I'll give you this: Windows excells in this area. No contest - one has to be blind not to see it. But most of the stuff Freedesktop has to offer is available now, and the rest it's well on it's way.
I use XFCE 4.2. I can load both KDE and GNOME programs that minimize to the taskbar, and they're handled perfectly. Cut-&-paste behaves as it should as far as i've experienced (no more "this pastes here but not there"), and the GNOME metadata i wrote for file handling is seen fine by XFCEs file manager. I can drag and drop files between programs and they're handled fine aswell - i do it all the time with Opera (QT) and my file manager (GTK+).
Granted, it still has it's rough edges. But (again, IMHO) the Linux desktop is not the mess nowadays some people tend to beleive. And it's only getting better.
Generally, the *code* itself it's quite easy to port (specially C/C++). The problems are the OS architecture and underlying libraries. Functions available in one can't be available in the other, or be so wildly different that rewriting them becomes quite a chore.
DirectX - OpenGL is a good example (for graphics). Both accomplish pretty much the same, have similar features and perform the same. Yet, telling OpenGL "hey, draw me a few polygons here" can be completely different than telling DX the same. Now, OpenGL is supported in Linux, so if your Windows program uses it, converting it to Linux becomes more or less inmerdiate (you'll still have to retouch here and there, but not much). Not the other way arround - converting DX to OGL might be doable, but doing it consistently all over big programs it's an awful chore.
This also happens in quite a few other areas, not all related to the so called "multimedia". For example, widgets (the windows and buttons drawn on screen) might be handled completely the same. Libraries allowing you to do similar things on both OSs can be completely different to implement. Audio, file management, program intercomunication, etc.
The way to deal with this is thinking ahead. It's actually not hard to write portable code - the problem is porting code which wasn't designed for it.
Basically, different toolkits and DE will still exist but they aim to standarize stuff to increase interoperabiltt between DEs; from stuff like common configuration files, proper metadata support, menu files, and trash can management to more complex like drag-and-drop between tookits, control embeeding and (finally) proper clipboard functioning.
This has the potential to end a lot of nightmares for program instalation and interoperability, no matter for which desktop you write them.
Most major desktop enviroments are embracing the Freedesktop specifications: KDE and Gnome among them. XFCE 4 deserves a nod too for being one of the most FD-compliant desktops available.
I wouldn't be surprised - Microsoft already did this with Hotmail and Opera.. I can't find a link for it, but i'm pretty sure they ended up settling it.
Also a good point. No one seems to think outside the box; i also hate the whole D&D fantasy thing. A game like the one you describe would be interesting and i'd surely give it a try.
You'll be modded flamebait, but you do have a point: this is the exact same reason i never liked MMORPGs. When a game becomes a mostly a chore, it's no longer fun. I work on a cybercafe and i see it all the time - people come and sit for hours to do a quest of some kind, not because they enjoy it, but because they have to. Maybe it gives a sense of accomplishment, i don't know.
I discussed it with a friend, and he boiled it down to those games being addictive, like in a drug. You just need your fix, it doesn't matter if it's fun or not. You just gotta grind another level, or get that strange item. Watching people sit in front of a computer clicking the mouse in the same spot for hours makes me wonder if he's right sometimes. I still don't know, honestly.
Go fuck yourself; i'm most certainly NOT a Microsoft fanboy. I use Linux, and would love to see much of MSs stronghold in the computer industry dissapear. Does that means i'm blind & deaf? No.
But hell, this is Slashdot, where if you repeat things enough they magically stick to some peoples' mind. Face it, Microsoft IS doing fine these days. Will they do fine in the future? Quite debatable. Will they go out with a poof, like someone suggested, a-la-Enron? Not a chance. And you can attack myself all you want, but MS is a company, i.e., in the buissnes of making money. Get back in touch with reality.
I think many of us have known Microsoft is dying for a long time now. When was the last time they released anything truly innovative? Word 5 for Mac?
This is all fine, but Microsoft is a company. A company is there for the sole purpose of earning money and answering with it to it's shareholders. Have you seen MS earnings lately?
I do agree with you: they don't lead technologically, and haven't done for a while. This could get them into trouble in the long run, but don't expect it happening any time soon. From a buissnes point of view though (where they have to sell their technology, innovative or not), they're doing damn fine these days. Through shady actions of true value, but they are.
To counter monopolist-behaviour accusations. The net effect is the same: you have a "Microsoft" brand at the top in a lot of different, diverse product areas (OS, Office packages, consoles, hardware), but they're now independent units.
Don't forget, Microsoft has already been found guilty of monopolistic behaviour.
It will however be interesting to see if Microsoft may one day break up voluntarily into different operating units, and thrive in different areas independantly.
I expected this to be happening arround... well, now, a couple of years ago. Microsoft has a lot of crappy products, but excellent ones aswell. Hardware is the first one thats pops in my mind, and also Games (specially after the X-Box).
Anyway, don't expect Microsoft to collapse any time soon. Even if they manage to fuck up for years in a row, they've a cushion of pure cash to lay on for quite a while.
Yes. All these options are in a "Quick preferences" menu, invoked by F12 by default (most of the options in the menu have their own quick keystroke aswell).
For popups, the options are: Open all popups, Open all popups in background, Block unwanted popups and Block all popups. I use "Block unwanted" all of the time and works just fine for me, but even "Open in background" is a bless.
Opera has done this as well for a while now, as an AC reply stated. It also has some nice treats to browse "ugly" sites, like being able to start and stop image loading on graphic intensive sites, and it can enable and disable plugins/Java/Javascript/GIF animation and sound on the fly.
Also, the number of comments attacking the article is staggering. We all love Firefox, is it SO hard to accept it's not perfect? Jeeze.
PS: On my Linux machine Opera 7.54 starts much faster than either Mozilla or Firefox, which is one of many reasons it's my browser of choice. Almost as fast as Konqueror on KDE.
I was just going to post the same, even though it'd end up burried at the bottom of the page.
Can we *please* drop these stories? "Bill Gates said Windows is good, how dares he!". Sorry, but it's not different of Linus defending Linux, RMS defending Hurd, Steve Jobs defending OSX, of the BSD guys defending their OS.
Microsoft is doing marketing. That's what they're best at. Don't like it? Fine, look the other way instead of scandalizing yourself every week with a similar story (not you, Wangstas:) ).
Please, let's just drop it. The anti-Microsoft bias of some people here is becoming annoying.
"This is part of [Eidos's] move to consolidate and strengthen its technical and management capabilities into a smaller number of studios which are capable of scaling up in order to meet the competitive challenges that lie ahead, particularly in anticipation of next-generation technologies and platforms"
I just love marketing buzzwords. You gotta have some talent to say "we axed the studio 'cause it was a money drain" in such a way!
Anyway, farewell Ion Storm. Daikatana sucked (sorry John, it did), but we loved much of what you did.
The link you provided is OK. Just a few comments for those who bothered reading it: The guy is obviously a musician, not a HiFi guy. Nothing wrong with that, although the two camps do have slightly different priorities in their respective quest for good sound. Each will tolerate some things the other won't, but good is good and bad is bad.
Actually Rod Elliot (the guy who runs that site, The Audio Pages) can be considered a HiFi guy; he has a lot of info and schematics for audio gears of all kind (most quite good, i've built a few) - yet he keeps it all scientific and objective instead of falling for snake oil ("magic" audio cables, burn-in, bizarre gadgets, etc). In a way, it's a refreshing read if you're into HiFi. His article on PMPO ratings is dead on, IMHO.
As for speakers ratings, you're right. Basically, the max power input rated for a speaker is the one that the coil wire will take sustainedly before self destroying; the efficiency, which is measured in dB/W, can vary wildly and depends on a gazillon things. A 40W speaker might take short passages of 50-60W but will destroy itself with a 100W amplifier. It's not easy to measure the power output of a speaker, but it's a (small) fraction of the power input.
And PSUs... well, since PSUs became available for as cheap as $15 bucks, the build quality has obviously gone downhill. I use two powersupplies in my main system - the second one is an old AT 300w psu (turned on by the main one) which feeds all drives. This ended all my griefs with power.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll give you this: Windows excells in this area. No contest - one has to be blind not to see it. But most of the stuff Freedesktop has to offer is available now, and the rest it's well on it's way.
I use XFCE 4.2. I can load both KDE and GNOME programs that minimize to the taskbar, and they're handled perfectly. Cut-&-paste behaves as it should as far as i've experienced (no more "this pastes here but not there"), and the GNOME metadata i wrote for file handling is seen fine by XFCEs file manager. I can drag and drop files between programs and they're handled fine aswell - i do it all the time with Opera (QT) and my file manager (GTK+).
Granted, it still has it's rough edges. But (again, IMHO) the Linux desktop is not the mess nowadays some people tend to beleive. And it's only getting better.
...for example, widgets (the windows and buttons drawn on screen) might be handled completely the same.
Sorry, make that "completely different". I need my caffeine dose.
Generally, the *code* itself it's quite easy to port (specially C/C++). The problems are the OS architecture and underlying libraries. Functions available in one can't be available in the other, or be so wildly different that rewriting them becomes quite a chore.
DirectX - OpenGL is a good example (for graphics). Both accomplish pretty much the same, have similar features and perform the same. Yet, telling OpenGL "hey, draw me a few polygons here" can be completely different than telling DX the same. Now, OpenGL is supported in Linux, so if your Windows program uses it, converting it to Linux becomes more or less inmerdiate (you'll still have to retouch here and there, but not much). Not the other way arround - converting DX to OGL might be doable, but doing it consistently all over big programs it's an awful chore.
This also happens in quite a few other areas, not all related to the so called "multimedia". For example, widgets (the windows and buttons drawn on screen) might be handled completely the same. Libraries allowing you to do similar things on both OSs can be completely different to implement. Audio, file management, program intercomunication, etc.
The way to deal with this is thinking ahead. It's actually not hard to write portable code - the problem is porting code which wasn't designed for it.
For #3 check the Freekdesktop specification.
Basically, different toolkits and DE will still exist but they aim to standarize stuff to increase interoperabiltt between DEs; from stuff like common configuration files, proper metadata support, menu files, and trash can management to more complex like drag-and-drop between tookits, control embeeding and (finally) proper clipboard functioning.
This has the potential to end a lot of nightmares for program instalation and interoperability, no matter for which desktop you write them.
Most major desktop enviroments are embracing the Freedesktop specifications: KDE and Gnome among them. XFCE 4 deserves a nod too for being one of the most FD-compliant desktops available.
What's with this number 42 anyway? Something the American crowd is more familiar with?
Here you go.
Read this book. You'll love it, trust me on this one.
Please mod this intelligent gentleman up.
I was hoping on some insight on how the magic black box generated it's random numbers aswell. No dice :(
I predict a great writter will make a short story about a machine like that and Hollywood will turn it into an awful motion picture!
And more info here, where the Opera crew explains how M$ deliberately cripples www.msn.com pages.
I wouldn't be surprised - Microsoft already did this with Hotmail and Opera.. I can't find a link for it, but i'm pretty sure they ended up settling it.
Also a good point. No one seems to think outside the box; i also hate the whole D&D fantasy thing. A game like the one you describe would be interesting and i'd surely give it a try.
You'll be modded flamebait, but you do have a point: this is the exact same reason i never liked MMORPGs. When a game becomes a mostly a chore, it's no longer fun. I work on a cybercafe and i see it all the time - people come and sit for hours to do a quest of some kind, not because they enjoy it, but because they have to. Maybe it gives a sense of accomplishment, i don't know.
I discussed it with a friend, and he boiled it down to those games being addictive, like in a drug. You just need your fix, it doesn't matter if it's fun or not. You just gotta grind another level, or get that strange item. Watching people sit in front of a computer clicking the mouse in the same spot for hours makes me wonder if he's right sometimes. I still don't know, honestly.
Go fuck yourself; i'm most certainly NOT a Microsoft fanboy. I use Linux, and would love to see much of MSs stronghold in the computer industry dissapear. Does that means i'm blind & deaf? No.
But hell, this is Slashdot, where if you repeat things enough they magically stick to some peoples' mind. Face it, Microsoft IS doing fine these days. Will they do fine in the future? Quite debatable. Will they go out with a poof, like someone suggested, a-la-Enron? Not a chance. And you can attack myself all you want, but MS is a company, i.e., in the buissnes of making money. Get back in touch with reality.
I think many of us have known Microsoft is dying for a long time now. When was the last time they released anything truly innovative? Word 5 for Mac?
This is all fine, but Microsoft is a company. A company is there for the sole purpose of earning money and answering with it to it's shareholders. Have you seen MS earnings lately?
I do agree with you: they don't lead technologically, and haven't done for a while. This could get them into trouble in the long run, but don't expect it happening any time soon. From a buissnes point of view though (where they have to sell their technology, innovative or not), they're doing damn fine these days. Through shady actions of true value, but they are.
To counter monopolist-behaviour accusations. The net effect is the same: you have a "Microsoft" brand at the top in a lot of different, diverse product areas (OS, Office packages, consoles, hardware), but they're now independent units.
Don't forget, Microsoft has already been found guilty of monopolistic behaviour.
It will however be interesting to see if Microsoft may one day break up voluntarily into different operating units, and thrive in different areas independantly.
I expected this to be happening arround... well, now, a couple of years ago. Microsoft has a lot of crappy products, but excellent ones aswell. Hardware is the first one thats pops in my mind, and also Games (specially after the X-Box).
Anyway, don't expect Microsoft to collapse any time soon. Even if they manage to fuck up for years in a row, they've a cushion of pure cash to lay on for quite a while.
Woops! Sorry, for some reason i readed "Popblock".
Anyway, i think Opera 8 implements this; haven't tried it yet though.
Yes. All these options are in a "Quick preferences" menu, invoked by F12 by default (most of the options in the menu have their own quick keystroke aswell).
For popups, the options are: Open all popups, Open all popups in background, Block unwanted popups and Block all popups. I use "Block unwanted" all of the time and works just fine for me, but even "Open in background" is a bless.
Opera has done this as well for a while now, as an AC reply stated. It also has some nice treats to browse "ugly" sites, like being able to start and stop image loading on graphic intensive sites, and it can enable and disable plugins/Java/Javascript/GIF animation and sound on the fly.
Great little program.
Also, the number of comments attacking the article is staggering. We all love Firefox, is it SO hard to accept it's not perfect? Jeeze.
PS: On my Linux machine Opera 7.54 starts much faster than either Mozilla or Firefox, which is one of many reasons it's my browser of choice. Almost as fast as Konqueror on KDE.
I was just going to post the same, even though it'd end up burried at the bottom of the page.
:) ).
Can we *please* drop these stories? "Bill Gates said Windows is good, how dares he!". Sorry, but it's not different of Linus defending Linux, RMS defending Hurd, Steve Jobs defending OSX, of the BSD guys defending their OS.
Microsoft is doing marketing. That's what they're best at. Don't like it? Fine, look the other way instead of scandalizing yourself every week with a similar story (not you, Wangstas
Please, let's just drop it. The anti-Microsoft bias of some people here is becoming annoying.
"This is part of [Eidos's] move to consolidate and strengthen its technical and management capabilities into a smaller number of studios which are capable of scaling up in order to meet the competitive challenges that lie ahead, particularly in anticipation of next-generation technologies and platforms"
I just love marketing buzzwords. You gotta have some talent to say "we axed the studio 'cause it was a money drain" in such a way!
Anyway, farewell Ion Storm. Daikatana sucked (sorry John, it did), but we loved much of what you did.
You Sir, are hearless. :(
I'm in love
The link you provided is OK. Just a few comments for those who bothered reading it:
The guy is obviously a musician, not a HiFi guy. Nothing wrong with that, although the two camps do have slightly different priorities in their respective quest for good sound. Each will tolerate some things the other won't, but good is good and bad is bad.
Actually Rod Elliot (the guy who runs that site, The Audio Pages) can be considered a HiFi guy; he has a lot of info and schematics for audio gears of all kind (most quite good, i've built a few) - yet he keeps it all scientific and objective instead of falling for snake oil ("magic" audio cables, burn-in, bizarre gadgets, etc). In a way, it's a refreshing read if you're into HiFi. His article on PMPO ratings is dead on, IMHO.
As for speakers ratings, you're right. Basically, the max power input rated for a speaker is the one that the coil wire will take sustainedly before self destroying; the efficiency, which is measured in dB/W, can vary wildly and depends on a gazillon things. A 40W speaker might take short passages of 50-60W but will destroy itself with a 100W amplifier. It's not easy to measure the power output of a speaker, but it's a (small) fraction of the power input.
And PSUs... well, since PSUs became available for as cheap as $15 bucks, the build quality has obviously gone downhill. I use two powersupplies in my main system - the second one is an old AT 300w psu (turned on by the main one) which feeds all drives. This ended all my griefs with power.
Here's a good article explaining PMPO raitings. It should clear all confusion.