It's also somewhat confusing that most people assume that every PC is IBM-compatible. There was a very good reason why in the early days of the IBM PC, programs weren't said to run on a "PC" but on an "IBM compatible".
I'm pretty sure that both the Apple Macintosh and the Commodore 64 qualify as a personal computer. They're computers and they're personal. Bang.
I have started using "IBM compatible" to describe IA32 compatible computers again. Maybe it will show some people that a personal computer is not universally defined as an IA32 box running a 32 bit Windows.
"Ell oh ell"? In Germany it's more common to hear "LOL" spoken as it is, either with a long or a short O. We even manage to pronounce "ROFL" ("roughle") and similar acronym... expression... thingies. Acrospressions.
And yes, I do hear that every once in a while. Then again, I sometimes say things like "Semicolon Right Bracket". Colon Slash.
After reading the "God does (not) exist and you are dumb for (not) believing in His existence" thread I'm once more happy to be an agnostic. Sometimes, "I don't know" can be the best answer (or "I don't know and I don't care" for the ignostics out there).
Also, consider that some European countries are quite Internet-crazy. IIRC, German is the second most frequent language spoken on the Internet, even before Franch, Spanish and Mandarin. Note that outside of Europe, German is not quite as common as the other three languages.
As of 2004, 47% of all German households had Internet access, versus 43% in 2003 - and the number is still growing (source: German Federal Statistical Office (destatis.de)).
Until linux has a simple, clean software/hardware installtion and removal system, it will come nowhere near windows or os x in terms of being ready for the desktop.
Windows' system is even messier. Not only are there twenty different installers out there who all behave differently, virtually all uninstallers are somewhat incompetent, leaving registry settings and config files all over your system.
I think that installing and uninstalling stuff under Linux generally is easier - although nowhere near OS X with its brilliant application bundles.
True. The majority of the Linux crowd will gladly help other people install/configure/troubleshoot Linux. After all, it helps the crowd by making it bigger (if the new user happens to like Linux), it helps the user by showing him how life outside of Windowsland is and it helps making Linux more widely known.
Yup. Fedora Core has always been extremely friendly to me, including out-of-the-box support for everything except hardware accelerated video (guess why). The only hardware-related problem I had were random crashes - due to the system HDD being irreparably damaged.
I think KOTOR would make a good movie myself, but thats beside the point.
Only if they let Bioware write all the dialogues.
Re:Too many keyboard layouts
on
Blank Keyboard
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· Score: 1
I wouldn't mind so much, but there are just two blank spaces above the arrow keys now - marked by the XX in the following diagram.
XX ^ XX
Ho hum.
The same on my iBook, although Apple at least hasd enough decency to make Home, End and Pageg Up/Down accessible via Fn+Left, Right, Up and Down, respectively.
What really bothers me is that there is no dedicated Delete key. Some apps require it and won't accept Fn+Backspace.:(
Re:Too many keyboard layouts
on
Blank Keyboard
·
· Score: 1
@ as a separate key? In Germany that's AltGr+Q. ^ and | are at the same place, with the difference being that | also requires AltGr (it shares the key with < and >) and Y and Z are swapped. Oh, and ' is Shift-#... At least we got most of the letters in the same places.
At my university we have a couple of near-ancient Sun boxen. It's really great to go from a German IBM keyboard to an US Sun one. "WTF? Why is / where Backspace should be?" - "What kind of monkey would put the double quotes there?" - "Is that a Return key for midgets?" - "How the hell am I supposed to enter Umlauts on this thing?"
No wonder people stay clear of the Sun lab if possible.
People who want to make a snapshot of their screen. Under Windows, Print Screen does print the screen - to the clipboard. Linux/KDE offers the same functionality (too lazy to find out whether it's from KDE or X). You need a single window? Press Alt+Print Screen.
However, I'm missing a hotkey for a partial screenshot, like OS X's Cmd-Shift(-Ctrl)-4. That one is really handy.
The best surface for any kind of mouse is a kitchen countertop with a rough surface.
I use one as a desk (held up by some screws in the wall and a table-leg) and am quite happy with it. You can comfortably rest your arm on it, it doesn't stick to your arm as much as a wooden desk does when it's warm, optical mice work with absolute precision and reliability on it, it's designed to take a lot of abuse and it's twice as thick as a normal desk board, which makes it feel sturdier than other desks. Also, the rough surface makes sure that most stuff doesn't move without more than light pressure. Mice, of course, are moved easily, due to their space-age sliding pad technology.
Actually, I like to move my mouse with the fingers. I also touch it with the tips of my finger only, which makes buying new mice a bit difficult - most new mice are either too small (notebook mice) or taller than my Logitech Optical Wheel Mouse (IMO one of the best mice ever), which means that I have trouble using them the way I want to.
BTW, Targus makes a nice notebook mouse that can also be used as a trackball. You just press the "wheel" (i.e. the ball) and the left button simultaneously and the ball acts as a trackball. The downside is that the optical sensor then acts as an extremely sensitive mouse wheel, which means that all of your documents will uncontrollably scroll up and down at an amazing speed until you make a small paper ball and shove it up the sensor opening. Also, the trackball is pretty lazy, which makes it awkward to use.
But it's still cool to hold the mouse in your hand and use your thumb to do everything mouse-related. Until you need to drag something.
OO.o doesn't always open.ppt documents fine; my physics lecture notes are always PowerPoint presentations, but OpenOffice.org can sometimes misinterpret the symbols. Nothing's worse than studying for an exam and wondering why the derivative of airplane over star equals hand.
That's not a PowerPoint problem. Your professor simply ran out of latin, greek, hebrew, cyrillic and chinese characters to use as variable names, so he had to find a new "alphabet". We're currently using Linear A.
If I was living in the States I'd feel so much safer now. Thank you, Google, for valiantly fooiling future Terrorist attacks by pixelating the top of some well-known buildings with well-known positions.
</sarcasm>
Seriously, though, what exactly is that supposed to accomplish?
That's one of the things I like about GSM: Your numbers aren't stored on the phone, they're stored on your SIM card (actually it's just a chip). Your phone breaks, you get a new one, put the SIM card in and you have access to your numbers.
As for mobiles, I'm going to stick with the Nokia 3210 or 6210 as long as eBay has them (and UMTS hasn't displaced GSM). They're robust, they have crisp monochrome displays, they don't need frickin' Windows to run and they even have SMS functionality for the rare occasions when I need it. Decent no-frills mobile phones.
If you need a mobile that plays MP3, WMA, RAM, OGG, AAC and SID or has a built-in camera/widescreen TV/laser cannon - go ahead. However it would be nice if people who just need a portable telephone could get them from somewhere besides eBay.
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It's also somewhat confusing that most people assume that every PC is IBM-compatible. There was a very good reason why in the early days of the IBM PC, programs weren't said to run on a "PC" but on an "IBM compatible".
I'm pretty sure that both the Apple Macintosh and the Commodore 64 qualify as a personal computer. They're computers and they're personal. Bang.
I have started using "IBM compatible" to describe IA32 compatible computers again. Maybe it will show some people that a personal computer is not universally defined as an IA32 box running a 32 bit Windows.
"Ell oh ell"? In Germany it's more common to hear "LOL" spoken as it is, either with a long or a short O. We even manage to pronounce "ROFL" ("roughle") and similar acronym... expression... thingies. Acrospressions.
And yes, I do hear that every once in a while. Then again, I sometimes say things like "Semicolon Right Bracket". Colon Slash.
As for yet another origin, I heard that "w00t" came from the sound Quake III makes when the player jumps (sounds a bit like "Hoot!").
After reading the "God does (not) exist and you are dumb for (not) believing in His existence" thread I'm once more happy to be an agnostic. Sometimes, "I don't know" can be the best answer (or "I don't know and I don't care" for the ignostics out there).
Also, consider that some European countries are quite Internet-crazy. IIRC, German is the second most frequent language spoken on the Internet, even before Franch, Spanish and Mandarin. Note that outside of Europe, German is not quite as common as the other three languages.
As of 2004, 47% of all German households had Internet access, versus 43% in 2003 - and the number is still growing (source: German Federal Statistical Office (destatis.de)).
Until linux has a simple, clean software/hardware installtion and removal system, it will come nowhere near windows or os x in terms of being ready for the desktop.
Windows' system is even messier. Not only are there twenty different installers out there who all behave differently, virtually all uninstallers are somewhat incompetent, leaving registry settings and config files all over your system.
I think that installing and uninstalling stuff under Linux generally is easier - although nowhere near OS X with its brilliant application bundles.
True. The majority of the Linux crowd will gladly help other people install/configure/troubleshoot Linux. After all, it helps the crowd by making it bigger (if the new user happens to like Linux), it helps the user by showing him how life outside of Windowsland is and it helps making Linux more widely known.
Yup. Fedora Core has always been extremely friendly to me, including out-of-the-box support for everything except hardware accelerated video (guess why). The only hardware-related problem I had were random crashes - due to the system HDD being irreparably damaged.
I think KOTOR would make a good movie myself, but thats beside the point.
Only if they let Bioware write all the dialogues.
I wouldn't mind so much, but there are just two blank spaces above the arrow keys now - marked by the XX in the following diagram.
:(
XX ^ XX
Ho hum.
The same on my iBook, although Apple at least hasd enough decency to make Home, End and Pageg Up/Down accessible via Fn+Left, Right, Up and Down, respectively.
What really bothers me is that there is no dedicated Delete key. Some apps require it and won't accept Fn+Backspace.
@ as a separate key? In Germany that's AltGr+Q. ^ and | are at the same place, with the difference being that | also requires AltGr (it shares the key with < and >) and Y and Z are swapped. Oh, and ' is Shift-#... At least we got most of the letters in the same places.
At my university we have a couple of near-ancient Sun boxen. It's really great to go from a German IBM keyboard to an US Sun one. "WTF? Why is / where Backspace should be?" - "What kind of monkey would put the double quotes there?" - "Is that a Return key for midgets?" - "How the hell am I supposed to enter Umlauts on this thing?"
No wonder people stay clear of the Sun lab if possible.
Real geeks can do it in their head.
<insert crude remark á la "real geeks can only do it in their head" here>
who needs Print Screen?
People who want to make a snapshot of their screen. Under Windows, Print Screen does print the screen - to the clipboard. Linux/KDE offers the same functionality (too lazy to find out whether it's from KDE or X). You need a single window? Press Alt+Print Screen.
However, I'm missing a hotkey for a partial screenshot, like OS X's Cmd-Shift(-Ctrl)-4. That one is really handy.
But I won't mind a free copy of the mouse.
Sure, we'll put it on our FTP server for you.
-- Logitech R&D staff
The best surface for any kind of mouse is a kitchen countertop with a rough surface.
I use one as a desk (held up by some screws in the wall and a table-leg) and am quite happy with it. You can comfortably rest your arm on it, it doesn't stick to your arm as much as a wooden desk does when it's warm, optical mice work with absolute precision and reliability on it, it's designed to take a lot of abuse and it's twice as thick as a normal desk board, which makes it feel sturdier than other desks. Also, the rough surface makes sure that most stuff doesn't move without more than light pressure. Mice, of course, are moved easily, due to their space-age sliding pad technology.
Actually, I like to move my mouse with the fingers. I also touch it with the tips of my finger only, which makes buying new mice a bit difficult - most new mice are either too small (notebook mice) or taller than my Logitech Optical Wheel Mouse (IMO one of the best mice ever), which means that I have trouble using them the way I want to.
BTW, Targus makes a nice notebook mouse that can also be used as a trackball. You just press the "wheel" (i.e. the ball) and the left button simultaneously and the ball acts as a trackball. The downside is that the optical sensor then acts as an extremely sensitive mouse wheel, which means that all of your documents will uncontrollably scroll up and down at an amazing speed until you make a small paper ball and shove it up the sensor opening. Also, the trackball is pretty lazy, which makes it awkward to use.
But it's still cool to hold the mouse in your hand and use your thumb to do everything mouse-related. Until you need to drag something.
Then we have Googlebot posting in a story about MSN search and all hell breaks loose. Great idea.
Obviously ISO9660-1 has not been in use during the last century and ISO reassigned the number 9660 to the CD-ROM filesystem.
OO.o doesn't always open .ppt documents fine; my physics lecture notes are always PowerPoint presentations, but OpenOffice.org can sometimes misinterpret the symbols. Nothing's worse than studying for an exam and wondering why the derivative of airplane over star equals hand.
That's not a PowerPoint problem. Your professor simply ran out of latin, greek, hebrew, cyrillic and chinese characters to use as variable names, so he had to find a new "alphabet". We're currently using Linear A.
If I was living in the States I'd feel so much safer now. Thank you, Google, for valiantly fooiling future Terrorist attacks by pixelating the top of some well-known buildings with well-known positions.
</sarcasm>
Seriously, though, what exactly is that supposed to accomplish?
Gallium melts at 144F, which presents some design problems, such as what to do when it freezes.
Oh, that's no problem. Your OS will freeze as well.
I definitely know that the groundwater is full of DHMO.
That's one of the things I like about GSM: Your numbers aren't stored on the phone, they're stored on your SIM card (actually it's just a chip). Your phone breaks, you get a new one, put the SIM card in and you have access to your numbers.
As for mobiles, I'm going to stick with the Nokia 3210 or 6210 as long as eBay has them (and UMTS hasn't displaced GSM). They're robust, they have crisp monochrome displays, they don't need frickin' Windows to run and they even have SMS functionality for the rare occasions when I need it. Decent no-frills mobile phones.
If you need a mobile that plays MP3, WMA, RAM, OGG, AAC and SID or has a built-in camera/widescreen TV/laser cannon - go ahead. However it would be nice if people who just need a portable telephone could get them from somewhere besides eBay.
see, star trek has been around since the 196's. star wars has only been around since the late 1970's
that means that star trek has 1781 years on star wars!
1781 years before Wars? Hmm, TOS was the first Trek, right? After all, it's the _original_ series...
Wow, William Shatner certainly looks young for his age!
Who's talking about unemployment? "not with us anymore" means the he got hung with a CAT5 cable, 'cause that's what we do with Open Source commies.