I recently helped a friend with a visual overhaul of his business. The database app he wrote for a large company got a shiny new look as a result, but absolutely no changes to the underlying code. A significant number of users reported performance increases!
I'm sure many of us in the UK have written to our MPs and MEPs, among other things, but I'm not aware of any specific UK organisation coordinating ventures to stop these patent shenanigans.
Do any other UK slashdotters feel like getting in touch to see what could be achieved collectively? You know: email, website, forum, PR activites, that sort of thing. There's such a lot of strong opinion about this; maybe a concerted campaign could achieve more than individual efforts?
I rarely play games, but when, quite a few years ago, I visited a friend's office he insisted that I try a new game he had just installed called Carmageddon. Not knowing what I was doing I promptly crashed into a queue of people waiting at a bus stop and, to my amazement, I was awarded an 'artistic merit bonus'. Call me sick, but I found that hilarious and was hooked for an hour or so before I had to leave. I got straight into my car which was parked just outside my friend's office. An old lady was pushing a shopping basket in front of my car, and I was shocked to find that I had to resist a very slight urge to accelerate and go for the points.
Also, I've seen big warning signs at Go-Kart tracks that warn people, when leaving, to drive carefully because, apparently, accident rates are much higher after driving a Go-Kart then getting into a road car.
Or you can downgrade to version 4! http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=acrobat Seriously, that's what I use and I've never noticed any missing functionality -- just quick loading times.
I'm amazed that the PIM, Above & Beyond, isn't more prevalent. Outlook, Lotus, and all other calendar apps I've seen just ape the original paper diary. Above & Beyond does something much cleverer: enter your To Do list and prioritise it using drag and drop; enter your fixed and recurring appointments; enter your day's start and end times, and it will automatically create your schedule for you (more details of dynamic scheduling at www.1soft.com). This is a great way to accurately predict realistic schedules. Because your Schedule has all your tasks within it, if someone asks you when you next have free time, you can see instantly, unlike the mental calculation required with Outlook-style separate To Do lists and Schedules.
Instead of just doing what every other calendar app does, why not design something that makes use of what computers do well?
After following one of those Apple patent links, I wanted to see some of the images relating to the patent so I clicked on the images button. My browser told me I needed a plugin... for Apple Quicktime!
I'm from the UK so maybe I don't understand, but I can't see how an organisation such as the USPTO could justify using such proprietary technology for something as simple as displaying images. Or perhaps someone over there can enlighten me: is the USPTO actually owned by Apple, Microsoft and a few other corporations?
Small software developers already have protection. It is called copyright. Your argument is therefore FUD and BS. Obviously, as a patent lawyer you'd be in favour of patents, but please don't try and pretend that developers do not have IP protection.
Everyone knows that large corporations can afford entire departments whose sole function is to rattle off tons of trivial and silly patents; whereas the small company and single developer is often too busy to take a coffee break, let alone hazard the lengthy and expensive process of filing patents.
If Microsoft were opposed to software patents we wouldn't be seeing all these paid shills do all they can to ride roughshod over democracy and fairness.
But Simon Gentry of the Campaign for Creativity believes that the Committee vote "will open the way to a deluge of anti-IP amendments that will probably result in the final stripping away of IP protection for the IT sector."
Classic bullshit from the patent lobby. The IT sector has always had IP protection: copyright law.
Seeing all the fuss about Ubuntu I tried the Live CD on one of my PCs. Of the Live CDs I have tried (Mandrake, Suse, Knoppix, Mepis) on this machine, Ubuntu was by far the worst. When the desktop finally came up (it seemed to load much, much slower than all the other live CDs I tried) the mouse wasn't working at all. Also, judging by the error messages at bootup, it didn't find my network card nor sound card. It's an old machine (K62, 256Mb RAM,) but with fairly standard hardware. By comparison, Knoppix found everything except my Adaptec SCSI card and Creative SoundBlaster 16 card. (I have yet to find ANY Linux distro that finds that pesky sound card. I know Creative sometimes use kludges to get their crap working, so maybe I should just bin that card and be done with it.) Shame, I was looking forward to trying a brown desktop for a change.
Yeah, and can anyone give examples of when a radio play converted to a book that was anywhere near as good as the radio play? Erm, except for HHGG, of course.
None of this should be patentable. New and truly novel approaches to computing issues should be
Are you absolutely sure about that? If new and truly novel approaches to computing had been patented years ago wouldn't Xerox own the GUI windowing system completely? I'd argue that computing is too important a part of the infrastructure of society to let one man or one corporation control and stifle it with a monopoly secured by patents.
My dog can create more appealing and attractive designs than this. She did so twice on her walk this morning (and one of them was a bit runny).
It looks like like a kid's toy toolbox with a microwave oven attached to the front. Still, it should appeal to 8 year old chefs who want somewhere to keep their spanners.
...is an ignorant pedant. You're wrong. There is an apostrophe in "Europe's". And I suggest you learn how to quote text properly. Following on from your colon after the word, "misspelled", it was not immediately clear when the direct quote ended. Before you presume to correct others please brush up your own act.
Different spellings of 'weaseliest' have appeared in this thread. In future, if anyone mistypes or misspells words their posts will be redirected to the VeriSin Kashfinder Weaselservice. Thank you.
Slashdot Mirror
I recently helped a friend with a visual overhaul of his business. The database app he wrote for a large company got a shiny new look as a result, but absolutely no changes to the underlying code. A significant number of users reported performance increases!
I'm sure many of us in the UK have written to our MPs and MEPs, among other things, but I'm not aware of any specific UK organisation coordinating ventures to stop these patent shenanigans.
Do any other UK slashdotters feel like getting in touch to see what could be achieved collectively? You know: email, website, forum, PR activites, that sort of thing. There's such a lot of strong opinion about this; maybe a concerted campaign could achieve more than individual efforts?
I rarely play games, but when, quite a few years ago, I visited a friend's office he insisted that I try a new game he had just installed called Carmageddon. Not knowing what I was doing I promptly crashed into a queue of people waiting at a bus stop and, to my amazement, I was awarded an 'artistic merit bonus'. Call me sick, but I found that hilarious and was hooked for an hour or so before I had to leave. I got straight into my car which was parked just outside my friend's office. An old lady was pushing a shopping basket in front of my car, and I was shocked to find that I had to resist a very slight urge to accelerate and go for the points.
Also, I've seen big warning signs at Go-Kart tracks that warn people, when leaving, to drive carefully because, apparently, accident rates are much higher after driving a Go-Kart then getting into a road car.
Toeing. Seriously.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line:
The phrase is often spelled incorrectly as "tow the line"...
Or you can downgrade to version 4! http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=acrobat
Seriously, that's what I use and I've never noticed any missing functionality -- just quick loading times.
I'm amazed that the PIM, Above & Beyond, isn't more prevalent. Outlook, Lotus, and all other calendar apps I've seen just ape the original paper diary. Above & Beyond does something much cleverer: enter your To Do list and prioritise it using drag and drop; enter your fixed and recurring appointments; enter your day's start and end times, and it will automatically create your schedule for you (more details of dynamic scheduling at www.1soft.com). This is a great way to accurately predict realistic schedules. Because your Schedule has all your tasks within it, if someone asks you when you next have free time, you can see instantly, unlike the mental calculation required with Outlook-style separate To Do lists and Schedules.
Instead of just doing what every other calendar app does, why not design something that makes use of what computers do well?
They're doing what? That's an outra...
After following one of those Apple patent links, I wanted to see some of the images relating to the patent so I clicked on the images button. My browser told me I needed a plugin... for Apple Quicktime!
I'm from the UK so maybe I don't understand, but I can't see how an organisation such as the USPTO could justify using such proprietary technology for something as simple as displaying images. Or perhaps someone over there can enlighten me: is the USPTO actually owned by Apple, Microsoft and a few other corporations?
Small software developers already have protection. It is called copyright. Your argument is therefore FUD and BS. Obviously, as a patent lawyer you'd be in favour of patents, but please don't try and pretend that developers do not have IP protection.
Everyone knows that large corporations can afford entire departments whose sole function is to rattle off tons of trivial and silly patents; whereas the small company and single developer is often too busy to take a coffee break, let alone hazard the lengthy and expensive process of filing patents.
If Microsoft were opposed to software patents we wouldn't be seeing all these paid shills do all they can to ride roughshod over democracy and fairness.
But Simon Gentry of the Campaign for Creativity believes that the Committee vote "will open the way to a deluge of anti-IP amendments that will probably result in the final stripping away of IP protection for the IT sector."
Classic bullshit from the patent lobby. The IT sector has always had IP protection: copyright law.
In other news, the Gates Foundation was reported as saying that Poland had been evaluated as an unsuitable recipient for any of Bill's money.
Seeing all the fuss about Ubuntu I tried the Live CD on one of my PCs.
Of the Live CDs I have tried (Mandrake, Suse, Knoppix, Mepis) on this machine, Ubuntu was by far the worst. When the desktop finally came up (it seemed to load much, much slower than all the other live CDs I tried) the mouse wasn't working at all. Also, judging by the error messages at bootup, it didn't find my network card nor sound card. It's an old machine (K62, 256Mb RAM,) but with fairly standard hardware. By comparison, Knoppix found everything except my Adaptec SCSI card and Creative SoundBlaster 16 card. (I have yet to find ANY Linux distro that finds that pesky sound card. I know Creative sometimes use kludges to get their crap working, so maybe I should just bin that card and be done with it.)
Shame, I was looking forward to trying a brown desktop for a change.
Yeah, and can anyone give examples of when a radio play converted to a book that was anywhere near as good as the radio play? Erm, except for HHGG, of course.
None of this should be patentable. New and truly novel approaches to computing issues should be
Are you absolutely sure about that? If new and truly novel approaches to computing had been patented years ago wouldn't Xerox own the GUI windowing system completely? I'd argue that computing is too important a part of the infrastructure of society to let one man or one corporation control and stifle it with a monopoly secured by patents.
please dont say it runs under wine
I haven't tried it personally, but I believe Dreamweaver runs under Crossover office.
"...don't buy it. If you feel your personal liberties being threatened vote with your wallet and just stop bitching about it."
You're half way there. Try this instead: If you feel strongly enough about your personal liberties, vote with your wallet AND bitch about it!
My dog can create more appealing and attractive designs than this. She did so twice on her walk this morning (and one of them was a bit runny). It looks like like a kid's toy toolbox with a microwave oven attached to the front. Still, it should appeal to 8 year old chefs who want somewhere to keep their spanners.
Is there some way of tapping into the heat generated under tin foil hats?
...is an ignorant pedant. You're wrong. There is an apostrophe in "Europe's". And I suggest you learn how to quote text properly. Following on from your colon after the word, "misspelled", it was not immediately clear when the direct quote ended. Before you presume to correct others please brush up your own act.
Different spellings of 'weaseliest' have appeared in this thread. In future, if anyone mistypes or misspells words their posts will be redirected to the VeriSin Kashfinder Weaselservice. Thank you.