.
TrackOwnerCo: OK.
TrackReplacerCo: Hey, TrackReplacerSubcontractorCo, fix these rails, willya?
TrackReplacerSubcontractorCo: OK.
(TrackReplacerSubcontractorCo starts the £££ clock counting, possibly calling in sub-subcontractors as required. Agency workers, leased equipment, rented kettles, hire-purchase portaloo's... anything to not actually have to own anything.)
(monthly/quarterly/whatever bills roll in at the lowest level, and work their way up, up and up the chain. Each time 'charges' are added, ensuring the private companies involved each milk their own respective contracts for every penny)
Eventually, the cost has quadrupled, the ETA has slipped by years, and the private companies are yelping for a nice tasty Government subsidy, otherwise they'll go under. According to them, that'd bring CHAOS and DISRUPTION! But naturally, the only thing the Govt cares about is that such a turn of events would make them look like incompetent, unelectable arseholes... so they just cough up another chunk of taxpayer's money.
And the cherry on the top of this shit-pudding? There's an implicit understanding amongst every contractor: "Only do just about enough work to avoid contractual penalties." Don't do a thorough job that'll last multiple decades. Hell, if they do a good job on all the repairs, there'll be fewer tasty repair contracts coming down the chute.
And this approach can be found everywhere that private companies do work for public services. A quick anecdote: the street I live on is about 50 years old. The road's probably quite technically challenging to drain correctly. It's a crescent on a hill, with an odd camber. Pretty exposed to frosts, temperature differences etc. Basically a slightly above average level of trickiness for road-laying.
When the road was built, the surface must have been laid incredibly well. It's a busy-ish road, and that surface lasted 40-odd years before becoming cracked and worn. 4 years ago it was replaced. The first heavy rain showed puddles were forming, drainage was screwed, and the tarmac was already receding from the kerb. A year after, they resurfaced one side only of the road. That winter, the join down the middle has separated. Completely, utterly half-assed job, and not a single thing the public bodies can do about it.
Welcome to 21st Century Britain, and the joys of private ownership of public wares.
Basically, what you want is what OS X calls an 'Archive & Install'.
This takes your/System/ folder, and your/Applications/ folder, and puts them in a compressed disk image called (IIRC)/Previous Systems/Previous System 1.dmg.
Note, that your/Users/ folder can also be included in that image (if you don't check the 'Restore users' option).
Then, when the OS installs, it replaces any items/Applications/ which are bundled in the OS, creates a new/System/ and (if 'Restore Users' isn't selected) a new/Users/
The magic lies in letting it also restore your users. Your/Users/ folder is preserved. Remember that all your configuration is stored in that folder, so after the upgrade everything's set up exactly how you left it./Library/ is also untouched, beyond what's replaced by the upgrade, so things like your network locations & settings are preserved.
Because the filesystem is pretty strongly 'scoped', an archive & install essentially swaps out your current/System/ for the new one, updating the odd item in/Applications/ and/Library/ as required.
You'll find it a very reliable process. There's rarely any need to re-initialise (think 'format') the entire drive. I'd recommend backing up/Users/ just in case, but your data and settings are pretty safe.
I've only once started from a completely clean drive -- and that's because I replaced the system drive with a larger capacity unit. That's in 3 1/2 years of Mac use, upgrading (using Archive & Install) all the way from 10.0.3 to 10.3.8.
Short story -- Archive & Install works very well indeed, and should do exactly what you're after. Enjoy the fact that the system enforces clear divisions between System, Applications, and User Data & Settings.
I definitely like the idea of LCD screens. I got a widescreen 17" LCD TV from Ebay. Cheap 'n cheerful, not startling quality, but serviceable. So that's got me hooked on the benefits of LCD, but aware of the downsides.
They also appear to my sense of simplicity. I like the idea of ditching those analogdigital conversions. Straight-through digital signalling's what I'd like to have.
So, my criteria are:
- At least 17" viewable diagonal - 16:9 ratio. I really dislike 4:3 these days. - Suitably high resolution, and a resolution which makes sense for the aspect ratio. - Good DDC (or whatever) support, so that the attached machine properly identifies the widescreen resolutions. - Response time of maximum 8ms. Preferably 4ms. - DVI input - £250 price tag maximum.
Hmm. Maybe -- but then you'd have to be pretty damn sure your cancer wasn't due to a known predisposition.
Anyway, this is cancer we're talking about here. It's so prevalent amongst even vaguely complex creatures that you might as well label it a side-effect of being alive. A dreadful and debilitating one, but at present, simply a risk of being alive.
Any steps towards highly effective treatment of cancers ars fantastic news.
Indeed -- as you've alluded to, having a QuickTime codec installed means that any application on the system that uses the QuickTime framework for media playback or manipulation will also gain DivX support.
I've not had much joy with mplayer... mind you, I've not used a recent version! I'll give it a try when I get home from work.
Re:Probably worth mentioning...
on
Hacking Mac OS X
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· Score: 1
Hehe... yeah, that's another real pain in the arse!
These things really glare in OS X, since for the most part it's smooth as silk. So when it does do something to get in the way, I get genuinely outraged:D
Of course, Windows Explorer can be equally brain-damaged. I don't know if it's fixed in XP, but if you have the 'web view' in Explorer windows, you also get an in-window media preview. Now, Windows Media didn't puke like Finder's embedded QuickTime does on unrecognised files... but try deleting a file which Explorer has decided to show you a preview of. It politely informs you that the file is still in use and cannot be deleted. Stupid thing is, it's Explorer itself which is causing the file to be locked!
As I've said, I've got some hopes for the new Finder in 10.4. I just hope Apple keep it roughly as simple as it is now. I want a good Finder that does pretty much what it does now... but slicker. Having said that, CoreData and the Spotlight metadata-extraction engines should make for some really cool ways of organising and accessing files. Couple that with some AppleScript magic, and things could get exciting.
(btw, I'm a huge fan of AppleScript. It's like chocolate sprinkles on ice cream -- it makes something good even better. I think it's pretty underappreciated by both Mac users and non-users alike. Can't wait for 10.4's Automator to bring point & click script creation to the masses.)
Re:Probably worth mentioning...
on
Hacking Mac OS X
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· Score: 4, Informative
Wow... ok, there's definitely something not right there, let's see if we can fix it...
FYI: I've got a 1.42GHz Mac Mini and a 500MHz G3 iMac (the old 'gum-drop' style). Even the G3 can handle most DivX's I throw at it, and the Mini's fine even with these DivX-HD trailers... both using QuickTime for playback.
Let's look at what codec you're using. QT codecs are kept in/Library/QuickTime. Looking in mine, I see I'm using 3ivX D4 4.5.1 for OS X which you can download from here.
Bear in mind that it's not too clever to have multiple codecs installed which can handle the same formats. So move any existing DivX codecs out of the above folder. You'll have to restart QuickTime (and any QT-using apps -- hell, a log-out/back in will do it for sure) for the new codecs to be used.
Note that QuickTime sometimes chokes on the indexing in AVI files which use MP3 audio tracks. Symptoms include no or stuttering video, or perfect video but stuttering/no audio. This is purely a stream indexing problem -- there's a tool on the 3ivX download page above called DivX Doctor II which will create corrected files (and maintain PC compatibility). Note that there's no re-encoding going on, just a bit of tweaking to the indices -- takes a minute or two to fix a 2-hr long film. I've got a little Folder Action Script attached to my Movies folder which automatically runs any.avi's I copy in there through the Doctor, so the process can be made completely invisible.
Finally, if you're playing DivX's with AC3 audio, get the AC3 codec from here, and drop it in with the other QT components at/Library/QuickTime.
QuickTime Player itself has never been a performance slacker on my two Macs. Duff codecs are another story:)
Hope this helps! There's absolutely no reason at all you should be having problems with DivX files on your Mac.
Chris
Re:Probably worth mentioning...
on
Hacking Mac OS X
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· Score: 5, Informative
Finder is multi-threaded (at least as of 10.2 I believe). Just fire up Activity Viewer and see that Finder's #processes is > 1.
But it blocks for network responses. This is really, really annoying. I wouldn't call it the shittiest thing, but it definitely needs some rejigging. If you've been using OS X since 10.0.3 then you'll remember that the Finder has indeed come quite a long way since then.
My hopes are high for what 10.4 will bring. The problem as I see it is that earlier versions of OS X have had quite a bit of the underpinnings in a certain amount of flux. The Finder (or indeed any 'file manager') is an important element of how the user interacts with the OS. Which means that things like CoreData, Spotlight and other enhancements give an opportunity for a proper overhaul of Finder which makes the most of these technologies. Time will tell I suppose.
Re:Probably worth mentioning...
on
Hacking Mac OS X
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Ah, c'mon... that's not really a solution is it? Previewing is an excellent feature of column view, and it'd be a shame to turn it off since it's usually very handy. Sadly, Finder's brain-damaged handling of non-local storage makes it occasionally a bit of a nightmare.
I'm a fan of OS X -- my PC's now just a Wintendo games machine. The Mac has a whole slew of applications I've come to rety on which are just plain better than alternatives (in my experience, of course).
I also think OS X has some really interesting technology in it, and I find it a real pleasure to use.... for the most part:)
I don't have a problem with how the Finder works. Of course, there's room for functional enhancements, but I'm not crying out for anything at the moment. But it really handles previewing (especially over network links, as noted) awfully. It's the only app that causes the spinning-wheel on my system. The idea that waiting for the view of a network share (or even my iDisk) to refresh should cause every other Finder window (including the Desktop) to freeze is crazy. Finder's much better than it was in 10.0, 10.1 (where there was literally NO threading) or even 10.2. But the core really needs some tweaking.
QTPlayer's not so bad. I've got the Pro version, since I like having Pro's editing and conversion features. It does its job well, but not spectacularly. I'm not going to rant about it because in a few weeks time, I'll be running Tiger with a much-overhauled QuickTime 7.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok -- this is Slashdot -- I think we all understand the 7-layer model.
/. plebs can discuss sensibly the best management of these (13?) servers that would be most beneficial for the global interoperability of the internet.
The IP network would be worthless without the higher level protocols and services. Likewise, there's a whole stack of further inventions, developments and products of world-wide research that the IP concept grew from.
My point is, when it comes to the Internet, Nationalism (for that's what this is) is ugly. There's a pissing contest going on here and it's just plain dumb.
We're talking about root DNS. That's all. It's fucking pathetic that neither the powers that be, nor us
Instead, it's deteriorated to "We invented it! It's ours!". Don't behave as if the spread of the internet was pure altruism. It's spread because it made money for companies all over the globe. The internet may have been a US invention, but its current breadth, penetration and sheer utility is a product of global contribution. And that's why the people and corporations (and yes, if they've been paying attention, even the governments) of nations outside the US have a vested interest in the DNS.
Indeed.
And conversely, wouldn't it be much safer for us potential consumers of smut to have access to the official Government Sanctioned list of Non-Deviant Pornography?
'Cos... y'know... I wouldn't want to break the law by viewing anything 'deviant'.
*sigh*
True, but Windows Messenger != Windows Messenger, either :-)
There's MSN Messenger. We all know what that is.
Then there's Windows Messenger. Which is a sibling of MSN Messenger included in Windows XP
Finally there's that other Windows Messenger. The one which used to be called WinPopup.
It'd be nice if different parts of MS could at least make sure this sort of naming confusion didn't happen. Oh well.
(or should I say acronym):
OCP.
Looking forward to Microsoft RoboCop v1.0 (SP3, plus KB990212 to address the gun-holster jamming caused by the earlier KB990112 patch for the 'erroneous firing into crowds of civilians' issue).
There's a good chance that
xxx.xxx.xxx will actually resolve?
Cool!
Although beware those who've used xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx as a placeholder for an IP address, and someone's cluelessly entered it as is.
Absolutely no compelling reason to upgrade, in my experience (which obviously isn't the same as others).
I spend a large portion of my working day writing stuff that interfaces with Windows on some low-ish levels. Nothing like driver writing, but a lot of system management stuff, scripting, network mapping, AD stuff, system scripting. I'm up to my ears in API stuff most of the time.
Most of the tools I create have 9x and NT versions, for obvious reasons. 99.999 times out of 100 the 2K and XP versions are identical. IIRC, in 3 years, there's been only one instance of XP actually offering me something apparently better than 2k -- and that was a more complete implementation of the WMI classes. Although funnily enough, the WMI method proved to be less reliable than the "Registry Key Change + API Call" method I was using in 2K... so I used that in XP also.
Windows 2000 is as stable as I could wish for, even on my modern system (a Sempron-based beastie). I don't see any software (apart from Microsoft's own browser, apparently) which requires XP over 2K. From where I'm sitting, Microsoft's carrot to get me to use XP is "Look! Shiny!", and the stick to punish me for using 2K is "Bad Man! No IE7 for you!".... to which my reply is, "So what?"
Security? I browse with Firefox, and my PC lives behind a firewall (well, an ipfw-configured iMac). Although in all honesty the PC's turned into a Wintendo, so spends all its time running World of Warcraft at the moment. All the day to day stuff happens on the my Mac Mini.
Athlon 64 != Opteron
I made the faux-pas of using USian on Slashdot.
:-)
Naturally, it was met with Nationalist chest-beating and outrage, and the assumption that I 'disliked Americans'.
Personally, I just thought it was a playful shorthand for Citizen of the United States of America. Like UK'er, Brit, Limey, or whatever.
I didn't realise you were quite so sensitive. Bless yer cotton pickin' socks.
Exactly.
People are keenly sensitive to custom. Even if you think you're being perfectly poilite for how your neighbourhood behave, you could unwittingly appear rude or arrogant in others. 'Neighbourhood' was a deliberate choice of word: the idea applies equally to regions of a single country and nations on different continents.
I've day-tripped to France (I live in Kent, UK). I have little more than schoolboy French, but I make the effort. More often than not, I have to resort to "Excuse-moi, parlez vous anglais?". Often, we struggle along in our respective pidgin English or French... but luckily many people in north-west France seem to have better English than my French!
It's the little things that count. If you walk into a shop, you always greet the shop keeper. Always. Back home, I'd only occasionally do that, and even then it'd just be a hurried smile and a 'Hi' as I rush through the checkout. Do that in France, and people are gonna think you're rude.
Even here in the UK, you say pleases and thankyou's to people who serve you. Sure, you don't greet in the same way the French do, but you *do* adhere to some basic courtesy. In some cultures, that's not the case. It's not unusual to find the "They're being paid to serve me, so they do not require thanking" custom, and of course the flip-side, "I'm being paid to serve them, why should they thank me?".
Basically, understand that things just work differently everywhere. When you go abroad, you most likely will cause offence at some point or another, be you American, French, British, German, Nigerian, Guatemalan, Whatever-the-hell-an. The best you can do is live, learn, and try to hold off on being judgemental until you've got a half-decent grasp on how others lead their lives.
Indeed. Also, being the fourth book of a trilogy does result in quite a quandry.
Hmm.
My road is part of a council estate. These were built in the late 1940's-late 1950's (luckily pre-dating the god-awful mid-late 60's tower-blocks and concrete rat-runs). Many hundreds of such areas were built around here (the South East) during that time. Largely residential, and often extensions of what were originally small towns or villages pre-WW2.
I'm simply astonished that post-war Britain had the resources, talent and equipment to build such high-quality houses, roads and infrastructure at an acceptable cost.... yet now we can't.
One thousand, eight hundred years experience in laying paved, cambered, drained roads on this poxy little island... and the current state of the art is to lay a road that cracks after one winter?
If we could afford it 40 years ago, why can't we now? Where's the progress? They also recently replaced the original 1940's street lights. I'm betting at least one will have fallen down within 3 years.
It isn't the inconvenience of construction, which isn't really all that great. It's simply the amazement that we seem to have forgotten (or can't be bothered to apply) the basic principles of making roads.
HAHAHAHA!
Unions?
In 1980, maybe.
No. The reason is something like:
TrainOwnerCo: Hey, TrackOwnerCo, we've got some spankin' new trains that can go $BIGNUM/mph. But we need your shitty old track relaid.
TrackOwnerCo: Ok.
TrackOwnerCo: Hey, TrackReplacerCo, We need this stretch of track here replaced.
TrackReplacerCo: Alrighty. That'll cost £REASONABLE and take REASONABLE_BLAH days.
TrackOwnerCo: OK.
TrackReplacerCo: Hey, TrackReplacerSubcontractorCo, fix these rails, willya?
TrackReplacerSubcontractorCo: OK.
(TrackReplacerSubcontractorCo starts the £££ clock counting, possibly calling in sub-subcontractors as required. Agency workers, leased equipment, rented kettles, hire-purchase portaloo's... anything to not actually have to own anything.)
(monthly/quarterly/whatever bills roll in at the lowest level, and work their way up, up and up the chain. Each time 'charges' are added, ensuring the private companies involved each milk their own respective contracts for every penny)
Eventually, the cost has quadrupled, the ETA has slipped by years, and the private companies are yelping for a nice tasty Government subsidy, otherwise they'll go under. According to them, that'd bring CHAOS and DISRUPTION! But naturally, the only thing the Govt cares about is that such a turn of events would make them look like incompetent, unelectable arseholes... so they just cough up another chunk of taxpayer's money.
And the cherry on the top of this shit-pudding? There's an implicit understanding amongst every contractor: "Only do just about enough work to avoid contractual penalties." Don't do a thorough job that'll last multiple decades. Hell, if they do a good job on all the repairs, there'll be fewer tasty repair contracts coming down the chute.
And this approach can be found everywhere that private companies do work for public services. A quick anecdote: the street I live on is about 50 years old. The road's probably quite technically challenging to drain correctly. It's a crescent on a hill, with an odd camber. Pretty exposed to frosts, temperature differences etc. Basically a slightly above average level of trickiness for road-laying.
When the road was built, the surface must have been laid incredibly well. It's a busy-ish road, and that surface lasted 40-odd years before becoming cracked and worn. 4 years ago it was replaced. The first heavy rain showed puddles were forming, drainage was screwed, and the tarmac was already receding from the kerb. A year after, they resurfaced one side only of the road. That winter, the join down the middle has separated. Completely, utterly half-assed job, and not a single thing the public bodies can do about it.
Welcome to 21st Century Britain, and the joys of private ownership of public wares.
Avat me hearties!
Brace the mainsail! I be downloadin' patches!
Arrrgh.
--
Umm. I don't know. To be honest, the whole 'using Windows' thing became too much of a hassle for me to bother after Windows 2000 SP4.
*grin*
:-)
Yeah, I thought about doing that... but the geek need to actually use that 'Erase and Install' (or was it just 'Install'?) option was too great!
Never let convenience get in the way of finding out what a button does
Basically, what you want is what OS X calls an 'Archive & Install'.
/System/ folder, and your /Applications/ folder, and puts them in a compressed disk image called (IIRC) /Previous Systems/Previous System 1.dmg.
/Users/ folder can also be included in that image (if you don't check the 'Restore users' option).
/Applications/ which are bundled in the OS, creates a new /System/ and (if 'Restore Users' isn't selected) a new /Users/
/Users/ folder is preserved. Remember that all your configuration is stored in that folder, so after the upgrade everything's set up exactly how you left it. /Library/ is also untouched, beyond what's replaced by the upgrade, so things like your network locations & settings are preserved.
/System/ for the new one, updating the odd item in /Applications/ and /Library/ as required.
/Users/ just in case, but your data and settings are pretty safe.
This takes your
Note, that your
Then, when the OS installs, it replaces any items
The magic lies in letting it also restore your users. Your
Because the filesystem is pretty strongly 'scoped', an archive & install essentially swaps out your current
You'll find it a very reliable process. There's rarely any need to re-initialise (think 'format') the entire drive. I'd recommend backing up
I've only once started from a completely clean drive -- and that's because I replaced the system drive with a larger capacity unit. That's in 3 1/2 years of Mac use, upgrading (using Archive & Install) all the way from 10.0.3 to 10.3.8.
Short story -- Archive & Install works very well indeed, and should do exactly what you're after. Enjoy the fact that the system enforces clear divisions between System, Applications, and User Data & Settings.
I definitely like the idea of LCD screens. I got a widescreen 17" LCD TV from Ebay. Cheap 'n cheerful, not startling quality, but serviceable. So that's got me hooked on the benefits of LCD, but aware of the downsides.
They also appear to my sense of simplicity. I like the idea of ditching those analogdigital conversions. Straight-through digital signalling's what I'd like to have.
So, my criteria are:
- At least 17" viewable diagonal
- 16:9 ratio. I really dislike 4:3 these days.
- Suitably high resolution, and a resolution which makes sense for the aspect ratio.
- Good DDC (or whatever) support, so that the attached machine properly identifies the widescreen resolutions.
- Response time of maximum 8ms. Preferably 4ms.
- DVI input
- £250 price tag maximum.
Hmm. Maybe -- but then you'd have to be pretty damn sure your cancer wasn't due to a known predisposition.
Anyway, this is cancer we're talking about here. It's so prevalent amongst even vaguely complex creatures that you might as well label it a side-effect of being alive. A dreadful and debilitating one, but at present, simply a risk of being alive.
Any steps towards highly effective treatment of cancers ars fantastic news.
Meh. I dunno what's so "nano" about this "tech" if it grows to a level similar to that of a ten year old human infant...
You're absolutely correct, of course :) ... which only really makes it all the more startling how heavy his Australian accent is in Mad Max!
... but then why wasn't it re-dubbed into British English for the UK? Or Indian English for India?
The only shock I had when watching Mad Max for the first time in many years was how much Mel Gibson has lost his native accent.
Damn. Now I want to watch those films again. They're all good, although the first was a classic.
Indeed -- as you've alluded to, having a QuickTime codec installed means that any application on the system that uses the QuickTime framework for media playback or manipulation will also gain DivX support.
I've not had much joy with mplayer... mind you, I've not used a recent version! I'll give it a try when I get home from work.
Hehe... yeah, that's another real pain in the arse!
:D
These things really glare in OS X, since for the most part it's smooth as silk. So when it does do something to get in the way, I get genuinely outraged
Of course, Windows Explorer can be equally brain-damaged. I don't know if it's fixed in XP, but if you have the 'web view' in Explorer windows, you also get an in-window media preview. Now, Windows Media didn't puke like Finder's embedded QuickTime does on unrecognised files... but try deleting a file which Explorer has decided to show you a preview of. It politely informs you that the file is still in use and cannot be deleted. Stupid thing is, it's Explorer itself which is causing the file to be locked!
As I've said, I've got some hopes for the new Finder in 10.4. I just hope Apple keep it roughly as simple as it is now. I want a good Finder that does pretty much what it does now... but slicker. Having said that, CoreData and the Spotlight metadata-extraction engines should make for some really cool ways of organising and accessing files. Couple that with some AppleScript magic, and things could get exciting.
(btw, I'm a huge fan of AppleScript. It's like chocolate sprinkles on ice cream -- it makes something good even better. I think it's pretty underappreciated by both Mac users and non-users alike. Can't wait for 10.4's Automator to bring point & click script creation to the masses.)
Wow... ok, there's definitely something not right there, let's see if we can fix it...
/Library/QuickTime. Looking in mine, I see I'm using 3ivX D4 4.5.1 for OS X which you can download from here.
.avi's I copy in there through the Doctor, so the process can be made completely invisible.
/Library/QuickTime.
:)
FYI: I've got a 1.42GHz Mac Mini and a 500MHz G3 iMac (the old 'gum-drop' style). Even the G3 can handle most DivX's I throw at it, and the Mini's fine even with these DivX-HD trailers... both using QuickTime for playback.
Let's look at what codec you're using. QT codecs are kept in
Bear in mind that it's not too clever to have multiple codecs installed which can handle the same formats. So move any existing DivX codecs out of the above folder. You'll have to restart QuickTime (and any QT-using apps -- hell, a log-out/back in will do it for sure) for the new codecs to be used.
Note that QuickTime sometimes chokes on the indexing in AVI files which use MP3 audio tracks. Symptoms include no or stuttering video, or perfect video but stuttering/no audio. This is purely a stream indexing problem -- there's a tool on the 3ivX download page above called DivX Doctor II which will create corrected files (and maintain PC compatibility). Note that there's no re-encoding going on, just a bit of tweaking to the indices -- takes a minute or two to fix a 2-hr long film. I've got a little Folder Action Script attached to my Movies folder which automatically runs any
Finally, if you're playing DivX's with AC3 audio, get the AC3 codec from here, and drop it in with the other QT components at
QuickTime Player itself has never been a performance slacker on my two Macs. Duff codecs are another story
Hope this helps! There's absolutely no reason at all you should be having problems with DivX files on your Mac.
Chris
Finder is multi-threaded (at least as of 10.2 I believe). Just fire up Activity Viewer and see that Finder's #processes is > 1.
But it blocks for network responses. This is really, really annoying. I wouldn't call it the shittiest thing, but it definitely needs some rejigging. If you've been using OS X since 10.0.3 then you'll remember that the Finder has indeed come quite a long way since then.
My hopes are high for what 10.4 will bring. The problem as I see it is that earlier versions of OS X have had quite a bit of the underpinnings in a certain amount of flux. The Finder (or indeed any 'file manager') is an important element of how the user interacts with the OS. Which means that things like CoreData, Spotlight and other enhancements give an opportunity for a proper overhaul of Finder which makes the most of these technologies. Time will tell I suppose.
Ah, c'mon... that's not really a solution is it? Previewing is an excellent feature of column view, and it'd be a shame to turn it off since it's usually very handy. Sadly, Finder's brain-damaged handling of non-local storage makes it occasionally a bit of a nightmare.
... for the most part :)
I'm a fan of OS X -- my PC's now just a Wintendo games machine. The Mac has a whole slew of applications I've come to rety on which are just plain better than alternatives (in my experience, of course).
I also think OS X has some really interesting technology in it, and I find it a real pleasure to use.
I don't have a problem with how the Finder works. Of course, there's room for functional enhancements, but I'm not crying out for anything at the moment. But it really handles previewing (especially over network links, as noted) awfully. It's the only app that causes the spinning-wheel on my system. The idea that waiting for the view of a network share (or even my iDisk) to refresh should cause every other Finder window (including the Desktop) to freeze is crazy. Finder's much better than it was in 10.0, 10.1 (where there was literally NO threading) or even 10.2. But the core really needs some tweaking.
QTPlayer's not so bad. I've got the Pro version, since I like having Pro's editing and conversion features. It does its job well, but not spectacularly. I'm not going to rant about it because in a few weeks time, I'll be running Tiger with a much-overhauled QuickTime 7.