I agree that successful eye candy can be productive like the genie effect and Expose on the Mac but Windows XP eye candy is counterproductive.
I don't know a single person that actually chooses the default XP theme. Most end users don't know how to change it and those that do, go to classic and turn off the effects because of system performance.
Back in the 80's when I had a VIC-20, I programmed music on that thing using a bunch of pokes and peeks. I remember in the back of the BASIC handbook, there was 'Pictures at an Exhibition' you could program the VIC to play and I thought that was pretty cool.
You could do simple Baroque pretty easy, sounded OK, like a Casio watch I used to have. I tried to do ragtime and boy did it suck. I hacked around to get syncopation just right and I ran out of memory.
Fast forward to the Atari ST, the ones with the MIDI ports built in, and that was a lot better but still lifeless. I captured myself playing 1 part of a duet on my MIDI keyboard, then played it back so I could play the second part along and it still seemed lifeless (at least to me).
I just love it when a midi player plays a piece of music note for note directly as it was written as sheet music with no interpretation because we all know that a whole note should always be played as 2 half notes.
You know, Yahoo has a toolbar for FF, there is/was the PRGooglebar for FF, now Google has officially released a toolbar for FF, MSN is really last again and I wonder if they'll release a tool for FF for search.
I also wonder if Google went ahead and did this to kind of force MS to support the competition.
I was 11 when the Christopher Reeve Superman movie came out.
There are 10 year olds who don't know the Michael Keaton Batman.
I remember seeing Terminator 2 in the theatre in 1991, the same year the babysitter that watches my kids was born. That's the same age difference between me and War of the Worlds (1953)
Madonna was 25 in 1983 (seems like yesterday for me). Jessica Simpson is 25 this year.
Scoot yourself and your cane over and we'll relish in memories of stories past.
Name another continental race that has influenced planetary agriculture with an abundance that we have today.
I'd like to say the Chinese but the fact is that Eurpoeans beat everybody as seen from a historical perspective.
The Europeans were the first to have a global map. The Europeans were the first to have global colonies. The Europeans tamed the mighty continent of Africa in terms of agriculture (and had to give it back to the warlords only to be put back in poverty) The Europeans came to and populated most of America and that culture is what got us to the moon.
What was wrong with Windows 2000 search? Windows XP search sucks and the interface is highly clunky. Not to mention that it doesn't work at all either.
If I search a folder for text that reads `id=container` in *.html files in Win2K, I get relevant results. If I do the same in XP, I get nothing and a crappy wizard I'm forced to use every single time.
You know, alot of people really don't understand that either. MSN TV (formerly Web TV) is yet another losing entity. All it does is keep the Microsoft name out there and MS considers it a marketing expense at the end of the day.
Having mindshare is far more desirable than not having marketshare and they understand that.
And I also liked/grew up with the following (not anime though)
Robocon the house robot afraid of cockroaches. He had lots of robot friends.
Go 5 - precursor to what the Power Rangers came to be. Kamen Rider - was remade in the states in the 90's with a kid. This was about yet another motorcycle riding hero with a secret identity. This hero was a grasshopper.
My point is 'geek appeal' which implies the hobbyist in us. I'm not arguring that PAID developers using Microsoft tools are not using their tools anymore. That's stupid.
Developers using MS Tools will continue to do what feeds them. I doubt that a large percentage of those developers will develop software in their spare time.
Pre Win to Win98 days. Explosion of shareware and home brew projects. X10 is a success story from home brew kits. Ever read the Bill Gates Open Letter? Not related to Windows but Windows did have geek appeal
... Windows programming for fun? At any point in the time-line?...
Name the alternative that was free to program on in 1989-1996 era that had a considerable market share. Didn't think so. MS has it's position today because of giving away free developer tools then
Microsoft has lost geek appeal. They'll never regain that crown with all the DRM, activation, and expiration dates now infested within their OS.
Someone who buys the Intel microscope to use with Windows isn't a geek, they're a consumer. Someone who builds a robot and an interface to go with it is a geek and they're not using XP like the days they were using Dos, Win3.1, and Win95.
Microsoft may have been smart by playing to dumb masses but us nerds just don't like Microsoft anymore. We want something to work and not have to reinstall because we switch motherboard.
I can tell you that 15 year olds today only use Microsoft to play games or pirate, not as a development platform like the 15 year olds a generation ago.
Not just that but the just compensation from the local cases I've been monitoring for a few years aren't fair market value either.
It's sad that this had to get to the Supreme Court. It shows how corrupt and shameful local politicians are. I honestly don't see how a politician can sleep at night making a decision that will take private property away from a loyal citizen.
True story in Atlanta:
Mayor Bill Campbell had a party at his house and had police officers on guard in the driveway.
A car driven by a friend of his son was found to be stolen after the officers did a tag check. The officers arrested the boy and the mayor stopped it. The boy did steal the car however and the mayor told the officers to not do tag checks in his driveway.
Another corrupt politician story that irks me is Bill Daley in Chicago that closed Miegs in the middle of the night and had bulldozers tear up the runway. Although Meigs takes smaller aircraft, it took a considerable abount of business traffic that is now congesting O'Hare and Midway
Slashdot Mirror
The Sony Picturebooks used to have them I'm not sure if they still do. I think the Fuji clones did too.
I agree that successful eye candy can be productive like the genie effect and Expose on the Mac but
Windows XP eye candy is counterproductive.
I don't know a single person that actually chooses the default XP theme. Most end users don't know how to change it and those that do, go to classic and turn off the effects because of system performance.
In 4/4 time, a whole note is 4 beats, a half note is 2 beats, a quarter note is 1 beat, and so on.
The staccato is an interpreted shortening of the note meant to have no sustain or decay, just the attack and the release.
Back in the 80's when I had a VIC-20, I programmed music on that thing using a bunch of pokes and peeks. I remember in the back of the BASIC handbook, there was 'Pictures at an Exhibition' you could program the VIC to play and I thought that was pretty cool.
You could do simple Baroque pretty easy, sounded OK, like a Casio watch I used to have. I tried to do ragtime and boy did it suck. I hacked around to get syncopation just right and I ran out of memory.
Fast forward to the Atari ST, the ones with the MIDI ports built in, and that was a lot better but still lifeless. I captured myself playing 1 part of a duet on my MIDI keyboard, then played it back so I could play the second part along and it still seemed lifeless (at least to me).
You just can't replace live, intrepreted music.
Machines always sound better than humans anyway.
I just love it when a midi player plays a piece of music note for note directly as it was written as sheet music with no interpretation because we all know that a whole note should always be played as 2 half notes.
You know,
Yahoo has a toolbar for FF,
there is/was the PRGooglebar for FF,
now Google has officially released a toolbar for FF,
MSN is really last again and I wonder if they'll release a tool for FF for search.
I also wonder if Google went ahead and did this to kind of force MS to support the competition.
Opera 8 is an extremely nice browser. For those of you who may have dabbled in it before version 8, I urge you to try it again.
Safari is really nice too but that Mac DNS cache thing is really slow.
Firefox is consistent across all OS's (Opera too) but the main reason I use FF is the extensions.
Joe Sixpack doesn't know how to configure IE nor does he care to.
As a former Windows user, I never, ever had a virus program installed because I know better and I never got a virus.
IE out of the box is very insecure and mistyped URL's are extremely annoying because of MSN search default.
It's far easier to download Firefox than configure IE not to mention better standards compliancy. PNG support is very annoying.
Can IE view this page? http://sylvana.net/test/AP4.jpg
I guess we should just do whatever the most agressive group of people wants us to do.
We should just give up the space program, veil our women, and start to live in the dark ages.
I was 11 when the Christopher Reeve Superman movie came out.
There are 10 year olds who don't know the Michael Keaton Batman.
I remember seeing Terminator 2 in the theatre in 1991, the same year the babysitter that watches my kids was born. That's the same age difference between me and War of the Worlds (1953)
Madonna was 25 in 1983 (seems like yesterday for me). Jessica Simpson is 25 this year.
Scoot yourself and your cane over and we'll relish in memories of stories past.
You sure it's not one of these http://www.thegreenhead.com/cool-stuff/2004/07/han -solo-frozen-in-carbonite-prop_16.php/
I also seem to remember coffeetables being made with it.
You can have a run of 10,000 PCB's.
The next 10,000 you cut a trace.
The next 10,000 you stamp a Compaq logo on it
etc...
Manufacturing is a cheap process when you're not doingg a 1-up. Same with printing
...and I'm glad I know how to use it over the electronic versions.
Name another continental race that has influenced planetary agriculture with an abundance that we have today.
I'd like to say the Chinese but the fact is that Eurpoeans beat everybody as seen from a historical perspective.
The Europeans were the first to have a global map.
The Europeans were the first to have global colonies.
The Europeans tamed the mighty continent of Africa in terms of agriculture (and had to give it back to the warlords only to be put back in poverty)
The Europeans came to and populated most of America and that culture is what got us to the moon.
What was wrong with Windows 2000 search?
Windows XP search sucks and the interface is highly clunky. Not to mention that it doesn't work at all either.
If I search a folder for text that reads `id=container` in *.html files in Win2K, I get relevant results.
If I do the same in XP, I get nothing and a crappy wizard I'm forced to use every single time.
You know you can drink goat milk too. It tastes alot better than that Lactaid mess and you can cook with it too.
http://www.meyenberg.com/
You know, alot of people really don't understand that either. MSN TV (formerly Web TV) is yet another losing entity. All it does is keep the Microsoft name out there and MS considers it a marketing expense at the end of the day.
Having mindshare is far more desirable than not having marketshare and they understand that.
Eclipse with PHPEclipse Plugin.
Invaluable and the CVS integration makes it even better.
I run it on (seriously) on Windows (Work), Linux (Home), Mac (Laptop) and don't skip a beat.
Doraemon rocks.
And I also liked/grew up with the following (not anime though)
Robocon the house robot afraid of cockroaches. He had lots of robot friends.
Go 5 - precursor to what the Power Rangers came to be.
Kamen Rider - was remade in the states in the 90's with a kid. This was about yet another motorcycle riding hero with a secret identity. This hero was a grasshopper.
He didn't say he was going to blow up children and innocent civilians.
My point is 'geek appeal' which implies the hobbyist in us. I'm not arguring that PAID developers using Microsoft tools are not using their tools anymore. That's stupid.
Developers using MS Tools will continue to do what feeds them. I doubt that a large percentage of those developers will develop software in their spare time.
Check 'Return of the Jedi' the scene where Luke surrenders to Vader.
Pre Win to Win98 days. Explosion of shareware and home brew projects. X10 is a success story from home brew kits. Ever read the Bill Gates Open Letter?
Not related to Windows but Windows did have geek appeal
Name the alternative that was free to program on in 1989-1996 era that had a considerable market share. Didn't think so. MS has it's position today because of giving away free developer tools then
Microsoft has lost geek appeal. They'll never regain that crown with all the DRM, activation, and expiration dates now infested within their OS.
Someone who buys the Intel microscope to use with Windows isn't a geek, they're a consumer. Someone who builds a robot and an interface to go with it is a geek and they're not using XP like the days they were using Dos, Win3.1, and Win95.
Microsoft may have been smart by playing to dumb masses but us nerds just don't like Microsoft anymore. We want something to work and not have to reinstall because we switch motherboard.
I can tell you that 15 year olds today only use Microsoft to play games or pirate, not as a development platform like the 15 year olds a generation ago.
It's sad that this had to get to the Supreme Court.
It shows how corrupt and shameful local politicians are. I honestly don't see how a politician can sleep at night making a decision that will take private property away from a loyal citizen.
True story in Atlanta:
Mayor Bill Campbell had a party at his house and had police officers on guard in the driveway.
A car driven by a friend of his son was found to be stolen after the officers did a tag check. The officers arrested the boy and the mayor stopped it. The boy did steal the car however and the mayor told the officers to not do tag checks in his driveway.
Another corrupt politician story that irks me is Bill Daley in Chicago that closed Miegs in the middle of the night and had bulldozers tear up the runway. Although Meigs takes smaller aircraft, it took a considerable abount of business traffic that is now congesting O'Hare and Midway