Dammit - I totally just fell for a troll. Didn't take enough time to notice the terrible grammar, and just took the insult as stupidity, rather than malice. Sorry all.
Are you: a) a colleage of the "someone actually smart"? b) an alternate login for the "someone actually smart"? c) David Pogue?
If not, I fail to see how you know that the poster I disagree with is "someone actually smart." (Actually, I'd argue the same case "if so.")
In addition, please do not fall into the typical American trap these days of calling someone an idiot just because they disagree with you. If they clearly have made illogical conclusions, then yes, they are not thinking with a brain attached. But just because they have a different opinion than you, do not assume that they are mentally incapacitated.
What the fuck? "His articles are generally good, they aren't fan-boy by any stretch"? David Pogue as a newspaper columnist absolutely sucks. His articles are complete puff pieces about whatever new and shiny thing came out that week. The way he writes makes him sound like an idiot. And, what's up with those photos he feels a need to attach? He looks like a moron in every single one.
I've never read any of his books, but his articles are just awful.
Wow - I just had this realization: One should be able to photocopy anything displayed on any of these "electronic paper displays". I'm not entirely sure why anyone would want to, given that the data is already in nice, easily-copyable digital form anyway. But, given that you can't photocopy current computer displays (well, not in the normal sense - there's always PrintScreen->Photoshop), this seems like an interesting new development.
Is there a security risk here? You can put a TPM/DRM/copy-protect chip in the device to prevent people from distributing digital copies, but you can't keep them from just running the thing through a photocopier. Perhaps it's not more of a security risk than we have right now with normal paper documents, but I just thought it was an interesting idea.
there's not too many video podcasts out there in the wild.
Actually, there is a very interesting graph in this month's Technology Review concerning podcasts. The graph shows the percentage of podcasts available by subject, versus the percentage of podcasts viewed by subject. Music is, of course, the genre that most podcasts are in, and the genre that most people view. However, erotica is one of the smallest genres by availablilty, and one of the largest by viewership. Porn driving technology again, it seems.:)
Two things: First, do you actually use Firefox maximized on a 21" monitor? The only program I run maximized on a 21"er is MSVC because its UI is too busy not to. I think if you were to use Firefox in a mode other than full screen, you wouldn't mind looking down as much.
Second, those who find the search bar at the bottom awkward have little experience with older software. Anyone who has spent any time using vi, emacs, and more/less will expect the search bar to be at the bottom of the window. Perhaps there should be different default and selectable options for different operating systems, but that runs into its own problems.
I see a lot of talk in this thread about how users "don't understand how to use a heirarchy properly." I'd just like to take a moment to say that this statement is not exactly true.
People use heirarchies all the time, without thinking of them in those terms. Office buildings label offices things like "4-M243", which refers to building 4, ailse M, floor 2, room 43. That's four levels of heirarchy, including one which most people think is backward (most would think about going to the floor first, than the ailse). And yet, I have seen this exact scheme work (it was used in the old Bell Labs building in Holmdel, NJ). People just got used to it after a couple of days.
Another, simpler example is street addresses. Adresses in the US come in the form YYXX, where YY is the block number and XX is the house number. So, if you live at 1534, you are in block 15, which is sandwiched between blocks 14 and 16, at house 34.
Yet a third example - telephone numbers! (Area code)Exchange-Number in the US. People have no trouble understanding that exchanges in the same area code are usually near each other.
So, I'd just like to hear a little less talk about people not understanding heirarchies. They are perfectly capable of using them if they are just educated a bit about them.
Even in a database system, it will not be the case that the computer knows that "reports" are files, that "filed" means created, and that "user" is a synonym for name. The point here being that there is no way of getting around teaching a user about the system on which she/he is trying to work. A properly educated user will have absolutely no trouble searching a tree of directories for all files created by a user, or even grepping through a large file for all instances of the user's name. It's a garbage in, garbage out problem - put a stupid user at the terminal, get a stupid answer.
In addition, you have to realize that even if we were to switch over to a database filesystem on everything, there would be at least one company (probably Adobe) that would still dumb all of their data into one big cell in a proprietary, closed, binary format. You won't be able to search through it with a generic tool any more than you can right now.
For the record, I'm not necessarily against database-like filesystems, but I think the general discussion I hear about them is often times more just the dillusion that they are the one, ultimate, completely intuitive interface. There never has been any such thing, and never will be.
If there is one thing I've learned about being in the PC repair business, it is this: You absolutely must have thick skin. For every customer you have that is overjoyed that you saved their beloved machine, you'll have five that can't believe you get paid to do what you do.
Along with that thick skin, you need to decide on pricing and enforce it without exception. You will have no less than one customer per week call you with a "dead" printer. You'll ask them whether or not it's plugged in, and they will scream at you for thinking they're an idiot. Then, when you finally agree to make a trip out to look at their problem, you will arrive, plug the printer into the wall, and everything will be fixed. The customer will proceed to raise holy hell when you hand them a bill for the full price of the visit, because "all you did was plug it in." But, if you don't charge full price for every case of this that happens, you will be out of business before you know it.
Along with pricing, there is something else to keep in mind: None of your time can afford to go for free. Every hour you spend helping someone over the phone is an hour you didn't spend fixing a machine in the shop. You absolutely must charge that phone customer. Every hour you spend in the car driving to a customer's house is another hour you could have spent in the shop. Long trips for any sort of troubleshooting are almost always a losing venture. Consider charging extra for any trip over a certain, small distance.
These suggestions come from my experience at a beige-box and repair shop in a small town. They went under because they'd sit on the phone for hours trying to get people to push the power button on their monitor. They also offered free support to anyone who bought one of their machines. But, when they were only making $200 at most - often much less - on a machine, that profit would vanish after a trip to their farm for troubleshooting.
Good luck with your venture, should you choose to go forward with it.
Gumstix would be great if they would just add USB host capability. I don't care about controlling it over USB; I want it to read data off of a USB keychain drive.:(
This had better be a blog post. And editorial worth of compensation, it is not. Had there not been a paragraph later in the article describing graduation from high school and taking college classes, I would have assumed that the author was no older than 15.
Actually, there are still a large number of oscilloscopes and logic analyzers that do not have USB ports or ethernet jacks. They're old, but they still work, and they are rather expensive to replace. Floppy is the only option for getting screen captures off of them.
I'm not saying it's a good reason to keep floppies in standard personal computers. I'm just saying that there is reason for a modern nerd to still have a few floppies and a drive on hand.
How do we improve education? We must simply work for it. We must work on encouraging the youth to want a good education, and to work toward getting one. It is absolutely impossible to simply walk up to the counter and order, "One good education, please." Education is an interactive process, and the student must work at least as hard as the educator.
Personally, I also feel that the responsibility for providing this encouragement falls squarely on the parents' shoulders. However, it does take a community to raise a child, and it would be easier to convince the child if everyone in the community (parents, teachers, movie makers, writers, community officials, neighbors, convenience store clerks, everyone) worked toward that goal.
Come on now, all, there is probably a completely reasonable explanation for this. You know, like their software can only handle 1023 programs being classified as "Quarantine". They just had to clear some out to make room.:P
There is a great short story by Asimov, in which many years in the future, man has forgotten how to do math without an electronic computer. It then happens one day that a young man figures out a process for doing addition and multiplication on paper, and shows off his new methods to a bunch of government big wigs. The military planners are overjoyed, and they begin to redesign their rockets so they can fit a man, who will then be able to calculate his trajectory and pilot the missile to its target by using pencil and paper. This is a huge win for all involved, because humans are much cheaper than computers, of course.:)
WTF is that supposed to mean? I assume that you're trying to flame other Slashdotters for being too optimistic about Sun open-sourcing Java. I don't think your analogy holds up at all, though.
It has always been the case that one could open the hood of a car (be it Ford, GM, Toyota, or other) and pull hoses, reroute wires, change belts, or otherwise modify the engine mechanics. Ford may not encourage this with an ad campaign of, "Buy our cars because you can take them apart and reconfigure them!" but it is still the case that this is possible.
The only way I can make your analogy make sense is by assuming you meant that the open-sourcing of Java would make no difference. One can, in fact, write her or his own set of classes, or even VM, and run Java programs using it. Sun does not currently run an ad campaign to the effect of, "Use Java because you can rewrite the VM!" but it is still the case that one can.
I appologize if I have assumed wrongly about your post in the first place, and just ruined your comment by explicitly explaining it. I just find it so hard to figure out what people around here are trying to say recently.
I fucking hate Slashdot these days. Did NONE of you read the article? NeoOffice/J is NOT our only hope! [Yoda]There is another.[/Yoda]
The end of the article talks about a "ThinkFree Office" that is also due out this summer, however, I don't see one single post in this thread talking about it. It's a non-free product, but why should that mean it gets any less coverage here? Every single post I've seen here defending NeoOffice/J against MS Office says something to the effect of, "it's good enough for me," or, "I pick the right tool for the job." Guess what, you might want to take a look at another option to see if IT is the right tool for the job, and good enough for you.
I'm glad they're a good store SOMEWHERE. The only one I've ever gone to is on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, MA, and it has to be my absolute least favorite computer store. Prices on non-sale items are unreasonably high, the staff know nothing about their products, and the people at the checkouts are about as friendly as a brick wall. I go there once in a while because they actually have a fair selection of non-normal stuff (like SCSI converters and RJ-45 plugs), but I cringe every time I have to do it.
X11 is not consistent? Woah there - I'd go back and check that statement if I were you. The only app I can think of that is not compatible with X11's copy/paste is OpenOffice (and I swear that it actually worked in StarOffice before they made it non-free). Now Windows, on the other hand, I can definitely think of a handful of applications that still use Control+Insert to copy and Shift+Insert to paste (or was that the other way around), and my list expands if you let me include apps from ~5 years ago (Win98-native).
However, you make a very good point about the highlight-replace functionality. I can probably count the number of times on one hand that I have ever done that, so I didn't think of it. Point conceded.
I STILL can't figure out why people don't like X11-style copy/paste. There isn't a day that goes by when I miss middle-click-paste at work (have to use WinXP).
But, then again I also really like sloppy-focus (and would use it if MSVC6 were compatible with it), and have my CapsLock key remapped as Control.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Dammit - I totally just fell for a troll. Didn't take enough time to notice the terrible grammar, and just took the insult as stupidity, rather than malice. Sorry all.
Are you:
a) a colleage of the "someone actually smart"?
b) an alternate login for the "someone actually smart"?
c) David Pogue?
If not, I fail to see how you know that the poster I disagree with is "someone actually smart." (Actually, I'd argue the same case "if so.")
In addition, please do not fall into the typical American trap these days of calling someone an idiot just because they disagree with you. If they clearly have made illogical conclusions, then yes, they are not thinking with a brain attached. But just because they have a different opinion than you, do not assume that they are mentally incapacitated.
What the fuck? "His articles are generally good, they aren't fan-boy by any stretch"? David Pogue as a newspaper columnist absolutely sucks. His articles are complete puff pieces about whatever new and shiny thing came out that week. The way he writes makes him sound like an idiot. And, what's up with those photos he feels a need to attach? He looks like a moron in every single one.
I've never read any of his books, but his articles are just awful.
The hard drive also got bumped up 20GB (from 60 to 80). RAM is also cheaper now - 1GB is down to $250 from $475.
Wow - I just had this realization: One should be able to photocopy anything displayed on any of these "electronic paper displays". I'm not entirely sure why anyone would want to, given that the data is already in nice, easily-copyable digital form anyway. But, given that you can't photocopy current computer displays (well, not in the normal sense - there's always PrintScreen->Photoshop), this seems like an interesting new development.
Is there a security risk here? You can put a TPM/DRM/copy-protect chip in the device to prevent people from distributing digital copies, but you can't keep them from just running the thing through a photocopier. Perhaps it's not more of a security risk than we have right now with normal paper documents, but I just thought it was an interesting idea.
there's not too many video podcasts out there in the wild.
Actually, there is a very interesting graph in this month's Technology Review concerning podcasts. The graph shows the percentage of podcasts available by subject, versus the percentage of podcasts viewed by subject. Music is, of course, the genre that most podcasts are in, and the genre that most people view. However, erotica is one of the smallest genres by availablilty, and one of the largest by viewership. Porn driving technology again, it seems. :)
Two things: First, do you actually use Firefox maximized on a 21" monitor? The only program I run maximized on a 21"er is MSVC because its UI is too busy not to. I think if you were to use Firefox in a mode other than full screen, you wouldn't mind looking down as much.
Second, those who find the search bar at the bottom awkward have little experience with older software. Anyone who has spent any time using vi, emacs, and more/less will expect the search bar to be at the bottom of the window. Perhaps there should be different default and selectable options for different operating systems, but that runs into its own problems.
blocking Chinee IP space
Speaking Lunar now, I see.
I see a lot of talk in this thread about how users "don't understand how to use a heirarchy properly." I'd just like to take a moment to say that this statement is not exactly true.
People use heirarchies all the time, without thinking of them in those terms. Office buildings label offices things like "4-M243", which refers to building 4, ailse M, floor 2, room 43. That's four levels of heirarchy, including one which most people think is backward (most would think about going to the floor first, than the ailse). And yet, I have seen this exact scheme work (it was used in the old Bell Labs building in Holmdel, NJ). People just got used to it after a couple of days.
Another, simpler example is street addresses. Adresses in the US come in the form YYXX, where YY is the block number and XX is the house number. So, if you live at 1534, you are in block 15, which is sandwiched between blocks 14 and 16, at house 34.
Yet a third example - telephone numbers! (Area code)Exchange-Number in the US. People have no trouble understanding that exchanges in the same area code are usually near each other.
So, I'd just like to hear a little less talk about people not understanding heirarchies. They are perfectly capable of using them if they are just educated a bit about them.
Your example is broken.
Even in a database system, it will not be the case that the computer knows that "reports" are files, that "filed" means created, and that "user" is a synonym for name. The point here being that there is no way of getting around teaching a user about the system on which she/he is trying to work. A properly educated user will have absolutely no trouble searching a tree of directories for all files created by a user, or even grepping through a large file for all instances of the user's name. It's a garbage in, garbage out problem - put a stupid user at the terminal, get a stupid answer.
In addition, you have to realize that even if we were to switch over to a database filesystem on everything, there would be at least one company (probably Adobe) that would still dumb all of their data into one big cell in a proprietary, closed, binary format. You won't be able to search through it with a generic tool any more than you can right now.
For the record, I'm not necessarily against database-like filesystems, but I think the general discussion I hear about them is often times more just the dillusion that they are the one, ultimate, completely intuitive interface. There never has been any such thing, and never will be.
If there is one thing I've learned about being in the PC repair business, it is this: You absolutely must have thick skin. For every customer you have that is overjoyed that you saved their beloved machine, you'll have five that can't believe you get paid to do what you do.
Along with that thick skin, you need to decide on pricing and enforce it without exception. You will have no less than one customer per week call you with a "dead" printer. You'll ask them whether or not it's plugged in, and they will scream at you for thinking they're an idiot. Then, when you finally agree to make a trip out to look at their problem, you will arrive, plug the printer into the wall, and everything will be fixed. The customer will proceed to raise holy hell when you hand them a bill for the full price of the visit, because "all you did was plug it in." But, if you don't charge full price for every case of this that happens, you will be out of business before you know it.
Along with pricing, there is something else to keep in mind: None of your time can afford to go for free. Every hour you spend helping someone over the phone is an hour you didn't spend fixing a machine in the shop. You absolutely must charge that phone customer. Every hour you spend in the car driving to a customer's house is another hour you could have spent in the shop. Long trips for any sort of troubleshooting are almost always a losing venture. Consider charging extra for any trip over a certain, small distance.
These suggestions come from my experience at a beige-box and repair shop in a small town. They went under because they'd sit on the phone for hours trying to get people to push the power button on their monitor. They also offered free support to anyone who bought one of their machines. But, when they were only making $200 at most - often much less - on a machine, that profit would vanish after a trip to their farm for troubleshooting.
Good luck with your venture, should you choose to go forward with it.
May i ask which three-letter acronyms you find meaningless?
Gumstix would be great if they would just add USB host capability. I don't care about controlling it over USB; I want it to read data off of a USB keychain drive. :(
powerbook as it a prettier, albeit less durable.
Huh? This is the first time I have ever heard of the PB being less durable than the iBook. Did something change recently?
This had better be a blog post. And editorial worth of compensation, it is not. Had there not been a paragraph later in the article describing graduation from high school and taking college classes, I would have assumed that the author was no older than 15.
The garbage that gets posted these days. Sheesh!
Actually, there are still a large number of oscilloscopes and logic analyzers that do not have USB ports or ethernet jacks. They're old, but they still work, and they are rather expensive to replace. Floppy is the only option for getting screen captures off of them.
I'm not saying it's a good reason to keep floppies in standard personal computers. I'm just saying that there is reason for a modern nerd to still have a few floppies and a drive on hand.
How do we improve education? We must simply work for it. We must work on encouraging the youth to want a good education, and to work toward getting one. It is absolutely impossible to simply walk up to the counter and order, "One good education, please." Education is an interactive process, and the student must work at least as hard as the educator.
Personally, I also feel that the responsibility for providing this encouragement falls squarely on the parents' shoulders. However, it does take a community to raise a child, and it would be easier to convince the child if everyone in the community (parents, teachers, movie makers, writers, community officials, neighbors, convenience store clerks, everyone) worked toward that goal.
Come on now, all, there is probably a completely reasonable explanation for this. You know, like their software can only handle 1023 programs being classified as "Quarantine". They just had to clear some out to make room. :P
Friggin' M$.
There is a great short story by Asimov, in which many years in the future, man has forgotten how to do math without an electronic computer. It then happens one day that a young man figures out a process for doing addition and multiplication on paper, and shows off his new methods to a bunch of government big wigs. The military planners are overjoyed, and they begin to redesign their rockets so they can fit a man, who will then be able to calculate his trajectory and pilot the missile to its target by using pencil and paper. This is a huge win for all involved, because humans are much cheaper than computers, of course. :)
WTF is that supposed to mean? I assume that you're trying to flame other Slashdotters for being too optimistic about Sun open-sourcing Java. I don't think your analogy holds up at all, though.
It has always been the case that one could open the hood of a car (be it Ford, GM, Toyota, or other) and pull hoses, reroute wires, change belts, or otherwise modify the engine mechanics. Ford may not encourage this with an ad campaign of, "Buy our cars because you can take them apart and reconfigure them!" but it is still the case that this is possible.
The only way I can make your analogy make sense is by assuming you meant that the open-sourcing of Java would make no difference. One can, in fact, write her or his own set of classes, or even VM, and run Java programs using it. Sun does not currently run an ad campaign to the effect of, "Use Java because you can rewrite the VM!" but it is still the case that one can.
I appologize if I have assumed wrongly about your post in the first place, and just ruined your comment by explicitly explaining it. I just find it so hard to figure out what people around here are trying to say recently.
I fucking hate Slashdot these days. Did NONE of you read the article? NeoOffice/J is NOT our only hope! [Yoda]There is another.[/Yoda]
The end of the article talks about a "ThinkFree Office" that is also due out this summer, however, I don't see one single post in this thread talking about it. It's a non-free product, but why should that mean it gets any less coverage here? Every single post I've seen here defending NeoOffice/J against MS Office says something to the effect of, "it's good enough for me," or, "I pick the right tool for the job." Guess what, you might want to take a look at another option to see if IT is the right tool for the job, and good enough for you.
Quit following the goddamn zealot herd!
Dammit, why doesn't anyone have a proper sense of humor anymore? Clearly the link should have looked like this: Mars moonbase.
I'm glad they're a good store SOMEWHERE. The only one I've ever gone to is on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, MA, and it has to be my absolute least favorite computer store. Prices on non-sale items are unreasonably high, the staff know nothing about their products, and the people at the checkouts are about as friendly as a brick wall. I go there once in a while because they actually have a fair selection of non-normal stuff (like SCSI converters and RJ-45 plugs), but I cringe every time I have to do it.
X11 is not consistent? Woah there - I'd go back and check that statement if I were you. The only app I can think of that is not compatible with X11's copy/paste is OpenOffice (and I swear that it actually worked in StarOffice before they made it non-free). Now Windows, on the other hand, I can definitely think of a handful of applications that still use Control+Insert to copy and Shift+Insert to paste (or was that the other way around), and my list expands if you let me include apps from ~5 years ago (Win98-native).
However, you make a very good point about the highlight-replace functionality. I can probably count the number of times on one hand that I have ever done that, so I didn't think of it. Point conceded.
I STILL can't figure out why people don't like X11-style copy/paste. There isn't a day that goes by when I miss middle-click-paste at work (have to use WinXP).
:)
But, then again I also really like sloppy-focus (and would use it if MSVC6 were compatible with it), and have my CapsLock key remapped as Control.