I would characterize Chrome as "Safari for Windows done right."
There were massive mistakes Apple made (out of arrogance or incompetence, I'm not sure), when releasing Safari for Windows:
- Apple style Font rendering. Having to switch your eyes between Safari's anti-aliasing and ClearType on a regular basis starts to hurt your eyes, one seems blurry in comparison to the other. - Safari didn't follow many of the standard windows app behaviors, another snafu. You can't stuff OS X app behaviors down the throats of Windows users, and vice versa. - It also had an incredibly slow startup time. (Although it would render extremely fast)
Contrast this to Chrome, which renders text using ClearType and windows font rendering, behaves like a windows app, starts up really fast.
It's not even like I'm bashing Apple for a bad port. iTunes for windows was ported really well, it follows (for the most part, except menus) the windows UI conventions and font rendering, so it feels more like a Windows app.
(By the way, I'm primarily a Mac user and use Safari regularly on the Mac)
I look forward to the final release so that I can finally get everyone I know on Macs off Microsoft Office once and for all. Of course the problem you then run into is having to compare this suite to Pages/Numbers/Keynote. Let's face it. Those 3 are good enough for most non-power-users, which is really the same market OpenOffice can hope for in the short term.
Any serious word processor users (like technical writers, etc) that I've met that don't like Word, say so because they prefer WordPerfect, not because they prefer OpenOffice. OpenOffice Writer isn't even a twinkle in their eye.
And is there even a real alternative for Excel yet? Keynote is superior to Powerpoint. So where does OpenOffice really have a leg to stand on?
Sure it's a free Office suite. I think more people are clamoring for an alternative to MS Office, whether they have to pay or not. Less of a priority to them is the price tag. It's a definite BONUS, but not a critical priority.
While I'm a supporter of ODF, and open formats (and even OSS in general) I just don't see OOo as a viable alternative for most users, or as compelling an alternative as other OSS projects (languages, servers, frameworks) are.
If they're Mac users, I'd recommend iWork. If they're Windows users, I'd recommend Wordperfect or AbiWord.
I'll be the first to yell out at things like warrantless wiretapping, but believe it or not, even at NSA they use Windows and Linux/Unix on their hardware. It's in their best interest and the interest of their mission (as a consumer of said OSs) to make sure that those OSs are as secure as they can be. And some of the smartest security researchers on the planet work for NSA. So why not?
One of the NSA's growing missions is also to secure the electronic interests of the United States and its citizens. That includes doing anything they can to help secure the infrastructure of US interests. All our banks and national financial stability rely heavily on the security of computer systems. If they can't benefit from this added security, what's the point of securing a defense system if someone can hack into your federal bank system and make you lose billions?
So things like an overall more secure Solaris or Linux (or even Windows Vista) benefits everyone, including the electronic interests of the citizens of the USA, who the NSA also serves. Remember, they ARE a government agency (an occasionally evil one, though most of them do evil things every now and then.)
A few months down the road I've managed to get everything (including SPDIF out, TV-out, WLAN, suspend to ram) working.
And that's the core of the problem. 99% of users don't care enough to spend a "few months" just to get digital sound and wireless access. I just bought a mac Mini, and I had my wireless and digital sound working right out of the box (it might not be a fair comparison driver-wise but it at least shows that Unix can be an excellent desktop OS). It's those 99% of users you are targeting when you go after the desktop market. When I got FC1, (I know it's been a while), it took me 8 hours to get my wireless card working and I learned 20 different things in the process. I didn't mind it, but most users shouldn't have to care about such things. And just based on that, I don't think i'd be able to recommend Linux to anyone non-geeky for a while. (I've used Ubuntu as recently as last year and was pretty impressed, but still is nowhere near where it has to be.)
I've had one harddrive completely die (replaced next day), but now I have bad sectors and htey won't help me because I'm running an unsupported OS.
And that is perfectly acceptable. Why should they have to waste their time diagnosing something unless they are absolutely 100% sure that some driver in some Linux distro that they don't know about could've caused your hard drive to overwork itself and get corrupted... (it's a possibility.) It would be unfair to other users who are running "supported" software. That's why you're a Linux geek, you are probably fine with spending 20 hours diagnosing hard drive sectors.
You could say that about public projects. You pay taxes for future projects, and you might have a say in that.
However, you paid Verizon for services that Verizon had already rendered. The contractual obligation they have, is to give you one month of ____ service (whatever it might be) in exchange for your payment. They provided the service, you provided the payment. After that, you can't say fuck-all about what they do with THEIR MONEY. It was your money before they gave you a service for which you handed your money over to them.
If you shoveled my walkway for snow, I paid you $20 for it, and you decided to go buy a videogame with that money, do I have any say in what game you should buy? I don't think so. Verizon earned that money. This isn't a tax you paid out of necessity.
The ONLY clout you have in this, is by transferring to another company.
Don't confuse government accountability for private accountability.
Since when are bigger breasts considered to be offensive? Kids aren't supposed to know that some women have larger breasts than others? Are we really corrupting a kid's mind when he sees a sexy woman (not naked, not scantily clothed, just busty) in a game?
Re:Beware the French.....
on
Shrek 2 How-To
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
You're kidding, right? If you think for a second that these animators aren't exceptional at what they do, you've got another thing coming. How can you even start to compare the detail level in an animated movie to something that's supposed to be realistic?
The point is that these movies (Shrek, Shrek 2, Monsters Inc) are modeled with the INTENTION to be cartoonish. Too much realism takes away from the fantasy aspect of it. Remember, they are still animated films. It'll be the same problem when games get too realistic. You want that escape, you want it to clearly be a fantasy world so you can enjoy it.
If shrek looked like a disgusting slimy ogre, then he wouldn't be as lovable. You're missing the point.
I think the greatest thing Pixar/PDI does is that they have the right combination fo actors, story, dialogue, and plot. It's not so much the animation, as the animation truly brings these already excellent things to life. What they're doing differently is that they're taking a new approach to animated movies, and targeting people of all ages, not just kids, which is why they're making buttloads of money now.
Slashdot Mirror
I would characterize Chrome as "Safari for Windows done right."
There were massive mistakes Apple made (out of arrogance or incompetence, I'm not sure), when releasing Safari for Windows:
- Apple style Font rendering. Having to switch your eyes between Safari's anti-aliasing and ClearType on a regular basis starts to hurt your eyes, one seems blurry in comparison to the other.
- Safari didn't follow many of the standard windows app behaviors, another snafu. You can't stuff OS X app behaviors down the throats of Windows users, and vice versa.
- It also had an incredibly slow startup time. (Although it would render extremely fast)
Contrast this to Chrome, which renders text using ClearType and windows font rendering, behaves like a windows app, starts up really fast.
It's not even like I'm bashing Apple for a bad port. iTunes for windows was ported really well, it follows (for the most part, except menus) the windows UI conventions and font rendering, so it feels more like a Windows app.
(By the way, I'm primarily a Mac user and use Safari regularly on the Mac)
Any serious word processor users (like technical writers, etc) that I've met that don't like Word, say so because they prefer WordPerfect, not because they prefer OpenOffice. OpenOffice Writer isn't even a twinkle in their eye.
And is there even a real alternative for Excel yet? Keynote is superior to Powerpoint. So where does OpenOffice really have a leg to stand on?
Sure it's a free Office suite. I think more people are clamoring for an alternative to MS Office, whether they have to pay or not. Less of a priority to them is the price tag. It's a definite BONUS, but not a critical priority.
While I'm a supporter of ODF, and open formats (and even OSS in general) I just don't see OOo as a viable alternative for most users, or as compelling an alternative as other OSS projects (languages, servers, frameworks) are.
If they're Mac users, I'd recommend iWork. If they're Windows users, I'd recommend Wordperfect or AbiWord.
I'll be the first to yell out at things like warrantless wiretapping, but believe it or not, even at NSA they use Windows and Linux/Unix on their hardware. It's in their best interest and the interest of their mission (as a consumer of said OSs) to make sure that those OSs are as secure as they can be. And some of the smartest security researchers on the planet work for NSA. So why not?
One of the NSA's growing missions is also to secure the electronic interests of the United States and its citizens. That includes doing anything they can to help secure the infrastructure of US interests. All our banks and national financial stability rely heavily on the security of computer systems. If they can't benefit from this added security, what's the point of securing a defense system if someone can hack into your federal bank system and make you lose billions?
So things like an overall more secure Solaris or Linux (or even Windows Vista) benefits everyone, including the electronic interests of the citizens of the USA, who the NSA also serves. Remember, they ARE a government agency (an occasionally evil one, though most of them do evil things every now and then.)
Someone always dies in the Foreword (or is it the Preface?). :)
A few months down the road I've managed to get everything (including SPDIF out, TV-out, WLAN, suspend to ram) working.
And that's the core of the problem. 99% of users don't care enough to spend a "few months" just to get digital sound and wireless access. I just bought a mac Mini, and I had my wireless and digital sound working right out of the box (it might not be a fair comparison driver-wise but it at least shows that Unix can be an excellent desktop OS). It's those 99% of users you are targeting when you go after the desktop market. When I got FC1, (I know it's been a while), it took me 8 hours to get my wireless card working and I learned 20 different things in the process. I didn't mind it, but most users shouldn't have to care about such things. And just based on that, I don't think i'd be able to recommend Linux to anyone non-geeky for a while. (I've used Ubuntu as recently as last year and was pretty impressed, but still is nowhere near where it has to be.)
I've had one harddrive completely die (replaced next day), but now I have bad sectors and htey won't help me because I'm running an unsupported OS.
And that is perfectly acceptable. Why should they have to waste their time diagnosing something unless they are absolutely 100% sure that some driver in some Linux distro that they don't know about could've caused your hard drive to overwork itself and get corrupted... (it's a possibility.) It would be unfair to other users who are running "supported" software. That's why you're a Linux geek, you are probably fine with spending 20 hours diagnosing hard drive sectors.
You could say that about public projects. You pay taxes for future projects, and you might have a say in that.
However, you paid Verizon for services that Verizon had already rendered. The contractual obligation they have, is to give you one month of ____ service (whatever it might be) in exchange for your payment. They provided the service, you provided the payment. After that, you can't say fuck-all about what they do with THEIR MONEY. It was your money before they gave you a service for which you handed your money over to them.
If you shoveled my walkway for snow, I paid you $20 for it, and you decided to go buy a videogame with that money, do I have any say in what game you should buy? I don't think so. Verizon earned that money. This isn't a tax you paid out of necessity.
The ONLY clout you have in this, is by transferring to another company.
Don't confuse government accountability for private accountability.
Since when are bigger breasts considered to be offensive? Kids aren't supposed to know that some women have larger breasts than others? Are we really corrupting a kid's mind when he sees a sexy woman (not naked, not scantily clothed, just busty) in a game?
You're kidding, right? If you think for a second that these animators aren't exceptional at what they do, you've got another thing coming. How can you even start to compare the detail level in an animated movie to something that's supposed to be realistic?
The point is that these movies (Shrek, Shrek 2, Monsters Inc) are modeled with the INTENTION to be cartoonish. Too much realism takes away from the fantasy aspect of it. Remember, they are still animated films. It'll be the same problem when games get too realistic. You want that escape, you want it to clearly be a fantasy world so you can enjoy it.
If shrek looked like a disgusting slimy ogre, then he wouldn't be as lovable. You're missing the point.
I think the greatest thing Pixar/PDI does is that they have the right combination fo actors, story, dialogue, and plot. It's not so much the animation, as the animation truly brings these already excellent things to life. What they're doing differently is that they're taking a new approach to animated movies, and targeting people of all ages, not just kids, which is why they're making buttloads of money now.
Whatchu talkin' about? They never found the new world intentionally to begin with - they got lost, remember? :)