Has anyone tried making something like a MSDN library for Linux? This is one of the things that is really nice about programming for Windows (esp. when developing using a pay per minute internet connection). Having everything in one place (including journal articals) makes finding obscure information so much easier.
How to be good at nano tech
on
Nano Logo
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· Score: 1
Does this mean that to be good at nano tech the organization you work for needs to have a very simple (or maybe a very complex) logo. Just think of all those great scientist who work for companies with photographs or similar for logos - looks like they will have to wait a while for the right technology to come along.
I think Linux could do with something like Microsoft's MSDN or Knowledge base CDs. Althought there are a few good web sites around that give this kind of information they are not as convenent as having the whole lot on a CD. I would see this a something that could be mass produced and dropped in the box with any distribution. By using (HT/X)ML and a Java search engine (like some of the books on CD) it sould be easy to find information quikly. In the Microsoft world, CDs like this have made a lot of tasks easier and the same could be applied to Linux.
This discussion appears (to me) to be assuming there is a user interface that will suit everybody - it is just that it has not been found yet. If you think about it, this might not be the case.
I would guess most people using this are happy with the concept of windows (the ones you drag with a mouse, not the OS). As part of a UI they can be very helpful but a lot of new users (and others) just don't get the concept (or do not want to). For many people life would be better off without windows (not the OS!) - but for someone who knows what they are doing, removing this feature would drive them mad. Having an on/off switch would be even worse - few people would even see the benefit of a windowed UI, even as their experience grows.
If you are using a web browser (as a knowledgeable user) I would guess you want the scroll bar to take up as little space as possible (to give more space to the page you are looking at). This is because for someone with experience of scrolling, a scrollbar is a dull bit of the user interface that you can be used as a tool. For someone with less computing experience, nine out of ten times, they are going to need a lot more visual clues to know where to look and what does what. In fact, using Windows as an example of a reasonably good user interface, how many users work out all the things the scroll bar will do to make their life easier for instance holding the arrow down (for fast scrolling), clicking in the dipped area (for jumping up and down pages) or dragging the 'thumb' (to move freely in a document). In a perfect world, a UI would provide enough clues for the user to be able to find out all of these for them self's in there own time (without getting in the way - remember the paperclip of Office).
My preferred solution would be to find someone with no experience of computers and ask them how they should work - this might get some great ideas. Unfortunately this would be very hard to do properly. So my second (pie in the sky) solution would be to develop a user interface from scratch that uses as few concepts as possible. I would start by picking at most five very good, strong UI concepts, for instance, a 3D environment, a mouse pointer and the use of one mouse button. I would then go on to their fullest extent. In a system like this the learning curve should be shallow and the total amount a user would have to work at learning would be minimal. The most important thing to remember is that the user interfaces of today are a long way from perfect.
Sorry if this post goes on a bit - I have a lot of ideas about UI design but very few of them are that well formed (guess I have been corrupted by the UIs that I am use to).
What use is a Red Hat (or any other OS CD) to a school. Most teachers are not technical and do not have the time to play with new technologies. A nice new Red Hat CD will just go in the cupboard along with the pile of other useless crap schools tend to gather over time.
I have nothing against Red Hat / Linux (in fact it is my prefered distribution) but I really do not think many schools will benifit from it (there will be one or two that will do amazing stuff and that will be all).
Maybe if someone was to go and find out what teachers need they could come up with something much better. A lot of educational software is very poor so even basic stuff could improve things a lot. Some simple games (eg number puzzles) could be put together in TCL very quickly along with a some scripts to run a Linux distribution in a way that is far more suited to schools. Along with the stuff that almost everyone likes (like easy to setup hardware) schools have other requirments, like slimed down user interfaces (RM, a big UK PC supply sell a version of MS Word that runs a template to cut out all but five or six icons).
I know all this can be done with Linux, but I don't think most schools have the time or energy. This could be a big area for someone who wants to develop a custom version of Red Hat (email me!).
It looks like Red Hat want the same type of think for Linux as the BBC Micro but I do not think they realise how much times have changed. (sorry if their are a few grammer/spelling errors, I wrote this very quickly).
CD Universe has successfully processed over one hundred thousand credit-card transactions, without a single credit card number being compromised. In February 1997 we were named one of the 10 best commerce sites in the world by PC Week magazine.
What most people don't realize is that shopping with your credit card is actually safer than paying by check. In the event that there is a problem with your purchase, the credit card company will remove the purchase from your bill and the on-line merchant is not paid. In the event that your credit card number is stolen, the credit card companies do not hold you responsible for any unauthorized purchases.
So go ahead and join the six million other people that are experiencing the pleasure of on-line shopping.
So thats OK then! (well, I found it amusing anyway)
Why Linux? If this box is just a web browser why does it use Linux (and does it matter). For a one purpose box (ie to get pages from a web server etc) is Linux really the right OS?
I have nothing against Linux (in fact the oposite) but I do wonder if this is just a case of jumping on the bandwagon.
Sorry if I did not make it clear (in fact very little in my first post was clear). I was thinking more of the general issue (ie just imagine the site did end.com). I am sure there are similar examples in.com land but the site I linked to made my point particulaly well (the site is worth a look).
Do you think Slashdot (or any other large web site) could become totally automated/run by its users?/. goes a long way with all the moderation etc but what about moderation for stories and the like?
An example of a (possible not so good) system whould be when a user's karma gets to a certain level they could be given some admin rights (maybe to post one story).
I am not sure this is what/. needs, but I am looking at this more from the open sorce / freedom side? In short...could it work?
One part of the slash generated code that annoys me is the mass of nested tables. From memory and without that much testing (sorry) Netscape (and a lot of other browsers) can only render tables when they have the whole table. This means that on a slow link, a page which is made of one very big table will not render until all the data is present taking a long time (esp. bad if the connection drops after 400kb has downloaded).
Slash appers to generate very big, very nested tables (from memory). If top level posts like the one above this (PID=27) where in a top level table Netscape (and a lot of other browsers) whould be able to start rendering a lot sooner (ie top level post, followed by next top level post, instead of header...long wait....the rest).
Just my long rabling thoughts...(hope some of that made sence!)
How whould http://www.toys-r-us.co.uk do under these rules? This has to be one of the best examples of very similar domanin names - it is polite, to the point and is useful. I would not like to see the people running this site changed.
Who ever gets this award does not deserve it. If they are a unsung hero and then the get sung (by getting the award) then they are a sung hero. Why on earth would you give the award for the best unsung hero to a sung hero?
A possible down side to binary video drivers is more closed source stuff. This could be good in that it gives vendors a way to have their kit supported in a way that they are more comfotable with (and therefore quicker development) but it might not help everyone else.
Kernel traffic / the linux kernel mailing list makes some intresting points about binary drivers.
From my point of view, binary == good as we get drivers quicker but if the driver as a anoying flaw there is very little that can be done about it (with out reinventing the wheel).
The only thing I do not like about year versions is when the marketing department get hold of it and the more important details get hidden. For instance, it should be possible to tell the excat version of Win98 from the install disks, a working (or broken system) and from the box -- with minimal effort.
When I have done tech support work I find that getting the 'real' version number of some (often Microsoft) products takes longer than it should.
Apart from that minor problem I don't realy care what numbering system people use as long as it is simple and there is only one number per product -- having two numbers for a program is bad (eg Office 95/7 and Office 97/8).
Can this 'Christmas' thing be Beowulfed? What would the performance benefits be. Has anyone patented it yet (they could be on to a gold mine!). Finally, is there an open source version of 'Christmas', I hear the Microsoft version has some odd bugs in it.
I propose the final solution to domain name problems. Lets let more that one person use a domain name. This way, when I go to slashdot.org there will be say, one in five chance of getting the site I want. At other times I might get the home page of the Punctuation Society or the maybe the homepage of someone who miss-read the registration form.
The next stage of the plan would be to add one to all IP address every Tuesday to make things more fair...
You've got to feel sorry for poor little Microsoft with all these people makeing fun of them just because they tried to take over the world (earth is hardly a big planet anyway).
:-)
This message is pointless...and it is wasting space in your computers memory
Microsoft could end up looking very silly if they tried to enforce this. I don't think it would be a good idea for any software company to go to cort to argue about how good their software is.
Slashdot Mirror
Has anyone tried making something like a MSDN library for Linux? This is one of the things that is really nice about programming for Windows (esp. when developing using a pay per minute internet connection). Having everything in one place (including journal articals) makes finding obscure information so much easier.
Does this mean that to be good at nano tech the organization you work for needs to have a very simple (or maybe a very complex) logo. Just think of all those great scientist who work for companies with photographs or similar for logos - looks like they will have to wait a while for the right technology to come along.
I think Linux could do with something like Microsoft's MSDN or Knowledge base CDs. Althought there are a few good web sites around that give this kind of information they are not as convenent as having the whole lot on a CD. I would see this a something that could be mass produced and dropped in the box with any distribution. By using (HT/X)ML and a Java search engine (like some of the books on CD) it sould be easy to find information quikly. In the Microsoft world, CDs like this have made a lot of tasks easier and the same could be applied to Linux.
This discussion appears (to me) to be assuming there is a user interface that will suit everybody - it is just that it has not been found yet. If you think about it, this might not be the case.
I would guess most people using this are happy with the concept of windows (the ones you drag with a mouse, not the OS). As part of a UI they can be very helpful but a lot of new users (and others) just don't get the concept (or do not want to). For many people life would be better off without windows (not the OS!) - but for someone who knows what they are doing, removing this feature would drive them mad. Having an on/off switch would be even worse - few people would even see the benefit of a windowed UI, even as their experience grows.
If you are using a web browser (as a knowledgeable user) I would guess you want the scroll bar to take up as little space as possible (to give more space to the page you are looking at). This is because for someone with experience of scrolling, a scrollbar is a dull bit of the user interface that you can be used as a tool. For someone with less computing experience, nine out of ten times, they are going to need a lot more visual clues to know where to look and what does what. In fact, using Windows as an example of a reasonably good user interface, how many users work out all the things the scroll bar will do to make their life easier for instance holding the arrow down (for fast scrolling), clicking in the dipped area (for jumping up and down pages) or dragging the 'thumb' (to move freely in a document). In a perfect world, a UI would provide enough clues for the user to be able to find out all of these for them self's in there own time (without getting in the way - remember the paperclip of Office).
My preferred solution would be to find someone with no experience of computers and ask them how they should work - this might get some great ideas. Unfortunately this would be very hard to do properly. So my second (pie in the sky) solution would be to develop a user interface from scratch that uses as few concepts as possible. I would start by picking at most five very good, strong UI concepts, for instance, a 3D environment, a mouse pointer and the use of one mouse button. I would then go on to their fullest extent. In a system like this the learning curve should be shallow and the total amount a user would have to work at learning would be minimal. The most important thing to remember is that the user interfaces of today are a long way from perfect.
Sorry if this post goes on a bit - I have a lot of ideas about UI design but very few of them are that well formed (guess I have been corrupted by the UIs that I am use to).
I have nothing against Red Hat / Linux (in fact it is my prefered distribution) but I really do not think many schools will benifit from it (there will be one or two that will do amazing stuff and that will be all).
Maybe if someone was to go and find out what teachers need they could come up with something much better. A lot of educational software is very poor so even basic stuff could improve things a lot. Some simple games (eg number puzzles) could be put together in TCL very quickly along with a some scripts to run a Linux distribution in a way that is far more suited to schools. Along with the stuff that almost everyone likes (like easy to setup hardware) schools have other requirments, like slimed down user interfaces (RM, a big UK PC supply sell a version of MS Word that runs a template to cut out all but five or six icons).
I know all this can be done with Linux, but I don't think most schools have the time or energy. This could be a big area for someone who wants to develop a custom version of Red Hat (email me!).
It looks like Red Hat want the same type of think for Linux as the BBC Micro but I do not think they realise how much times have changed. (sorry if their are a few grammer/spelling errors, I wrote this very quickly).
What most people don't realize is that shopping with your credit card is actually safer than paying by check. In the event that there is a problem with your purchase, the credit card company will remove the purchase from your bill and the on-line merchant is not paid. In the event that your credit card number is stolen, the credit card companies do not hold you responsible for any unauthorized purchases.
So go ahead and join the six million other people that are experiencing the pleasure of on-line shopping.
So thats OK then! (well, I found it amusing anyway)
I found www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/hawking/QA .html intresting after reading the main link.
Why Linux? If this box is just a web browser why does it use Linux (and does it matter). For a one purpose box (ie to get pages from a web server etc) is Linux really the right OS?
I have nothing against Linux (in fact the oposite) but I do wonder if this is just a case of jumping on the bandwagon.
Sorry if I did not make it clear (in fact very little in my first post was clear). I was thinking more of the general issue (ie just imagine the site did end .com). I am sure there are similar examples in .com land but the site I linked to made my point particulaly well (the site is worth a look).
Do you think Slashdot (or any other large web site) could become totally automated/run by its users? /. goes a long way with all the moderation etc but what about moderation for stories and the like?
/. needs, but I am looking at this more from the open sorce / freedom side? In short...could it work?
An example of a (possible not so good) system whould be when a user's karma gets to a certain level they could be given some admin rights (maybe to post one story).
I am not sure this is what
One part of the slash generated code that annoys me is the mass of nested tables. From memory and without that much testing (sorry) Netscape (and a lot of other browsers) can only render tables when they have the whole table. This means that on a slow link, a page which is made of one very big table will not render until all the data is present taking a long time (esp. bad if the connection drops after 400kb has downloaded).
Slash appers to generate very big, very nested tables (from memory). If top level posts like the one above this (PID=27) where in a top level table Netscape (and a lot of other browsers) whould be able to start rendering a lot sooner (ie top level post, followed by next top level post, instead of header...long wait....the rest).
Just my long rabling thoughts...(hope some of that made sence!)
How whould http://www.toys-r-us.co.uk do under these rules? This has to be one of the best examples of very similar domanin names - it is polite, to the point and is useful. I would not like to see the people running this site changed.
Who ever gets this award does not deserve it. If they are a unsung hero and then the get sung (by getting the award) then they are a sung hero. Why on earth would you give the award for the best unsung hero to a sung hero?
A possible down side to binary video drivers is more closed source stuff. This could be good in that it gives vendors a way to have their kit supported in a way that they are more comfotable with (and therefore quicker development) but it might not help everyone else.
Kernel traffic / the linux kernel mailing list makes some intresting points about binary drivers.
From my point of view, binary == good as we get drivers quicker but if the driver as a anoying flaw there is very little that can be done about it (with out reinventing the wheel).
When I have done tech support work I find that getting the 'real' version number of some (often Microsoft) products takes longer than it should.
Apart from that minor problem I don't realy care what numbering system people use as long as it is simple and there is only one number per product -- having two numbers for a program is bad (eg Office 95/7 and Office 97/8).
Guide to getting incressed Karma:
1) Be rude about that nice Gates boy, therefore I nominate him as the anti-geed of the millennium
2) Say nice stuff about Linus thingmagig, therefore I nominate him as the geek of the millenium
3) Acuracy is unimportant (why bother streching my simple brain to think about all those years when the last ten will do?)
4) Post early (opps forgot to do that!)
5) (Long posts == more points) != prizes (this line just takes up space)
Can this 'Christmas' thing be Beowulfed? What would the performance benefits be. Has anyone patented it yet (they could be on to a gold mine!). Finally, is there an open source version of 'Christmas', I hear the Microsoft version has some odd bugs in it.
Is this 'Slashdot' thing patented. You could be on to a gold mine (minus my royalties for my patent on 'Getting up in the morning').
Does anyone know if this will be avalible in the UK? It looks like a nice toy.
I propose the final solution to domain name problems. Lets let more that one person use a domain name. This way, when I go to slashdot.org there will be say, one in five chance of getting the site I want. At other times I might get the home page of the Punctuation Society or the maybe the homepage of someone who miss-read the registration form.
The next stage of the plan would be to add one to all IP address every Tuesday to make things more fair...
...and turned down Microsoft Basic in favor of their own. (I still like BBC Basic now).
Anyone remember Chuckie Egg (as I just found a very nice remake of it)?
You've got to feel sorry for poor little Microsoft with all these people makeing fun of them just because they tried to take over the world (earth is hardly a big planet anyway).
:-)
This message is pointless...and it is wasting space in your computers memory
...but I can still buy your CD and sell the contents (at a lower price).
Conclusions
Mindcraft's credibility and reputation have been vindicated.
While dont disagree with the results, I think the above conclusion might have been the one they were aimming for.
Microsoft could end up looking very silly if they tried to enforce this. I don't think it would be a good idea for any software company to go to cort to argue about how good their software is.