mutt has been the best text mode client for IMAP I have found. On the GUI side Outlook Express is!
Hillarious! Most would consider pine to be the best IMAP text mode client (Mark Crispin, who created IMAP, has a hand in pine) & mulberry as the best GUI client (written by more people who write IMAP servers). If you restrict it to open source clients, mutt is "o.k." in the text regime & Mulberry/Evolution are good for GUIs.
Reasons why mutt still sucks as an IMAP client
No IMAP server-side searching, sorting, threading
Can't search across multiple mailboxes
Can't download messages without downloading attachments
Many settings are applied to ALL IMAP servers
Overly-agressive checking of ALL folders by default (though this can be reconfigured)
Can't flag IMAP messages on the server as deleted--only purges them
No user-defined labels
Can't store onfiguration on the server (pine and mulberry can. you say this is a good feature...)
IMAP passwords are stored as plaintext
Reasons why Outlook Express has ALWAYS sucked as an IMAP client
No IMAP server-side searching, sorting, threading
Can't download messages without downloading attachments
Can't store onfiguration on the server (pine and mulberry can. you say this is a good feature...)
No IMAP server-side drafts/sent mail folders
Can't run multiple instances on one PC
No flagging
Makes too many connections to the server (so can't truly take advantage of IDLE)
You mean like IronPython: Python on the.NET Framework? MS frequently shows up at F/OSS and Linux conferences, in addition to MacWorld & conferences arounf another vendors' products.
PDF means that I might have to read text that is either too small but I can see the whole page, or I have to scroll around to read the page.
Why? No reason for PDFs to only be in letter or A4. Why not PDFs the size of ebook reader displays? I want my ebook experience to be identical to by normal book experience. One of the nice things about books is their beatiful typesetting. An ebook intended for a reader can be a page-for-page copy of a standard paperback.
Why would Apple do that? They still don't have fully-featured/supported movie playback, which would appeal to a much wider audience. Also, the iPod display is garbage. Apple makes some good products, but I think that some other company is more likely to mainstream PDFs
It didn't make the front page, but the recent article on extending games with Lua is also worth a read. My personal preference is still for Python (I love all of the libraries that it has), but Lua is good if you need some small scripting engine.
In that article, I was asked about this book, which covers Lua, Python, and Ruby for games. Despite having all of the "right languages," the book is awful. For people wanting to extend games with python, I suggest Game Programming with Python. This book is a wonderful overview.
I'm a member of the librie group. I realize the format has been hacked. I've made my own LRFs. I still wouldn't call this ideal. You have to jump through too many hoops & the format is still more limited than being able to drop a PDF or web-page on the device would be. Have you tried embedding audio in LRFs? Not good.
I want a Librie-like device which supports existing standards!
Even if you are a fan of LRF, Sony's equivalents of the iTMS are garbage. More DRM, less selection, and higher cost.
In addition, ebook readers don't feel like or smell like books.
Why should they have to. Television didn't look, sound, feel, or smell like the old tube radios. Which do more people sit around now?
An even earlier example of this fallacious argument is Sousa complaining that player pianos didn't sound like real orchestras. He didn't halt that technology & I sincerely hope ebooks will take off too.
physically uncomfortable to read
E-ink displays are high contrast & look good in broad daylight. Resolution is reasonable. There are no technological barriers for why e-ink displays can't be better than trade-paper (particularly when I see plenty of flaws in the older technology--pages which are double-printed or where the ink is so faded you can't read it or pages which have been wrongly cropped.
Portability is a big issue. While I can't carry 40 or 50 books around in my briefcase at time (a big "feature" of ebooks), I don't generally finding a need to do so.
But you would benefit from being able to. Instant access to the wikipedia or the OED from anywhere anytime. Maps and phonebooks! Reference texts for your job! Somthing for the kids to read! Why not carry it all? Ebook readers are currently over-sized to be the same size and weight of books. There is no way dead trees are as portable.
Incompatible formats may be one of the most maddening. I can buy books from...O'Reilly
Formats aren't inherently incompatible. You can often convert between them anyway. O'Reilly is a good example: they put out e-books which can be read on Mac, win32, linux, or even PDAs. Why? They're just HTML. HTML, TXT, PDF would all be fine for ebook readers, just as MP3 is fine for digital music players.
DRM
A DRM-free ebook is more practical than a stack of paper: it is searchable, cut-and-pasteable, printable, and transferrable. Books are far more limited. Even ebooks with some DRM are inherently more usable. Excessive DRM is crippling, but it isn't an inherent limitation of ebooks.
Books can last hundreds of years in the same piece, whereas formats come and go.
Books die. Especially those which were made on acid paper or those which had limited circulation. Look at the Library of Alexandria for one big example of how dead-trees don't lead to the best product (hard to duplicate). I can read 30 year old computer files. Of course, I have a hard time reading some files from less than 10 years ago. Judidicious choice of open formats solves this.
Books don't need batteries or recharging.
They aren't searchable, printable, or self-illuminationable either.
If you drop a book it'll be more or less fine, unless you drop it in a puddle or something.
They make rugged phones. No reason not to have rugged ebook readers.
Ebooks just seem like a pain in the ass.
One BIG problem with dead-tree books is that they take up too much damn space & they cost too much to produce. I have been in more than one library where the quantity of resources was fundamentally limited by the size of the building. Ebooks take up no space. The Library of Congress is already using them for this reason for some applications. Space is a big problem. You can't make regular books take up any less space.
I've already plugged it before, but a device like the Sony Librie would be great if they fixed the whole Sony proprietary BS nature of it.
It was specifically designed to be the same size and weight of a paperback book & it uses a high-contrast E-ink display. Only significant battery use is on page turns.
I had previously used my Palm IIIxe as an ebook reader. Then I tried to use my Zaurus. I've given up. The screens don't have high enough contrast & they suck batteries too much. They don't work well in sunlight. I would really like to see e-ink take off. Perhaps people won't buy a special "ebook only reader," but I don't see that many people using their current handheld devices as one right now either.
Disagree, but because the iPod did get it right: it supports mp3.HTML is the best format for it.HTML is a lousy format for reading--it isn't prepress. Few browsers make it pretty & an ebook reader should be dumb enough to support it. PDF is my bet: it looks EXACTLY the way the publisher intended on any device. It is well-documented. It can support DRM (so publishers will buy in), but the DRM sucks (so technologists in the US can break the law & those outside need not be crippled) & the DRM isn't required (so you can choose not to use it).
1)They must be comfortable to read. E-ink devices, like the Sony Librie can bring this. These devices have high contrast displays, use little power, and work in broad daylight. They are about the size and weight of a standard pocket paperback, but they store far more information.
2)They must be priced competitively. 10 cent chapters. $1-2 books. Free content which is in the public domain or put out by individual authors.
3)They must not be so encumbered by DRM that people find them useless. One major flaw with the Librie was that, like most Sony products, they used a proprietary format developed by Sony. Until recently, it was hard to put your own content on the devices. A lot of the content you could buy also exprired & they were extremely feature-limited (you couldn't copy, search, read on other devices, etc.).
What we need is the iPod of eBook readers. Something which is well-designed & allows us to read PDF, html, and plain text (in addition to any restricted formats.
7-eleven did license the drink from ICEE. The major innovation introduced (aside from widening distribution in a common convenience store) that the Slurpee brought was carbonation.
7-eleven was named 7-eleven before the introduction of the Slurpee, which probably did not occur on 7/11.
7-eleven has long promoted free Slurpee days where, on July 11, you got a free 7.11 oz Slurpee. But celebrating the 40th anniversary on this day was a bit arbitrary.
SVG will be standard in Firefox 1.5 & you can already download either the 1.5 beta or special 1.0 builds with it built in.
I don't know anything about Sparkle. MS has previously demonstrated that XML != Open, though. Their Office XML format is locked up by patents & there is no need to store only human-readable text in XML. Unless I'm mistaken (wouldn't be the first time), the Office XML format does have tags which specify encoded content & vi & Notepad wouldn't help you with that.
If they do the same to Sparkle, that is bad. But if they won't, it could be a good product. I just don't know why they didn't find SVG to be good enough. Or, if they found it lacking, why they didn't propose extensions. MS has a BAD case of not invented here (or perhaps not acquired here).
PCKeyboard offers buckling spring keyboards (they bought the rights & there are still some old ex-IBM employees there. Good boards. Same key response as the Model M & some models have windows keys. They also sell quiet key rubber dome boards, so double check that you are getting one that has buckling springs.
Productivity is all about comfort. Stop obsessing over "the best" setup. Use what you have. Use other people's stuff. If you like there stuff better than what you have, get it. My opinions won't be yours, but here they are anyway:
desks
Anything that is big enough to not only home your beast, but also reference material. Also something that you keep tidy (I don't actually keep mine tidy, but I'm more productive when I do.
seating
Something which swivels & allows you to lean back without falling.
lighting
New fluorescents are OK--good spectrum. Old fluorescents suck--they flicker.
keyboard
This is the only one I have strong opinions on. IBM Model M
and pointing device,
Logitech MX510 is good. Really any optical mouse with a wheel is good enough.
monitors
A CRT with a high refresh rate. Something big. Alternatively, multiple LCDs.
even the computer system itself.
Home-brew linux desktops for me. My next might be from Monarch, though--they build good systems.
What software would you choose to use
This is DEFINITELY something that you should try. Unlike hardware, there is no entry cost to try most software (even commercial software has evaluation copies). I tend to use gvim in fluxbox.
Well with the frequently asked questions (I'd hate to see the infrequently asked ones!) on Dr. Grammar, I'd say that it is a monstrous task to make a good checker. Grammaticians don't even agree on what is grammatically correct.
The webpage for Queequeg gives a good overview that the sourceforge project page lacks (and the link on the sourceforge page to their webpage is for a non-english index).
Slashdot Mirror
Reasons why mutt still sucks as an IMAP client
- No IMAP server-side searching, sorting, threading
- Can't search across multiple mailboxes
- Can't download messages without downloading attachments
- Many settings are applied to ALL IMAP servers
- Overly-agressive checking of ALL folders by default (though this can be reconfigured)
- Can't flag IMAP messages on the server as deleted--only purges them
- No user-defined labels
- Can't store onfiguration on the server (pine and mulberry can. you say this is a good feature...)
- IMAP passwords are stored as plaintext
Reasons why Outlook Express has ALWAYS sucked as an IMAP clientYou mean like IronPython: Python on the .NET Framework? MS frequently shows up at F/OSS and Linux conferences, in addition to MacWorld & conferences arounf another vendors' products.
Why would Apple do that? They still don't have fully-featured/supported movie playback, which would appeal to a much wider audience. Also, the iPod display is garbage. Apple makes some good products, but I think that some other company is more likely to mainstream PDFs
It didn't make the front page, but the recent article on extending games with Lua is also worth a read. My personal preference is still for Python (I love all of the libraries that it has), but Lua is good if you need some small scripting engine.
In that article, I was asked about this book, which covers Lua, Python, and Ruby for games. Despite having all of the "right languages," the book is awful. For people wanting to extend games with python, I suggest Game Programming with Python. This book is a wonderful overview.
I'm a member of the librie group. I realize the format has been hacked. I've made my own LRFs. I still wouldn't call this ideal. You have to jump through too many hoops & the format is still more limited than being able to drop a PDF or web-page on the device would be. Have you tried embedding audio in LRFs? Not good.
I want a Librie-like device which supports existing standards!
Even if you are a fan of LRF, Sony's equivalents of the iTMS are garbage. More DRM, less selection, and higher cost.
An even earlier example of this fallacious argument is Sousa complaining that player pianos didn't sound like real orchestras. He didn't halt that technology & I sincerely hope ebooks will take off too.E-ink displays are high contrast & look good in broad daylight. Resolution is reasonable. There are no technological barriers for why e-ink displays can't be better than trade-paper (particularly when I see plenty of flaws in the older technology--pages which are double-printed or where the ink is so faded you can't read it or pages which have been wrongly cropped.But you would benefit from being able to. Instant access to the wikipedia or the OED from anywhere anytime. Maps and phonebooks! Reference texts for your job! Somthing for the kids to read! Why not carry it all? Ebook readers are currently over-sized to be the same size and weight of books. There is no way dead trees are as portable.Formats aren't inherently incompatible. You can often convert between them anyway. O'Reilly is a good example: they put out e-books which can be read on Mac, win32, linux, or even PDAs. Why? They're just HTML. HTML, TXT, PDF would all be fine for ebook readers, just as MP3 is fine for digital music players.A DRM-free ebook is more practical than a stack of paper: it is searchable, cut-and-pasteable, printable, and transferrable. Books are far more limited. Even ebooks with some DRM are inherently more usable. Excessive DRM is crippling, but it isn't an inherent limitation of ebooks.
I've already plugged it before, but a device like the Sony Librie would be great if they fixed the whole Sony proprietary BS nature of it.
It was specifically designed to be the same size and weight of a paperback book & it uses a high-contrast E-ink display. Only significant battery use is on page turns.
I had previously used my Palm IIIxe as an ebook reader. Then I tried to use my Zaurus. I've given up. The screens don't have high enough contrast & they suck batteries too much. They don't work well in sunlight. I would really like to see e-ink take off. Perhaps people won't buy a special "ebook only reader," but I don't see that many people using their current handheld devices as one right now either.
1)They must be comfortable to read. E-ink devices, like the Sony Librie can bring this. These devices have high contrast displays, use little power, and work in broad daylight. They are about the size and weight of a standard pocket paperback, but they store far more information.
2)They must be priced competitively. 10 cent chapters. $1-2 books. Free content which is in the public domain or put out by individual authors.
3)They must not be so encumbered by DRM that people find them useless. One major flaw with the Librie was that, like most Sony products, they used a proprietary format developed by Sony. Until recently, it was hard to put your own content on the devices. A lot of the content you could buy also exprired & they were extremely feature-limited (you couldn't copy, search, read on other devices, etc.).
What we need is the iPod of eBook readers. Something which is well-designed & allows us to read PDF, html, and plain text (in addition to any restricted formats.
7-elevens are ubiquitous & most 7-elevens will each have a different selection of flavors. So just try going to another location.
7-eleven did license the drink from ICEE. The major innovation introduced (aside from widening distribution in a common convenience store) that the Slurpee brought was carbonation.
7-eleven was named 7-eleven before the introduction of the Slurpee, which probably did not occur on 7/11.
7-eleven has long promoted free Slurpee days where, on July 11, you got a free 7.11 oz Slurpee. But celebrating the 40th anniversary on this day was a bit arbitrary.
Version 2 is only in CVS, but releases of version 1 can be downloaded
SVG will be standard in Firefox 1.5 & you can already download either the 1.5 beta or special 1.0 builds with it built in.
I don't know anything about Sparkle. MS has previously demonstrated that XML != Open, though. Their Office XML format is locked up by patents & there is no need to store only human-readable text in XML. Unless I'm mistaken (wouldn't be the first time), the Office XML format does have tags which specify encoded content & vi & Notepad wouldn't help you with that.
If they do the same to Sparkle, that is bad. But if they won't, it could be a good product. I just don't know why they didn't find SVG to be good enough. Or, if they found it lacking, why they didn't propose extensions. MS has a BAD case of not invented here (or perhaps not acquired here).
PCKeyboard offers buckling spring keyboards (they bought the rights & there are still some old ex-IBM employees there. Good boards. Same key response as the Model M & some models have windows keys. They also sell quiet key rubber dome boards, so double check that you are getting one that has buckling springs.
Link
There are numerous comparisons. . Lua is nice because it is tiny. Python is nice because it is versatile.
My officemate literally just purchased Game Development with Lua. It is a neat book.
However, Lua is used for other things, includinge the ion window manager, the SciTE editor, the Elinks text webbrowser and more.
Well with the frequently asked questions (I'd hate to see the infrequently asked ones!) on Dr. Grammar, I'd say that it is a monstrous task to make a good checker. Grammaticians don't even agree on what is grammatically correct.
The webpage for Queequeg gives a good overview that the sourceforge project page lacks (and the link on the sourceforge page to their webpage is for a non-english index).