I get that a lot - it seems any developer who uses IE as their own browser is branded an IE-only-developer:) It's fair enough though, - most of them are.
Again, I don't want to have to think about keeping one window open. If I want to close my browsers, I will. I don't want to be penalised for it. That's why I still use IE.
On the home desktop machine running XPSP2, as most are, updates are INSTALLED automatically. That's right - no user intervention.
In the corporate setting, it's very easy to not rely on the standard windows update to update clients - hotfixes and service packs are easily deployed over the network from a central server, again, without user intervention.
Acrobat reader is not a worry of mine - the only PDFs people read here are generated by ghostscript, and as with the service packs, etc., is very easy to update remotely using scripts. Our anti-virus isn't Norton, but Sophos, so that IS updated automatically.
I can see where you're confused, but I can assure you these problems you state don't exist any more.
It's version 0.9, so not the newest. I'll grab the latest and try again. My thing is I don't want to have to keep one browser window open to get fast switching. Whether it's the first window or the fourteenth, I want it now, dammit!:-P
I'm also very picky, so even if it's 0.5 seconds slower, I still won't use it...
I have FireFox installed on my PCs, and I use virtual machines loaded with other operating systems/browser combos to test cross-compatibility.
I'm assuming you posted that out of concern for my professionalism, and I agree with you whole-heartedly. You'd be a fool to rely solely on IE to tell you whether your page is good. I'm saying that when people don't check them *cough* slashdot *cough*, IE will almost certainly show you what the coder wanted you to see.
Incorrect. IE is NOT kept in memory. IE is based around a TINY OCX control that renders the HTML and controls navigation. Any benefits from preloading the OS can give it (precache) are also given to FireFox, so there is no preloading bias. This is one of the urban legends about Windows that gets thrown out quite a bit - if an MS app loads faster than the competition, it's down to precaching or preloading or presomething-only-for-microsoft-apps:)
Open in new window? Hold shift while you click. Easy.
The popup blocker works just as good as any others I've seen. I have no cause for complaint.
Firefox DOES do the right job - I'm not saying anything else - I think FireFox is a very good browser. It's just not fast enough for my needs:)
And I'd keep that last comment to yourself 'round these here parts:) You might get some unwanted attention!
Not everything does, but every piece of software that talks to the internet DOES get automatically patched, which is where the vulnerabilities come in.
And yes, in a corporate environment, it's not advisable to do that, which Microsoft thought of, funnily enough, and provided many ways to roll out TESTED updates to clients of your choice. Also, our corporate spyware detection has central references, as does our corporate antivirus and everything else that has periodic updates.
If you do things properly, Windows will cause you as many problems as linux. Like linux, if you don't know what you're doing, you can make a bad situation worse. Please bear in mind I'm not casting dispersions about your technical ability, but like you, just speaking from experience. God knows I've nuked some boxes in my time;)
I'm a tech guy, and I prefer IE to FireFox. I have no ideological objections to either, so my choice is made purely on practical benefits.
I find FireFox to be slower than IE. Let me load it up now and see how long it takes to load... approximately 10 seconds. Now, on my virtual PC, let's see how long IE takes to load up... under 2 seconds. Exactly. Until FireFox can be as quick-loading as IE, I'm not going to use it. That time difference is the most annoying thing about FireFox, as I'd use it over IE if it could just do what IE does best - a very lightweight, fast browser. I don't care about standards compliance (as a web developer, I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt, IE's HTML rendering engine is the most fault-tolerant out there, by a long way). I don't care about tabbed browsing (as, with XP, you get tabbed browsing in the task bar automatically).
I don't care about nasties on my PC, as I run Ad-Aware, and I'm not infested. Even without Ad-Aware I've found that I rarely, if ever, get infected with anything across the web. SP2 has made that even less likely.
I don't care about open source - I care more about the right tool for the right job. I'm not going to sacrifice anything to use the license of my choice.
As far as I can see, all this armageddon-speak about IE is pure FUD, which is something I thought slashdot didn't like...
I can install apps x, y, z and utilities p, q & r.
The apps update themselves without my intervention.
There's no crap to put up with. I don't update my software, my software updates itself. This is what I mean - you're not telling the truth here. You're saying Windows is at the state it was 5 years ago, when it clearly isn't. As for spyware, just install adaware, and it'll protect you perfectly. Heck, I still use IE, and my computer is still mine, running without any spyware at all, with no intervention from me whatsoever.
It clearly is MS bashing if you misrepresent the truth on such a massive scale. From your post, a newcomer to computers would assume it's impossible to run an MS windows box without having to manually update ever single thing on it. That it's insecure and will become compromised within minutes. It's pure FUD, and not in the least bit true.
What the heck are you on about? I run Windows, and I've had no problems with spyware ruining my PC or crashing it. I'm fed up with all this "ooh better stop using microsoft, otherwise your face will melt clean off" bullshit. I thought you guys were professionals? Why are you spouting this FUD about microsoft? If it was as bad as everyone here says, no-one would be able to use it at all, as their computers would be simultaneously blowing up and sending their credit card information to north korea.
There are PLENTY of things people can do in windows to protect themselves as much as they want. Suggesting moving to another operating system shows your real intentions here.
I apologise if this sounds pretty harsh, but I'm pissed off with the lack of professionalism or objectivity on this site.
"On the whole" doesn't mean "everyone who ends up installing this software because the only mention of it was buried deep in the EULA of some shareware app". That's the problem. By your logic, the cops can go out on the street randomly shooting people, as they'll get lucky every so often and shoot a bad guy.
When George Washington was rolling around, guns were the ONLY weapon an army had - from muskets up to cannon. It was well within every person's means to get enough weapons for a town to be able to go up against soldiers. Now, there is no hope in HELL that Americans can get enough guns to fight off or make it tricky on the tyrannical overlords. Have you seen what most armies pack these days? They're not muskets, that's for sure...
When Mao said "barrel of a gun" he wasn't talking literally about some paralegal with a beretta, but a metaphor about the people rising up against the government, the institutions, the ruling classes.
Answer me this: If the cops tried to enforce some new draconian law on you, what would you do? How, in your mind, can you think of a course of events that don't end in you having your ass handed to you by someone with bigger guns, and more of them? I really would like to know. You don't have the power to defend and enforce your freedom - the cops have more guns than you. They can also call in the freakin' army. Unless you happen to have your own NORAD-style bunker, you're fucked.
Are you seriously suggesting the left wants to take guns away so they can set up a communist state?? Hahaha! That's genius:) I find it interesting you use Mao to defend your views on guns, yet two paragraphs later, berate communists as evil. Which one is it?:) Maybe, and just maybe, they're worried that the correlation between gun ownership and death in America is more than coincidence. Or maybe you like kids shooting each other, the ridiculous amounts of suicides and armed robberies, the gang violence, armed rampages, etc. I don't know. The rest of the world seems to get along fine without everyone packing:)
But most houses in Iraq have at least 1 AK47. Hardly the same in the US. Also, most of those people fighting the Americans are the Iraqi army who were disbanded. That leaves us with a trained, armed Iraq.
Well, the Iraqis aren't going to repel the US invaders any time soon, so I'd say that it was a vibrant demonstration as to why the 2nd amendment is severely out of date. After all, when they wrote it, it was very possible for a common person to own one of every weapon employed by whatever army they chose.
Not meaning to burst your bubble, but a LOT of retired US military people, some with great ranks, have said some complete and utter buckets of bullplop. Serving in the US military doesn't mean you'll always tell the truth, especially if they're selling something:)
Do you mean "if the Russians ever got to fire a laser of the size required for this application?" as technically, any laser can fit in a spaceship, including laser pointers, which I'm pretty sure they have:)
You're implying that having a gun makes you a citizen, but that's simply not the case. If you have a gun and try to not comply with the wishes of the government, no matter how outrageous you think they are, the government will get a bigger gun than you're allowed by law. If you have a gun EVEN BIGGER, they'll just bring more. You can't win.
Don't you realise it? They say "oh look! you have guns, so there's no way in hell we can fuck with you. Don't you feel better?" when they know that if they want to wipe every single american off the face of the Earth, or enact draconian laws and FORCE you to comply, they can walk right over you all, guns or not. After all, France, Belgium, Holland, and even Poland had entire armies, and they were taken over by a hostile, tyrannical dictator. How you think a bunch of office workers with handguns is going to stop a modern mechanised army with air support is beyond me, and quite entertaining at the same time.
So, by the sound of your last statement, only those with training should be allowed guns?
I fear you misunderstand my point, so I will repeat it:)
Let's take your initial argument point-by-point:
1. Yes, tens of millions were killed. Many millions were innocent, yet WW2 games don't mention those. That would be too sad, so they gloss over those killed by the errant shell your tank just launched over into the adjacent farm, or those killed when your bombs go off course. In war, accidents like that ended in the misery of millions more we don't hear about. Of course, you can say that there were so many to get upset about, but then that's to say human suffering doesn't matter to you if it's in sufficient quantity.
2. Yes, two generations. However, as there are still MANY people alive now who saw WW2, that point is quite irrelevent.
3. Centering on the military deaths and glossing over the civilian ones is the biggest injustice you can do.
So, basically, if one is to be offended by a "pop JFK" game, you should be a million-times more offended by a WW2 game, as the sheer number of people who died in both depicted events are very different indeed.
OK, I take your point. From your initial post, I assumed you were referring to the general public, not including works vehicles (which will obviously require additional ability). However, the climate in the US seems to be for most people to get the largest vehicle their credit allows, focussing on the image not the car itself.
Resigning yourself to "that's just the way it is" isn't helping anyone - flip off the next H2 driver you see:) FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT!
"A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed"
kind of turns into
"Guns for everyone in case some bad guy invades".
Completely missing the fact that the guy invading will be slightly better armed than them (read: tanks, helicopters, tactical nukes, ICBMs, aircraft carriers, etc)... I'm not sure how a bunch of accountants with 6-shooters and no training are going to form any sort of coherent physical force that even a slightly determined boy scout troop couldn't take care of is beyond me. But what do I know. I'm a commie.
Slashdot Mirror
I get that a lot - it seems any developer who uses IE as their own browser is branded an IE-only-developer :) It's fair enough though, - most of them are.
Again, I don't want to have to think about keeping one window open. If I want to close my browsers, I will. I don't want to be penalised for it. That's why I still use IE.
On the home desktop machine running XPSP2, as most are, updates are INSTALLED automatically. That's right - no user intervention.
In the corporate setting, it's very easy to not rely on the standard windows update to update clients - hotfixes and service packs are easily deployed over the network from a central server, again, without user intervention.
Acrobat reader is not a worry of mine - the only PDFs people read here are generated by ghostscript, and as with the service packs, etc., is very easy to update remotely using scripts. Our anti-virus isn't Norton, but Sophos, so that IS updated automatically.
I can see where you're confused, but I can assure you these problems you state don't exist any more.
May I suggest learning how to use IE? It does exactly what I want it to do - no more, no less. ;)
I'm also very picky, so even if it's 0.5 seconds slower, I still won't use it...
I have FireFox installed on my PCs, and I use virtual machines loaded with other operating systems/browser combos to test cross-compatibility.
I'm assuming you posted that out of concern for my professionalism, and I agree with you whole-heartedly. You'd be a fool to rely solely on IE to tell you whether your page is good. I'm saying that when people don't check them *cough* slashdot *cough*, IE will almost certainly show you what the coder wanted you to see.
Open in new window? Hold shift while you click. Easy.
The popup blocker works just as good as any others I've seen. I have no cause for complaint.
Firefox DOES do the right job - I'm not saying anything else - I think FireFox is a very good browser. It's just not fast enough for my needs :)
And I'd keep that last comment to yourself 'round these here parts :) You might get some unwanted attention!
And yes, in a corporate environment, it's not advisable to do that, which Microsoft thought of, funnily enough, and provided many ways to roll out TESTED updates to clients of your choice. Also, our corporate spyware detection has central references, as does our corporate antivirus and everything else that has periodic updates.
If you do things properly, Windows will cause you as many problems as linux. Like linux, if you don't know what you're doing, you can make a bad situation worse. Please bear in mind I'm not casting dispersions about your technical ability, but like you, just speaking from experience. God knows I've nuked some boxes in my time ;)
I find FireFox to be slower than IE. Let me load it up now and see how long it takes to load... approximately 10 seconds. Now, on my virtual PC, let's see how long IE takes to load up... under 2 seconds. Exactly. Until FireFox can be as quick-loading as IE, I'm not going to use it. That time difference is the most annoying thing about FireFox, as I'd use it over IE if it could just do what IE does best - a very lightweight, fast browser. I don't care about standards compliance (as a web developer, I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt, IE's HTML rendering engine is the most fault-tolerant out there, by a long way). I don't care about tabbed browsing (as, with XP, you get tabbed browsing in the task bar automatically).
I don't care about nasties on my PC, as I run Ad-Aware, and I'm not infested. Even without Ad-Aware I've found that I rarely, if ever, get infected with anything across the web. SP2 has made that even less likely.
I don't care about open source - I care more about the right tool for the right job. I'm not going to sacrifice anything to use the license of my choice.
As far as I can see, all this armageddon-speak about IE is pure FUD, which is something I thought slashdot didn't like...
I can install apps x, y, z and utilities p, q & r.
The apps update themselves without my intervention.
There's no crap to put up with. I don't update my software, my software updates itself. This is what I mean - you're not telling the truth here. You're saying Windows is at the state it was 5 years ago, when it clearly isn't. As for spyware, just install adaware, and it'll protect you perfectly. Heck, I still use IE, and my computer is still mine, running without any spyware at all, with no intervention from me whatsoever.
It clearly is MS bashing if you misrepresent the truth on such a massive scale. From your post, a newcomer to computers would assume it's impossible to run an MS windows box without having to manually update ever single thing on it. That it's insecure and will become compromised within minutes. It's pure FUD, and not in the least bit true.
There are PLENTY of things people can do in windows to protect themselves as much as they want. Suggesting moving to another operating system shows your real intentions here.
I apologise if this sounds pretty harsh, but I'm pissed off with the lack of professionalism or objectivity on this site.
"On the whole" doesn't mean "everyone who ends up installing this software because the only mention of it was buried deep in the EULA of some shareware app". That's the problem. By your logic, the cops can go out on the street randomly shooting people, as they'll get lucky every so often and shoot a bad guy.
Meh - I expect it these days. Sometimes the mods don't have much sense, other days they have plenty. I imagine we are having an off-day mod-wise :)
When Mao said "barrel of a gun" he wasn't talking literally about some paralegal with a beretta, but a metaphor about the people rising up against the government, the institutions, the ruling classes.
Answer me this: If the cops tried to enforce some new draconian law on you, what would you do? How, in your mind, can you think of a course of events that don't end in you having your ass handed to you by someone with bigger guns, and more of them? I really would like to know. You don't have the power to defend and enforce your freedom - the cops have more guns than you. They can also call in the freakin' army. Unless you happen to have your own NORAD-style bunker, you're fucked.
Are you seriously suggesting the left wants to take guns away so they can set up a communist state?? Hahaha! That's genius :) I find it interesting you use Mao to defend your views on guns, yet two paragraphs later, berate communists as evil. Which one is it? :) Maybe, and just maybe, they're worried that the correlation between gun ownership and death in America is more than coincidence. Or maybe you like kids shooting each other, the ridiculous amounts of suicides and armed robberies, the gang violence, armed rampages, etc. I don't know. The rest of the world seems to get along fine without everyone packing :)
You should have just downloaded it via bittorrent... it'd max out your connection, and no steam when you want to play :-P
Well, the Iraqis aren't going to repel the US invaders any time soon, so I'd say that it was a vibrant demonstration as to why the 2nd amendment is severely out of date. After all, when they wrote it, it was very possible for a common person to own one of every weapon employed by whatever army they chose.
Not meaning to burst your bubble, but a LOT of retired US military people, some with great ranks, have said some complete and utter buckets of bullplop. Serving in the US military doesn't mean you'll always tell the truth, especially if they're selling something :)
Just like the sabre-rattling the US did at the same time :) Remember, the cold war was one big series of sabre-rattles...
Do you mean "if the Russians ever got to fire a laser of the size required for this application?" as technically, any laser can fit in a spaceship, including laser pointers, which I'm pretty sure they have :)
Or, making a jet is slightly easier than a space-based optical/radar laser/cannon platform... your choice.
You're implying that having a gun makes you a citizen, but that's simply not the case. If you have a gun and try to not comply with the wishes of the government, no matter how outrageous you think they are, the government will get a bigger gun than you're allowed by law. If you have a gun EVEN BIGGER, they'll just bring more. You can't win.
Don't you realise it? They say "oh look! you have guns, so there's no way in hell we can fuck with you. Don't you feel better?" when they know that if they want to wipe every single american off the face of the Earth, or enact draconian laws and FORCE you to comply, they can walk right over you all, guns or not. After all, France, Belgium, Holland, and even Poland had entire armies, and they were taken over by a hostile, tyrannical dictator. How you think a bunch of office workers with handguns is going to stop a modern mechanised army with air support is beyond me, and quite entertaining at the same time.
So, by the sound of your last statement, only those with training should be allowed guns?
Let's take your initial argument point-by-point:
1. Yes, tens of millions were killed. Many millions were innocent, yet WW2 games don't mention those. That would be too sad, so they gloss over those killed by the errant shell your tank just launched over into the adjacent farm, or those killed when your bombs go off course. In war, accidents like that ended in the misery of millions more we don't hear about. Of course, you can say that there were so many to get upset about, but then that's to say human suffering doesn't matter to you if it's in sufficient quantity.
2. Yes, two generations. However, as there are still MANY people alive now who saw WW2, that point is quite irrelevent.
3. Centering on the military deaths and glossing over the civilian ones is the biggest injustice you can do.
So, basically, if one is to be offended by a "pop JFK" game, you should be a million-times more offended by a WW2 game, as the sheer number of people who died in both depicted events are very different indeed.
Resigning yourself to "that's just the way it is" isn't helping anyone - flip off the next H2 driver you see :) FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT!
"A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed"
kind of turns into
"Guns for everyone in case some bad guy invades".
Completely missing the fact that the guy invading will be slightly better armed than them (read: tanks, helicopters, tactical nukes, ICBMs, aircraft carriers, etc)... I'm not sure how a bunch of accountants with 6-shooters and no training are going to form any sort of coherent physical force that even a slightly determined boy scout troop couldn't take care of is beyond me. But what do I know. I'm a commie.
I play games, so I need it :)