there is a widely-held view that NDA's are meaningless and un-enforcable. this shows clearly that is not the case.
I'm not sure that I've ever seen anyone claim that. It is important to remember, however, that not all portions of an employment agreement (including NDA's) are necessarily enforceable. For example, many such contracts stipulate that you will not sue your employer. That particular clause is completely unenforceable in every state I know about. Like anything else there are parts that can be enforced and parts that cannot in many contracts. Hire a lawyer and ask if you want to know about any given part.
what's wrong with a menu rather than click click clicking through folders to find things.
Here's a tip for you: drag your applications folder into the dock. If you click once it opens the folder. If you right-click or click and hold the button down it works as a contextual menu (just like the start menu in windows).
Students I teach have several different installations of the same software on their machines, some in 'Applications' and others in '/usr/bin' - they don't seem to know what's on their machines and where, and it frustrates them.
You need to spend some time learning the system if you plan to teach on it. It isn't really very hard. BSD subsystem applications install in all the same old confusing locations as they always have in BSD, Linux, etc. OS X applications go wherever you put them. Pre-installed OS X apps are in the Applications folder and it is a good place to keep new ones.
Personally, I've never run across anyone who understands the basic UNIX CLI commands, that has not instantly figured out OS X when I said, "The OS X GUI applications are in the Applications folder." Every UNIX guy I know grokked it at that point.
I don't see this.app as anything of an innovation - especially from a useability perspective - really, there's nothing wrong with the system as it stands;
Here's what's wrong with the old system. You have to run a binary to install most basic applications. You have to run another to delete the application. An application's resources are stored in an arbitrary location. Applications break if you move them. Uninstallers don't always work properly. You have to trust both the installer and the uninstaller not just the application itself (two extra vectors for trojans). Uninstalling an application and installing a new version destroys your preferences if done properly. Uninstalling an application can break another due to shared libraries. It is often difficult for multiple versions of the same application to co-exist (they have a tendency to try to use the same resources). Finally, you can't easily move applications from one computer to another or back them up.
All of those problems are solved with the.app method. I'm in control. If I want to install an application, I drag it where I want it. I don't have to worry that it will create random files all over my hard drive. I don't have to worry if the uninstaller will work. If I want to look at an image or listen to a sound used by one of my applications, I just navigate into it and look in the resources folder. This is also cool for easily customizing applications. Since the applications are self contained if a friend wants one, you just share the one file. Backing up applications has never been easier and I don't know any other systems where you can just send someone an application via AIM and have it just work.
...install something and find it in the menu or CLI immediately.
And this differs from OS X how? On OS X you drag the file where you want it, and it is there in all your menus, windows, and the CLI. Heck, when using the default terminal you can drag a folder you are navigated into to another location, and the terminal does not get confused at all. I guess the problem I'm hearing from you is twofold. First, you can't remember where you put your programs. Second, you want a start menu just like windows has. For the first one, put them in the same place. For the second, make a menu already. It takes about 30 seconds to build a custom one.
OK, here is one last tip for you. Get quicksilver. you won't care where any of your applications are. You hit cntrl-space type 1-3 letters and enter. It is so much faster than anything else you'll be amazed. It is the best of tab completion combined with the ease of the GUI.
Are there no no libraries or.DLL equivilants that are installed in another location? Are there no configuration settings in the equivilant of a registry that must be removed?
It is pretty accurate. Applications may link to standard libraries on the system, but any others are included in the package. OS X handles them very intelligently, with versioning. Dot fixes to a library that are included in another application will be used by older applications (thus adding one new program can improve the performance of existing applications.) Major version changes in libraries are not linked to since it would cause compatibility issues. Preference files are XML and are stored in the/Library or ~/Library folder and linking is dynamic.
The upshot of all of this is you can drag a normal OS X application anywhere on your hard drive, and it will work just fine. If you toss it in the trash, it will be gone. Your preference file normally remains, which is convenient since it means if you reinstall the program or replace it with a newer version you will still have your preferences. The paranoid should take care to remove the preferences file when they delete an application. (otherwise someone with access to their account might know what color terminal windows they like.)
Someone earlier mentioned users being confused by applications in/usr/bin. I can see where this would be confusing to someone who does not know UNIX, but there is not really any need for a newbie to touch anything in/usr/bin. It contains all the legacy BSD applications which are a huge boon to people who are already UNIX saavy, but are a usability nightmare for anyone else. If you're planning on using apps from/usr/bin or any of the other legacy locations, you'd do well to familiarize yourself with the system organization.
imagine seeing someone click on the firefox icon on the dock, and having the mac sit there for a few seconds as it first mounts the disk image(which is likely placed randomly on the hard drive) with firefox in it, and then starts it.
Ha ha! I've never seen that happen. Most of the.dmg files I get have big text that says "Drag this to your applications folder." I can see how a clueless user would put it in their dock, though and see the behavior you describe. Of course I don't see why the disk image would ever get unmounted. I suppose some users shut down or reboot more often than once a month.
Perhaps there should be a warning (with an option to disable it) for users who try to put a application on a software disk image into the dock. I'm not sure how feasible that is though. I know several people who keep particular sets of files in encrypted disk images, but still have shortcuts to them. Anyone doing that, however, probably can find a user setting to disable the warning.
Yeah, I've seen that happen. I use OS X by preference for most tasks, and I think they strike a good middle ground. They put most native programs in/Applications. In a shared environment users can install programs to ~/Applications. The BSD subsystem applications are stored in/usr/bin and the other historically expected locations. Newbies look in/Applications and find everything. CLI gurus find everything where they expect too.
Watching a Mac user run Windows or Linux is painful. They try to move or delete programs and just can't understand why it doesn't work.
Recent versions of Acrobat reader and writer which have come with other Adobe products and which I use for testing are really annoying. They hook into Word. They hook into Safari. They integrate with numerous apps by adding buttons and toolbars. It is really bothersome. On OS X, why do I need an extra button in Word That tries to sell me Acrobat Writer. It's not like Word on OS X can't already make PDFs. Also, Acrobat reader is much slower than Preview and grinds the browser to a halt while trying to open PDFs inline. That is half the reason PDFs suck so badly on Windows. Worse yet, recent version of reader on OS X silently fail to open some PDFs. Adobe needs to get their act together.
Didn't Apple license the PDF format from Adobe for integration into Mac OSX?
Nope. PDF is an open standard. There are several open and closed source readers and writers. Apple implemented their own version (well I heard they acquired an existing solution and reworked it).
But if you spend thousands on components, why skimp on a $10 cable vice a $50 one? The price difference is negligable. It's like complaining about a WinXP license on a $20k server. Just buy big and never worry.
It's very interesting listening to the difference between scientists and marketers. I work with both. Scientists always want to make a better product, without wasting resources. Marketers always want to make a product seem better while being cheaper to produce. The most common advice from Marketers to scientists is "raise the price."
For some reason purchasers often assume that a greater price indicates a better product. Often the best way to make your product seem superior in the eyes of consumers is to price it higher than everyone else's. It works too. Otherwise people like you would not describe the quality of their components in terms of how much they cost.
First off, don't ask audiophile questions on/. unless you want to be told that a bit is a bit and how it gets from point A to point B doesn't matter.
Yup. Lots of people with scientific minds here. They care about facts and how things work. If you want I can sell you very poorly made components and cables at high prices. You'll probably even think they sound better. (Maybe someone like Monster has beaten me to it.)
But, if you spend thousands anyway, why skimp on Radio Shack cables?
The original post said that price was not a concern. The question was about the quality of Monster cables relative to other cables. Are they better or just higher priced? It is a very valid question that you don't really answer.
It's like complaining about a WinXP license on a $20k server. Just buy big and never worry.
On Slashdot this has to be a troll. But it is a troll that brings out a very real problem with Linux. The functional value of Linux is often demonstrably better than Windows, especially for servers. Since the price is free, however, people perceive it as less valuable and less useful. Luckily there are plenty of companies ready to charge you money for free things.
Upgrade to OS X. Icons change to show information. In column view a preview of many file types is available.
Ah. Just like Windows ca. 1997.
Funny, I have a Win2K box sitting in front of me that won't let me play previews of mp3s, movies, and can't show me a preview of my photoshop files.
*Some* apps do.
True, but it is up to the application developer. The hooks are there and even built into the dev tools. The state of the art is there, just many developers are not very interested in a polished interface. Gee, what a surprise, crappy UI programming.
..the types of things you are talking about have a very different purpose to the proposal of the parent.
Yes, they are useful more than one time. The parent's proposal was that icons should be more useful and one way they could be more useful was to show a movie of the app running. That is fine, but not really very useful for most icons compared to the kinds of feedback they are actually capable of. I explained this in my post.
Is that icon state updated by the OS, or direct write by the app?
The icon is drawn by the OS in the Finder (file manager) and in the dock (err, running application manager and shortcuts to any specified files, application, directories, etc.) when the application is not running. It can be updated at any time by the application while it is running, but control reverts to the OS when the application closes. This is something that can be worked around, but I wish the dev tools would easily allow application icons to change to indicate the last state of that application. Right now applications can mostly send updates to the icon in the dock, not in the window manager (as far as I can tell). The window manager supports previews of a number of file types (similar to Windows XP, but with more file types supported) and displays progress bars for downloading files.
Is the facility ready now for exposing (get/set) STDIN/OUT/ERR in the icon? Can a separate app read/write the icon state of another app?
I'm no expert on this. I'm sure it is doable, but I'm not sure how easy it is. I suspect it is not quite there yet for practical purposes.
could I write an app that lets me draw stretchy lines between icons, to indicate pipelines? If the hooks are there, maybe we won't have to wait too long.
Sadly, I think you would need to write your own file manager for this (or modify one of the already written open source ones for OS X). It is certainly possible, but I have never looked into how hard it would be. OS X supports pipes of course, but I don't think the finder supports easily creating them and the finder is closed source. There is a GUI scripting application called "Automater," I think, due out next month with the OS X 10.4 that allows for this sort of thing, but I don't know how well it will be integrated with the file manager.
But all that these icons communicate is that a file exists, in a given storage subdivision (folder), with some clues to its datatype.
I have three OS's in front of me right now. Two of them have icons more or less the same as in the 90's. One is different. If you want useful icons, you want OS X. My mail icon tells me how many unread messages I have. My minimized windows indicate what application they are associated with and a thumbnail of the window. My calendar app shows the date. Downloading files show a progress bar. Minimized movies show, well the movie, still playing, or still if paused. Applications with a dialogue box, or that need attention bounce. One of my icons shows me system stats (cpu, memory, disk, network activity, and cpu use over the last minute) in a cryptic, but readable fashion.
There is certainly a lot more that can be done to make icons more informative and useful, but to say that they have not advanced is to ignore all of the above. OS X has provided the means to make icons useful. Some developers have run with it and some have ignored the capabilities. There is more to be done, mostly with with more advanced file managers. Some will have to wait until there is more cpu power available and some can be done now. Just don't ignore the state of the art because you are not using it for whatever reason.
Upgrade to OS X. Icons change to show information. In column view a preview of many file types is available. If you have a movie file playing and minimize it a thumbnail of it continues to play in the dock. If you mouse over it it magnifies (if you have that feature enabled). Files being downloaded or tasks being computed generally show a progress bar on the icon when minimized. This is much more useful than a generic movie of how an app looks. For the most part people know what any application they plan to run does. Providing useful feedback in the form of dynamic icons is very useful, and is the norm on OS X.
Based on my reading of/. posts over the last year or so it seems to me that the prevailing mindset of posters is left of center to say the least(based in part on the amount of Bush-bashing that takes place).
It's "News for Nerds" The vast majority of people who bother trying to classify people as "right" or "left" determine that the amount of higher education a person has the more likely they are to be "left." Education is something nerds traditionally gravitate towards. Get it?
How many slashdot participants have cracked the cover of the Bible in the past year?
I have. Also I've recently read parts of the Qua-ran and the Torah, amongst other religious works. I think the Christian Bible is a decent book, as old religious texts go. The old testament has some very clever parables. The new testament has some well thought out philosophy and is good sci-fi. It is certainly less dull and repetitive than the Qua-ran.
What amazes me is the number of supposed Christians that don't seem to have a clue what the bible says. I wish some of those damn evangelists who knock on my door trying to "spread the word" would go home and read the damn book themselves. Most of them seem pretty clueless when asked about the actual contents. I wish I could read some of the older languages in which it is written. I can see plenty that is lost between the latin and English versions. I imagine if someone were to read the Greek or Aramaic they would be reading a completely different work.
In any case, if I had to guess as to why it is hard to find the bible in Google's system, I imagine it has something to do with the fact that it is usually called "The Bible." It is probably similarly difficult to find books named "The Book," "The Writing," The Work," etc. Thousands of old works are called bibles and have that in the title. My guess is Google treats the words "bible," "book," and "the" in special ways in order to keep thousands of results from flooding someone who enters them. That is just a guess though.
It was one of the first books I checked for and amazingly "bible" and "the bible" do not yeild the desired results either.
That's what Christians get for naming their authoritative religious work "The Bible." All of you looking to start a new religion take note. Bad titles for your religious text include: The Book, The Writing, The Text, and The Bound Stack of Paper.
P.S. The number of older texts that include the word "bible" is similar to the number of contemporary works that include the word "book."
I can't see how they can be thrown in jail for deciding to no longer support their products in a particular geographical region.
If the courts order a person to comply with an order to run the EU branch of MS as a separate business and sever ties with the U.S. home office, you can be certain that a company officer could certainly go to jail for refusing to comply.
I don't think it would actually get that far anyway.
You've got that right. If Ballmer announced he was stopping sales to Europe there would be an emergency meeting of the board of directors and he'd be out on his ass in about an hour. You don't give up on a 25 billion (profit) a year market because a 1.8 billion a year fine is imposed upon you. Anyone whose math is that bad would get the boot in record time.
And how does it feel to be subsidising European justice?
I feel cheated. I mean we convicted them first, the U.S. government should be collecting 1.8 billion from them annually. Instead of the government getting a funding boost, however, a small fraction went to donations to the Democrats and Republicans, and as a result we saw more ads on TV during the elections. What a rip off.
I guess the europeans just have a better government right now. They went for 1.8 billion in the government coffers instead of a few million in bribes to the politicians. I wonder what they will spend it on that U.S. citizens could have used. Heck we could have started paying off some of our enormous debt.
I see many ordinary users using that exact same context menu to cut/copy/paste routinely.
Because they learned to use those functions using this 3rd mechanism for the exact same command. 90% of the people I see copying and pasting are either advanced, and use keyboard shortcuts, or are very remedial and use the regular menus.
Maybe you only find an obviously useful feature to be "unnecessary" because you were born and bred as a single-button Mac user?
Nope. As I mentioned I use Mac, Windows, and Linux daily and usually simultaneously. I also don't use any single button mice.
I'd bet more Mac programs have the exact same menu than you realize.
As far as I know there is only one MacOS X program that requires the use of a contextual menu activated by the right mouse button. It is a high-end graphics program developed by morons. Many programs include features there, but since by default Macs don't have two buttons, no one puts things only there. This frees the user to customize that menu with whatever functionality is desired. If you want the context menu to have copy and paste, fine add them. But it is much nicer for me to be able to put what I want there. I can't imagine why anyone would think developers know their workflow better than themselves.
Why does an American Company have to be subjected to the fines and penalties of a foreign semi-socialistic union.
Because they are not an American company, they are an International company. When in Rome, obey the Roman laws or pay the consequences. Or do you think North Korean companies should be able to do business in the U.S. but not follow any of our laws while over here?
European companies would not allow such a sanction.
Several European companies have already been given fines nearly as high as this, and they have complied.
If Microsoft is truly a monopoly (and I am not suggesting that it is not), it should be taken up in the United States
It was, then MS bribed the Republican and the Democrats and the Justice department decided their punishment was to have nothing happen to them. Maybe if the U.S. government was not so corrupt the EU would not have to step in. Who elected them again?
The European Union wants to further degrade the U.S. dollar and establish itself as a superpower.
With 5 million a day? Umm, OK then. The U.S. is doing plenty to degrade its own currency. The EU does not need to help out. It's what happens when you put a lying coke addict, who has run several businesses into the ground, and has a vested interest in making money for himself in charge.
While I'm not a big fan of M$, I think they can pretty much just get their way. They could just say "Drop the lawsuit, or we stop all supporting and licensing activities in the EU effective tomorrow."
Ha! I'd love to see that happen, but there is no chance. The EU has a lot more power than MS right now. First, the EU is half their market, that is an order of magnitude more profit lost than just paying the fine. Second, MS has all sorts of money in European banks, assets in EU countries, patents and copyrights, and people who work for them there. When you attempt to blackmail the people who write the laws and have the police and army where you are, they toss your ass in a small jail cell and take whatever they want. "Hello Mr. MS European Director. Are you going to continue business as usual here or go to jail?"
The EU could just separate MS Europe from MS International and grant all their IP and assets in Europe to this new company. R&D in Europe might slow, but then MS International would have to compete. MS may be run by stubborn pricks, but they are not so stupid as to overtly defy the EU. They will continue with business as usual, delay in the courts, and bribe their way out of this.
Hymn appears to violate the DMCA to the letter of the law because the DRM is in place at the time Hymn performs it's functions.
I don't think this is actually true. Hymn does not break any encryption, it merely uses your legally obtained encryption keys to remove the DRM. This is a very fine point, but based upon my reading of portions of the DMCA, Hymn seems to be in the clear if you can explain it properly to a jury.
I love(d) Buffy and Angel... but somehow firefly didn't have the same magic....many people will probably disagree with me anyway
I disagree.:) I find both Angel and Buffy to be too cheesy, to the point of being painful to watch. I know a number of people who like both, but if either starts playing, I change the channel or leave the room. I thought Firefly, on the other hand, was very well done. The dialogue was much, much better and I thought the cast was quite talented. I guess it is all just a matter of preference.
That doesn't explain why Apple's $3000 multiprocessor workstations come with a 1 button mouse.
I want Apple to ship a one button mouse by default on every system I buy. I will not use that mouse. The reason I want a one button mouse is not because I am an idiot, and can't use more buttons. Developers are idiots. If Apple ships a multi-button mouse, developers will immediately begin coding applications to require multiple buttons. This is something that sucks badly on Windows right now. As I mentioned earlier, Notepad on Windows has the second mouse button mapped to a contextual menu that is completely unnecessary. Other programs put controls only in this contextual menu. That means disabled people, voice interfaces, and scripts that use the menu controls usually can't get to those features. That sucks. Right now on the mac, while running a text editor, the second mouse button can actually do useful things, like spell checking, or a thesaurus, or translation, or online dictionary lookup, or any number of other services I assign.
I use MacOS X, Windows, and Linux every day. I wish all of them and the applications on them were built for a single button mouse, and left everything else to the user to configure. But, as I said, developers are stupid. Luckily Apple isn't.
most fingerprint ID systems store the print data encrypted to prevent just this kind of problem.
So do most credit card databases. They just do so very poorly. The question is who hold the encryption keys. Can an insider decrypt them with a master key, then sell them? Can the encryption be brute forced? Can the encryption be broken using an average desktop 10 years from now? You put far too much faith in the security of all the random stores, government organizations, etc. I mean Piggly Wiggly introduced thumb print registers for a while (which could be defeated with a gummi-bear). If you are willing to trust an unchangable key to the lowest common denominator of a broad selection of businesses then you are braver, or more foolish than I.
newer systems will use a 3-d representation
There are several fingerprint ID systems for PC's available from Compusa right now. I don't think any of them use a 3-d image.
...these issues are not part of the real problem.
The fact that a key cannot be changed and is likely constantly exposed in your daily life are two very real problems with biometrics as an authentication mechanism.
Slashdot Mirror
Is catastrofal a perfectly cromulent word?
In English the word is catastrophic.
there is a widely-held view that NDA's are meaningless and un-enforcable. this shows clearly that is not the case.
I'm not sure that I've ever seen anyone claim that. It is important to remember, however, that not all portions of an employment agreement (including NDA's) are necessarily enforceable. For example, many such contracts stipulate that you will not sue your employer. That particular clause is completely unenforceable in every state I know about. Like anything else there are parts that can be enforced and parts that cannot in many contracts. Hire a lawyer and ask if you want to know about any given part.
what's wrong with a menu rather than click click clicking through folders to find things.
Here's a tip for you: drag your applications folder into the dock. If you click once it opens the folder. If you right-click or click and hold the button down it works as a contextual menu (just like the start menu in windows).
Students I teach have several different installations of the same software on their machines, some in 'Applications' and others in '/usr/bin' - they don't seem to know what's on their machines and where, and it frustrates them.
You need to spend some time learning the system if you plan to teach on it. It isn't really very hard. BSD subsystem applications install in all the same old confusing locations as they always have in BSD, Linux, etc. OS X applications go wherever you put them. Pre-installed OS X apps are in the Applications folder and it is a good place to keep new ones.
Personally, I've never run across anyone who understands the basic UNIX CLI commands, that has not instantly figured out OS X when I said, "The OS X GUI applications are in the Applications folder." Every UNIX guy I know grokked it at that point.
I don't see this .app as anything of an innovation - especially from a useability perspective - really, there's nothing wrong with the system as it stands;
Here's what's wrong with the old system. You have to run a binary to install most basic applications. You have to run another to delete the application. An application's resources are stored in an arbitrary location. Applications break if you move them. Uninstallers don't always work properly. You have to trust both the installer and the uninstaller not just the application itself (two extra vectors for trojans). Uninstalling an application and installing a new version destroys your preferences if done properly. Uninstalling an application can break another due to shared libraries. It is often difficult for multiple versions of the same application to co-exist (they have a tendency to try to use the same resources). Finally, you can't easily move applications from one computer to another or back them up.
All of those problems are solved with the .app method. I'm in control. If I want to install an application, I drag it where I want it. I don't have to worry that it will create random files all over my hard drive. I don't have to worry if the uninstaller will work. If I want to look at an image or listen to a sound used by one of my applications, I just navigate into it and look in the resources folder. This is also cool for easily customizing applications. Since the applications are self contained if a friend wants one, you just share the one file. Backing up applications has never been easier and I don't know any other systems where you can just send someone an application via AIM and have it just work.
And this differs from OS X how? On OS X you drag the file where you want it, and it is there in all your menus, windows, and the CLI. Heck, when using the default terminal you can drag a folder you are navigated into to another location, and the terminal does not get confused at all. I guess the problem I'm hearing from you is twofold. First, you can't remember where you put your programs. Second, you want a start menu just like windows has. For the first one, put them in the same place. For the second, make a menu already. It takes about 30 seconds to build a custom one.
OK, here is one last tip for you. Get quicksilver. you won't care where any of your applications are. You hit cntrl-space type 1-3 letters and enter. It is so much faster than anything else you'll be amazed. It is the best of tab completion combined with the ease of the GUI.
Are there no no libraries or .DLL equivilants that are installed in another location? Are there no configuration settings in the equivilant of a registry that must be removed?
It is pretty accurate. Applications may link to standard libraries on the system, but any others are included in the package. OS X handles them very intelligently, with versioning. Dot fixes to a library that are included in another application will be used by older applications (thus adding one new program can improve the performance of existing applications.) Major version changes in libraries are not linked to since it would cause compatibility issues. Preference files are XML and are stored in the /Library or ~/Library folder and linking is dynamic.
The upshot of all of this is you can drag a normal OS X application anywhere on your hard drive, and it will work just fine. If you toss it in the trash, it will be gone. Your preference file normally remains, which is convenient since it means if you reinstall the program or replace it with a newer version you will still have your preferences. The paranoid should take care to remove the preferences file when they delete an application. (otherwise someone with access to their account might know what color terminal windows they like.)
Someone earlier mentioned users being confused by applications in /usr/bin. I can see where this would be confusing to someone who does not know UNIX, but there is not really any need for a newbie to touch anything in /usr/bin. It contains all the legacy BSD applications which are a huge boon to people who are already UNIX saavy, but are a usability nightmare for anyone else. If you're planning on using apps from /usr/bin or any of the other legacy locations, you'd do well to familiarize yourself with the system organization.
imagine seeing someone click on the firefox icon on the dock, and having the mac sit there for a few seconds as it first mounts the disk image(which is likely placed randomly on the hard drive) with firefox in it, and then starts it.
Ha ha! I've never seen that happen. Most of the .dmg files I get have big text that says "Drag this to your applications folder." I can see how a clueless user would put it in their dock, though and see the behavior you describe. Of course I don't see why the disk image would ever get unmounted. I suppose some users shut down or reboot more often than once a month.
Perhaps there should be a warning (with an option to disable it) for users who try to put a application on a software disk image into the dock. I'm not sure how feasible that is though. I know several people who keep particular sets of files in encrypted disk images, but still have shortcuts to them. Anyone doing that, however, probably can find a user setting to disable the warning.
Yeah, I've seen that happen. I use OS X by preference for most tasks, and I think they strike a good middle ground. They put most native programs in /Applications. In a shared environment users can install programs to ~/Applications. The BSD subsystem applications are stored in /usr/bin and the other historically expected locations. Newbies look in /Applications and find everything. CLI gurus find everything where they expect too.
Watching a Mac user run Windows or Linux is painful. They try to move or delete programs and just can't understand why it doesn't work.
Why would you want to install Acrobat Reader at all? Is there something wrong with Preview and the PDF stuff that's already built into the OS?
I install it for compatibility testing. There is nothing wrong with Preview.app though.
Recent versions of Acrobat reader and writer which have come with other Adobe products and which I use for testing are really annoying. They hook into Word. They hook into Safari. They integrate with numerous apps by adding buttons and toolbars. It is really bothersome. On OS X, why do I need an extra button in Word That tries to sell me Acrobat Writer. It's not like Word on OS X can't already make PDFs. Also, Acrobat reader is much slower than Preview and grinds the browser to a halt while trying to open PDFs inline. That is half the reason PDFs suck so badly on Windows. Worse yet, recent version of reader on OS X silently fail to open some PDFs. Adobe needs to get their act together.
Didn't Apple license the PDF format from Adobe for integration into Mac OSX?
Nope. PDF is an open standard. There are several open and closed source readers and writers. Apple implemented their own version (well I heard they acquired an existing solution and reworked it).
But if you spend thousands on components, why skimp on a $10 cable vice a $50 one? The price difference is negligable. It's like complaining about a WinXP license on a $20k server. Just buy big and never worry.
It's very interesting listening to the difference between scientists and marketers. I work with both. Scientists always want to make a better product, without wasting resources. Marketers always want to make a product seem better while being cheaper to produce. The most common advice from Marketers to scientists is "raise the price."
For some reason purchasers often assume that a greater price indicates a better product. Often the best way to make your product seem superior in the eyes of consumers is to price it higher than everyone else's. It works too. Otherwise people like you would not describe the quality of their components in terms of how much they cost.
First off, don't ask audiophile questions on /. unless you want to be told that a bit is a bit and how it gets from point A to point B doesn't matter.
Yup. Lots of people with scientific minds here. They care about facts and how things work. If you want I can sell you very poorly made components and cables at high prices. You'll probably even think they sound better. (Maybe someone like Monster has beaten me to it.)
But, if you spend thousands anyway, why skimp on Radio Shack cables?
The original post said that price was not a concern. The question was about the quality of Monster cables relative to other cables. Are they better or just higher priced? It is a very valid question that you don't really answer.
It's like complaining about a WinXP license on a $20k server. Just buy big and never worry.
On Slashdot this has to be a troll. But it is a troll that brings out a very real problem with Linux. The functional value of Linux is often demonstrably better than Windows, especially for servers. Since the price is free, however, people perceive it as less valuable and less useful. Luckily there are plenty of companies ready to charge you money for free things.
Upgrade to OS X. Icons change to show information. In column view a preview of many file types is available.
Ah. Just like Windows ca. 1997.
Funny, I have a Win2K box sitting in front of me that won't let me play previews of mp3s, movies, and can't show me a preview of my photoshop files.
*Some* apps do.
True, but it is up to the application developer. The hooks are there and even built into the dev tools. The state of the art is there, just many developers are not very interested in a polished interface. Gee, what a surprise, crappy UI programming.
Yes, they are useful more than one time. The parent's proposal was that icons should be more useful and one way they could be more useful was to show a movie of the app running. That is fine, but not really very useful for most icons compared to the kinds of feedback they are actually capable of. I explained this in my post.
Is that icon state updated by the OS, or direct write by the app?
The icon is drawn by the OS in the Finder (file manager) and in the dock (err, running application manager and shortcuts to any specified files, application, directories, etc.) when the application is not running. It can be updated at any time by the application while it is running, but control reverts to the OS when the application closes. This is something that can be worked around, but I wish the dev tools would easily allow application icons to change to indicate the last state of that application. Right now applications can mostly send updates to the icon in the dock, not in the window manager (as far as I can tell). The window manager supports previews of a number of file types (similar to Windows XP, but with more file types supported) and displays progress bars for downloading files.
Is the facility ready now for exposing (get/set) STDIN/OUT/ERR in the icon? Can a separate app read/write the icon state of another app?
I'm no expert on this. I'm sure it is doable, but I'm not sure how easy it is. I suspect it is not quite there yet for practical purposes.
could I write an app that lets me draw stretchy lines between icons, to indicate pipelines? If the hooks are there, maybe we won't have to wait too long.
Sadly, I think you would need to write your own file manager for this (or modify one of the already written open source ones for OS X). It is certainly possible, but I have never looked into how hard it would be. OS X supports pipes of course, but I don't think the finder supports easily creating them and the finder is closed source. There is a GUI scripting application called "Automater," I think, due out next month with the OS X 10.4 that allows for this sort of thing, but I don't know how well it will be integrated with the file manager.
But all that these icons communicate is that a file exists, in a given storage subdivision (folder), with some clues to its datatype.
I have three OS's in front of me right now. Two of them have icons more or less the same as in the 90's. One is different. If you want useful icons, you want OS X. My mail icon tells me how many unread messages I have. My minimized windows indicate what application they are associated with and a thumbnail of the window. My calendar app shows the date. Downloading files show a progress bar. Minimized movies show, well the movie, still playing, or still if paused. Applications with a dialogue box, or that need attention bounce. One of my icons shows me system stats (cpu, memory, disk, network activity, and cpu use over the last minute) in a cryptic, but readable fashion.
There is certainly a lot more that can be done to make icons more informative and useful, but to say that they have not advanced is to ignore all of the above. OS X has provided the means to make icons useful. Some developers have run with it and some have ignored the capabilities. There is more to be done, mostly with with more advanced file managers. Some will have to wait until there is more cpu power available and some can be done now. Just don't ignore the state of the art because you are not using it for whatever reason.
Upgrade to OS X. Icons change to show information. In column view a preview of many file types is available. If you have a movie file playing and minimize it a thumbnail of it continues to play in the dock. If you mouse over it it magnifies (if you have that feature enabled). Files being downloaded or tasks being computed generally show a progress bar on the icon when minimized. This is much more useful than a generic movie of how an app looks. For the most part people know what any application they plan to run does. Providing useful feedback in the form of dynamic icons is very useful, and is the norm on OS X.
Based on my reading of /. posts over the last year or so it seems to me that the prevailing mindset of posters is left of center to say the least(based in part on the amount of Bush-bashing that takes place).
It's "News for Nerds" The vast majority of people who bother trying to classify people as "right" or "left" determine that the amount of higher education a person has the more likely they are to be "left." Education is something nerds traditionally gravitate towards. Get it?
How many slashdot participants have cracked the cover of the Bible in the past year?
I have. Also I've recently read parts of the Qua-ran and the Torah, amongst other religious works. I think the Christian Bible is a decent book, as old religious texts go. The old testament has some very clever parables. The new testament has some well thought out philosophy and is good sci-fi. It is certainly less dull and repetitive than the Qua-ran.
What amazes me is the number of supposed Christians that don't seem to have a clue what the bible says. I wish some of those damn evangelists who knock on my door trying to "spread the word" would go home and read the damn book themselves. Most of them seem pretty clueless when asked about the actual contents. I wish I could read some of the older languages in which it is written. I can see plenty that is lost between the latin and English versions. I imagine if someone were to read the Greek or Aramaic they would be reading a completely different work.
In any case, if I had to guess as to why it is hard to find the bible in Google's system, I imagine it has something to do with the fact that it is usually called "The Bible." It is probably similarly difficult to find books named "The Book," "The Writing," The Work," etc. Thousands of old works are called bibles and have that in the title. My guess is Google treats the words "bible," "book," and "the" in special ways in order to keep thousands of results from flooding someone who enters them. That is just a guess though.
It was one of the first books I checked for and amazingly "bible" and "the bible" do not yeild the desired results either.
That's what Christians get for naming their authoritative religious work "The Bible." All of you looking to start a new religion take note. Bad titles for your religious text include: The Book, The Writing, The Text, and The Bound Stack of Paper.
P.S. The number of older texts that include the word "bible" is similar to the number of contemporary works that include the word "book."
I can't see how they can be thrown in jail for deciding to no longer support their products in a particular geographical region.
If the courts order a person to comply with an order to run the EU branch of MS as a separate business and sever ties with the U.S. home office, you can be certain that a company officer could certainly go to jail for refusing to comply.
I don't think it would actually get that far anyway.
You've got that right. If Ballmer announced he was stopping sales to Europe there would be an emergency meeting of the board of directors and he'd be out on his ass in about an hour. You don't give up on a 25 billion (profit) a year market because a 1.8 billion a year fine is imposed upon you. Anyone whose math is that bad would get the boot in record time.
And how does it feel to be subsidising European justice?
I feel cheated. I mean we convicted them first, the U.S. government should be collecting 1.8 billion from them annually. Instead of the government getting a funding boost, however, a small fraction went to donations to the Democrats and Republicans, and as a result we saw more ads on TV during the elections. What a rip off.
I guess the europeans just have a better government right now. They went for 1.8 billion in the government coffers instead of a few million in bribes to the politicians. I wonder what they will spend it on that U.S. citizens could have used. Heck we could have started paying off some of our enormous debt.
I see many ordinary users using that exact same context menu to cut/copy/paste routinely.
Because they learned to use those functions using this 3rd mechanism for the exact same command. 90% of the people I see copying and pasting are either advanced, and use keyboard shortcuts, or are very remedial and use the regular menus.
Maybe you only find an obviously useful feature to be "unnecessary" because you were born and bred as a single-button Mac user?
Nope. As I mentioned I use Mac, Windows, and Linux daily and usually simultaneously. I also don't use any single button mice.
I'd bet more Mac programs have the exact same menu than you realize.
As far as I know there is only one MacOS X program that requires the use of a contextual menu activated by the right mouse button. It is a high-end graphics program developed by morons. Many programs include features there, but since by default Macs don't have two buttons, no one puts things only there. This frees the user to customize that menu with whatever functionality is desired. If you want the context menu to have copy and paste, fine add them. But it is much nicer for me to be able to put what I want there. I can't imagine why anyone would think developers know their workflow better than themselves.
Why does an American Company have to be subjected to the fines and penalties of a foreign semi-socialistic union.
Because they are not an American company, they are an International company. When in Rome, obey the Roman laws or pay the consequences. Or do you think North Korean companies should be able to do business in the U.S. but not follow any of our laws while over here?
European companies would not allow such a sanction.
Several European companies have already been given fines nearly as high as this, and they have complied.
If Microsoft is truly a monopoly (and I am not suggesting that it is not), it should be taken up in the United States
It was, then MS bribed the Republican and the Democrats and the Justice department decided their punishment was to have nothing happen to them. Maybe if the U.S. government was not so corrupt the EU would not have to step in. Who elected them again?
The European Union wants to further degrade the U.S. dollar and establish itself as a superpower.
With 5 million a day? Umm, OK then. The U.S. is doing plenty to degrade its own currency. The EU does not need to help out. It's what happens when you put a lying coke addict, who has run several businesses into the ground, and has a vested interest in making money for himself in charge.
While I'm not a big fan of M$, I think they can pretty much just get their way. They could just say "Drop the lawsuit, or we stop all supporting and licensing activities in the EU effective tomorrow."
Ha! I'd love to see that happen, but there is no chance. The EU has a lot more power than MS right now. First, the EU is half their market, that is an order of magnitude more profit lost than just paying the fine. Second, MS has all sorts of money in European banks, assets in EU countries, patents and copyrights, and people who work for them there. When you attempt to blackmail the people who write the laws and have the police and army where you are, they toss your ass in a small jail cell and take whatever they want. "Hello Mr. MS European Director. Are you going to continue business as usual here or go to jail?"
The EU could just separate MS Europe from MS International and grant all their IP and assets in Europe to this new company. R&D in Europe might slow, but then MS International would have to compete. MS may be run by stubborn pricks, but they are not so stupid as to overtly defy the EU. They will continue with business as usual, delay in the courts, and bribe their way out of this.
Hymn appears to violate the DMCA to the letter of the law because the DRM is in place at the time Hymn performs it's functions.
I don't think this is actually true. Hymn does not break any encryption, it merely uses your legally obtained encryption keys to remove the DRM. This is a very fine point, but based upon my reading of portions of the DMCA, Hymn seems to be in the clear if you can explain it properly to a jury.
I love(d) Buffy and Angel... but somehow firefly didn't have the same magic. ...many people will probably disagree with me anyway
I disagree. :) I find both Angel and Buffy to be too cheesy, to the point of being painful to watch. I know a number of people who like both, but if either starts playing, I change the channel or leave the room. I thought Firefly, on the other hand, was very well done. The dialogue was much, much better and I thought the cast was quite talented. I guess it is all just a matter of preference.
That doesn't explain why Apple's $3000 multiprocessor workstations come with a 1 button mouse.
I want Apple to ship a one button mouse by default on every system I buy. I will not use that mouse. The reason I want a one button mouse is not because I am an idiot, and can't use more buttons. Developers are idiots. If Apple ships a multi-button mouse, developers will immediately begin coding applications to require multiple buttons. This is something that sucks badly on Windows right now. As I mentioned earlier, Notepad on Windows has the second mouse button mapped to a contextual menu that is completely unnecessary. Other programs put controls only in this contextual menu. That means disabled people, voice interfaces, and scripts that use the menu controls usually can't get to those features. That sucks. Right now on the mac, while running a text editor, the second mouse button can actually do useful things, like spell checking, or a thesaurus, or translation, or online dictionary lookup, or any number of other services I assign.
I use MacOS X, Windows, and Linux every day. I wish all of them and the applications on them were built for a single button mouse, and left everything else to the user to configure. But, as I said, developers are stupid. Luckily Apple isn't.
most fingerprint ID systems store the print data encrypted to prevent just this kind of problem.
So do most credit card databases. They just do so very poorly. The question is who hold the encryption keys. Can an insider decrypt them with a master key, then sell them? Can the encryption be brute forced? Can the encryption be broken using an average desktop 10 years from now? You put far too much faith in the security of all the random stores, government organizations, etc. I mean Piggly Wiggly introduced thumb print registers for a while (which could be defeated with a gummi-bear). If you are willing to trust an unchangable key to the lowest common denominator of a broad selection of businesses then you are braver, or more foolish than I.
newer systems will use a 3-d representation
There are several fingerprint ID systems for PC's available from Compusa right now. I don't think any of them use a 3-d image.
The fact that a key cannot be changed and is likely constantly exposed in your daily life are two very real problems with biometrics as an authentication mechanism.