IMO you could do with improving the size and readability of your fonts...just a suggestion:/
Interesting, I've been testing it on various platforms from Gentoo Linux, OS X, WinXP and various browsers from IE6, IE7b, Firefox 1.0, FF1.5, Opera 8 and 9 and Safari 2.0.
So far it seems to be usable to me, but obviously that is my personal bias as I designed it:p So, how does it look on your config? what are your specs and what specifically is the issue with what fonts (in what area. Most of the main font are set to be the same size used in the current Slashdot config. I did shrink the Slashboxes and Link Menu ones so I assume that that is where your are talking about.
I guess what I saying without getting to the point is thank you for that suggestion and any further input you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Well, what exactly is it would you be looking for?
Are you looking for an evolution of the current design or a revolutionary change?
Personally, I submitted a design for the site, but don't have a lot of faith in my chances, but hey this is Taco's site so if he was to go so bold as to say he wanted this one then more power to him.
Anyway, have you ever heard of system restore (which is also included in XP)? It works damn well. It works by monitoring and tracking all file activity and works like a transaction rollback for your system.
Think that the point he was making was a way to completely eliminate drivers installed, in fact a complete removal of all drivers related to the device, not MS' stupid go only back to the previous version. Roll back only goes to the previous version, you still can't completely purge the driver files from the system. Unless you manually go in and remove the files.
As a side note, System Restore is quite honestly the stupidest thing MS ever came up with, the amount of viruses and spyware that end up in the restore files always means that when I have to service a customers computer I always immediately erase the contents of System Restore to ensure the system is clean, no since wasting a time running a virus scan when System Restore tends to hold quite a bit.
Make OpenGL the low-level rendering model for the entire system,
Deprecate DirectX
WTF?
Pretty self explainitory, replace DirectX with OpenGL. Not exaclty sure why that warrants a WTF comment.
And wouldn't that be the point, that having many different people all working towards a similar or even different goal all of which leads to some kind of innovation.
What is absolutely great is that nobody else seems to realize that Apple still has Dell, Gateway, HP and miriad of additional computer manufactuers with far more marketshare, who if push came to shove, will want an OS that is compatible with Mac OS X on some level (both graphically and technology-wise). This is assuming that Apple begins to make in roads in the PC maket with their switch to x86.
If Apple begins to gain a noticable amount of the market, suddenly, Linux seems like a good way to offer a product similar enough (with proper GUI tweaks) to Mac OS X without having to license it from Apple (assuming Apple actually did something like that) and businesses being business with do what will make them money.
Take for instance their refund policy. If you buy a computer, and pay cash, and that computer doesn't work when you get home - you must wait for a check if you want to return it for a full refund. I advised my mother on going there because of the good prices. She paid cash and got a good deal. The PC was fried and they didn't have another to exchange.
Of course you do have the option of having them do a functionality test, it's a bit of a hastle given that they charge a while $0.00 and that it takes a whole 5-10 minutes to verify that the machine boots correctly (assuming you have to go through a setup process).
After their sales staff insulted her in the store (only for wanting what was due), she decided to get the refund and buy a machine elsewhere.
That truely does suck, but I would have to ask this, what kind of insult was it? Don't get me wrong, I had a computer salesman imply that I had some damaged my video card purchased 2 days prior which had a TV encoder IC chip actually blow out, (I could see the silicon inside sitting at an angle) and he had the audacity to say "well if you don't know what you are doing" to certified computer technician with years of experience. So I understand that people do say insulting things, but also having held a job way back in retail I can tell you that people are rather fscking nuts, I've been called a fscking idiot because I could not move a customer from a terminal that needed to be restarted (and was about 2 minutes away from being usable again) to a terminal already in use by an existing customer in a department which was not my responsiblity. The issue was that the gentleman in question had gotten this view that right after Christmas with the returns line being 2 hours long that he was somehow more important that the people who had waited just as long as he had. And that my refusal to immediatetly bow down to his demands while he was insulting me was completely unbelievable.
The point is, those clerks may have been majorly stupid and disrespectful, or it maybe that the situation turned a poor choice of words into an insult for your mother which really wasn't meant to be taken that way.
Still, if I pay cash - why should I wait for a check in the mail? Cashing a check isn't cheap for people who don't have checking accounts, not everyone does have one too. Hell, they discourage the use of checks as it is.
Because, as with most major retailers, the company limits access to money to prevent potential theft from employees and other unknown people. Odds are that that money you handed to the cashier was taken from the front register and placed in a safe to ensure that the company wasn't risking loosing 500+ dollars (and not just the cost of your machine). People have a habit of attempting to rip off major retailers all the time, they return false products sans important components or they return just the empty boxes and stupid clerks don't bother to check the box. So as a safety measure, ask yourself this, if you ran a store generating a $10,000 a day and had to just choose some guy you may not know personally to handle that amount of cash, wouldn't you feel concerned about the possiblity that that guy could accidently send a few extra hundred dollars some guy returning something, now, multiply that by they 600+ store Best Buy has. Isn't it a safer bet to have some bean counter hit a few keys, print a check and mail it off?
Yes, it sounds like you went through a hastle, which did suck, but the store would have had a policy that would have given you options since there is no way in hell a sale associate at any, ANY retail store would let you walk out of the store with an obviously non functioning machine you had just spend 500+ dollars for, your mother could have had a technician test the machine, and while it maybe possible that she wasn't asked if she would like a functionality test, I have yet to purchase a machine from (Best Buy or any other retailer) and not have those sale drones try and sell me on the fact that a functiona
I hate to say it but I just can't use Linux as a desktop any longer. I've completely switched to MacOS X for all my work both at home and at work. It gives me all the Unix goodness I'm accustomed to with a great zero-maintenance UI.
And that sounds great, you bothered to use Linux and decided it wasn't worth your time, but given your statements, I'm not getting the sense that you would feel the need to pull a fanboy statement that Apple is somehow proof that Linux systems suck (Apple made a great GUI for a UNIX system, Linux developers could learn something from it).
I'll be honest, I'm considering getting a Mac Mini at some point since the price tag is finally down to what I consider a reasonable amount, the only concern I have is that the Mac Mini will not be upgradable to Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), but if it isn't no major issue.
That's not to say that Linux doesn't have a place in my home, though. I currently have a headless box in my closet that's my home NFS server with several websites on it.
I'm currently running a FreeBSD 5.1 driven Mini-ITX file server that I mount as a D: drive on my Windows machine and a/files on my Linux boxes (using Samba). I use it for internal web site development, file serving and as a general test system.
That wasn't exactly what I was talking about, but that is also a good point too. My point is that if major 3rd party developers decide to abandon Mac OS because Apple produces a competing product (IE Adobe, Microsoft) then where does that leave Apple?
If there is no Photoshop for Mac but you can run it on Windows and (under Wine) on Linux, what is the incentive for say graphic design houses to still stick with Mac? (That is only one program, but still).
The point is that if I am developing a product and I decide to cover two platforms, I'm going to use the two plaforms that have the greatest market share, if Windows is as 94%, Linux at 4% and Mac at %2 (these are not valid figures, just made up for the sake of argument) what plaforms do I use, especially given that the Windows and Linux systems are based of the same hardware (thereby less cost because you can dualboot your development machines (if you wanted) at really no additional cost).
I want you to remember this post in five years when even the most zealous of zealots have given up on waiting for a Linux desktop that doesn't cause ocular hemorrhage.
And if I am wrong, guess what? I AM WRONG, no big deal, the world doesn't end because Linux didn't live up to the promise of what it represents, I'll just spend my time learning what ever else is out there, I'm a computer geek: I try to learn things.
as both a mac and linux user I'm bothered by both you trolls, stop being jerks and actually realize that a) both platforms have their merits and drawbacks and b) competition is good.
I never said that they did not have there merits did I? The point I was making is that Apple products tend to not have longetity for the mass market. And unfortunetly, do to recent moves by Apple, certain long time developers who used to support (for example) Mac OS suddenly decided it wasn't worth their time. Apple is trying to maintain control of iTunes, the RIAA isn't exactly thrilled with the idea of future DRM being based on Apple's tech. Situations similar to that.
The computing industry is full of great products that died due to the fact that nobody bothered to develop technology for them. BeOS and Amiga come to mind.
What is hilarious is that I was modded as flame bait because I pointed out that Apple has a history of producing trendy products (good as they are) that don't really go anywhere after a few years.
I never once claimed that Linux was superior to Mac or Windows or that any particular technology was better (I simply stated that Linux would take a bigger chunk of the desktop market and as a side effect Apple would lose it relevence), but I guess people would rather assume that I am being a Linux fanboy because I'm calling out a Mac Zealot.
Take the time to actually use a platform and you'll realize that it probably has its merits (yes even windows)
Again did I ever state that I hadn't tried it? I have tried Mac OS X, find it to be a fine system, but ultimately when I use a UNIX environment I tend to not care about pretty graphics as I focus on the console.
So now you are making assumptions based upon notions you just came up with just as you are accusing me of. But hey it's/. so everyone will just spend time bitching about everyone elses opinion and then yell flamebait after which point Godwin's Law will come into effect and someone will follow with a link to goatse, all the while trying to figure out the 2nd step, which comes right before 3. Profit.
Any user of Mac OS X can see, in these screenshots, the wretched face of desperation--and an ugly face it is too. Compared to Aqua, the GNOME environment is misery embodied. So the question naturally presents itself: Why would anyone bother using Linux, when a brand-new Mac can be had for $499?
Absolutely right, just as five years from now Apple will need to produce yet another product to maintain it's relevence in the computer industry. Let's not forget how Apple's mainstream appeal tends to fade after the mainstream consumer market get's over the fad that Apple produced.
I mean obviously the iMac is still the powerhouse it was in 1998.
As for the $499 dollar price tag, nice move on Apple's part but to quote Mr Steve Ballmer "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS" which I'm sure that Apple will have in abundance once Linux moves into #2 in the desktop cosumer market (thus further erroding Apple's relevence).
But hey, you keep your narrow little Mac Zealot view of the world and all the Linux user's in the world will be there thumbing there noses at your elitist crap... Troll.
Yeah, wasn't it here on/. that (multiple times) that you read articles claiming that the Gaming industry is close to surpassing the movies industry, absolutely amazing if they are fighting a losing battle with piracy.
Yes, but who's fault was that? Netscape pretty much stopped all development of their browser at 4.7, which was a decent browser. Microsoft then went on to release IE 5.0 later which was a breath of freshair from the crap that was IE 4.0, and Netscape did, well, not a damned thing.
Netscape never stoped development of a competing browser, they tried to produce a new Open Source based browser to combat IE, what happened unfortuntely is that they took too long, but technicially speaking they "did a damn", they started development of Mozilla. A Mozilla based browser is currently viewed as the potential competitor to IE's crappiness, it would be Mozilla Firefox.
Well, some people don't care, the MacMini runs a G4 processor, Athlon64 is a current CPU technology. And while I personally like the idea of the MacMini, I don't like the speculation that the unit may NOT be able to run the next generation MacOS X due to it's less than powerful grpahics card, which is not on the list of supported cards for Tiger (well was before Apple suddenly pulled the list).
As for the CD-ROM issue, drop that $120 video card to $35 for a cheapo Geforce 2 MX from a smaller computer store, and use the remaining $85 to pickup a DVD+/-RW.
Not everyone has the same hardware requirements some may not care about the graphics for games, some may, point is that again, it is still possible to build that Athlon 64 system for around $500 USD.
That's odd, I've run multiple Linux distros on my Nforce2 and Nforce1 board and never had stability problems.
And most of these were older distro's using the 2.4 kernel series. The only think that was a pain was the nvnet Ethernet driver which I could properly configure.
That supposedly is what they do at the tech bench with broken Xboxen. Basically, the majority of problems involve the HDD and since the techs don't have the ability to properly fix it, they pretty much just ship them back to Microsoft who handles it for them.
So Best Buy just pretty much leaves it up to them. Unless the customer pays for the extended warranty through Best Buy.
That's becuase the Best Buy associates know something you don't. According to a friend of mine who works at a Best Buy in the tech bench, the majority of console returns to the store are from broken down Xboxen. He is constantly bitching because the Xbox break down and angry customers try to hold Best Buy responsible when Best Buy can't simply give them a brand new one (after the initial return period).
With the product service plan, he doesn't have to deal with customers who can't get what they want. Because the period is longer and he can always just exchange it with less of a hassle.
Of course the majority of product service plans are a scheme to make Best Buy rich, apparently, that actually serve a purpose with the Xbox, less need to deal with problem customers.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for the input, I'll have to see what i can do to increase the font size on other platforms.
IMO you could do with improving the size and readability of your fonts...just a suggestion :/
:p So, how does it look on your config? what are your specs and what specifically is the issue with what fonts (in what area. Most of the main font are set to be the same size used in the current Slashdot config. I did shrink the Slashboxes and Link Menu ones so I assume that that is where your are talking about.
Interesting, I've been testing it on various platforms from Gentoo Linux, OS X, WinXP and various browsers from IE6, IE7b, Firefox 1.0, FF1.5, Opera 8 and 9 and Safari 2.0.
So far it seems to be usable to me, but obviously that is my personal bias as I designed it
I guess what I saying without getting to the point is thank you for that suggestion and any further input you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Are you looking for an evolution of the current design or a revolutionary change?
Personally, I submitted a design for the site, but don't have a lot of faith in my chances, but hey this is Taco's site so if he was to go so bold as to say he wanted this one then more power to him.
I wonder if they are going to preserve key points and dialogues in computing history like "No one needs 640 kilobytes of ram..."
I'm sure he would be more than willing to, a soon as someone can actually find a copy of that article where he actually said it...
Number 1.0: Bureaucrat Conrad you are technically correct - the best kind of correct. I hereby promote you to grade 37.
Anyway, have you ever heard of system restore (which is also included in XP)? It works damn well. It works by monitoring and tracking all file activity and works like a transaction rollback for your system.
Think that the point he was making was a way to completely eliminate drivers installed, in fact a complete removal of all drivers related to the device, not MS' stupid go only back to the previous version. Roll back only goes to the previous version, you still can't completely purge the driver files from the system. Unless you manually go in and remove the files.
As a side note, System Restore is quite honestly the stupidest thing MS ever came up with, the amount of viruses and spyware that end up in the restore files always means that when I have to service a customers computer I always immediately erase the contents of System Restore to ensure the system is clean, no since wasting a time running a virus scan when System Restore tends to hold quite a bit.
Make OpenGL the low-level rendering model for the entire system, Deprecate DirectX
WTF?
Pretty self explainitory, replace DirectX with OpenGL. Not exaclty sure why that warrants a WTF comment.
That's why you should read the title:
More OS X on Plain Old x86 Boxes.
And wouldn't that be the point, that having many different people all working towards a similar or even different goal all of which leads to some kind of innovation.
What is absolutely great is that nobody else seems to realize that Apple still has Dell, Gateway, HP and miriad of additional computer manufactuers with far more marketshare, who if push came to shove, will want an OS that is compatible with Mac OS X on some level (both graphically and technology-wise). This is assuming that Apple begins to make in roads in the PC maket with their switch to x86.
If Apple begins to gain a noticable amount of the market, suddenly, Linux seems like a good way to offer a product similar enough (with proper GUI tweaks) to Mac OS X without having to license it from Apple (assuming Apple actually did something like that) and businesses being business with do what will make them money.
Of course you do have the option of having them do a functionality test, it's a bit of a hastle given that they charge a while $0.00 and that it takes a whole 5-10 minutes to verify that the machine boots correctly (assuming you have to go through a setup process).
After their sales staff insulted her in the store (only for wanting what was due), she decided to get the refund and buy a machine elsewhere.
That truely does suck, but I would have to ask this, what kind of insult was it? Don't get me wrong, I had a computer salesman imply that I had some damaged my video card purchased 2 days prior which had a TV encoder IC chip actually blow out, (I could see the silicon inside sitting at an angle) and he had the audacity to say "well if you don't know what you are doing" to certified computer technician with years of experience. So I understand that people do say insulting things, but also having held a job way back in retail I can tell you that people are rather fscking nuts, I've been called a fscking idiot because I could not move a customer from a terminal that needed to be restarted (and was about 2 minutes away from being usable again) to a terminal already in use by an existing customer in a department which was not my responsiblity. The issue was that the gentleman in question had gotten this view that right after Christmas with the returns line being 2 hours long that he was somehow more important that the people who had waited just as long as he had. And that my refusal to immediatetly bow down to his demands while he was insulting me was completely unbelievable.
The point is, those clerks may have been majorly stupid and disrespectful, or it maybe that the situation turned a poor choice of words into an insult for your mother which really wasn't meant to be taken that way.
Still, if I pay cash - why should I wait for a check in the mail? Cashing a check isn't cheap for people who don't have checking accounts, not everyone does have one too. Hell, they discourage the use of checks as it is.
Because, as with most major retailers, the company limits access to money to prevent potential theft from employees and other unknown people. Odds are that that money you handed to the cashier was taken from the front register and placed in a safe to ensure that the company wasn't risking loosing 500+ dollars (and not just the cost of your machine). People have a habit of attempting to rip off major retailers all the time, they return false products sans important components or they return just the empty boxes and stupid clerks don't bother to check the box. So as a safety measure, ask yourself this, if you ran a store generating a $10,000 a day and had to just choose some guy you may not know personally to handle that amount of cash, wouldn't you feel concerned about the possiblity that that guy could accidently send a few extra hundred dollars some guy returning something, now, multiply that by they 600+ store Best Buy has. Isn't it a safer bet to have some bean counter hit a few keys, print a check and mail it off?
Yes, it sounds like you went through a hastle, which did suck, but the store would have had a policy that would have given you options since there is no way in hell a sale associate at any, ANY retail store would let you walk out of the store with an obviously non functioning machine you had just spend 500+ dollars for, your mother could have had a technician test the machine, and while it maybe possible that she wasn't asked if she would like a functionality test, I have yet to purchase a machine from (Best Buy or any other retailer) and not have those sale drones try and sell me on the fact that a functiona
And that sounds great, you bothered to use Linux and decided it wasn't worth your time, but given your statements, I'm not getting the sense that you would feel the need to pull a fanboy statement that Apple is somehow proof that Linux systems suck (Apple made a great GUI for a UNIX system, Linux developers could learn something from it).
I'll be honest, I'm considering getting a Mac Mini at some point since the price tag is finally down to what I consider a reasonable amount, the only concern I have is that the Mac Mini will not be upgradable to Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), but if it isn't no major issue.
That's not to say that Linux doesn't have a place in my home, though. I currently have a headless box in my closet that's my home NFS server with several websites on it.
I'm currently running a FreeBSD 5.1 driven Mini-ITX file server that I mount as a D: drive on my Windows machine and a /files on my Linux boxes (using Samba). I use it for internal web site development, file serving and as a general test system.
If there is no Photoshop for Mac but you can run it on Windows and (under Wine) on Linux, what is the incentive for say graphic design houses to still stick with Mac? (That is only one program, but still). The point is that if I am developing a product and I decide to cover two platforms, I'm going to use the two plaforms that have the greatest market share, if Windows is as 94%, Linux at 4% and Mac at %2 (these are not valid figures, just made up for the sake of argument) what plaforms do I use, especially given that the Windows and Linux systems are based of the same hardware (thereby less cost because you can dualboot your development machines (if you wanted) at really no additional cost).
And if I am wrong, guess what? I AM WRONG, no big deal, the world doesn't end because Linux didn't live up to the promise of what it represents, I'll just spend my time learning what ever else is out there, I'm a computer geek: I try to learn things.
I never said that they did not have there merits did I? The point I was making is that Apple products tend to not have longetity for the mass market. And unfortunetly, do to recent moves by Apple, certain long time developers who used to support (for example) Mac OS suddenly decided it wasn't worth their time. Apple is trying to maintain control of iTunes, the RIAA isn't exactly thrilled with the idea of future DRM being based on Apple's tech. Situations similar to that.
The computing industry is full of great products that died due to the fact that nobody bothered to develop technology for them. BeOS and Amiga come to mind.
What is hilarious is that I was modded as flame bait because I pointed out that Apple has a history of producing trendy products (good as they are) that don't really go anywhere after a few years.
I never once claimed that Linux was superior to Mac or Windows or that any particular technology was better (I simply stated that Linux would take a bigger chunk of the desktop market and as a side effect Apple would lose it relevence), but I guess people would rather assume that I am being a Linux fanboy because I'm calling out a Mac Zealot.
Take the time to actually use a platform and you'll realize that it probably has its merits (yes even windows)
Again did I ever state that I hadn't tried it? I have tried Mac OS X, find it to be a fine system, but ultimately when I use a UNIX environment I tend to not care about pretty graphics as I focus on the console.
So now you are making assumptions based upon notions you just came up with just as you are accusing me of. But hey it's /. so everyone will just spend time bitching about everyone elses opinion and then yell flamebait after which point Godwin's Law will come into effect and someone will follow with a link to goatse, all the while trying to figure out the 2nd step, which comes right before 3. Profit.
Absolutely right, just as five years from now Apple will need to produce yet another product to maintain it's relevence in the computer industry. Let's not forget how Apple's mainstream appeal tends to fade after the mainstream consumer market get's over the fad that Apple produced.
I mean obviously the iMac is still the powerhouse it was in 1998.
As for the $499 dollar price tag, nice move on Apple's part but to quote Mr Steve Ballmer "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS" which I'm sure that Apple will have in abundance once Linux moves into #2 in the desktop cosumer market (thus further erroding Apple's relevence).
But hey, you keep your narrow little Mac Zealot view of the world and all the Linux user's in the world will be there thumbing there noses at your elitist crap... Troll.
Yeah, wasn't it here on /. that (multiple times) that you read articles claiming that the Gaming industry is close to surpassing the movies industry, absolutely amazing if they are fighting a losing battle with piracy.
Yes, but who's fault was that? Netscape pretty much stopped all development of their browser at 4.7, which was a decent browser. Microsoft then went on to release IE 5.0 later which was a breath of freshair from the crap that was IE 4.0, and Netscape did, well, not a damned thing. Netscape never stoped development of a competing browser, they tried to produce a new Open Source based browser to combat IE, what happened unfortuntely is that they took too long, but technicially speaking they "did a damn", they started development of Mozilla. A Mozilla based browser is currently viewed as the potential competitor to IE's crappiness, it would be Mozilla Firefox.
As for the CD-ROM issue, drop that $120 video card to $35 for a cheapo Geforce 2 MX from a smaller computer store, and use the remaining $85 to pickup a DVD+/-RW.
Not everyone has the same hardware requirements some may not care about the graphics for games, some may, point is that again, it is still possible to build that Athlon 64 system for around $500 USD.
Comes with a motherboard (try reading a bit first).
video card ... $120 (I refuse to buy $400 video cards, sorry)
Drop that card to $99 an you have the $20 you need for a cheapo CD-ROM.
Of course this all assumes you have the OS already, but the point is that it is doable using the amounts provided.
That's odd, I've run multiple Linux distros on my Nforce2 and Nforce1 board and never had stability problems. And most of these were older distro's using the 2.4 kernel series. The only think that was a pain was the nvnet Ethernet driver which I could properly configure.
Dang, I need to get a copy of this program. I could organize quite a lot of stuff by sticking in in MYASS.
That supposedly is what they do at the tech bench with broken Xboxen. Basically, the majority of problems involve the HDD and since the techs don't have the ability to properly fix it, they pretty much just ship them back to Microsoft who handles it for them. So Best Buy just pretty much leaves it up to them. Unless the customer pays for the extended warranty through Best Buy.
That's becuase the Best Buy associates know something you don't. According to a friend of mine who works at a Best Buy in the tech bench, the majority of console returns to the store are from broken down Xboxen. He is constantly bitching because the Xbox break down and angry customers try to hold Best Buy responsible when Best Buy can't simply give them a brand new one (after the initial return period).
With the product service plan, he doesn't have to deal with customers who can't get what they want. Because the period is longer and he can always just exchange it with less of a hassle.
Of course the majority of product service plans are a scheme to make Best Buy rich, apparently, that actually serve a purpose with the Xbox, less need to deal with problem customers.