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  1. Re:I thought GNOME was like apple? on Gnome 3.12 Delayed To Sync With Wayland Release · · Score: 1

    I could see this being the case for new users, because they wouldn't know any better. I'm glad some people like it, and hope it speeds adoption of desktop Linux.

    However, as a person who was already productive with Gnome2, I found Gnome3 irritating. They took away a lot of options for window placement and menu arrangement.... and _I'm_ supposed to flush _my_ time down the toilet because someone decided this was a "better way". Thankfully, we're in Linux-land, so I'm not strictly beholden to their whims like the poor bastards that use windows and mac. I think MATE is the way forward, which is sad for me in some ways. Gnome3 should have been the one to take a the new name, because it was such a departure from the previous version. It's like going to your favorite dive-bar for your daily Ike-Turner, and discovering that they only serve mojitos from now on.

  2. Re:They can delay Gnome3 as much as they want on Gnome 3.12 Delayed To Sync With Wayland Release · · Score: 1

    Yeah.... this has been the bane of my linux existence. Shiny new things. I'd try them, they'd work amazingly... and then, on Monday morning, when I have a meeting/presentation in 30 minutes, it would fail in some way and I'd be trapped at the terminal for the next 2 hours. I wish it were different, but I've only got time for flexible, reliable applications, especially when it comes to desktop environments. After hearing this, fans of crapple will usually say "Well then OSX was made for you!"... then I reply "Oh really? Please show me how to remove these bloated garbage apps like Finder and iTunes."

    That said, I do appreciate the tip. I looked into it and realized that MATE is actually a fork of the classic Gnome2 codebase. It wasn't very apparent at first, it would have been nice if the name suggested that. Thanks!

  3. They can delay Gnome3 as much as they want on Gnome 3.12 Delayed To Sync With Wayland Release · · Score: 1

    The transition from Gnome2 to Gnome3 was an awful one for me. I bet there was a meeting somewhere that went like this...

    Designer 1: Gnome2 is way too simple! Look at this Windows 8 - they totally outdid the rest of the world!

    Designer 2: Yes, and look at this OSX - girls love it!

    Dev: Totally! Let's re-do all the menus/toolbars, and then we'll make it the new default on (insert list of gnome3 distros here). Everyone will love it from day one, and nobody will experience any loss of productivity! It will be a great resume builder for us as well.

    All: Yay!

    ...Yes, I'm bitter. Yes, I've moved all my machines to XFCE (MATE looks useful, but less mature/stable ATM). If I wanted a confusing UI with limited customization, I would just use OSX. The fact that anyone willingly uses Gnome3 bewilders me. IMHO, they should have done this: continue to keep Gnome2 as "Gnome", fork the code, and call Gnome3 something different (KDE8-X or something).

  4. Anything like desktop version? on Ubuntu Touch Developers Aim for Daily Phone Usability Before June · · Score: 2, Funny

    If Ubuntu touch is anything like the desktop version of Ubuntu, then I can expect:

    * Daily update nags

    * Several hours of reconfiguring software after each update

    * Changes to the user interface that you didn't ask for

    * Loss of previous functionality after each update

    Ubuntu was my first Linux, and it was great for a time, but they just play too fast-and-loose with new software. They've unapologetically wasted many hours of my time on many fronts - I still have nightmares from when they switched me to unity without my consent. Seriously, if I wanted OSX, I would just go and buy a mac. I fear for these poor phone users in advance!

  5. Mod parent up! on With Pot Legal, Scientists Study Detection of Impaired Drivers · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the link! I didn't realize this till now - the summary claims "Driving within three hours of smoking pot is associated with a near doubling of the risk of fatal crashes", but that claim isn't stated in any of the links provided.... so it's just a number that our dear friend "hugh pickens" made up.

    When headlines are written with unsubstantiated claims and misinterpreted research, this sets us back - this tactic is what fuelled the effort to make cannabis illegal in the first place.

  6. Re:No CI? No version control? on Ask Slashdot: Standard Software Development Environments? · · Score: 1

    I'd say going without these tools and procedures *will* make for an epic nightmare. Since any self-respecting software engineer can work from anyplace, you'll basically always be "on call". Therefore, it's pretty likely that one day, another engineer will hack together something sloppy for a fix on one thing, and that will break another thing, and you will need to take a break from your vacation. Since you've already been in a good spot, you can see how bad it *can* be. At any interview I'm on, I make a point to ask about their version control systems, ticketing systems, deployment environments, testing methodologies, etc. A lot of startups don't place much emphasis on these. I usually pass on these jobs. I'd rather have my free-time than make a boatload of $$. Looking at the big picture, I don't blame the developers for these oversights. I believe it should be the job of management to set company-wide standards for these things, and enforce the use of them. Personally, management may be amicable/generous, but in the end it's not a nice thing to do to any developer, whether the oversight is intentional or not. My advice would be to educate yourself on the specific advantages of these tools/procedures, discuss them with your fellow developers to get buy-in, then assemble a small group and educate management on them. When speaking to developers, emphasize quality of life, and with management, emphasize quality and stability.

  7. mod parent up on Obama DOJ Sides With RIAA · · Score: 2, Insightful

    funny and true. In many other countries, you wouldn't even see this case go to trial - the head of the recording industry would have called the president, had the kid executed by the police, and the state-run media wouldn't be allowed to cover it.

  8. Re:Yes, it does suck. on Cuil Proves the Bubble Is Back · · Score: 1

    I guess I'm kicking a dead horse here, but it also inserts ads randomly. I searched for "dodge viper" and on the grey sidebox the first result was "acura vehicles". Honestly, could you make it any more obvious that you're selling the keywords to acura here?(its not due to alphabetizing either as the rest of the list is in a different order)

    To summarize *my* beef with them, "they both advertise, but at least google *labels* their ads as such".

  9. Same monopoly principle as Creative on $90 Asus Sound Card Whips Creative's Best · · Score: 1

    Think of it this way: The PFY at bestbuy will tell you Monster is the best, but he'll also try to sell you a Creative soundcard in the same breath.... do you see the pattern now?

    All the audiophiles I've known said coat-hangers *did* sound better than monster cables, and that cables are a very important component of a quality system.

  10. Show me the $ on Earning Money with Open Source Software? · · Score: 1

    I can appreciate your position on "getting a job", but if I have great ideas, the WORST thing I could do for myself is to "work for someone else" so that they can get rich off of my great ideas. Suppose I have an innovative idea for a program. From here, it looks like I have 2 paths:

    0) I patent the tech, make it closed-source, and lock it down as well as I can. If you want to use my program, you have to pay me $20. Suppose five people buy it per day. I make a modest income($36,500) from the program, until Microsoft buys me out for $10 million and includes the program with their next version of Windows Vista, Millennium Edition.

    1) I can opensource it and "hope" that someone doesn't know how to install a program. Because it's opensource, however, most of the problems are resolved via forums which does not make me any support $. A couple times a week, some poor n00b won't know how to use synaptic/apt/yum/make/cygwin/etc and calls me so I charge him $40 to walk him through install the program. While I'm out, one kind soul donates $2. In the same day, 100 people have installed it via synaptic, which is a nice ego-boost but it doesn't put food on the table. A couple times a week, other t00ls buy generic hardon pills from the spamlinks at the side of my page, which nets me another $20. At the end of the day, I might have made enough to buy a tall-can, a couple ramen packs and put gas in my micro-bus(which I live in because my house got foreclosed on after I lost my job because I got caught working on my opensource project).

    So here's my question: Is there really a way you can "live the dream" by opensourcing something? Please correct me if I am wrong because I do have a few ideas I've been considering bringing to reality, and I love Linux and foss, but I love money more - I'm tired of the rat-race, and there doesn't seem to be any clear cut "path to real financial success" with opensource, from the pov of a program-writer.

  11. Re:Been using a ThinkPad with Vista for half a yea on Lenovo Announces ThinkPads Preloaded With XP · · Score: 1

    I have a lenovo that had to be "rescued by the penguin". Before that, I was "using" the Vista Business preload, and I wholeheartedly agree with you. I had problems connecting to any network, wired or otherwise, and the search never worked right for me. Say what you will about that, but I actually found it easier to get things working in Ubuntu(but still hard as hell). If Vista is trying to copy the Mac's "It just works" claim, they have a long way to go.

  12. Not the best friends on Facebook Beacon Privacy Issues Worse Than Previously Thought? · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I had re-joined some social networking sites recently, and this was my pretense. However, it made me realize that if these "old friends" were such great people, I would have kept in touch with them. With each "old friend", I realized that there was some fatal flaw that made me not want to keep in touch with them anyway.
    Honestly, how long do you want to dwell in the past? The future is so wide open...

  13. NO LINUX support, read closer on Hands-On With The Kindle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The bookeen does not support Linux, even though it is linux-based... go figure. Read the FAQ under point 8 "The Mobipocket Desktop Reader is not available fro Mac and Linux. On these machines, the Cybook is seen as a simple external storage drive and the Mobipocket files must be transferred manually." I guess you could say they are being nice by not deliberately locking-out non-windows users, but if I'm gonna pay that much, then ALL features should work for Linux. Furthermore, it doesn't look like there's a linux prog out there that does the same thing as mobipocket or ereader. I would love to be corrected on this point but that's what I've seen so far.

    The specific incompatibility is this: the software that the reader uses for synchronization, "mobipocket", is windows-only. The features seem really cool though - it can even download RSS feeds so you can view them offline. The WINE Entry for this program says it crashes frequently so that's not an answer(Does wine ever work right?)

    Also noticed... ebooks can sometimes cost more than their paper-based counterparts.

  14. I hate to break it to you... on Demonoid Torrent Tracker Shut Down by CRIA · · Score: 3, Insightful

    but "sensationalism sells". That's why most of the "news" on tv is about war/shootings/etc.

  15. That's why zap2it cut us off? on No More TV Listings For MythTV Users · · Score: 1

    IIRC, Zap2it is terminating the free service because of that exact reason - all they said was that there were many users who were "abusing" the service. They never came out and said exactly what it is, but it must have pissed them off pretty bad. I think if you just used the service the way it was intended to be used, they wouldn't go after you.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see the "not doing anything to piss off anyone at Tribune Media Services, even if you didn't know it would." line in the agreement anyway. I don't think they'd risk their goodwill by going out of their way to sue a random mythtv user anyway.

  16. Re:Interesting on Ubuntu Continues to Grab Market Share · · Score: 1

    I second this opinion. Linux works adequately, but there's always something to fix, and it always requires a ton of terminal commands and conf file edits. In Windows, if I need to install/update a driver, I just download the executable and run it. In certain cases, I've seen linux drivers that are that easy to install, but most are 1-hour jobs between downloading, compiling, and troubleshooting - and that's assuming that there even *is* a driver for it. Until there's a linux distro that can make all driver installs at least as easy as XP, I don't see it gaining significant market share.

    To sum it up... Between the two, I'd rather work on the 46 Ford. Desktop Linux has been more trouble than it's worth.

    However, on servers, I have absolutely no problem with Linux. It's a dream come true to not have to worry about CALs again!

  17. I agree with the AC on 6 Months On, Vista Security Still Besting Linux · · Score: 1

    Hey, the guy went nuts at the end but he does have a few valid points.

    M$ doesn't announce vulnerabilities until they've got a fix, and therefore the "vulnerability count" for Vista is probably inaccurate.

    Also, Vista enjoys the same "security through obscurity" that Linux does - WinXP is still a more lucrative target. Supposing that the Vista adoption-rate will grow, the number of exploits discovered will grow in turn. I think we will see another MSBlast-esque exploit again in a couple years.

    He definitely nailed it when he talked about how people were staying away from Vista, however. I've known a lot of people who recently bought a Vista-loaded machine and ended up putting XP or Linux on it. Entire departments, in some cases. I'm still staying away from it.

  18. Re:Yeah... Are they going to indemnify us? on Microsoft Pleads With Consumers to Adopt Vista Now · · Score: 1

    I guess I'm preaching to the choir here, but I had issues too. My Lenovo 3000 N100 shipped with Vista, and the networking tools were utterly useless... so I tried to format/install XP, but Lenovo support for their own drivers was abyssimal.

    In the end, my only option was to install Ubuntu. Although I had to re-learn how to use the computer, I would have had to re-learn it anyway in Vista... and in the next OS that MS decides to foist upon us. So my options were:
    *Re-learn functions in Vista, pay twice as much for software, and just live with a slow/unreliable computer
    *Re-learn functions in Linux, get free software, a fast/reliable machine again, way more eye-candy(if only for bragging rights)
    It wasn't as easy of a decision as you would have thought, but it was worth it. Anyone who has tried Linux in the past should take a look at it again. It's really come a long way in just the two years since the last time I tried it.

  19. Re:Not very balanced review on DRAM Makers Suffer Due to Lackluster Vista Adoption · · Score: 1

    Vista's UAC is great - but if it was foolproof, how come it still nags me to install antivirus? If I'm gonna pay into a "protection scheme", it better be run by fat Italians, not skinny nerds.

  20. Re:The "in" crowd on iPhone Release Date Is June 29 · · Score: 1

    for the first time giving ordinary non-computer-geek people something that a lot of them already know they want: the internet in their pocket.
    I hate to rain on your parade, but there are many devices out there that give you "the internet in your pocket". Some of them do it better than others, but I find it hard to believe that Apple is going to reinvent things with just a touchscreen and EDGE. I've used touchscreen-only smartphones before(believe it or not, Apple didn't invent this concept) and I was consistently underwhelmed. What will make this device a success, however, is Apple fans and their incredible powers of Cognitive dissonance. (after they buy them)They will get their friends to buy the devices, and the affluent ones will buy them for their friends. Apple will shell out large sums of money for conspicuous product-placements, and the iPhone-owners will smile when they see James Bond using an iPhone to remote-control a battleship.
    Cognitive dissonance is not unique to Apple users, though. I know a few Zune/Vista-ers who do the same. It allows anyone to be a fanboy of anything. As a recent GNU/Linux convert, I find myself trying to do it too... which makes me no better than the rest of them.

    I for one welcome our new suck-free cell phone overlords.
    Sorry but I had to bite at this one. It's not the phones that suck. There are many great phones out there. It's the service that sucks for most of us... Think about it: If the service(cingular/sprint/etc) was good, they wouldn't have to lock you into a two-year contract to keep you. They also wouldn't have to subsidize the purchase of a phone and simlock it to their network. The iPhone can't possibly change this paradigm of suckiness.
  21. Don't forget this one on Students Embarrass eBay With Firefox Add-On · · Score: 1

    AMEN to that one. FlashBlock is another good one - wherever there is a flash animation, it will show a "play button". To run the flash, you just click the button. You can whitelist sites too, for when you come across a site that is "too cool for html".

  22. Re:The simple way to end phishing. on A Foolproof Way To End Bank Account Phishing? · · Score: 1

    This program is a great way to accomplish this. It can read names from a list, generate random numbers in whatever format you wish, and submit them to a form of your choosing. Only problem, I suppose, would be that the phishers could just filter out all submissions from your IP.... although maybe the formflood project now does IP spoofing. That would be capital.

  23. Re:The simple way to end phishing. on A Foolproof Way To End Bank Account Phishing? · · Score: 1

    Great site about this practice: Ebola Monkey Man

  24. Re:The bigger problem on Windows Vista, More Than Just a Pretty Face · · Score: 1

    I agree with the evil-empire reference. I've been learning Linux for a few months now(in my spare time) and it's hard not to be a MS-Basher every time the subject is brought up. Once you've seen "the light"(a non-ms os), it's hard not to get emotional about it, eh? Thanks for the tip on the Firewire HD.

  25. Article on windows tax refund on Dell Refunds Vista/Works With Two Emails · · Score: 1

    http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/01/03/22723 7
    I just ordered a Dell on Saturday and I'm going to try this - seems reasonable and well-documented.