It's strange, but my gaming machine is an iBook running OS X. It's easier to be a Mac gamer than to be a Linux gamer (even if only a little bit).
Oh, and just for the record: I don't play WoW, but it is a small selling point for OS X as compared to Linux, as is every game. I demand entertainment, dammit (although I don't need it badly enough to go back to having Windows as the primary OS).
Yes, but is tries to abstract the user from it as much as possible. While a Mac user can be expected to find his way around Finder, effective usage of bash certainly is not expected.
BTW, such a tutorial might make for a good demo... You put up a computer running the tutorial over and over in a store/on a computer show/etc. People get to play with Linux (as the tutorial should include parts where the user can try out the stuff he gets taught) and you can use it for promotion. For example, when the tutorial tells the user about the difference between middle-clickng and Ctrl+V, it might use phrases like "With Linux, you get not one but two clipboards" or "The intuitive middle-click allows you to cut and paste text without having to use menus or keyboard shortcuts".
On this year's Cebit, Apple pretty much just put up a few Macs and let people play with them. Bang, instant marketing.
While Linux GUI-wise isn't as sexy as OS X, putting up some (faily locked down) Linux boxen and let people play with them might be a good idea. Especially if there is a nice, friendly tutorial that gives you detailed information on how Linux is different from Windows (this is important as many complaints about Linux are that stuff works differently from Windows. It's easy to complain about that if you're unprepared, but the more people already know about Lniux, the less is going to catch them by surprise (and thus agitate them)).
Multimedia on Linux is behind Windows, but ahead of OS X. For example I can play most Windows Media files on my Linux box, but not on the iBook - even if I open the files in the Windows Media Player. (Actually, I havent't yet encountered a file that the Mac WMP can play.) If the current Mac WMP doesn't support the current WM codec then it's pretty pointless to install it.
It's similar with other codecs - without VLC, I couldn't play any Windows Media encoded video files as the WMP refuses to play them and there either are no QuickTime plugins or they don't work. (And no, I didn't get the installation wrong. It's pretty hard to do that on a Mac.)
Compare that to Linux, where you can often just type in emerge/apt-get install/yum install <list of media codec packages> and get a system capable of playing 98% of all video files with minimal hassle.
Sure, you need to know how the names of the packages are and some distros require you to include the necessary repositories because of licensing issues. But that's a price I'm ready to pay considering that I don't pay a cent for the OS and that the necessary steps to make your distro media-ready are usually well-documented and tutorials are easily found via Google.
Maybe it would be an idea to include stuff like libdecss or an MP3 decoder in the default repositories and add a flag that keeps people from checking them out without jumping through (tiny) hoops?
For example, the Portage system allows packages to be "masked" (i.e. flagged as non-installable) for various reasons. It would be easy to add an "offensive" keyword for packages that might violate patents etc. Other systems might have similar functions (such as moving the offensive stuff to a separate repo that is included by default but disabled - I think Ubuntu does things this way).
If someone really wants a media-capable Linux and doesn't care about patents (= is a normal home user), he can enable the repository/remove the mask/do something else to enable the offensive packages, probably with an action as simple as ticking a checkbox in a package manager GUI. Real power-user distros might even require the user to enable a few commented-out lines in a config file or add "offensive-packages" to $USE.
Linux isn't that far behind Windows, media-wise. It's just tricky to get the stuff to work and patents and other restrictions certainly don't help. With some work, getting a Linux capable of playing almost anything might become easier than making Windows media-ready.
You send him a mail? You mean, you tell your secretary to request a high-level meeting via Outlook so that you two can touch base and develop a strategy to fully own the challenge in a proactive way.
You seem to be suitably results-driven, young man, but your business lingo certainly isn't up to snuff.
An interesting question would be if this effect stops at some point or not. I grew up with lots of books, computers etc. My eyesight started deteriorating when I was about six and has since then steadily declined until I ended up with -10.25/-11.00 dioptres, leaving me almost blind when I'm not wearing my glasses.
However, for the last two years, my eyesight has not changed a bit, even though I still spend most of my time staring at text. It'd be nice if I hit some kind of boundary - a point at which the eyes can't get any worse from staring at short distances anymore. I know that my eyesight could be a lot worse (one of my former teachers' kid was born with -16 dioptres), but maybe text alone won't cause them to deteriorate any further.
I'd prefer a version of Photoshop using the Gimp's interface. I've been using Paint Shop Pro, the Gimp and various no-name drawing tools for years and am capable of finding my way around most GUIs, but Photoshop ranks in the same class of confusiability as Blender. A Gimp-like interface would be nice (and proper support for my damn graphics tablet).
Then again, with apparently every single function devoted to creating some kind of eyecandy, it's no wonder that Photoshop looks even messier than my Gimp's Xtns menu...
Apple was colossally dissapointed today to learn that Perl, 4th Ed. is a fun and informative way to introduce open source. A new IBook and Apple mini are expected to get a handle on Vista while also hitting the shuttle during launch. With the USA getting ready to pass its science crown to China, the Mandriva Linux 2006 Beta has gotten underway, leaving Microsoft and Google fighting for the skies. With the annual cost of the Microsoft monopoly predicted to top $10b this year, thousands and thousands of hours of PVR TV are being used to make new google homepage features the state of solid state storage. Where is the British EFF? Just around the corner, according to UEFI, formed to replace the BIOS after Microsoft began checking for piracy. With China releasing its 2nd generation MIPS chip just days after Sony agreed to stop payola, Voltron, Nerdcore, and the shuttle Discovery all will be coming to a theater near you.
...although I'll always prefer OpenDoomware.
So you can't see the interface without a flashlight. So you can't use the flashlight and change the settings at the same time. Who cares? It's got the Big Fucking Bootloader!
And I'll bet you didn't have to go get a viewer just to read this.
In fact, I did - but only because my install is still fresh and I hadn't emerged xpdf yet.
I can't understand why everyone is bitching so much about PDFs. Sure, it's not PostScript. But it works. You want to print your OOo document on a machine that only has MS Office and the sxw->doc conversion would kill half of the document? Export it to PDF. You want to send a manual to someone but don't know what kinds of files he can open? Use PDF, as nearly everyone can read that. It's much nicer to get a PDF that to have to say: "Could you resend that, I can't open Word XP documents?"
PDF is the Apple of document formats: Maybe it's not perfect, but it. Just. Works.
Well, the server should automatically exploit recent security flaws to gain root access on the remote machine and erase the appropriate data. "But it's insecure", you say, "and we cant be expected to keep up with all exploits for all browsers for all systems"... Yadda yadda yadda. Lazy bums, altogether.
Hmm, I'll try that, but someone should really write a clone of OS X's Preview - it's pretty fast, opens some files that even xpdf chokes on and has the best UI of any PDF viewer I've ever seen. Definitely my favourite PDF viewer.
Correction: I won't try it, since I don't want to go through the hassle of messing with the maskfile just for emerging a replacement for the already good xpdf.
Sometimes I think that the Gentoo team masks some ebuilds just to spite me. "Look at all the nice software you won't be using", they might be saying, "isn't it nice to theoretically have all these options"? Why, oh why do you hate me so much, portage maintainers?
There is such a country? In Europe there certainly isn't. North America looks bad as well. Africa is mostly ruled by people who don't listen to anyone. I'm not sure about asia...
*sigh* I can still remember the time when a computer user was expected to know what Elite was. Reading "a [game] called Elite" just made me feel so very old...
BTW, the nickname was initially a disposable, controversial-sounding but meaningless name used for a flaming. Then I stuck with it because I thought it was kinda cool.
The story of my life...
The problem with Windows is that while it appeals to most normal users, it's a horrible platform to be a power user on. If you really want to play with the guts of your system - or just use nifty little tricks - you have to jump through several hoops.
For example, I have set up my system to let Linux und Windows share the same swap file. This file is located on a special partition, which is only there to host this single file. Nevertheless, Windows keeps showing me "helpful" popup warnings saying that I'm low on disk space. Every five minutes. With the only way of turning it off being a registry modification that turns off disk space notification for all partitions.
My whole Windows experience has been that way. MS-DOS 6.22 was power user friendly. Win 3.11 didn't need to be as it was just a graphic shell and all the interesting stuff happened at the DOS level. Starting from Windows 95, Windows has become more and more "easy" until even OS X is easier to tweak than Windows XP. Yes, I do own a Mac.
Linux has advantages over Windows: It allows you to play with everything and everything is (more or less) documented - unlike the Windows registry, which most Win tweakers have to work with regularly. Linux definitely has superior documentation (except for the KDE help system, which is as unhelpful as the Windows one).
For novice users who want a system that Kind Of Just Works Most Of The Time, Windows is a good choice. For gamers it's an even better one (except for retrogamers - all relevant systems can be emulated under Linux and OS X, too). But for power users who want to be in control of what their system does, Linux wins due to superior ease of tweaking and documentation. Besides, package management is a really nifty thing, especially when coupled with apps like yum or apt-get.
I expected something involving compressed air. Like a shufflepuck table.
Hmm, shufflemac - that could become the new sport of choice for the rich and wealthy. A mac mini would make a decent puck and if you make the table bigger you could use Powerbooks as paddles.
Do child molesters cause monetary damage to megacorporations? Most likely not. So, child molestation is just a minor crime in today's world - hell, it's hardly a misdemeanor. Welcome to When Capitalisms attack!
Yes, I am cynical. That's what exposure to corporation-driven politics does to you.
1.) Use Firefox
2.) Install GreaseMonkey
3.) Install the "Add Cache Links" user script from here. You now have links to Mirrordot and the Coral cache in every/. story
4.) Stop worrying about slashdotted sites.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it does run World of Warcraft.
It's strange, but my gaming machine is an iBook running OS X. It's easier to be a Mac gamer than to be a Linux gamer (even if only a little bit).
Oh, and just for the record: I don't play WoW, but it is a small selling point for OS X as compared to Linux, as is every game. I demand entertainment, dammit (although I don't need it badly enough to go back to having Windows as the primary OS).
Yes, but is tries to abstract the user from it as much as possible. While a Mac user can be expected to find his way around Finder, effective usage of bash certainly is not expected.
BTW, such a tutorial might make for a good demo... You put up a computer running the tutorial over and over in a store/on a computer show/etc. People get to play with Linux (as the tutorial should include parts where the user can try out the stuff he gets taught) and you can use it for promotion. For example, when the tutorial tells the user about the difference between middle-clickng and Ctrl+V, it might use phrases like "With Linux, you get not one but two clipboards" or "The intuitive middle-click allows you to cut and paste text without having to use menus or keyboard shortcuts".
On this year's Cebit, Apple pretty much just put up a few Macs and let people play with them. Bang, instant marketing.
While Linux GUI-wise isn't as sexy as OS X, putting up some (faily locked down) Linux boxen and let people play with them might be a good idea. Especially if there is a nice, friendly tutorial that gives you detailed information on how Linux is different from Windows (this is important as many complaints about Linux are that stuff works differently from Windows. It's easy to complain about that if you're unprepared, but the more people already know about Lniux, the less is going to catch them by surprise (and thus agitate them)).
Multimedia on Linux is behind other platforms.
Multimedia on Linux is behind Windows, but ahead of OS X. For example I can play most Windows Media files on my Linux box, but not on the iBook - even if I open the files in the Windows Media Player. (Actually, I havent't yet encountered a file that the Mac WMP can play.) If the current Mac WMP doesn't support the current WM codec then it's pretty pointless to install it.
It's similar with other codecs - without VLC, I couldn't play any Windows Media encoded video files as the WMP refuses to play them and there either are no QuickTime plugins or they don't work. (And no, I didn't get the installation wrong. It's pretty hard to do that on a Mac.)
Compare that to Linux, where you can often just type in emerge/apt-get install/yum install <list of media codec packages> and get a system capable of playing 98% of all video files with minimal hassle.
Sure, you need to know how the names of the packages are and some distros require you to include the necessary repositories because of licensing issues. But that's a price I'm ready to pay considering that I don't pay a cent for the OS and that the necessary steps to make your distro media-ready are usually well-documented and tutorials are easily found via Google.
Maybe it would be an idea to include stuff like libdecss or an MP3 decoder in the default repositories and add a flag that keeps people from checking them out without jumping through (tiny) hoops?
For example, the Portage system allows packages to be "masked" (i.e. flagged as non-installable) for various reasons. It would be easy to add an "offensive" keyword for packages that might violate patents etc. Other systems might have similar functions (such as moving the offensive stuff to a separate repo that is included by default but disabled - I think Ubuntu does things this way).
If someone really wants a media-capable Linux and doesn't care about patents (= is a normal home user), he can enable the repository/remove the mask/do something else to enable the offensive packages, probably with an action as simple as ticking a checkbox in a package manager GUI. Real power-user distros might even require the user to enable a few commented-out lines in a config file or add "offensive-packages" to $USE.
Linux isn't that far behind Windows, media-wise. It's just tricky to get the stuff to work and patents and other restrictions certainly don't help. With some work, getting a Linux capable of playing almost anything might become easier than making Windows media-ready.
Hans island belongs to Germany
48.300
Europe belongs to Germany
754.000
I see a headline coming: Attack of the Google Nazis. They do share the same sense for realistic goals:
Earth belongs to Google
240.000
You send him a mail? You mean, you tell your secretary to request a high-level meeting via Outlook so that you two can touch base and develop a strategy to fully own the challenge in a proactive way.
You seem to be suitably results-driven, young man, but your business lingo certainly isn't up to snuff.
Lacking a dorm mate (as well as a dorm to have a mate in) I might just fit that description.
An interesting question would be if this effect stops at some point or not. I grew up with lots of books, computers etc. My eyesight started deteriorating when I was about six and has since then steadily declined until I ended up with -10.25/-11.00 dioptres, leaving me almost blind when I'm not wearing my glasses.
However, for the last two years, my eyesight has not changed a bit, even though I still spend most of my time staring at text. It'd be nice if I hit some kind of boundary - a point at which the eyes can't get any worse from staring at short distances anymore. I know that my eyesight could be a lot worse (one of my former teachers' kid was born with -16 dioptres), but maybe text alone won't cause them to deteriorate any further.
Inquiring myoptics want to know and stuff.
I'd prefer a version of Photoshop using the Gimp's interface. I've been using Paint Shop Pro, the Gimp and various no-name drawing tools for years and am capable of finding my way around most GUIs, but Photoshop ranks in the same class of confusiability as Blender. A Gimp-like interface would be nice (and proper support for my damn graphics tablet).
Then again, with apparently every single function devoted to creating some kind of eyecandy, it's no wonder that Photoshop looks even messier than my Gimp's Xtns menu...
Apple was colossally dissapointed today to learn that Perl, 4th Ed. is a fun and informative way to introduce open source. A new IBook and Apple mini are expected to get a handle on Vista while also hitting the shuttle during launch. With the USA getting ready to pass its science crown to China, the Mandriva Linux 2006 Beta has gotten underway, leaving Microsoft and Google fighting for the skies. With the annual cost of the Microsoft monopoly predicted to top $10b this year, thousands and thousands of hours of PVR TV are being used to make new google homepage features the state of solid state storage. Where is the British EFF? Just around the corner, according to UEFI, formed to replace the BIOS after Microsoft began checking for piracy. With China releasing its 2nd generation MIPS chip just days after Sony agreed to stop payola, Voltron, Nerdcore, and the shuttle Discovery all will be coming to a theater near you.
Do you really think they'd let those near the UEFI? Hey, they probably have signs saying "EFF members will be shot on sight" all around their offices.
...although I'll always prefer OpenDoomware.
So you can't see the interface without a flashlight. So you can't use the flashlight and change the settings at the same time. Who cares? It's got the Big Fucking Bootloader!
And I'll bet you didn't have to go get a viewer just to read this.
In fact, I did - but only because my install is still fresh and I hadn't emerged xpdf yet.
I can't understand why everyone is bitching so much about PDFs. Sure, it's not PostScript. But it works. You want to print your OOo document on a machine that only has MS Office and the sxw->doc conversion would kill half of the document? Export it to PDF. You want to send a manual to someone but don't know what kinds of files he can open? Use PDF, as nearly everyone can read that. It's much nicer to get a PDF that to have to say: "Could you resend that, I can't open Word XP documents?"
PDF is the Apple of document formats: Maybe it's not perfect, but it. Just. Works.
Well, the server should automatically exploit recent security flaws to gain root access on the remote machine and erase the appropriate data. "But it's insecure", you say, "and we cant be expected to keep up with all exploits for all browsers for all systems"... Yadda yadda yadda. Lazy bums, altogether.
</irony>
Hmm, I'll try that, but someone should really write a clone of OS X's Preview - it's pretty fast, opens some files that even xpdf chokes on and has the best UI of any PDF viewer I've ever seen. Definitely my favourite PDF viewer.
Correction: I won't try it, since I don't want to go through the hassle of messing with the maskfile just for emerging a replacement for the already good xpdf.
Sometimes I think that the Gentoo team masks some ebuilds just to spite me. "Look at all the nice software you won't be using", they might be saying, "isn't it nice to theoretically have all these options"? Why, oh why do you hate me so much, portage maintainers?
There is such a country? In Europe there certainly isn't. North America looks bad as well. Africa is mostly ruled by people who don't listen to anyone. I'm not sure about asia...
*sigh* I can still remember the time when a computer user was expected to know what Elite was. Reading "a [game] called Elite" just made me feel so very old...
I aim to please. :)
BTW, the nickname was initially a disposable, controversial-sounding but meaningless name used for a flaming. Then I stuck with it because I thought it was kinda cool.
The story of my life...
This sounds like a job for a superhero. This sounds like a job for Action Item! (link Coral Cache'd)
The Transkeyboards...
More than meets the eye.
Qwertybots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of...
The Dvorakons.
The Transkeyboards...
Keyboards in disguise.
The Transkeyboards...
More than meets the eye.
The Transkeyboards.
Yes, but think of all the grandmas who want to run Linux but can't due to the lack of crash screens.
"Hentai Crash Screen" should clearly be a kernel option.
The problem with Windows is that while it appeals to most normal users, it's a horrible platform to be a power user on. If you really want to play with the guts of your system - or just use nifty little tricks - you have to jump through several hoops.
For example, I have set up my system to let Linux und Windows share the same swap file. This file is located on a special partition, which is only there to host this single file. Nevertheless, Windows keeps showing me "helpful" popup warnings saying that I'm low on disk space. Every five minutes. With the only way of turning it off being a registry modification that turns off disk space notification for all partitions.
My whole Windows experience has been that way. MS-DOS 6.22 was power user friendly. Win 3.11 didn't need to be as it was just a graphic shell and all the interesting stuff happened at the DOS level. Starting from Windows 95, Windows has become more and more "easy" until even OS X is easier to tweak than Windows XP. Yes, I do own a Mac.
Linux has advantages over Windows: It allows you to play with everything and everything is (more or less) documented - unlike the Windows registry, which most Win tweakers have to work with regularly. Linux definitely has superior documentation (except for the KDE help system, which is as unhelpful as the Windows one).
For novice users who want a system that Kind Of Just Works Most Of The Time, Windows is a good choice. For gamers it's an even better one (except for retrogamers - all relevant systems can be emulated under Linux and OS X, too). But for power users who want to be in control of what their system does, Linux wins due to superior ease of tweaking and documentation. Besides, package management is a really nifty thing, especially when coupled with apps like yum or apt-get.
I expected something involving compressed air. Like a shufflepuck table.
Hmm, shufflemac - that could become the new sport of choice for the rich and wealthy. A mac mini would make a decent puck and if you make the table bigger you could use Powerbooks as paddles.
Do child molesters cause monetary damage to megacorporations? Most likely not. So, child molestation is just a minor crime in today's world - hell, it's hardly a misdemeanor. Welcome to When Capitalisms attack!
Yes, I am cynical. That's what exposure to corporation-driven politics does to you.
Just right-click on the link and select "Install User Script".
1.) Use Firefox /. story
2.) Install GreaseMonkey
3.) Install the "Add Cache Links" user script from here. You now have links to Mirrordot and the Coral cache in every
4.) Stop worrying about slashdotted sites.