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User: omicronish

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  1. Re:yes on New Longhorn Screenshots And Schedule · · Score: 1

    Today, all modern OS's are very stable. Stability can no longer be cited as an advantage of one OS over other OS's. BSD, Linux, WindowsXP -- none of them crash often.

    True, OS's themselves are stable, but there are still stability problems in user space. Explorer crashes ~once a day for me (seems to be a bug in minimizing WMP), and last time I used a Linux GUI a lot I remember having problems with KDE crashing as well. Of course these crashes aren't as serious as OS-level crashes, but to the end-user they're still unexpected events that shouldn't occur. So you can still consider stability in comparing OS's, it's just UI stability that's in question now.

  2. Re:Fuck on Scientists Find Soft Tissue in T-Rex Fossil · · Score: 4, Funny

    Alternatively do any of you know anything about UNIX systems?

    I watched Jurassic Park in my early teens, and that movie ruined my knowledge of UNIX. For years I thought all UNIX systems had cool graphical UIs like that, and then I tried a real one and was disappointed by these crazy things called "characters". Now I'm a Windows user :(

  3. Re:Missing the point on Re-Imagining Apple · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple succeeds because they hide the complexity, not because they call attention to it. Flashy complicated designs advertise internal complexity. While a geek sees power in complexity, most people see added cognitive burden. "Oh, shit, I bet that thing has a million features that I'll never figure out."

    You've hit the point exactly. I'm a PC user for various reasons, but I drool everytime I see a nice, simple, and clean design from Apple. It's pleasing on the eyes and pleasing on the mind, and I wish a PC manufacturer would realize this and just make a laptop or PC without all these little edges, buttons, and colors.

  4. Re:Longhorn on Preview of X Windows Eye Candy · · Score: 1

    The 3D features of Avalon are merely a subset of it; Avalon in general is an API for building application user interfaces. You have objects like Button, Canvas, Brush, etc. 3D-acceleration can be used to render Avalon interfaces, but I believe this is not the case with current Avalon betas on Windows XP.

  5. Re:I don't "get" Mono either. on Miguel de Icaza Explains How To "Get" Mono · · Score: 1

    So you can do the bulk of your software in Java but still have the one little tiny piece that needs to be mega optimized done in C.

    In case people aren't aware, you can also do the same with .NET through either P/Invoke (the equivalent of JNI, I think?) or managed C++ (C++/CLI in .NET 2.0). With the latter you basically use .NET with a C++ syntax, and can opt to compile C++ as unmanaged code if you want. .NET with a C++ syntax is incredibly powerful for porting or interfacing existing C++ code with .NET.

  6. Re:Anyone Have Actual Experience With Mono? on Miguel de Icaza Explains How To "Get" Mono · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah, I was coding an IRC bot in C# using .NET 2.0 beta on Windows with Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1, and thought it'd be interesting to see if Mono can handle it. I'm a Windows user, but have Gentoo installed to play around with. My experience:

    • Took a while to discover how to setup a beta release of Mono on Gentoo, since it's masked. But after I figured it out installation was a breeze.
    • After getting the code on my Gentoo machine I had to figure out a way to compile it, since an MSBuild-equivalent isn't available yet for Mono, and so I couldn't use the solution file provided by VS. MSBuild is basically the next generation of the build process for Visual Studio, and is quite powerful (not limited to Visual Studio, not limited to programming projects, etc.). In the end I simply constructed a command that used csc (or I think the Mono C# compiler that supports generics).
    • Most of the compile errors were due to missing System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary. It was a stub last I checked, so I wrote my own Dictionary that used System.Colletions.Hashtable. IDictionary was also missing some members, so I had to write my own IDictionary interface. Note that generics are part of .NET 2.0, which is still in beta, so I didn't expect any of this to work completely anyway.
    • After fixing compile errors there was a weird bug that might've been part of the JITer or the way Mono executed the code. I can't remember what it is now, but I worked around it.
    • And... it worked!! Code written using a beta IDE on a beta framework works with Mono with only minor problems. I was pleasantly surprised.

    I have yet to test Mono with .NET 1.1 code, mainly because I don't have anything interesting since moving to 2.0 beta. But given what I've seen with its implementation of a beta framework, I have a feeling 1.1 is well-implemented. Maybe other areas such as Winforms are poorly implemented at the moment--I don't know--but they've made excellent progress already.

    As for Mono versus C++, this is basically a .NET versus C++ question, which has led to large flame wars everywhere I've seen it asked. My personal opinion? Well, C++ was the first language I learned, and I had been using it for 6-7 years before I gave C# a try. I've been using C# ever since, around 2-3 years. Maybe if you're doing something that requires crazy amounts of performance C++ would be a better fit, but I don't do that, and the simplicity gained through C# and the .NET libraries far exceeds any performance penalties I experience (which aren't even large in the first place for the work I do).

    Mono versus .NET C#: Of course Mono is behind since Microsoft is driving the development of C# 2.0. But from what I see, it seems Mono is mainly behind in the implementation of the .NET libraries. All of the C# 2.0 language features I used worked fine.

    C# 2.0, .NET 2.0, and Visual Studio 2005 will likely be released later this year. Mono has reached impressive levels of compatibility already with C# 2.0, and compatibility with .NET 2.0 classes seems to be coming along fine. I'll definitely be keeping my eyes peeled for future releases.

  7. mass transit? on Sources of Intelligent Audio for Commute? · · Score: 1

    Have you considered mass transit? You don't have to worry about driving anymore, and can read a good book, stare at the scenery, or have fun by creeping out the person sitting next to you. The ride might be longer than if you drove yourself, but I feel it's a lot better than stressing yourself out with 1-2 hours of traffic battles.

  8. Re:Duh on When Should You Quit Your Job? · · Score: 1

    And I'm from the other end of the spectrum: I'm a C# guy but I have no problem with learning PHP, Perl, Python, Java if needed. In fact, I recently started doing research work in Java for school this quarter after not using the language in 2 years. It's a good learning experience since you can compare languages and see the flaws of each more clearly.

  9. Re:None of the above on In Which OS Do You Feel More Productive? · · Score: 4, Funny

    In Mac OS X I just stare slack-jawed at the purty eye candy.

    You don't even have to be using Mac OS X to be hit by its productivity penalty. I'm a Windows user, but one day in a school lab I saw someone using Expose. That was enough to make me drool and lose concentration.

  10. Re:YOU can also be a hero! on Unsung Heroes of Open Source · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you use Linux? Know how to code? If so, then you can be a hero too.

    A lot of people equate open source with Linux, but there's quite a lot of it for Windows and other operating systems as well. Firefox, Mozilla, Eclipse, Python, and Mono all run on Windows. SourceForge lists over 10,000 projects for Windows. In fact, I'm a Windows user who wouldn't be able to live without Python, Bitlbee, Subversion, and wget.

    So Windows users who are interested, join in on the fun. OSS isn't limited to Linux users.

  11. Re:Some points on Microsoft's Martin Taylor Responds · · Score: 1

    ASP.NET might be nice, but in web/database programming, I prefer to keep the actual appearance and elements of the program seperate from the code - this was one of those basic programming ideals that seems to be taught a lot and I've found it to be very helpful.

    You can do that with ASP.NET as well. You're free to create your own classes that handle program elements (like in any .NET program), and simply use ASP.NET forms as the bridge to the resulting HTML. The UI stuff then remains only in the form classes.

    What sort of HTML templating features does ASP.NET have? That might make it be a lot more attractive if the actual code is removed from any reference to any HTML object.

    Good question. I'm unfamiliar enough with ASP.NET to not know the answer to this one. In my experience style sheets have been sufficient in controlling page appearance, but I haven't tried templating page layout. From what I've seen people resort to manually outputting HTML, which negates the benefits of ASP.NET. However, this can be done on a high level, so I believe you can implement chunks of the page as ASP.NET controls, and at a high level render those to HTML and plug that into an HTML template.

    Essentially I don't think ASP.NET supports HTML templates; the closest feature I can think of are ASP.NET 2.0 master pages, but those don't seem as flexible as the type of HTML templates I have in mind.

  12. Re:Some points on Microsoft's Martin Taylor Responds · · Score: 1

    One of the nice things about ASP.NET is how they've really abstracted away HTML. Instead of manually outputting HTML elements such as anchors, buttons, input fields, you deal with things on a higher level. If you've done forms programming (.NET forms or VB forms), it almost feels like that.

    For example, say you want to implement an HTML button that, when clicked, changes its text. The HTML button lives inside a form element, and with ASP and PHP you'd listen for a page request and generate HTML with the button but with its text changed. At a high level you basically have a printf "<button text='new text'> somewhere.

    With ASP.NET you have a Button object and you create a handler for the button's click event that basically performs a button.Text = "new text". You don't output HTML anywhere from code; ASP.NET provides the code that transforms these objects into HTML that's compatible with the user's browser. Here's a sample that demonstrates this.

    I highly recommend that you check out ASP.NET, to at least be aware of it. I believe there's also an OSS web platform that is similar; you might want to check that out as well.

  13. Re:Can't talk publicly? on Microsoft's Martin Taylor Responds · · Score: 1

    Personally, I'm releived that we've actually got somebody with a voice in MS who certainly appears not to be a dick. It gives me some hope.

    Some Microsoft employees surf and post here, but don't really advertise that fact.

    :)

  14. Re:Comparison? So Tell Me on Microsoft: The Faint Smell of Rot · · Score: 1

    I interned there last summer, and believe me, the people on my team were genuinely enthusiastic. Remember that money does not buy happiness, at least not in the long run.

  15. Re:Blocker blocker blocker... on Microsoft's AntiSpyware Disabled by Spyware · · Score: 1

    Actually, very little of the programs I use need Administrator privileges, and I can go for days without running anything as admin. I code, debug, do CS homework, and yes, even play games as a regular user. Another comment on this story posted this interesting link on non-admin tips. For games, making the game directory read-writable by all users also helps in a lot of cases; this is because a lot of games for some stupid reason store save games in the game directory instead of the user's profile. The former is typically read-only to users since it's in C:\Program Files.

  16. Re:Blocker blocker blocker... on Microsoft's AntiSpyware Disabled by Spyware · · Score: 1

    It still doesn't work for Windows? That's sad.

    True file permissions do exist, but unfortunately most users run as Administrator, thus negating those permissions. That's the sad part :( But if you're a competent user, you can help protect yourself by running as a regular user account. You don't run as root all the time on Linux, and similarly on Windows, don't run as Administrator all the time.

    You can also get a Mac like the parent poster has.

  17. Re:Do you work using restricted accounts on Microsoft's AntiSpyware Disabled by Spyware · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Windows still is not a true multiuser system. Get back to me when I can run the damn file browser as super user, and Joe Six Pack can play games as a restricted user.

    For things that do not work as non-admin, just use the "Run as" command on the context menu for the icon in the start menu. That's better than browsing or doing work as Administrator all the time. Additionally, for most games if you give Users read-write access to the game directory they'll run fine under a non-administrator account.

    The reason Explorer doesn't work well with runas is that by default it checks if it's already running, and quits if it is. The problem is that the taskbar is Explorer, so when you try to run Explorer as Administrator it'll see itself and immediately quit. The workaround is simple: login as Administrator, go to Control Panel, Folder Options, View, and check "Launch folder windows in a separate process." This only needs to be done once, and Explorer should work with runas afterwards. Furthermore, I believe this is the only instance in which runas is 'crippled' :P

    And finally, that games do not work under all users isn't a technical limitation of Windows. After all, games are applications just like Word, Excel, Photoshop, yet users can run all those programs fine. Based on what I've seen, the failure of games to run under non-administrator accounts is due to one of the following reasons:

    • Copy protection requires Administrator privileges to run.
    • Saved games are stored in the game directory. But C:\Program Files is read-only to regular users, hence the requirement to run as Administrator. If you're a dev, please store the damn save files in the user's profile.
    • Game has a lame Administrator check in addition to the above two.

    Note that in all these cases it's the fault of the game developer. Complain to them or don't play their games if this bothers you, but in no way is Windows restricting such games from running as non-admin.

    To those who are still running as Administrator, please reconsider. How often do you install applications anyway? Is an additional right-click, Run as, type in Administrator password that difficult? I do homework, debug applications, run games, etc. all from a regular account. It's not that difficult.

  18. Re:CVS Admin's be afraid ... very afriad. on Pragmatic Version Control Using Subversion · · Score: 2, Informative

    love it so much, I am actually considering installing svn on my families computer so they can keep track of their most beloved digital documents as well.

    If you're using Windows, look into TortoiseSVN, a Subversion shell extension for Windows. The neat thing is that you it doesn't even need a server if you file access to the repository is available (and possibly in other cases as well). This means it's the only program needed.

    As for myself, I actually use it for school homework in addition to my programming projects. I setup a dedicated server for my repository in this case so that I could access and synchronize my work at school. It works wonderfully, especially when used with plain text documents or source.

  19. Re:The worst one on PC Users Fight Distractions to Work · · Score: 1

    RSS feeds are also good for that purpose. You'll know a site has been updated when your RSS aggregator tells you so, otherwise you can continue working.

  20. Re:screenshots on Windows Longhorn Beta for June Release · · Score: 1

    One thing to note is that the Aero experience (the final UI for Longhorn) is still a huge secret to everyone except those actually on the Aero team, so the majority of people working at Microsoft don't know what it looks like as well. However, Longhorn will provide a down-level UI for older clients, so perhaps the current screenshots will be resemble that UI.

  21. Re:That man is right... on Bill Gates Claims OSS Has Poor Interoperability · · Score: 1

    True, but you can't do a paste special in IE's HTML text box (Xanga's post and comment pages have these; I'm not sure if I've seen them anywhere else). Unfortunately the pasting format is handled on the application side (I don't even think it'd be possible to do otherwise), so such menu and paste special features will never show up in applications unless they specifically implement it or use controls that implement it.

  22. Re:That man is right... on Bill Gates Claims OSS Has Poor Interoperability · · Score: 1

    -try to copy&paste some webpage in a Office application and get something more then plain-text

    i never understood the urge to do so! my mother always does this as a means of pasting together different bits of information, but why would i want to paste the color, font and background image together with the text?? i am not saying that it is a useless feature and maybe it would be nice if it were possible under linux, but i really don't see any application for this! even worse, i'd REALLY like to know how to disable this questionable feature under windows!

    Actually, it's very useful when students want to post their class schedules on a blog that has an HTML editor. Browse some of the university blogrings on Xanga if you want examples. Instead of pasting a text dump of a student's schedule, they can put a visual representation as generated by their university's student schedule page; certainly the latter is better in most cases.

    So even if you dislike this feature, it is useful, although as you mention it'd be even better if there's a way to disable it (perhaps a popup menu on paste that allows you to choose the paste type).

  23. Re:Why oh why on Gosling Claims Huge Security Hole in .NET · · Score: 2, Informative

    So any decision to extend the use of C is just foolish. What is the purpose of doing this? If people must use horrible legacy code then just use it, but why drag that into new frameworks like .NET?

    Managed C++ is basically a compatibility language. It exists to provide developers an easy way to interface legacy C/C++ code with .NET code. By providing MC++ Microsoft is actually providing a way for developers to slowly migrate to more modern languages (sorta like JNI with Java; imagine if you couldn't make system calls at all). Without it considerably more effort would be needed to port and allow existing code to interface with new systems.

  24. Re:Thats good and all, but... on MSN Search Has Arrived · · Score: 1

    One interesting thing to compare are the W3 validator results: MSN search validation and Google search validation.

    MSN search has 1 error, while Google has a bunch, so perhaps the MSN search page could be made smaller at the expense of validation. But both are quite small anyway, it's not like it matters in terms of size for most users.

  25. Re:Nope! Good effort - but F-- on MSN Search Has Arrived · · Score: 1

    I still will be setting the home-page setting of all my users to www.google.com On a 56K connection Microsoft's effort is still slow and clunky.

    Try http://search.msn.com instead; an earlier comment reveals a 300-byte difference between that page's size and Google.