No shit Sherlock - the operative word there is iTunes. You're still syncing through iTunes which negates your entire point. Until you have something that takes you away from iTunes completely then you haven't found a complete replacement.
Oddness. I though he was just off his rocker with that comment but someone else knows it so it can't be completely off base.
Every bank in my local vicinity closes at 5pm. A lot of them stay open until 6pm on Fridays (presumably also due to historic reasons - prior to direct deposit people were often paid on Friday so the banks stayed open longer for people to come cash/deposit checks on pay-day).
Of course, these days I'm even seeing a few banks start to open on Saturdays. All in all though, irrelevant. I have 2 checking accounts that I use (one is for bills and one is for discretionary spending) - the discretionary one that I use pretty much everyday doesn't even have a physical branch closer than 30 miles to my house. I haven't stepped foot in that building since I opened the account. A specified portion of my check auto-deposits there, and the rest is done via the net and ATM's.
I'm not really even that young (about to turn 30), and the entire concept of physically doing stuff in a bank seems outdated.
Aren't those features of, well, pretty much any online music store at all, such as Amazon?
With Amazon I can buy mp3s, and syncing mp3s to my player is not a function of the damn store I bought it from! Drag and drop through USB mass storage has been around forever - I was doing that on my old IRiver player back ages ago.
I don't understand stories like this. Mp3s can be bought in a million and four ways, and syncing them to my own devices (although I don't own an iPod) has been possible for as long as there have been mp3s at all. What's the big deal here? If something today couldn't do that, it means it was behind basic functionality of the early 1990s.
Note to most Slashdotters - almost every time you stamp your feet declaring something unnewsworthy, you're usually missing something.
The key point here is that it syncs with iPods. Not "MP3 Players", not to a USB Mass Storage Device, but to an actual honest to goodness iPod. Amazon doesn't do that, specifically because iPods use a proprietary sync routine and can't be synced like most other players.
Linux has been doing that forever with Compiz too. I had a nice GPU accelerated GUI long before Unity showed up, and I still have that under classic mode. No matter how much you want to polish the turd that is Unity, it ain't gonna pass muster.
IMHO Mint would be better the Debian. Debian works *about* the same, but realistically - at least from my experience - the package repositories simply can't compete. When I tried Debian I found myself going back to compiling many packages from source because the repositories didn't have them. The thing about package managers is that unless you use them for 99% of your software installs, the whole dependency system gets flaky because the package manager doesn't really know what's installed. Ubuntu is one of the few distros where pretty much every app I could want to use was in the repos.
A better analogy would be if they would remove the physical steering wheel, shift stick and everything for your car and replace those with a giant touch screen interface.
Indeed. Afterall we've had steering wheels for over 100 years now. Surely something must be wrong with that paradigm if it's so old. We should tinker with it just to prove how modern we are!!!!
As others have said: the changes you state are all well and good for small handheld devices. Those devices don't omit the keyboard and mouse because their input method is superior - they do so because it's impractical to have them on a mobile device. DESKTOP operating systems don't have those type of space restrictions. Without those specific needs for compromise, the keyboard/mouse setup remains a quicker, more efficient way to enter data. Trust me, I don't mind checking Facebook and doing quick tasks on my Android phone. Works great sitting on the couch. There comes a point though when I'm doing a lot when I just say "Fuck this" and go down the hall to my desktop so I can get a keyboard in front of me. I can type in 30 seconds what it'd take 5 minutes or more to enter on that touch interface.
This is not a one size fits all thing, and the distributions are insane if they think of it that way.
In all fairness (really, I hate Unity), it seems to remember my choice just fine. When I switched to "Ubuntu Classic" once that menu option is already selected for my user id any time I login from that point on.
Gnome 3 is just as goofy as Unity. Canonical basically saw that Gnome 3 was going to be a stupid UI, and in a move of utter "brilliance" decided instead to go their own direction and create an EQUALLY stupid UI.
XFCE is a better option. Unfortunately the exo package used in the version of XFCE available in 11.04 causes issues with Chrome opening files. The XFCE compositor is also fairly basic in comparison to Compiz.
All in all, it's an aggravating time to be a Linux user. I feel like 10 years worth of solid, stable UI design was just tossed out the window because some idiot UI designers wanted to feel special.
I'm still sporting Ubuntu Classic myself. Once that option is gone I'm going to be pulling my hair out whilst I try and get a decent replacement desktop setup. I'm thinking that with enough tweaking, XFCE is the most likely candidate.
So long as Classic is actually there. I'm sure it'll be there for a the next release or two, but eventually it will be deprecated. You have to care about the defaults even when using the legacy config.
It's not in the what, it's in the when. Every person that lives on this Earth will die - everyone knows that. However, when any person of note dies it's still news, because it is a recent occurrence.
This is the same. People knew Hale-Bopp would cease cometary activity. Doesn't change the fact that since it happened NOW, it's news. Take it for what it is.
Which side is being truthful I have no idea, but I find it extremely comical that both sides seem to (quite staunchly) insist that the other side "owns the media".
My personal theory: the people that care the most about the parties are the extremists - on both ends. To an extremist anything short of fanaticism in support of you is "against you".
Left-wing extremists see most of the fairly moderate mainstream media and proclaim them to be "Conservative", except MSNBC.
Right-wing extremists see most of the fairly moderate mainstream media and proclaim them to be "Liberal", except Fox.
I must admit though that the absolute funniest quote I ever saw online (and it was being said completely seriously) was:
"You should only watch Fox News. All the other sources are biased."
About the only thing that has helped is the reinforced cockpit doors and training for pilots on what to do.
Only for air travel. I don't get this thinking by some post 9/11 that the standard terrorist operating procedure has somehow become "Hijack a plane". They do all sorts of crap. Hijacking a plane happened to work for them that one time. Next time they might try something completely different. That doesn't mean we don't beef airport security some, but please people, understand that there are plenty of other ways for them to hit us. Taking out the source of the attacks does do a lot of good that simple reactionary thinking can't achieve.
I was playing with it myself about a week ago. I can honestly say that though it takes a bit of configuring, you can get XFCE looking much like the Gnome2 UI. My only show stopper issue for the time being was the XFCE's compositor just wasn't as good as Compiz (it caused some issues playing videos), and my dock-bar of choice (Docky) won't work without one. I can enable Compiz naturally, but it was trying to take over control of the desktop icons and such.
It's probably something that could be worked around given enough time though - I just couldn't find the solution in the hour or two I was experimenting with it. I can say with a certainty though that I prefer even the default/stock XFCE setup more than Unity, Gnome 3 Shell, or KDE, so at a minimum I'll be on XFCE if/when the legacy Gnome UI gets pulled - probably before just to be preemptive.
I had actually thought about switching back to Windows due to the Unity/Gnome Shell issue actually. I gave that a shot though and was unpleasantly reminded about spyware - a concept I had nearly completely forgotten about since switching to Ubuntu circa 9.04 (at least full time - I've been dual-booting Linux since 1998 or so).
While the OS itself might not change, usually app versions get frozen to a particular level per release and only get updated in the repositories (aside from security and major bugfixes) on the change of the OS version. You can get around this by using PPA's, but IMHO those often cause some issues.
All in all, for me it's worth upgrading just to get new versions of most of the applications. I might would stick to the LTS releases if I used my system for "real work", but in reality at work I'm stuck with Windows 7 and Ubuntu is just what I use at home where a stability is important, but not paramount.
Someday your encryption algorithm will be broken, perhaps sooner than you think
That's simply a bet that we disagree on. I doubt most of the AES level algorithms will be broken within our lifetime - certainly not within the useable lifespan of my data. Either way, once better algorithms come out I'll be moving to better and stronger encryption.
Apples to Oranges comparison. None of the online services come close to the quality of a Bluray Disc.
No, they don't. HOWEVER, all of them have a quality that is basically as good as I'd ever care to watch. They all have decent 720p available at a minimum, and truthfully I have no issue with 720p. As a matter of fact, Aside from a side by side comparison (and even then I'd have to look closely), I can't even tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.
Which isn't proof of much. I could pick any other distributor that went with Blu-Ray too as an example. Doesn't mean that they were the cause of why one standard succeeded and the other failed. My personal theory is just that Blu-Ray sounds cooler and more futuristic.
In that case the simple solution is to encrypt your data prior to placing it in such storage services. I have a DropBox account. I like it - it works great. HOWEVER, my Dropbox sync folder contains 1 file: an encrypted TruCypt volume. Cloud storage allows me a duplicate of that file in case say, my house burns down, but if anyone gets it if they go out of business it's useless.
The point still stands: you have to take some responsibility for yourself when using computers. Have a plan for every "what if" scenario that is plausible (and the storage company going out of business is certainly plausible), and make sure that if that "what if" comes to pass that you're prepared for it. If you are unwilling or unable to prepare for that scenario, then don't blame anyone else when that "what if" bites you in the ass.
But a hard drive can fail at any time, and there may not be any warning. If you're looking for one magic bullet where you can store your data without any care as to setting up backups, then sorry, it doesn't exist. If you have data that you don't want to lose, it HAS to exist in multiple places. Otherwise it's just a matter of time before it's gone.
Slashdot Mirror
No shit Sherlock - the operative word there is iTunes. You're still syncing through iTunes which negates your entire point. Until you have something that takes you away from iTunes completely then you haven't found a complete replacement.
Oddness. I though he was just off his rocker with that comment but someone else knows it so it can't be completely off base.
Every bank in my local vicinity closes at 5pm. A lot of them stay open until 6pm on Fridays (presumably also due to historic reasons - prior to direct deposit people were often paid on Friday so the banks stayed open longer for people to come cash/deposit checks on pay-day).
Of course, these days I'm even seeing a few banks start to open on Saturdays. All in all though, irrelevant. I have 2 checking accounts that I use (one is for bills and one is for discretionary spending) - the discretionary one that I use pretty much everyday doesn't even have a physical branch closer than 30 miles to my house. I haven't stepped foot in that building since I opened the account. A specified portion of my check auto-deposits there, and the rest is done via the net and ATM's.
I'm not really even that young (about to turn 30), and the entire concept of physically doing stuff in a bank seems outdated.
Aren't those features of, well, pretty much any online music store at all, such as Amazon?
With Amazon I can buy mp3s, and syncing mp3s to my player is not a function of the damn store I bought it from! Drag and drop through USB mass storage has been around forever - I was doing that on my old IRiver player back ages ago.
I don't understand stories like this. Mp3s can be bought in a million and four ways, and syncing them to my own devices (although I don't own an iPod) has been possible for as long as there have been mp3s at all. What's the big deal here? If something today couldn't do that, it means it was behind basic functionality of the early 1990s.
Note to most Slashdotters - almost every time you stamp your feet declaring something unnewsworthy, you're usually missing something.
The key point here is that it syncs with iPods. Not "MP3 Players", not to a USB Mass Storage Device, but to an actual honest to goodness iPod. Amazon doesn't do that, specifically because iPods use a proprietary sync routine and can't be synced like most other players.
Linux has been doing that forever with Compiz too. I had a nice GPU accelerated GUI long before Unity showed up, and I still have that under classic mode. No matter how much you want to polish the turd that is Unity, it ain't gonna pass muster.
IMHO Mint would be better the Debian. Debian works *about* the same, but realistically - at least from my experience - the package repositories simply can't compete. When I tried Debian I found myself going back to compiling many packages from source because the repositories didn't have them. The thing about package managers is that unless you use them for 99% of your software installs, the whole dependency system gets flaky because the package manager doesn't really know what's installed. Ubuntu is one of the few distros where pretty much every app I could want to use was in the repos.
A better analogy would be if they would remove the physical steering wheel, shift stick and everything for your car and replace those with a giant touch screen interface.
Indeed. Afterall we've had steering wheels for over 100 years now. Surely something must be wrong with that paradigm if it's so old. We should tinker with it just to prove how modern we are!!!!
As others have said: the changes you state are all well and good for small handheld devices. Those devices don't omit the keyboard and mouse because their input method is superior - they do so because it's impractical to have them on a mobile device. DESKTOP operating systems don't have those type of space restrictions. Without those specific needs for compromise, the keyboard/mouse setup remains a quicker, more efficient way to enter data. Trust me, I don't mind checking Facebook and doing quick tasks on my Android phone. Works great sitting on the couch. There comes a point though when I'm doing a lot when I just say "Fuck this" and go down the hall to my desktop so I can get a keyboard in front of me. I can type in 30 seconds what it'd take 5 minutes or more to enter on that touch interface.
This is not a one size fits all thing, and the distributions are insane if they think of it that way.
You're either mistaken, or something is broken on your system. It holds the choice between sessions.
In all fairness (really, I hate Unity), it seems to remember my choice just fine. When I switched to "Ubuntu Classic" once that menu option is already selected for my user id any time I login from that point on.
Gnome 3 is just as goofy as Unity. Canonical basically saw that Gnome 3 was going to be a stupid UI, and in a move of utter "brilliance" decided instead to go their own direction and create an EQUALLY stupid UI.
XFCE is a better option. Unfortunately the exo package used in the version of XFCE available in 11.04 causes issues with Chrome opening files. The XFCE compositor is also fairly basic in comparison to Compiz.
All in all, it's an aggravating time to be a Linux user. I feel like 10 years worth of solid, stable UI design was just tossed out the window because some idiot UI designers wanted to feel special.
I'm still sporting Ubuntu Classic myself. Once that option is gone I'm going to be pulling my hair out whilst I try and get a decent replacement desktop setup. I'm thinking that with enough tweaking, XFCE is the most likely candidate.
So long as Classic is actually there. I'm sure it'll be there for a the next release or two, but eventually it will be deprecated. You have to care about the defaults even when using the legacy config.
It's not in the what, it's in the when. Every person that lives on this Earth will die - everyone knows that. However, when any person of note dies it's still news, because it is a recent occurrence.
This is the same. People knew Hale-Bopp would cease cometary activity. Doesn't change the fact that since it happened NOW, it's news. Take it for what it is.
Can't wait to see it again next time around!
After all, the Republicans own the media,
Which side is being truthful I have no idea, but I find it extremely comical that both sides seem to (quite staunchly) insist that the other side "owns the media".
My personal theory: the people that care the most about the parties are the extremists - on both ends. To an extremist anything short of fanaticism in support of you is "against you".
Left-wing extremists see most of the fairly moderate mainstream media and proclaim them to be "Conservative", except MSNBC.
Right-wing extremists see most of the fairly moderate mainstream media and proclaim them to be "Liberal", except Fox.
I must admit though that the absolute funniest quote I ever saw online (and it was being said completely seriously) was:
"You should only watch Fox News. All the other sources are biased."
Whoosh. Congratulations - you're just as dimwitted as the people he was referring to in his post.
About the only thing that has helped is the reinforced cockpit doors and training for pilots on what to do.
Only for air travel. I don't get this thinking by some post 9/11 that the standard terrorist operating procedure has somehow become "Hijack a plane". They do all sorts of crap. Hijacking a plane happened to work for them that one time. Next time they might try something completely different. That doesn't mean we don't beef airport security some, but please people, understand that there are plenty of other ways for them to hit us. Taking out the source of the attacks does do a lot of good that simple reactionary thinking can't achieve.
I was playing with it myself about a week ago. I can honestly say that though it takes a bit of configuring, you can get XFCE looking much like the Gnome2 UI. My only show stopper issue for the time being was the XFCE's compositor just wasn't as good as Compiz (it caused some issues playing videos), and my dock-bar of choice (Docky) won't work without one. I can enable Compiz naturally, but it was trying to take over control of the desktop icons and such.
It's probably something that could be worked around given enough time though - I just couldn't find the solution in the hour or two I was experimenting with it. I can say with a certainty though that I prefer even the default/stock XFCE setup more than Unity, Gnome 3 Shell, or KDE, so at a minimum I'll be on XFCE if/when the legacy Gnome UI gets pulled - probably before just to be preemptive.
I had actually thought about switching back to Windows due to the Unity/Gnome Shell issue actually. I gave that a shot though and was unpleasantly reminded about spyware - a concept I had nearly completely forgotten about since switching to Ubuntu circa 9.04 (at least full time - I've been dual-booting Linux since 1998 or so).
While the OS itself might not change, usually app versions get frozen to a particular level per release and only get updated in the repositories (aside from security and major bugfixes) on the change of the OS version. You can get around this by using PPA's, but IMHO those often cause some issues.
All in all, for me it's worth upgrading just to get new versions of most of the applications. I might would stick to the LTS releases if I used my system for "real work", but in reality at work I'm stuck with Windows 7 and Ubuntu is just what I use at home where a stability is important, but not paramount.
The difference is in when that next news comes. I'll stand by my bet that its a LONG ways off.
Someday your encryption algorithm will be broken, perhaps sooner than you think
That's simply a bet that we disagree on. I doubt most of the AES level algorithms will be broken within our lifetime - certainly not within the useable lifespan of my data. Either way, once better algorithms come out I'll be moving to better and stronger encryption.
Apples to Oranges comparison. None of the online services come close to the quality of a Bluray Disc.
No, they don't. HOWEVER, all of them have a quality that is basically as good as I'd ever care to watch. They all have decent 720p available at a minimum, and truthfully I have no issue with 720p. As a matter of fact, Aside from a side by side comparison (and even then I'd have to look closely), I can't even tell the difference between 720p and 1080p.
Which isn't proof of much. I could pick any other distributor that went with Blu-Ray too as an example. Doesn't mean that they were the cause of why one standard succeeded and the other failed. My personal theory is just that Blu-Ray sounds cooler and more futuristic.
Netflix does that with agreements that it has reached with various set-top box providers. I'm sure that Google could negotiate similar deals.
Alternatively, they do kinda sorta have a set-top box offering that I'm sure would support this:
http://www.google.com/tv/
In that case the simple solution is to encrypt your data prior to placing it in such storage services. I have a DropBox account. I like it - it works great. HOWEVER, my Dropbox sync folder contains 1 file: an encrypted TruCypt volume. Cloud storage allows me a duplicate of that file in case say, my house burns down, but if anyone gets it if they go out of business it's useless.
The point still stands: you have to take some responsibility for yourself when using computers. Have a plan for every "what if" scenario that is plausible (and the storage company going out of business is certainly plausible), and make sure that if that "what if" comes to pass that you're prepared for it. If you are unwilling or unable to prepare for that scenario, then don't blame anyone else when that "what if" bites you in the ass.
But a hard drive can fail at any time, and there may not be any warning. If you're looking for one magic bullet where you can store your data without any care as to setting up backups, then sorry, it doesn't exist. If you have data that you don't want to lose, it HAS to exist in multiple places. Otherwise it's just a matter of time before it's gone.