Sorry for offtopic, but adding a new attribute that controls the spell checker reminded me of two similar functions. I would like to have a system solution for disabling text selection (because selecting web application interface is dumb) and disabling text completion for input boxes (because for some boxes the completion simply does not make sense). You might be familiar with this -- does WHATWG work on something like it?
That is the problem, it does not. Or at least it did not about a year and a half ago when I last tried it. It was slow, crashed, used non-standard widgets, had ugly interface and had problems with Czech texts, which was a big show stopper for Czech users. Microsoft Office on OS X is simply not the same as Office on Windows. I like to use Word on Windows, I hated using Word on OS X. You did not answer my question, did You ever use Word on Mac? A good word processor for OS X is Mellel (http://www.mellel.com/), but it cannot be used for routine get-a-doc-edit-send-a-doc work.
Have You ever used the Mac Word? I was really looking forward to it as I bought my Mac Mini, but it is a scary application that has nothing to do with the Windows version.
For my friends and family Windows are relevant, because Office is relevant. It's sad, because otherwise many of them would strongly consider buying a Mac. (Which would be a huge win both for them and for me, for I would no longer have to fix the broken Windows XP boxes...)
"System requirements. Operating System: Windows® XP (Home Edition/Professional, Media Center Edition, Media Center Edition 2004, Media Center Edition 2005)"
How hard would it be to make this an USB Mass Storage device and have it work with all operating systems?
"Using the included CONNECT(TM) Reader PC Software, you can easily transfer Adobe® PDF"
No thanks, I still get shivers when I think of the "included Sony SonicStage(TM) software"...
There are too many differences between OS X and Windows for this to work. OS X applications use different menu layout, keyboard shortcuts, follow different icon design guidelines, use different tools (like sheets and drawers), use different install procedure and so on. You could match these things to their Windows counterparts, but that would be about as laborous as getting the application right without copying anything. The only way to design a good application is to read the local design guidelines carefully, try to fit in the environment as seamlessly as possible and be kind to the user. Copying is not an option -- look at all the Linux GUI environments that try to emulate OS X or even Windows without being at least half as usable as the original.
HD DVD has got a different maximum data rate (29,4Mbps versus almost 40 Mbps of Blu-ray) and different capacity (30GB versus 50GB), that makes a difference. HD DVD also uses different filters, for example the Film Grain Technology (FGT) filter. I'm not saying this makes a difference visible at the first sight, but saying "same codecs, same picture" is simply wrong.
"But why should i pay extra when other OSs offer full-fledged firewalls built-in?"
Just to be fair -- the current Windows XP built-in firewall seems quite nice to me. From the user point of view I do not see much differences from my OS X firewall.
Isn't this (from the users' point of view) almost the same thing as software suspend? I reboot/power off my Mac only when a new security update comes out, the sleep/wake up is almost instant. On Windows or Linux the software suspend is not as quick, but seems fast enough for me.
Maybe some server machines could make use of the quick boot... but then again, the article says the machine does the starting procedure in advance, before it shuts down, so that there are no savings in the reboot/start again cycle--just the majority of the work is shifted to the "shutdown" phase?
"Actually, if were really up to me, I would push artists to adopt creative commons licenses, and recommend that everyone allow free file trading. The people who love the artists still buy collections, still go see shows, still buy videos, etc."
Is guess this wouldn't work for all but the highest-profile artists.
The collections are expensive to make and whoever pours the money to make them possible has to be sure enough people buy them so that the money come back, where "enough" is defined as "much more than an average band can lure".
The shows usually involve so many people (like the sound engineer and people around the stage) that the money you make out of an average show divided by the number of band members means you would have to make concerts every other day to pay the bills. Which is OK with many musicians but still you're going to be old someday or going to be ill someday...
As for the videos the same argument applies as in the case of collections--the costs are too severe to be cured by some tens of fans.
If it were up to me, I would keep paying money, but directly to the musicians, for their work is hard and the record companies often rip them off IMHO.
"The two button mouse requires you to use the muscles in an individual finger, and worse, individual tendons which exacerbate carpal tunnel syndrome. (multi-button trackballs do better). With the 1-button Apple mouse you can use your whole hand to click. With the current 0-button Apple mouse, you can use your whole arm."
I bought the original whole-button Apple mouse with my Mac Mini and it almost ruined my wrist in about two weeks. 1) The lack of the mouse wheel makes you scroll by moving the mouse, which is very inconvenient and 2) whatever I did the mouse was not as sensitive as every other PC mouse so that I had to move it around very often.
From the article: "As I stated in my previous column, 'machines like the mini or the cheap Dell desktop are underpowered for advanced users, but both will suffice for their target market.'"
Underpowered? What does an "average advanced user" do to need more than a one gigahertz processor? I'm currently running a PII/350, which is a bit slow for my needs (some movies skip a bit and the browsing is not as smooth as I wish it would be), but I'll be quite happy with, let's say, 800 MHz PIII.
I do some programming, some typesetting, edit some sound samples, why should I need more than 1,2 GHz Mac Mini?
Allright, editing half a GB photographs in Photoshop would probably suck on the machine, but that's not "advanced user", thats "professional" in my terms...
"Writing a book with pictures in Word is extremely difficult."
Maybe because Word was NOT designed for writing books with pictures? Use styles, do not include the pictures (just insert a reference) and You'll be fine.
"Latex has more features than Word without any of these problems."
I can't believe You're comparing interactive word processor with batch typesetting system.
- The garbage ATRAC format is used by many musicians and sound engineers for recording without ANY objections to quality.
- The garbage ATRAC format is used in MD walkmans. I happen to own one, I happen to have good headphones (Koss Porta Pro), I happen to listen to jazz a lot and I actually find the sound flawless.
I mean --- people survived on tape walkmans for years and now every grandma in the village waves with the sound tests, graphs and frequencies?
Well, hmm. I would argue that any game based on an already-existing property (be it a film, novel, or what have you) is not going to live up to the expectations created by the original product.
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Sorry for offtopic, but adding a new attribute that controls the spell checker reminded me of two similar functions. I would like to have a system solution for disabling text selection (because selecting web application interface is dumb) and disabling text completion for input boxes (because for some boxes the completion simply does not make sense). You might be familiar with this -- does WHATWG work on something like it?
"Mac Word operates like any other Mac app."
That is the problem, it does not. Or at least it did not about a year and a half ago when I last tried it. It was slow, crashed, used non-standard widgets, had ugly interface and had problems with Czech texts, which was a big show stopper for Czech users. Microsoft Office on OS X is simply not the same as Office on Windows. I like to use Word on Windows, I hated using Word on OS X. You did not answer my question, did You ever use Word on Mac? A good word processor for OS X is Mellel (http://www.mellel.com/), but it cannot be used for routine get-a-doc-edit-send-a-doc work.
Have You ever used the Mac Word? I was really looking forward to it as I bought my Mac Mini, but it is a scary application that has nothing to do with the Windows version.
For my friends and family Windows are relevant, because Office is relevant. It's sad, because otherwise many of them would strongly consider buying a Mac. (Which would be a huge win both for them and for me, for I would no longer have to fix the broken Windows XP boxes...)
I think this would be a perfect display to watch Rashomon :)
"System requirements. Operating System: Windows® XP (Home Edition/Professional, Media Center Edition, Media Center Edition 2004, Media Center Edition 2005)"
How hard would it be to make this an USB Mass Storage device and have it work with all operating systems?
"Using the included CONNECT(TM) Reader PC Software, you can easily transfer Adobe® PDF"
No thanks, I still get shivers when I think of the "included Sony SonicStage(TM) software"...
There are too many differences between OS X and Windows for this to work. OS X applications use different menu layout, keyboard shortcuts, follow different icon design guidelines, use different tools (like sheets and drawers), use different install procedure and so on. You could match these things to their Windows counterparts, but that would be about as laborous as getting the application right without copying anything. The only way to design a good application is to read the local design guidelines carefully, try to fit in the environment as seamlessly as possible and be kind to the user. Copying is not an option -- look at all the Linux GUI environments that try to emulate OS X or even Windows without being at least half as usable as the original.
HD DVD has got a different maximum data rate (29,4Mbps versus almost 40 Mbps of Blu-ray) and different capacity (30GB versus 50GB), that makes a difference. HD DVD also uses different filters, for example the Film Grain Technology (FGT) filter. I'm not saying this makes a difference visible at the first sight, but saying "same codecs, same picture" is simply wrong.
Just a versioning system? Indeed. But Apple is the first to design a versioning system my father can use...
"But why should i pay extra when other OSs offer full-fledged firewalls built-in?"
Just to be fair -- the current Windows XP built-in firewall seems quite nice to me. From the user point of view I do not see much differences from my OS X firewall.
Long until what? Until there are so many viruses for Mac as there are for Windows? Hardly.
"the article says the machine does the starting procedure in advance"--oops, not the article, but one of the fellow posters said that.
Isn't this (from the users' point of view) almost the same thing as software suspend? I reboot/power off my Mac only when a new security update comes out, the sleep/wake up is almost instant. On Windows or Linux the software suspend is not as quick, but seems fast enough for me.
Maybe some server machines could make use of the quick boot... but then again, the article says the machine does the starting procedure in advance, before it shuts down, so that there are no savings in the reboot/start again cycle--just the majority of the work is shifted to the "shutdown" phase?
That sentence has got nothing to do with koans, see for example the Wikipedia article about koans.
"Actually, if were really up to me, I would push artists to adopt creative commons licenses, and recommend that everyone allow free file trading. The people who love the artists still buy collections, still go see shows, still buy videos, etc."
Is guess this wouldn't work for all but the highest-profile artists.
The collections are expensive to make and whoever pours the money to make them possible has to be sure enough people buy them so that the money come back, where "enough" is defined as "much more than an average band can lure".
The shows usually involve so many people (like the sound engineer and people around the stage) that the money you make out of an average show divided by the number of band members means you would have to make concerts every other day to pay the bills. Which is OK with many musicians but still you're going to be old someday or going to be ill someday...
As for the videos the same argument applies as in the case of collections--the costs are too severe to be cured by some tens of fans.
If it were up to me, I would keep paying money, but directly to the musicians, for their work is hard and the record companies often rip them off IMHO.
T.
Oh. I forgot, this is slashdot, right... :)
Sure, but that either requires touching the keyboard or moving the mouse pointer out of the current position.
"The two button mouse requires you to use the muscles in an individual finger, and worse, individual tendons which exacerbate carpal tunnel syndrome. (multi-button trackballs do better). With the 1-button Apple mouse you can use your whole hand to click. With the current 0-button Apple mouse, you can use your whole arm."
I bought the original whole-button Apple mouse with my Mac Mini and it almost ruined my wrist in about two weeks. 1) The lack of the mouse wheel makes you scroll by moving the mouse, which is very inconvenient and 2) whatever I did the mouse was not as sensitive as every other PC mouse so that I had to move it around very often.
> You're assuming, in calling these people idiots, that what they're doing is unintentional.
If they do it intentionally then certainly the word 'idiot' is too weak.
From the article: "As I stated in my previous column, 'machines like the mini or the cheap Dell desktop are underpowered for advanced users, but both will suffice for their target market.'"
Underpowered? What does an "average advanced user" do to need more than a one gigahertz processor? I'm currently running a PII/350, which is a bit slow for my needs (some movies skip a bit and the browsing is not as smooth as I wish it would be), but I'll be quite happy with, let's say, 800 MHz PIII.
I do some programming, some typesetting, edit some sound samples, why should I need more than 1,2 GHz Mac Mini?
Allright, editing half a GB photographs in Photoshop would probably suck on the machine, but that's not "advanced user", thats "professional" in my terms...
42.
"Writing a book with pictures in Word is extremely difficult."
Maybe because Word was NOT designed for writing books with pictures? Use styles, do not include the pictures (just insert a reference) and You'll be fine.
"Latex has more features than Word without any of these problems."
I can't believe You're comparing interactive word processor with batch typesetting system.
- The garbage ATRAC format is used by many musicians and sound engineers for recording without ANY objections to quality.
- The garbage ATRAC format is used in MD walkmans. I happen to own one, I happen to have good headphones (Koss Porta Pro), I happen to listen to jazz a lot and I actually find the sound flawless.
I mean --- people survived on tape walkmans for years and now every grandma in the village waves with the sound tests, graphs and frequencies?
a do prdele [as I seem to be the first Czech representative around :)]
Well, hmm. I would argue that any game based on an already-existing property (be it a film, novel, or what have you) is not going to live up to the expectations created by the original product.
Discworld {I, II, Noir}? Dune I? Indiana Jones?