Would everyone who writes their prediction about whether blogs will die just write in the same comment whether they said Apple will never switch to Intel CPUs?
Actually, I'd like a truth meter about all posters so I can read only the +25 insightful. I think this will keep Slashdot professional.
A few usability gripes...
on
Advocating Dvorak
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
As a typist at 70-90 wpm on QWERTY keyboards, I find some inherant flaws just looking at the keyboard layout:
Using the semicolon is very common for programming C, C++, C#, Java, PERL, etc. and it's placed on the bottom row in arguably the most out-of-the-way location (where the 'z' is located on the QWERTY keyboard).
I have a major gripe with separating important puncuation, so that semi-colon at bottom left and period and comma at top left seem like a horrible design.
I disagree that it is easier to type alternating hands each time. There are some combinations like "der" and "ead" that are all on the same hand but can be typed much faster once you gain some experience than if separately.
For me, having the 'e' correspond to my middle finger on my left hand seems like a very poor choice since it is most commonly pressed. I'd say assigning the 'e' to the pointer finger on either hand would make much more sense.
putting the forward slash very near the back slash (both on upper right) can cause a lot of confusion, even to those who use the keyboard frequently...
So I say stick to the QWERTY, but get a gel wrist rest or elevate your arms to the height of the keyboard and you should be fine. Also, bring a stress ball and exercise your hand sometimes with it as well...
Well, I just graduated from a NYC metro college, and our Summer Session I (summer courses) started May 15. Most have already made plans for the summer, I think because it's pretty much started for a lot of people. Something within Mono would sound interesting to me, because I'm into C#.NET and stuff like that...
Wifi turned off on weekends is good because gamers and casual users won't be endlessly taking up space. Furthermore, it's all about the atmosphere that distinguishes the better coffee houses from regular ones...and Wifi hurts rather than helps that atmosphere in most cases.
Do you hear the mantra? "Google is the first provider to do it right." Well, here are two things Microsoft Streets and Trips 2002 got right and Google still has to fix/add:
a) Bad directions - I've been burned by following their incorrect directions while I've been generally successful for quite some time with Microsoft Streets & Trips and MapPoint
b) Horrible print support for map indicating directions - again, just about any other map service has THIS working.
c) Construction data - If you have the data available, add it to the map! Streets and Trips has had this feature since at least Streets & Trips 02.
I love using Google and all, but (a) they are not innovators per se but creative and (b) they don't have the corner or "doing it right"
I've just heard this great song about Sarcasm and I'd be happy to pay $.99 to find out the name and another $.99 to download it. I really don't trust Google to find the song based on the lyrics...
A few problems with your theory:
a) I work for a large fiancial company and I personally receive no spam on the corporate account. Then again, I also don't give it out to people...
b) Dealing with (and storing) spam is much easier considering that any false positives could be very important emails and because space is cheap. On the other hand, hiring lobbyists is less productive...
One interesting thing - I also checked out the freenet site (after holding down the Escape key for 20 seconds).
One interesting link:
The Cleanex Experiment
Link updated 2 days ago
A utility for removing child porn from your datastore.
The article reads like a blog and the author seems to rant a bit. The annecdotal evidence really doesn't help to make any point. Evidently, the author of the article clearly didn't learn anything about DOS programs.
Also, someone has posted that there are more DOS programs than Windows programs. That has no relevance to whether DOS or Windows was more accepted by developers. Since a very high percentage of anything Linux/UNIX related can be retrofited to run on my Windows box, as well as some very professional Windows programs (Photoshop is just one such), and quantity != quality, I really think Windows was a much bigger success.
You see, people complain about copied ideas in the commercial space (like DOS, which in fact copied certain elements to be compatible with the more predominant OS and simplified others), while the same people are often cheering on the EFF. OK, now, copyright law is quite stringent about ideas (and trademarks, etc.) and the people who complained about theft of ideas in the 70s-90s still complain about lack of freedom.
Many teachers are technologically backward (by choice or because they don't have the time) and thus some very basic things that the kids can do are very difficult from them to handle. It's one thing saying to give the kid a Linux box and high-speed internet and quite another to tell someone from his parents' or grandparents' generation.
And all those (generally) useless educational games are basically solely for Windows (or Mac).
It's an inherent problem when you have big companies (like Apple) who grab the GPLed code and drop the occasional updates (complete with proprietary API calls, and other useless crap) back onto the original developers.
Apple obviously wants their Safari to have an edge, so they have little interest in actually helping the KDE developers. So, it's greed vs. GPL, and greed wins...
Am I the only one who expects this to happen? Which is why many communal societies can so break down...greed (and laziness). So, when you get large companies using your GPL source, I'd call it a Pyrrhic victory.
I love Garageband even though I'm not a Mac user based on the sheer simplicity of making music with it. Apple's laptops are very nice looking, and thin and light-weight. Now, I play the piano/keyboard, and my dream is if I could actually play a virtual, touch-sensitive keyboard right on the touch screen. And if it is saved in Garageband, I'm in right now!
In answer to the question, "What operating system do you prefer?", BC said:
"I hate dealing with computers in general, so I'm typically OS-agnostic, I've most recently been abused by a windows machine, so I hate that the most for the moment."
This is very interesting indeed, and I can identify sometimes - even though I'm totally immersed as programmer, etc. People are just so much more interesting...
I skimmed the 8-page article. Basically, the gist is that all the major pieces were in place for innovation very early on thanks to some early visionaries. Xerox created a great environment where substantial GUI innovation took place. After Smalltalk (amazing in it's own right), Apple's Lisa included former Xerox and other developments and innovated quite a bit. Shortly thereafter Apple's NeXTstep, other competitors like Microsoft (Windows 1.0) added their smaller enhancements. Windows 95 has been credited for the Task Manager GUI and Start Menu (very integral to future Windows versions). OS X had a few minor enhancements, especially Expose. It seemed to the author that everyone's settling toward the "sweet spot" of user experience in 2D, and 3D seems unlikely. I'd personally say...anything is possible - if Avalon's push toward 3D development flops, then Longhorn could be dead in the water for the average user.
Now if we could only implement a policy so that hackers only operate during normal business hours. Also, it would be helpful if they stick to Eastern Daylight time, rather than Russia Standard Time or whatever.
Well, 3M did come out with the Super Sticky Post-its, which "Stick to vertical and hard-to-stick surfaces" and "Stick to computer monitors, walls, dashboards, corrugate boxes" according to 3M.
to install this Webaccelerator thing because there is a fairly slight chance I will be able to post on Slashdot as CmdrTaco. Hmm...still not working...
Of course, it's clones exist (like Konfabulator) and I liked...approximately 1 widget. It turned out to be a huge waste of memory to run just so I could get a floatable ToDo list. Please would someone actually mention why Expose is actually useful? No marketing hype, I've skim the Apple PR site...
I'll try to install, but a plug-in to IE is disappointing. Maybe an Explorer plug-in/add-in, but I don't use IE anymore frankly, so that plug-in will be really useful...
Furthermore, one good thing to remember is that when Windows XP (or similar) is counterfeit, chances are the automatic updates will only partially work (or not at all). So, chances are every illegitimate XP box is simply a bot for some Eastern European botnet. Give them the real XP (with SP2), and it is a great potential way to shut down quite a few bots.
That and the fact that people will be reinstalling Windows and hopefully getting rid of the spyware that's likely firmly embedded on their machine at the moment...
I'd personally ask a Google employee where the future of databases is heading. The Google FS really shows where databases are moving...
I give Gray a lot of respect in most cases because he's a really smart guy. But the math and computationally-intensive parts should be focused in the probabilistic searches.
In one sense, though, Gray is quite right. And this is the direction of speech recognition. I might add that the Speech Server beta out by Microsoft is quite good...even at this stage.
Sorry about the excessive bold text - my end tag was messed up and I neglected to preview first. Please shoot me repeatedly...while yelling or not yelling "Microsoft sucks!"
Mod parent up bigtime! Some very big advocates of OSS (like IBM and others) have some very mercenary interests in mind rather than goodwill to the community that causes their overall change in focus. And as mentioned, Solaris is very similar - you buy Solaris, and they'll hook you up.
Just take off the rose-colored classes and look around. Take Apple. So, they use and contribute to the OSS community which they *must* do legally to keep from hypocrisy and lawsuits. Do their changes to Safari really help KHTML on OSS platforms become used more often? Or do they benefit Safari users predominantly. And Apple has for a long time combined hw/sw together and not ever thought of allowing SW on x86 even though it is everywhere. Is it lock-in or protection of their brand and reputation? Depends on your perspective...
Google sees it's search engine as a service, so that being viewed as "good" by a vast majority of people and people flock to their PageRank because I (and others) as a consumer find the ads tasteful and often useful. Then, there's trust so that once people see them as "doing no evil", they can have more data mining of user information and TrustRank(TM)...and rake in the $$$.
Microsoft also treats its customers pretty well lately (especially for its size) - take Channel 9. Also, a personal anecdote: I emailed Rob Relyea, a Lead Program Manager on the Avalon Team recently about having a competition where any of us could design components/mock-ups that end up as the new Longhorn UI! Prizes (Pocket PC, Tablet, XBox, or other) could go to the winner(s) and customers would get a very user-centric UI from people who are UI experts and using some awesome Microsoft technology. Instead of ignoring my email (I'm just a college student from a no-name school), he emailed back and said he passed on my idea to another program manager on the team and said, "Engaging with designers is critical for us. Thanks!"
I think OSS has its place, and I give massive kudos to those who design OSS solutions. I definitely have an interest in doing so myself, provided I find some time. However, major players are not going to stop paying THEIR developers to write their proprietary code (Google's 20% rule goes back into Google's coffers for instance) and chances are there will always be a "catch" when they adopt OSS. But if it's worth the money, why does it have to be EVIL because a company's not totally pushing FOSS? And a fragmentation of the OSS OSes, while being a great aspect of OSS, can be a real (or perceived) negative for PHBs and how they view OSS as a whole.
Slashdot Mirror
Would everyone who writes their prediction about whether blogs will die just write in the same comment whether they said Apple will never switch to Intel CPUs?
Actually, I'd like a truth meter about all posters so I can read only the +25 insightful. I think this will keep Slashdot professional.
- Using the semicolon is very common for programming C, C++, C#, Java, PERL, etc. and it's placed on the bottom row in arguably the most out-of-the-way location (where the 'z' is located on the QWERTY keyboard).
- I have a major gripe with separating important puncuation, so that semi-colon at bottom left and period and comma at top left seem like a horrible design.
- I disagree that it is easier to type alternating hands each time. There are some combinations like "der" and "ead" that are all on the same hand but can be typed much faster once you gain some experience than if separately.
- For me, having the 'e' correspond to my middle finger on my left hand seems like a very poor choice since it is most commonly pressed. I'd say assigning the 'e' to the pointer finger on either hand would make much more sense.
- putting the forward slash very near the back slash (both on upper right) can cause a lot of confusion, even to those who use the keyboard frequently...
So I say stick to the QWERTY, but get a gel wrist rest or elevate your arms to the height of the keyboard and you should be fine. Also, bring a stress ball and exercise your hand sometimes with it as well...Well, I just graduated from a NYC metro college, and our Summer Session I (summer courses) started May 15. Most have already made plans for the summer, I think because it's pretty much started for a lot of people. Something within Mono would sound interesting to me, because I'm into C#.NET and stuff like that...
Wifi turned off on weekends is good because gamers and casual users won't be endlessly taking up space. Furthermore, it's all about the atmosphere that distinguishes the better coffee houses from regular ones...and Wifi hurts rather than helps that atmosphere in most cases.
Do you hear the mantra? "Google is the first provider to do it right." Well, here are two things Microsoft Streets and Trips 2002 got right and Google still has to fix/add:
a) Bad directions - I've been burned by following their incorrect directions while I've been generally successful for quite some time with Microsoft Streets & Trips and MapPoint
b) Horrible print support for map indicating directions - again, just about any other map service has THIS working.
c) Construction data - If you have the data available, add it to the map! Streets and Trips has had this feature since at least Streets & Trips 02.
I love using Google and all, but (a) they are not innovators per se but creative and (b) they don't have the corner or "doing it right"
I've just heard this great song about Sarcasm and I'd be happy to pay $.99 to find out the name and another $.99 to download it. I really don't trust Google to find the song based on the lyrics...
A few problems with your theory:
a) I work for a large fiancial company and I personally receive no spam on the corporate account. Then again, I also don't give it out to people...
b) Dealing with (and storing) spam is much easier considering that any false positives could be very important emails and because space is cheap. On the other hand, hiring lobbyists is less productive...
One interesting thing - I also checked out the freenet site (after holding down the Escape key for 20 seconds).
One interesting link:
The Cleanex Experiment
Link updated 2 days ago
A utility for removing child porn from your datastore.
Interesting...
The article reads like a blog and the author seems to rant a bit. The annecdotal evidence really doesn't help to make any point. Evidently, the author of the article clearly didn't learn anything about DOS programs.
Also, someone has posted that there are more DOS programs than Windows programs. That has no relevance to whether DOS or Windows was more accepted by developers. Since a very high percentage of anything Linux/UNIX related can be retrofited to run on my Windows box, as well as some very professional Windows programs (Photoshop is just one such), and quantity != quality, I really think Windows was a much bigger success.
You see, people complain about copied ideas in the commercial space (like DOS, which in fact copied certain elements to be compatible with the more predominant OS and simplified others), while the same people are often cheering on the EFF. OK, now, copyright law is quite stringent about ideas (and trademarks, etc.) and the people who complained about theft of ideas in the 70s-90s still complain about lack of freedom.
Many teachers are technologically backward (by choice or because they don't have the time) and thus some very basic things that the kids can do are very difficult from them to handle. It's one thing saying to give the kid a Linux box and high-speed internet and quite another to tell someone from his parents' or grandparents' generation.
And all those (generally) useless educational games are basically solely for Windows (or Mac).
It's an inherent problem when you have big companies (like Apple) who grab the GPLed code and drop the occasional updates (complete with proprietary API calls, and other useless crap) back onto the original developers.
Apple obviously wants their Safari to have an edge, so they have little interest in actually helping the KDE developers. So, it's greed vs. GPL, and greed wins...
Am I the only one who expects this to happen? Which is why many communal societies can so break down...greed (and laziness). So, when you get large companies using your GPL source, I'd call it a Pyrrhic victory.
I love Garageband even though I'm not a Mac user based on the sheer simplicity of making music with it. Apple's laptops are very nice looking, and thin and light-weight. Now, I play the piano/keyboard, and my dream is if I could actually play a virtual, touch-sensitive keyboard right on the touch screen. And if it is saved in Garageband, I'm in right now!
In answer to the question, "What operating system do you prefer?", BC said:
"I hate dealing with computers in general, so I'm typically OS-agnostic, I've most recently been abused by a windows machine, so I hate that the most for the moment."
This is very interesting indeed, and I can identify sometimes - even though I'm totally immersed as programmer, etc. People are just so much more interesting...
I skimmed the 8-page article. Basically, the gist is that all the major pieces were in place for innovation very early on thanks to some early visionaries. Xerox created a great environment where substantial GUI innovation took place. After Smalltalk (amazing in it's own right), Apple's Lisa included former Xerox and other developments and innovated quite a bit. Shortly thereafter Apple's NeXTstep, other competitors like Microsoft (Windows 1.0) added their smaller enhancements. Windows 95 has been credited for the Task Manager GUI and Start Menu (very integral to future Windows versions). OS X had a few minor enhancements, especially Expose. It seemed to the author that everyone's settling toward the "sweet spot" of user experience in 2D, and 3D seems unlikely. I'd personally say...anything is possible - if Avalon's push toward 3D development flops, then Longhorn could be dead in the water for the average user.
Now if we could only implement a policy so that hackers only operate during normal business hours. Also, it would be helpful if they stick to Eastern Daylight time, rather than Russia Standard Time or whatever.
Well, 3M did come out with the Super Sticky Post-its, which "Stick to vertical and hard-to-stick surfaces" and "Stick to computer monitors, walls, dashboards, corrugate boxes" according to 3M.
to install this Webaccelerator thing because there is a fairly slight chance I will be able to post on Slashdot as CmdrTaco. Hmm...still not working...
Of course, it's clones exist (like Konfabulator) and I liked...approximately 1 widget. It turned out to be a huge waste of memory to run just so I could get a floatable ToDo list. Please would someone actually mention why Expose is actually useful? No marketing hype, I've skim the Apple PR site...
I'll try to install, but a plug-in to IE is disappointing. Maybe an Explorer plug-in/add-in, but I don't use IE anymore frankly, so that plug-in will be really useful...
I'd hack it, but really would I get an Xbox? I'd much rather get an iPod mini for the effort. :)
Furthermore, one good thing to remember is that when Windows XP (or similar) is counterfeit, chances are the automatic updates will only partially work (or not at all). So, chances are every illegitimate XP box is simply a bot for some Eastern European botnet. Give them the real XP (with SP2), and it is a great potential way to shut down quite a few bots.
That and the fact that people will be reinstalling Windows and hopefully getting rid of the spyware that's likely firmly embedded on their machine at the moment...
Slashdot note:
...so it continues to be marketing-speak vs. real-world experience.
Todd Dailey works at Apple as a pre-sales server and storage technical contact in the sales group...(info from here).
I'd personally ask a Google employee where the future of databases is heading. The Google FS really shows where databases are moving...
I give Gray a lot of respect in most cases because he's a really smart guy. But the math and computationally-intensive parts should be focused in the probabilistic searches.
In one sense, though, Gray is quite right. And this is the direction of speech recognition. I might add that the Speech Server beta out by Microsoft is quite good...even at this stage.
1) Fund Open Office
2) Fund Red Hat
Shouldn't that kill 'em?
Sorry about the excessive bold text - my end tag was messed up and I neglected to preview first. Please shoot me repeatedly...while yelling or not yelling "Microsoft sucks!"
Mod parent up bigtime! Some very big advocates of OSS (like IBM and others) have some very mercenary interests in mind rather than goodwill to the community that causes their overall change in focus. And as mentioned, Solaris is very similar - you buy Solaris, and they'll hook you up.
Just take off the rose-colored classes and look around. Take Apple. So, they use and contribute to the OSS community which they *must* do legally to keep from hypocrisy and lawsuits. Do their changes to Safari really help KHTML on OSS platforms become used more often? Or do they benefit Safari users predominantly. And Apple has for a long time combined hw/sw together and not ever thought of allowing SW on x86 even though it is everywhere. Is it lock-in or protection of their brand and reputation? Depends on your perspective...
Google sees it's search engine as a service, so that being viewed as "good" by a vast majority of people and people flock to their PageRank because I (and others) as a consumer find the ads tasteful and often useful. Then, there's trust so that once people see them as "doing no evil", they can have more data mining of user information and TrustRank(TM)...and rake in the $$$.
Microsoft also treats its customers pretty well lately (especially for its size) - take Channel 9. Also, a personal anecdote: I emailed Rob Relyea, a Lead Program Manager on the Avalon Team recently about having a competition where any of us could design components/mock-ups that end up as the new Longhorn UI! Prizes (Pocket PC, Tablet, XBox, or other) could go to the winner(s) and customers would get a very user-centric UI from people who are UI experts and using some awesome Microsoft technology. Instead of ignoring my email (I'm just a college student from a no-name school), he emailed back and said he passed on my idea to another program manager on the team and said, "Engaging with designers is critical for us. Thanks!"
I think OSS has its place, and I give massive kudos to those who design OSS solutions. I definitely have an interest in doing so myself, provided I find some time. However, major players are not going to stop paying THEIR developers to write their proprietary code (Google's 20% rule goes back into Google's coffers for instance) and chances are there will always be a "catch" when they adopt OSS. But if it's worth the money, why does it have to be EVIL because a company's not totally pushing FOSS? And a fragmentation of the OSS OSes, while being a great aspect of OSS, can be a real (or perceived) negative for PHBs and how they view OSS as a whole.