However, for sheer convenience and dead-easy usability, the Start search is fantastic.
To the extent that typing something like "network connections" does turn up appropriate results, I'd agree. But then, expecting magic out of a search box doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent given that it dumbs down a user's understanding of how things work (i.e, the implementation).
Me, I prefer knowing WTF I'm doing before I do it. My own solution is a shell script to present numbered options for control panel, and a separate one for MSC shit. Example (with mucked up formatting courtesy of Slashdot):
WINDOWS CONTROL PANEL APPLETS
1 Accessibility Options -> access.cpl
2 Add Remove Programs -> appwiz.cpl
3 Display Settings -> desk.cpl
4 Internet Options -> inetcpl.cpl
5 Mouse -> main.cpl
6 Network and Dialup -> ncpa.cpl
7 ODBCC -> odbccp32.cpl
8 Power Settings -> powercfg.cpl
9 Printers -> rundll32.exe...
10 Print Jobs -> rundll32.exe...
11 Regional Options -> intl.cpl
12 Scanners and Cameras -> sticpl.cpl
13 Sounds and Multimedia -> mmsys.cpl
14 Startup -> startup.cpl
15 System Properties -> sysdm.cpl
16 Time and Date -> timedate.cpl
17 TweakUI -> tweakui.cpl
18 Windows Update -> wuaucpl.cpl
19 Windows Update Mgr -> wupdmgr.exe
Enter selection (or 'q' to Quit):
Fast, to the point, and the best part, nothing is obscured. Mind you, I've already memorised all these years ago, so even something this simple is generally uncessary. A quick review of the "real" names, on the other hand, is a fun reminder of how inconsistent Windows systems are.
This is sort of off-topic, but I'm wondering if someone can explain the finer points of Technet for me.
The Microsoft website is reasonably specific about what's offered by a Technet subscription and describes the allowed use of the "Evaluation Copies" provided by that subscription, but after sifting through the marketing-speak, I'm still left wondering what, if anything, isn't being said.
For anyone wanting to maintain a home lab of MS software, for example, is it a worthwhile purchase? Or are the evaluation copies crippled in some way that's problematic, with all the evaluation licenses expiring once your Technet subscription expires?
Seems to me that a one-time payment of $600 (possibly split with a friend) may be a better alternative than going the warez route for such things.
Try looking at the toolbar of any GUI app, or anything that offers file management functions, (for example) and explain how exactly one can "change the size of icons in the prefs" or how your "change themes" comment is relevant? If I could change any of this, I would, but am forced to (in the case of toolbars, for example), configure each app (on a per-app basis) to hide the toolbar.
Thankfully, I don't use many GUI apps, but fucking hell, the days of giant Volume Control knobs on our stereos disappeared decades ago. Do we really need their screen equivalents? And then, do you see Microsoft inserting 24 and 32 pixel icons where they're uncessary or inappropriate?
I don't know where anyone gets this idea that icons are somehow one size fits all.
Like I said, those with oversized screens or who don't have to do any real work probaby won't notice or mind the state of things.
[N]o matter what the ubuntu devs choose for the default theme, someone is going to be unhappy and that is why we have whole domains devoted to hosting various shiny things to put on your *nix box to customize to your liking.
I'm no Gnome or KDE expert, but how exactly does opting for a different theme change, in the OP's words, an "interface... whose icons are rather big"? Every screenshot or desktop I've seen uses large icons.
Dunno about everyone else, but I'd think that large icons should be considered a waste of real estate and a distraction. Assuming, of course, that you don't have a Very Large Monitor, or otherwise have little real work to do.
One of the banks I go to still requires filled out deposit slips, ink signatures, and still has a "next business day before 2" in regards to processing your deposits. To that I say, "Come on, this is the digital age!"
You missed the overriding factor offered by the digital age which they use to earn interest on your money while it's on hold. By contrast, Really Important Customers (those with regularly high balances, etc.) rarely have any funds put on hold.
Compared with PayPal's 5-day period, it sucks a lot less.
Given a few years after installation, carpets are an entire ecosystem, themselves!
Indeed. Carpets, unlike proper rugs which can be taken out and cleaned, are pretty disgusting. I'd suggest to the OP that if he has carpets, he hoover them as often as possible if ripping them out isn't feasible.
On the other hand, if he wants to do himself and the world around him a favour, he might consider refraining from using or buying any consumer product that has the word "antibacterial" on the label.
Once upon a time it was just the Birkenstock-wearing, brownrice-eating lesbians shopping the aisles of health food stores that were annoying. Today, everyone is annoying. If it's not the irrational or unfounded fear of bacteria, it's a similarly irrational or unfounded claim of allergies. The world will become hypoallergenic about the same time we eradicate bacteria. Until then, I expect Portugese Water Spaniels, for example, to become wildly popular for all the wrong reasons.
'Course, that might mean a massacre at the port if there's a problem shutting down the guards...
Wouln't be a problem in a world where everyone drinks Brawndo: the robot guards would just shoot themselves!
Too far fetched? Just look at the guy working next to you once cubicle over and think for a bit. Then ask him if he's getting enough electrolytes from his "energy drink". If the answer is "Yes", ask him if he likes sex. Or whether he likes money.
For those already familiar with Peter Hansteen's website, I'll offer a Thumbs Up recommendation for his Book of PF.
There's already been several stories on Slashdot either submitted by or about him, and I don't recall any mention of his book. I'd say his efforts if not his humility deserve some kind of reward, and the reduced sale price of $19.77 is a bargain.
Because I, the ISP, have formed a pact with your local government to prevent Speakeasy (or any other meaningful competition) from servicing your area of the country.
And I, as your locally elected represented, had to vote on how our area was serviced. Given that we couldn't provide the service ourselves, we accepted bids from outside companies. Speakeasy never submitted any bids, or otherwise participated in the process. Neither did any of the local constituents.
Vast majority of ISPs (Time Warner included) will not offer business services to residential addresses.
Quite frankly, that means next to nothing. The term "business services" or "business class" is a marketing term. The practical value of what's offered has to be evaluated on a case by case by basis, first by ISP, and then by "plan".
My DSL plan with ATT gives me 5 IPs, optional forward and/or reverse DNS, no caps on downloads or uploads, and no interference with any traffic. Does that mean I have a "business plan"? It does if you compare it with what's marketed by some of the cable ISPs, yes, but according to ATT, no.
It may help to consider that lots of businesses use the same DSL for internet connectivity as home users. Those businesses might be located in an industrial park, in a penthouse apartment, or in the basement or garage of someone's house.
I appreciate the general sentiments in your post, but the above is simply not correct. Putting aside issues of writing style, quality, completeness, etc., along with the abomination called info pages, manpages ARE documentation.
What you are looking for or expecting is a Tutorial. And most likely one written in a friendly style that includes a breadth of related topics (like "How do I install this thing?" or "What's a protocol?" or "How does XMMP work?". For that, I'd suggest a Google search. Programmers are expected to document their work, but it's unreasonable to expect them to write Tutorials.
To put things in a reverse perspective, the frustrating thing for non-Windows users is that on Windows, almost nothing is documented. Lots recursive clicky links that pop up HowTo's with explanatory or descriptive verbage, but no real documentation.
They're assuming that people use their websites the way people use their newspapers, and that's probably not the case anymore, and surely won't be in the future.
Well, here's a perspective from someone who subscribes to home delivery of several newspapers, NY Times included -- it's never been possible to read a website like a newspaper.
I read every paper I subscribe to in total, front to back, page by page. Why? Quite often it's the news, stories, or editorials on subjects I may not be interested in that are the most important and demand reading more than, say, the latest tech news tidbits. And then, reading front to back offers a natural progression that allows me, among other things, to weigh the importance of things as presented by the paper.
When I visit The NY Times online, I can view the front page, or skip to another section and rummage around. What I can't do is read the "paper" front to back (websites, unless written in docbook, generally have no front or back). So I don't. Which means I generally end up leaving the site in short order.
If a paper with an online edition wants me to "hang around" or otherwise use them as my primary source of news, they'll have to print the thing and deliver it to me. So until someone develops something along the lines of the Kindle for newspapers, that won't be possible, and all of us, myself included, will consider a link on news.google.com will be just one of many, leaving us bouncing from site to site.
I heard that would have been fixed in this, shame that it still isn't.
I think that's by design, and not a bug.
Either way, I tend to agree with your complaint. Seems to me that unless you're watching videos in full screen exclusively, having windows open in a different sizes is annoying at best. That's one of my reasons for sticking to to MPC on Windows. The other, as has already pointed out, is that MPC handles corrupt files without issue.
As everything moves to the 'cloud' the data will be stored forever. well, OK, until something happens that destroys all the 'nodes' that are housing data.
I can see it now. Researchers, historians and authors who relied on hand-written letters written home by soldiers in the Civil War, for example, now have it easy. Instead of painstakingly sifting through carefully maintained archives, they can just use Yahoo! and Gmail to do the same for their new book on Iraq. For everything else, they can Google like everyone else.
Oh, wait...
One of the themes in Orwell's book concerned itself with the loss of history. Setting aside Dick Cheney trying to rewrite current history or the White House email fiasco, it should be obvious there's a price to be paid for assumptions like "No worries, mate. It's in the cloud." or worse, "We're too busy with the new stuff to pay attention to the old stuff."
This is a stupid exercise. Oh my gosh, there's an extra few characters wasted. They're talking about 150 characters, which would be 150 bytes, or (gasp) 0.150KB.
Perhaps, but I'm reminded of the time when I started getting into the habit of stripping Unsubscribe footers (and unecessarily quoted Unsubscribe footers) from all the mailing lists (many high volume) that I subscribed to. During testing, I found the average mbox was reduced down in size by between 20 and 30%.
If you accept the premise that waste is waste, then it's only a matter of perspective. If something doesn't affect you personally, it doesn't mean that it doesn't affect someone else.
Overlong URLs may not waste bandwidth to any degree, but they sure as hell are wasteful in other respects, if not outright idiotic. Or is there no one who has ever copied/pasted a URL?
My understanding is that something has to include sexual acts to be considered pornography. Nudity, by itself, is not pornography.
Where have you been the last decade? You don't have to read through the respective laws to know that the term can, and typically does, mean most anything. A casual reading of headlines would inform you that people have gone to jail for taking pictures of fully clothed minors, and those registered as offenders, for example, have gone back to jail for looking at pictures of fully clothed minors. Equally bizarre is that terms like manufacture and possession have been successfully applied to images stored locally in RAM, or to what's contained in browser temp files.
The dirty little secret (pun intended) is that almost all of the "child pornography" available on the internet consists of minors in suggestive poses, and sometimes, but not always, in suggestive or provocative clothing. The other 0.0001% are private pictures taken by actual abusers (invariably relatives) and privately passed around until they're not so not private. Mixed into that last tiny percentage are a few one-off cases of people who actually took nude or semi-nude pictures and tried selling them on a website.
For anyone that thinks I'm exaggerating or overstating my case, this link will take you to what I believe is considered as one of the more popular sites. WARNING: be sure that the laws in your current place of residence don't preclude you from visiting this site, or downloading the gigabytes of "child pornography" available there or on similar sites.
With respect to the article, the irony is that those whom we seek to protect now must be protected from themselves. What isn't so laughable, however, is that at the mention of the term "child pornography", everyone nods their heads in complete and unthinking agreement, so much so that no one is paying to attention to what any of it means. That leaves those with power to do as they please.
Slashdot Mirror
However, for sheer convenience and dead-easy usability, the Start search is fantastic.
To the extent that typing something like "network connections" does turn up appropriate results, I'd agree. But then, expecting magic out of a search box doesn't strike me as particularly intelligent given that it dumbs down a user's understanding of how things work (i.e, the implementation).
Me, I prefer knowing WTF I'm doing before I do it. My own solution is a shell script to present numbered options for control panel, and a separate one for MSC shit. Example (with mucked up formatting courtesy of Slashdot):
Fast, to the point, and the best part, nothing is obscured. Mind you, I've already memorised all these years ago, so even something this simple is generally uncessary. A quick review of the "real" names, on the other hand, is a fun reminder of how inconsistent Windows systems are.
The final release software isn't restricted ...
If it is and I waste $600, I'm going to tell everyone that I took advice from a random post on Slashdot, and how it's entirely your fault. ;-)
Thanks for the reply.
This is sort of off-topic, but I'm wondering if someone can explain the finer points of Technet for me.
The Microsoft website is reasonably specific about what's offered by a Technet subscription and describes the allowed use of the "Evaluation Copies" provided by that subscription, but after sifting through the marketing-speak, I'm still left wondering what, if anything, isn't being said.
For anyone wanting to maintain a home lab of MS software, for example, is it a worthwhile purchase? Or are the evaluation copies crippled in some way that's problematic, with all the evaluation licenses expiring once your Technet subscription expires?
Seems to me that a one-time payment of $600 (possibly split with a friend) may be a better alternative than going the warez route for such things.
you can change the size of icons in the prefs.
Try looking at the toolbar of any GUI app, or anything that offers file management functions, (for example) and explain how exactly one can "change the size of icons in the prefs" or how your "change themes" comment is relevant? If I could change any of this, I would, but am forced to (in the case of toolbars, for example), configure each app (on a per-app basis) to hide the toolbar.
Thankfully, I don't use many GUI apps, but fucking hell, the days of giant Volume Control knobs on our stereos disappeared decades ago. Do we really need their screen equivalents? And then, do you see Microsoft inserting 24 and 32 pixel icons where they're uncessary or inappropriate?
I don't know where anyone gets this idea that icons are somehow one size fits all.
Like I said, those with oversized screens or who don't have to do any real work probaby won't notice or mind the state of things.
[N]o matter what the ubuntu devs choose for the default theme, someone is going to be unhappy and that is why we have whole domains devoted to hosting various shiny things to put on your *nix box to customize to your liking.
I'm no Gnome or KDE expert, but how exactly does opting for a different theme change, in the OP's words, an "interface ... whose icons are rather big"? Every screenshot or desktop I've seen uses large icons.
Dunno about everyone else, but I'd think that large icons should be considered a waste of real estate and a distraction. Assuming, of course, that you don't have a Very Large Monitor, or otherwise have little real work to do.
There have been mini-ITX boards with low power CPU's long before the term netbook was in use.
Allow me to extend the above:
There have been other boards with lower power CPUs longs before anyone cared about VIA or their mini-ITX form factor.
One of the banks I go to still requires filled out deposit slips, ink signatures, and still has a "next business day before 2" in regards to processing your deposits. To that I say, "Come on, this is the digital age!"
You missed the overriding factor offered by the digital age which they use to earn interest on your money while it's on hold. By contrast, Really Important Customers (those with regularly high balances, etc.) rarely have any funds put on hold.
Compared with PayPal's 5-day period, it sucks a lot less.
Or leaving flash animation ads running while you are not looking at
Not to be confused with those Flash animation ads that you *do* look at.
Given a few years after installation, carpets are an entire ecosystem, themselves!
Indeed. Carpets, unlike proper rugs which can be taken out and cleaned, are pretty disgusting. I'd suggest to the OP that if he has carpets, he hoover them as often as possible if ripping them out isn't feasible.
On the other hand, if he wants to do himself and the world around him a favour, he might consider refraining from using or buying any consumer product that has the word "antibacterial" on the label.
Once upon a time it was just the Birkenstock-wearing, brownrice-eating lesbians shopping the aisles of health food stores that were annoying. Today, everyone is annoying. If it's not the irrational or unfounded fear of bacteria, it's a similarly irrational or unfounded claim of allergies. The world will become hypoallergenic about the same time we eradicate bacteria. Until then, I expect Portugese Water Spaniels, for example, to become wildly popular for all the wrong reasons.
'Course, that might mean a massacre at the port if there's a problem shutting down the guards...
Wouln't be a problem in a world where everyone drinks Brawndo: the robot guards would just shoot themselves!
Too far fetched? Just look at the guy working next to you once cubicle over and think for a bit. Then ask him if he's getting enough electrolytes from his "energy drink". If the answer is "Yes", ask him if he likes sex. Or whether he likes money.
For those already familiar with Peter Hansteen's website, I'll offer a Thumbs Up recommendation for his Book of PF.
There's already been several stories on Slashdot either submitted by or about him, and I don't recall any mention of his book. I'd say his efforts if not his humility deserve some kind of reward, and the reduced sale price of $19.77 is a bargain.
How do I find out which version of Xorg I have?
The same as for version numbers for all your other other ports -- pkg_info(7)
pkg_info -Ex xorg
Because I, the ISP, have formed a pact with your local government to prevent Speakeasy (or any other meaningful competition) from servicing your area of the country.
And I, as your locally elected represented, had to vote on how our area was serviced. Given that we couldn't provide the service ourselves, we accepted bids from outside companies. Speakeasy never submitted any bids, or otherwise participated in the process. Neither did any of the local constituents.
Vast majority of ISPs (Time Warner included) will not offer business services to residential addresses.
Quite frankly, that means next to nothing. The term "business services" or "business class" is a marketing term. The practical value of what's offered has to be evaluated on a case by case by basis, first by ISP, and then by "plan".
My DSL plan with ATT gives me 5 IPs, optional forward and/or reverse DNS, no caps on downloads or uploads, and no interference with any traffic. Does that mean I have a "business plan"? It does if you compare it with what's marketed by some of the cable ISPs, yes, but according to ATT, no.
It may help to consider that lots of businesses use the same DSL for internet connectivity as home users. Those businesses might be located in an industrial park, in a penthouse apartment, or in the basement or garage of someone's house.
And no, MAN pages do not count as documentation.
I appreciate the general sentiments in your post, but the above is simply not correct. Putting aside issues of writing style, quality, completeness, etc., along with the abomination called info pages, manpages ARE documentation.
What you are looking for or expecting is a Tutorial. And most likely one written in a friendly style that includes a breadth of related topics (like "How do I install this thing?" or "What's a protocol?" or "How does XMMP work?". For that, I'd suggest a Google search. Programmers are expected to document their work, but it's unreasonable to expect them to write Tutorials.
To put things in a reverse perspective, the frustrating thing for non-Windows users is that on Windows, almost nothing is documented. Lots recursive clicky links that pop up HowTo's with explanatory or descriptive verbage, but no real documentation.
They're assuming that people use their websites the way people use their newspapers, and that's probably not the case anymore, and surely won't be in the future.
Well, here's a perspective from someone who subscribes to home delivery of several newspapers, NY Times included -- it's never been possible to read a website like a newspaper.
I read every paper I subscribe to in total, front to back, page by page. Why? Quite often it's the news, stories, or editorials on subjects I may not be interested in that are the most important and demand reading more than, say, the latest tech news tidbits. And then, reading front to back offers a natural progression that allows me, among other things, to weigh the importance of things as presented by the paper.
When I visit The NY Times online, I can view the front page, or skip to another section and rummage around. What I can't do is read the "paper" front to back (websites, unless written in docbook, generally have no front or back). So I don't. Which means I generally end up leaving the site in short order.
If a paper with an online edition wants me to "hang around" or otherwise use them as my primary source of news, they'll have to print the thing and deliver it to me. So until someone develops something along the lines of the Kindle for newspapers, that won't be possible, and all of us, myself included, will consider a link on news.google.com will be just one of many, leaving us bouncing from site to site.
That page also contains references such as the complete listing of subject lines from spammers caught in our blacklists over a few years' time.
Seeing all those subject lines on the same page, I'm reminded of what an AOL logon experience is like.
I heard that would have been fixed in this, shame that it still isn't.
I think that's by design, and not a bug.
Either way, I tend to agree with your complaint. Seems to me that unless you're watching videos in full screen exclusively, having windows open in a different sizes is annoying at best. That's one of my reasons for sticking to to MPC on Windows. The other, as has already pointed out, is that MPC handles corrupt files without issue.
I'm just coming up to 3 years post-op.
Hopefully that's not a recommendation. I'd imagine if the average Slashdotter had their own breasts to fondle, they'd never leave their basements.
If you use the left part of your brain, it feels like someone else is doing it.
Or maybe use the western grip.
If Will Ferrell's latest take on George Bush is accurate, I'd suggest it requires no brain at all. Just a requirement that you be from Texas.
Can you masturbate with a phantom limb?
Dunno, but apparently some girls can do some pretty interesting things with one.
As everything moves to the 'cloud' the data will be stored forever. well, OK, until something happens that destroys all the 'nodes' that are housing data.
I can see it now. Researchers, historians and authors who relied on hand-written letters written home by soldiers in the Civil War, for example, now have it easy. Instead of painstakingly sifting through carefully maintained archives, they can just use Yahoo! and Gmail to do the same for their new book on Iraq. For everything else, they can Google like everyone else.
Oh, wait ...
One of the themes in Orwell's book concerned itself with the loss of history. Setting aside Dick Cheney trying to rewrite current history or the White House email fiasco, it should be obvious there's a price to be paid for assumptions like "No worries, mate. It's in the cloud." or worse, "We're too busy with the new stuff to pay attention to the old stuff."
This is a stupid exercise. Oh my gosh, there's an extra few characters wasted. They're talking about 150 characters, which would be 150 bytes, or (gasp) 0.150KB.
Perhaps, but I'm reminded of the time when I started getting into the habit of stripping Unsubscribe footers (and unecessarily quoted Unsubscribe footers) from all the mailing lists (many high volume) that I subscribed to. During testing, I found the average mbox was reduced down in size by between 20 and 30%.
If you accept the premise that waste is waste, then it's only a matter of perspective. If something doesn't affect you personally, it doesn't mean that it doesn't affect someone else.
Overlong URLs may not waste bandwidth to any degree, but they sure as hell are wasteful in other respects, if not outright idiotic. Or is there no one who has ever copied/pasted a URL?
ePrison for committing an eCrime
Good one!
You'll have to admit, though, it's an improvement from the current state of affairs in which the the "cyber" prefix is applied to everything.
Maybe it's time for a Slashdot poll so we ccan decide what to call these things going forward. My vote is Crime 2.0.
My understanding is that something has to include sexual acts to be considered pornography. Nudity, by itself, is not pornography.
Where have you been the last decade? You don't have to read through the respective laws to know that the term can, and typically does, mean most anything. A casual reading of headlines would inform you that people have gone to jail for taking pictures of fully clothed minors, and those registered as offenders, for example, have gone back to jail for looking at pictures of fully clothed minors. Equally bizarre is that terms like manufacture and possession have been successfully applied to images stored locally in RAM, or to what's contained in browser temp files.
The dirty little secret (pun intended) is that almost all of the "child pornography" available on the internet consists of minors in suggestive poses, and sometimes, but not always, in suggestive or provocative clothing. The other 0.0001% are private pictures taken by actual abusers (invariably relatives) and privately passed around until they're not so not private. Mixed into that last tiny percentage are a few one-off cases of people who actually took nude or semi-nude pictures and tried selling them on a website.
For anyone that thinks I'm exaggerating or overstating my case, this link will take you to what I believe is considered as one of the more popular sites. WARNING: be sure that the laws in your current place of residence don't preclude you from visiting this site, or downloading the gigabytes of "child pornography" available there or on similar sites.
With respect to the article, the irony is that those whom we seek to protect now must be protected from themselves. What isn't so laughable, however, is that at the mention of the term "child pornography", everyone nods their heads in complete and unthinking agreement, so much so that no one is paying to attention to what any of it means. That leaves those with power to do as they please.