I've been just as tormented by bad, ugly GUI's in many commercial Windows software packages.
Not all software for Windows has been written by Adobe or Microsoft. And even the packages that are, aren't always as smooth as they could be. Of course this isn't to imply that you were implying it is all written by them.
I could say that the only thing which once made Windows easier to use to me was that it was what I was used to.
Q. I had always understood the term acronym to mean an abbreviation that spells a word, such as snafu (per Webster's), but in your manual [the fourteenth edition, 1993] the two terms are used interchangeably. Can you tell me where you get your definition of acronym?
A. Since 1993, we've realized that we needed to be more precise. In the fifteenth edition, therefore, we distinguish between acronyms, initialisms, and contractions, all under the umbrella of abbreviation, as follows: acronym refers only to terms based on the initial letters of their various elements and read as single words (NATO, AIDS); initialism to terms read as a series of letters (BBC, ATM); and contraction to abbreviations that include the first and last letters of the full word (Mr., amt.). These distinctions can also be found in the multivolume work Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations Dictionary, edited by Mary Rose Bonk and published in its twenty-seventh edition in 2000 by Gale Research Incorporated.
Maybe they would be in much better shape if they were allowed to use condoms, or if the church hadn't come there in the first place to tell them there's no need for man to be free;-)
You might be interested in reading 'Ishmael'. Or, you might not. Who knows?
Anyway C++ should issue warnings about semicolons following forloops. Now _THAT_ would be a very good standard!:)
Actually, I've occassionally used loops without a loop body. Sometimes there just isn't anything to do except increment a variable up to a certain point:)
You should tell these professors and students about the Gmail invite spooler which currently holds over 500.000 invites for all poor slobs who don't have an account yet.
A peer is another computer on the internet that you connect to and transfer data. Generally a peer does not have the complete file, otherwise it would be called a seed. Some people also refer to peers as leeches, to distinguish them from those generous folks who have completed their download and continue to leave the client running and act as a seed.
Leaching in the sense as you understood it is indeed not very feasible.
Re:Thanks for the Review. Any recomendations?
on
Deploying OpenLDAP
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· Score: 1
Even after learning much of the inns and out through trial and error, this book has taught me a great deal I didn't know and desperately needed to know (often without me knowing how desperate).
Authors may wish to define additional link types not described in this specification. If they do so, they should use a profile to cite the conventions used to define the link types. Please see the profile attribute of the HEAD element for more details.
Nothing wrong with defining your own link types as far as I can tell. There are many interesting uses for this even beyond applying standards such as DC (Dublin Core). One such use you might find interesting is XFN.
According to Webster "a metaphor is the transference of the relation between one set of objects to another set for the purpose of brief explanation; a compressed simile; e. g., the ship plows the sea. --Abbott & Seeley. 'All the world's a stage.' --Shak."
The purpose of a metaphor thus, is not necessarily to think of the relation in question as the metaphorical relation, but to clarify a relation by referring to a metaphorical relation.
To force a metaphorical relation in favor of an actual relation is just plain sillyness.
I never liked the folder metaphor, because I think it severely distorts the semantics of a directory. Whereas the concept of a computer directory very closely maps to the concept of other well-known directories, like, for instance, a business directory, the concept of a filesystem folder resambles a real folder in nothing:
How often do you fold folders inside folders inside folders inside folders?
You think a deep hierarchy is bad for this reason?
"It's really hard to use a spatial file browser if someone keeps his or her files in a ten-folder-deep structure. Browser-mode file browsers hide the lack of thought and organisation in the filesystem structure; spatial ones do not. Folder structure should be simple and as shallow as possible, and the "master" folders (something like My Images or My Music folders known from Windows) should have their own shortcuts on a GNOME panel, so that playing your favourite song would only require opening My Music from the panel, opening the appriopriate album folder and double-clicking a file icon, instead of browsing straight from the home directory (or, worse, the root one) through several levels of subfolders."
Have you ever organized a big amount of personal (or an even greater amount of company) files without the aid of relational databases or the good ol' directory concept?
"While spatial Nautilius is not perfect (why oh why does it need 2 minutes to list 3000 files stored in one folder while Windows NT 4.0 Explorer lists 10000 files in 15 seconds on the same machine...), it is able to recreate the desktop metaphor that started the graphical desktop revolution with Xerox Alto and Star so many years ago."
Clearly you have never sensed the advantages of a hierarchical directory structure, or you'd realize that having 10000 files in one folder does not only decrease your performance because it complicates finding your files, but that this also decreases the computer's performance because it has to actually scan an do something intelligible with all these thousands of files. Who were you accusing of "bad file organisation coupled with a bunch of old bad habits" again?
The only alternative for a hierarchical file system is a relational file system. A flat file system only works for very modest needs.
A directory does not require a metaphor, because, as long as directories will be around, they'll be easy enough to explain through the concept of... a directory.
Now that I have explained why the folder metaphor is one of the most worthless modern desktop metaphors (Don't get me started on the 'desktop' metaphor.), it's time to explain why spatial file management is a bad idea as well, if each folder is supposed to represent a drawer:
I don't like real-world drawers, because
they tend to accumulate junk;
it's hard to keep track of what should go into which drawer because their scope is usually too broad, thereby allowing for overlap;
when there's too much stuff in a drawer, you can never find that one thing you're looking for.
Real-life drawers seem to be most usable when they're subdivided using smaller containers like those used for separating forks from knives and the likes.
Let me add to this list that I only got my first job thanks to my Linux experience. Since then I learned everything I know thanks to OpenSource pricing schemes and transparancy.
Of course, if it were not for all the pirated software, I would have never bothered using Windows.
The thing that strikes me most about Windows is that its supposed user-friendlyness for simple administrative tasks is in fact such that all my friends, family members and employers seem unable to configure anything, because, despite the annoying GUI's, which only get in the way of the actual admin (unless, of course, he or she is a complete moron), you can't administer nothing without prior knowledge about what you're doing.
Computer administration requires knowledge of whatever you're doing. There's currently not a GUI in the world which can change this simple fact. All they can do is hide this, which only makes the job more difficult.
Further, I feel I can force people to use a real OS because I'm the one who's called upon to solve the simplest of problems, anyway.
Sadly, I've lacked the gut to install it on anything beyond my own desktop and various company servers.
I am running Internet Explorer with Crossover Office. You should be able to run it by tweaking your Wine config yourself, but I took the lazy man's way:-)
The biggest threat to security is uniformity. Pluriformity is the best safeguard to the automized compromizing of operating systems. GNU/Linux is less vulnerable to worms and viruses, because Linux comes in countless incarnations. *nix in general is even less vulnerable because it includes an ever greater amount of incarnations.
Another reason why GNU/Linux is more secure is because of the peer review and the lack of secrecy surrounding GNU/Linux insecurity
Slashdot Mirror
I happily use Slashdot's RSS feed to cut down the time I spend procrastinating on Slashdot.
What's even better: someone has written a Bugmenot Firefox extension that makes life simpler still. I use it and it is fantastic!
I've been just as tormented by bad, ugly GUI's in many commercial Windows software packages.
Not all software for Windows has been written by Adobe or Microsoft. And even the packages that are, aren't always as smooth as they could be. Of course this isn't to imply that you were implying it is all written by them.
I could say that the only thing which once made Windows easier to use to me was that it was what I was used to.
Most software I have written, was crap too ;-)
According to the Chicago Manual of Style's FAQ, it's an initialism:
Maybe they would be in much better shape if they were allowed to use condoms, or if the church hadn't come there in the first place to tell them there's no need for man to be free ;-)
You might be interested in reading 'Ishmael'. Or, you might not. Who knows?
I hadn't noticed the states suffered that many "terrorist threats" before 9/11 ...
I've just signed up for your website.
Very nice job on both the look-and-feel and the content!
You should tell these professors and students about the Gmail invite spooler which currently holds over 500.000 invites for all poor slobs who don't have an account yet.
I believe that you're a leach untill you become a seed. A seed is "A computer that has a complete copy of a certain torrent."
http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/23.html explains what a seed/leach is best:
Leaching in the sense as you understood it is indeed not very feasible.
Even after learning much of the inns and out through trial and error, this book has taught me a great deal I didn't know and desperately needed to know (often without me knowing how desperate).
I cite http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/types.html#type-li nks :
Nothing wrong with defining your own link types as far as I can tell. There are many interesting uses for this even beyond applying standards such as DC (Dublin Core). One such use you might find interesting is XFN.
For some more information on profiles, see http://gmpg.org/xmdp/.
In any case, I think that Microsoft's categorical abuse of standards is beyond comparison.
According to Webster "a metaphor is the transference of the relation between one set of objects to another set for the purpose of brief explanation; a compressed simile; e. g., the ship plows the sea. --Abbott & Seeley. 'All the world's a stage.' --Shak."
The purpose of a metaphor thus, is not necessarily to think of the relation in question as the metaphorical relation, but to clarify a relation by referring to a metaphorical relation.
To force a metaphorical relation in favor of an actual relation is just plain sillyness.
I never liked the folder metaphor, because I think it severely distorts the semantics of a directory. Whereas the concept of a computer directory very closely maps to the concept of other well-known directories, like, for instance, a business directory, the concept of a filesystem folder resambles a real folder in nothing:
Have you ever organized a big amount of personal (or an even greater amount of company) files without the aid of relational databases or the good ol' directory concept?
Clearly you have never sensed the advantages of a hierarchical directory structure, or you'd realize that having 10000 files in one folder does not only decrease your performance because it complicates finding your files, but that this also decreases the computer's performance because it has to actually scan an do something intelligible with all these thousands of files. Who were you accusing of "bad file organisation coupled with a bunch of old bad habits" again?
A directory does not require a metaphor, because, as long as directories will be around, they'll be easy enough to explain through the concept of ... a directory.
Now that I have explained why the folder metaphor is one of the most worthless modern desktop metaphors (Don't get me started on the 'desktop' metaphor.), it's time to explain why spatial file management is a bad idea as well, if each folder is supposed to represent a drawer:
I don't like real-world drawers, because
Real-life drawers seem to be most usable when they're subdivided using smaller containers like those used for separating forks from knives and the likes.
I adjust my user interface to the task at hand:
Amen, brother.
Let me add to this list that I only got my first job thanks to my Linux experience. Since then I learned everything I know thanks to OpenSource pricing schemes and transparancy.
Of course, if it were not for all the pirated software, I would have never bothered using Windows.
The thing that strikes me most about Windows is that its supposed user-friendlyness for simple administrative tasks is in fact such that all my friends, family members and employers seem unable to configure anything, because, despite the annoying GUI's, which only get in the way of the actual admin (unless, of course, he or she is a complete moron), you can't administer nothing without prior knowledge about what you're doing.
Computer administration requires knowledge of whatever you're doing. There's currently not a GUI in the world which can change this simple fact. All they can do is hide this, which only makes the job more difficult.
Further, I feel I can force people to use a real OS because I'm the one who's called upon to solve the simplest of problems, anyway.
Sadly, I've lacked the gut to install it on anything beyond my own desktop and various company servers.
I am running Internet Explorer with Crossover Office. You should be able to run it by tweaking your Wine config yourself, but I took the lazy man's way :-)