I think if Macintosh actually became a credible, commonly used platform for X11 applications, the theming and behavior would take care of itself: it would approximate Macintosh native as closely as users generally desire.
True. Gimp.app has done a pretty good job of that. Sure, nobody who knows what they're looking at would mistake it for a native application. But it sure blends in a lot better than most X11 software.
We'll agree to disagree on whether its speed is OK. It works well for me but not for you. Fine.:)
In terms of the looks of applications, I was thinking in terms of bundling versions of GTK, Qt, etc. that have themes which give the apps native-looking widgets, toolbar background colors, etc. That certainly would be within their control.
Apple also needs to do massive improvements on the performance of their X11 server before they are anywhere near competitive with workstations or Linux systems.
Really? I think performance is great. However, they need to work on a way to make X11 software look and feel more native (at least before it can compete with other OS X apps in the mainstream.)
OK, point taken. But does that mean that everyone else be subject to having their Safari, Mail, etc. programs all mixed in with emacs, rsync, and other binaries that would only confuse most people and make the system difficult to use?
Huh? The UNIX-ish stuff is in/bin and the like, yes. But the programs that normal humans use are in/Applications. The average Mac user doesn't know (and doesn't need to know) that/bin even exists. I don't understand how this is even a complaint worth making.
Agreed. What is the point of a PCMCIA slot when you already have 802.11g, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, FireWire 800 (400 on 12" models), gigabit ethernet (10/100 on 12" models), and a dedicated graphics chip with DVI/VGA out and dual-screen support? PCMCIA on a modern Mac laptop is pretty useless for most people.
Despite the fact that the Netscape Browser is inferior to Firefox, it's still easily better than IE and will help reach the goal of reducing malicious programs that spawn through Microsoft's security holes.
Exactly. Netscape doesn't have much to offer to make it a better choice than Firefox. But as a Firefox-based browser (at least primarily), each IE user that converts to it is a win for all of us.
Why choose Netscape now? I guess the ability to switch to IE rendering on a given page might be nice for some people. But honestly, there is no real killer reason.
In my eyes, The Mozilla Oragnization is now carrying the torch. Sure, Netscape is still alive in a sense, but Mozilla is the future of that browser family. Netscape has a name that makes many people nostalgic, but that's about all it has to set itself apart today. The software lives, but it is found elsewhere.
That has to be one of the most horrible interfaces I have ever seen
The funny part is that, as weird as that proposed new design is, it's lightyears ahead of the first beta they put out. By comparison it looks downright pretty. It's a step in the right direction, but a very small one, and one of many that must be taken take to arrive at a good interface.
Yeah, that is pretty bizarre. It makes no sense that they would leave out the name Netscape while giving it a version number that appears to indicate it's an earlier version of Firefox -- actaully more like Firebird, considering that it is numbered 0.6.x.
That's because most people now have better things to do than look up in the sky at night. Those people of the past didn't really have much else to entertain themselves with.
Yes, people have much better things to do today. Why waste time learning stuff when you have an Xbox and the next episode of The Bachelorette is almost on?
Oops! I read the article but overlooked that first link. I guess I subconsciously ignored it because its placement made it look like a link to the username of the submitter. Obviously it is not, but what can I say, it's late.:D
I wouldn't put it past our wonderful American news to censor stuff like that, but I just did a quick search of Google news and every image I found had the leaf, including one from a Greek publication. Do you have any links to an image that is without it? It sure looks like it was part of the original statue to me. Or did you simply see the leaf and assume that the American media must have Photoshopped it in?
That's pretty cool. The scientists/naturalists/etc. of the past may have had a more primitive understanding of the universe, but they weren't stupid. It's amazing to think that they figured out so much about the sky so long ago with so few tools, when today most people don't have a working knowledge that even comes close to matching it.
OOo works fine under X11, but... - Most people don't have X11 installed - it's optional. - It doesn't have the key combos people are used to. - It may never be made to *look* native if it remains X11-only. - Menubar is in the "wrong" place for a Mac app. - It doesn't have a standard Dock icon of its own.
Those are the primary issues, and none of them are necessarily deal-breakers for you or me. But they they severely hamper usability for inexperienced users who don't know what X11 is and won't understand why the app looks and behaves the way it does.
It's disappointing news, but at least there's still the NeoOffice project. Its was originally intended to be a place for experimenting with the issues involved in a native OS X port, but if the office OOo project won't be doing it hopefully NeoOffice will get more support as the primary (er, only) Aqua version.
contrary to what people would have us believe, many products for the Mac don't "just work" but require lots of fiddling, driver downloads, software updates, and weird configuration options, that translates into many hours of work for the kids.
That's funny, of all the hardware I use on my Mac, the scanner was the only one that wasn't automatically recognized and configured by the OS. I can't imagine what kind of freaky peripherals you must be using that required hours of fiddling, downloads, and software updates... or much of any driver installation at all for that matter. I guess YMMV, but in my experience "what people would have us believe" is the truth.
If you have cheap hardware, there is no guarantee that it will even run 1024x768 and even if it does, it will do so poorly. By merely giving users the option of changing resolution to something higher, you run into a chance of them having a nightmarish experience with the system
It has to be pretty ancient bad to not do 1024x768. Even the old video card from a used Pentium 100 I was given to tinker with a couple years could do that.
But that's beside the point. When you change resolutions in Windows, it asks you to confirm that it's working. If you don't (ie. you can't see the dialogue box) it will revert. There's nothing remotely "nightmarish" about changing resolutions.
As for the rest of your reply, I am not the original poster. I just agreed with the point on resolution.:)
This is probably redundant. Oh well.... How does limiting the resolution to 800x600 make it any more appropriate for new users? When you open a new XP install you're not asked to set the resolution so this is an effective path to making the system easier to use. It's simply a way to give people a reason to buy XP Home or Pro if they want to actually
All of this is why Apple ships computers with one-button mouses.
Yes. In my experience a lot of users don't know what the second button is for and never even touch it. I'm not trying to be condescending - it's not as if they're too stupid to use more buttons. It's just that for many people a standard PC mouse is unnecessary complication (relatively speaking) of an otherwise simple input device.
That was posted within the hour after the conclusion of the keynote.
Actually, the stream was not posted for viewing until nine hours after the keynote. Yes, the video was made available but it was far from being a live webcast.
I've been doing tech support for non-profits for just a couple months and already ran into a lot of NT systems. When budget is a big consideration (as with these organizations) the last thing they want to do is spend money on new software if the existing stuff still works. Computers are not their primary focus, so as long as the job gets done upgrades remain a low priority.
Then, of course, there are the servers -- often old installations are left in place because the benefits of an upgrade are outweighed by the risk of downtime and other hassles resulting from unforeseen incompatibilities, driver issues, and other problems.
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We'll agree to disagree on whether its speed is OK. It works well for me but not for you. Fine. :)
In terms of the looks of applications, I was thinking in terms of bundling versions of GTK, Qt, etc. that have themes which give the apps native-looking widgets, toolbar background colors, etc. That certainly would be within their control.
OK, point taken. But does that mean that everyone else be subject to having their Safari, Mail, etc. programs all mixed in with emacs, rsync, and other binaries that would only confuse most people and make the system difficult to use?
Agreed. What is the point of a PCMCIA slot when you already have 802.11g, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, FireWire 800 (400 on 12" models), gigabit ethernet (10/100 on 12" models), and a dedicated graphics chip with DVI/VGA out and dual-screen support? PCMCIA on a modern Mac laptop is pretty useless for most people.
Why choose Netscape now? I guess the ability to switch to IE rendering on a given page might be nice for some people. But honestly, there is no real killer reason.
In my eyes, The Mozilla Oragnization is now carrying the torch. Sure, Netscape is still alive in a sense, but Mozilla is the future of that browser family. Netscape has a name that makes many people nostalgic, but that's about all it has to set itself apart today. The software lives, but it is found elsewhere.
Yeah, that is pretty bizarre. It makes no sense that they would leave out the name Netscape while giving it a version number that appears to indicate it's an earlier version of Firefox -- actaully more like Firebird, considering that it is numbered 0.6.x.
Oops! I read the article but overlooked that first link. I guess I subconsciously ignored it because its placement made it look like a link to the username of the submitter. Obviously it is not, but what can I say, it's late. :D
I wouldn't put it past our wonderful American news to censor stuff like that, but I just did a quick search of Google news and every image I found had the leaf, including one from a Greek publication. Do you have any links to an image that is without it? It sure looks like it was part of the original statue to me. Or did you simply see the leaf and assume that the American media must have Photoshopped it in?
That's pretty cool. The scientists/naturalists/etc. of the past may have had a more primitive understanding of the universe, but they weren't stupid. It's amazing to think that they figured out so much about the sky so long ago with so few tools, when today most people don't have a working knowledge that even comes close to matching it.
er, make that "the official OOo project"
OOo works fine under X11, but...
- Most people don't have X11 installed - it's optional.
- It doesn't have the key combos people are used to.
- It may never be made to *look* native if it remains X11-only.
- Menubar is in the "wrong" place for a Mac app.
- It doesn't have a standard Dock icon of its own.
Those are the primary issues, and none of them are necessarily deal-breakers for you or me. But they they severely hamper usability for inexperienced users who don't know what X11 is and won't understand why the app looks and behaves the way it does.
It's disappointing news, but at least there's still the NeoOffice project. Its was originally intended to be a place for experimenting with the issues involved in a native OS X port, but if the office OOo project won't be doing it hopefully NeoOffice will get more support as the primary (er, only) Aqua version.
But that's beside the point. When you change resolutions in Windows, it asks you to confirm that it's working. If you don't (ie. you can't see the dialogue box) it will revert. There's nothing remotely "nightmarish" about changing resolutions.
As for the rest of your reply, I am not the original poster. I just agreed with the point on resolution.
I wrote: "When you open a new XP install you're not asked to set the resolution so this is an effective path to making the system easier to use."
Oops! I meant that it's "not an effective path..."
This is probably redundant. Oh well....
How does limiting the resolution to 800x600 make it any more appropriate for new users? When you open a new XP install you're not asked to set the resolution so this is an effective path to making the system easier to use. It's simply a way to give people a reason to buy XP Home or Pro if they want to actually
Yes. In my experience a lot of users don't know what the second button is for and never even touch it. I'm not trying to be condescending - it's not as if they're too stupid to use more buttons. It's just that for many people a standard PC mouse is unnecessary complication (relatively speaking) of an otherwise simple input device.
I've been doing tech support for non-profits for just a couple months and already ran into a lot of NT systems. When budget is a big consideration (as with these organizations) the last thing they want to do is spend money on new software if the existing stuff still works. Computers are not their primary focus, so as long as the job gets done upgrades remain a low priority.
Then, of course, there are the servers -- often old installations are left in place because the benefits of an upgrade are outweighed by the risk of downtime and other hassles resulting from unforeseen incompatibilities, driver issues, and other problems.