You don't need to jailbreak a Kindle Fire to replace the launcher. You can sideload an alternative launcher and set it as the default without root access.
I still have to ask the general public whether, desktop Linux still matters. Does it?
Honestly? The only reason for a "visible" operating system is local storage, mostly of photos, and "edge case" applications that have not yet been implemented as web apps. As for which is best... Windows can die in a fire, OS X is bouncy happy joyful brain-dead moonbeam cultware, and both Unity and Gnome 3 are headed straight for hell.
I want operating systems to just leave me alone. Stop annoying me. Stop moving my stuff without my permission. Stop demanding that I upgrade and reboot. Stop messing with the menu that I customized just because some designer says so. Stop breaking things that work, Ubuntu. LEAVE ME ALONE.
I spend almost all my time in a Web browser -- specifically, Chrome. Pretty much everything I do daily is already better on the Web.
I should be running ChromeOS. I can't bring myself to switch to a Chromebook, but not for rational reasons. If you believed the arguments people raise against the Chromebook, you'd think we all lived half our lifetimes in airplanes that don't have wi-fi. You know what I do when I get in an airplane? I put in my headphones and close my eyes.
Almost nobody really needs Office... unless somebody is emailing them weird formatted file attachments, in which case the real problem is submission to vendor lock-in.
Nearly everybody who uses a spreadsheet does so for just very basic purposes -- often just formatting text in a table.
And Word: Memos? Letters? SNAIL MAIL? WTF? Are you writing memos in Word and attaching them to emails? What century is this?
Powerpoint? Take a real close look at what really gets made with Powerpoint.
I've moved all my office document processing to Google Docs. Shareability and live simultaneous editing are killer features. All the rest is crap.
Hmm. kju, who is absolutely right, was modded "troll" and the thread is being swarmed by MSFT defenders. I have to wonder whether they are paid shills, or merely lacking in any historical perspective.
For decades now, MSFT has done everything it could get away with to kill competition, and has been hauled into court repeatedly over charges of antitrust law violations in the US and EU.
Anyone who genuinely thinks hardware manufacturers would be the responsible parties in this travesty really needs another cup of coffee. MSFT has dictated configurations for years.PC manufacturers have no real choice. There is no free, open, competitive PC software market. It's Redmond's way or the highway.
But the world is changing. Microsoft is desperate to move into the tablet word. But if Linux or Android could be installed, it would be shoved aside just as it's been shoved aside in mobile phones. It needs locked-down systems to prevent open programming and open competition.
A decade ago, you might look at Richard Stallman as an alarmist and extremist. Increasingly he's looking like a prophet.
Put some interesting people in your circles. It's not all geeks. There's a very active bunch of photographers sharing images, people talking about cooking, local conversations (the mobile app does geolocation-based searches), and group video chat (Hangouts).
Plenty is happening when I log in, but then I have about 500 people in my circles, and more than twice that number have me in their circles. My circles are quite a bit more active (and informative) than my Facebook news feed, but less than my Twitter feed.
There is room for multiple services. This isn't the Highlander.
Ubuntu upgraded to FF 5 this morning. I was surprised, given that Ubuntu has not been too swift with previous FF upgrades. I suppose the EOL is the reason.
GEM was picked up by Atari for its Motorola 68000-based system, which ran a rewrite of CP/M called GEMdos. Early versions were disk-based but it was quickly moved into ROM. It primarily competed with the Commodore Amiga (which was much more sophisticated), also launched in 1985, for the home market. I think I paid $800 for my Atari 520ST. PCs, including the Amstrad, were much more expensive back then.
Very little commercial software was developed for the platform.
GEM implemented a cooperative multitasking model but as I recall, you could only run one full-fledged GEM application. Multiple "desk accessories" could run simultaneously.
Sure but the Google Apps don't support offline versions. Nice try, though. Read the link I posted after this that points this out:
This comes up every time ChromeOS is mentioned on Slashdot.
Google implemented offline editing in Google Docs years ago (using Gears), then withdrew it in favor of a standards-based solution.
At GoogleIO, it was announced that offline functionality for Google Docs, using HTML5 standards, is already working, is already deployed internally at Google, and will be externally available by July. Offline functionality for some other, simpler apps is already available.
Removing or somehow downgrading or burying any posts other than spam for commercial purposes is CENSORSHIP and should not be allowed!
Wrong. Censorship is government suppression. Cleaning up comments is just taking out the garbage -- a public service. If you don't like it, find somewhere else to take your dump. There are plenty of options.
Cracking down on arrogant complainers may have little to do with airline safety and terrorism, but if it succeeds, it just might be the first positive thing the TSA has done for air travel. Just think: Jackass-free flights! Now, if they could do something about the Atlanta gate agents....
There's not much point in plugging faster airplanes into a hub-and-spoke air transit system with chronic Air Traffic Control delays (assuming they're not asleep), 45-minute airport security lines and 20-minute waits for your baggage.
Running the OS on an ARM chip isn't even half the battle. What about the apps? Has Microsoft created a "fat binary" format, the way Apple did for its migration from PowerPC to Intel? Are the development tools ready? Are all the Windows application developers lined up to recompile and migrate? How much of that stuff is still tangled up in assembler, anyway?
Microsoft's advantage has always been the breadth of its ecosystem. Now that's Microsoft's disadvantage. There's not much point to owning a power-miserly ARM-based Windows machine if the apps you've come to depend on aren't available. You might as well swallow the medicine and migrate to a more secure, stable OS with a future.
The soldier who saw everything twice nodded weakly and sank back on his bed. Yossarian nodded weakly too, eyeing his talented roomate with great humility and admiration. He knew he was in the presence of a master. His talented roomate was obviously a person to be studied and emulated. During the night, his talented roomate died, and Yossarian decided that he had followed him far enough.
'I see everything once!' he cried quickly.
Making sure everyone has fast, reliable access available is great; but the FCC also has to worry about internet caps! Now that AT&T is cutting people off after a certain amount of bandwidth use, someone with the power to stop this monopolistic abuse needs to flex some muscle. What is the FCC doing about internet caps?
I'm just guessing, but perhaps it would be wise to first measure and document what the carriers do, as opposed to what they say?
The History Channel is the bible/alien abduction channel, not the documentary channel.
I thought it was "All Hitler, all the time..."
Those were the good old days, when it was actually about History.
When sci-fi was on Sci-Fi instead of wrestling and sharks, the Travel channel had travelogues instead of poker, TLC had something to do with learning, and A&E had "arts" and "entertainment."
The general pattern is: Establish a brand, turn it over to some idiot who corrupts it, then change the name of the network to something that makes no sense at all (Spike).
* You're still stuck with the lame Mac keyboard. * Bootcamp insists on Mac first, and labeling Linux as "Windows." (If you have some way to fix the order and labeling, I'd love to know it.)
I haven't intentionally booted OS X in a year or so. Haven't missed it. Not one bit. My only regret is having done some documents and presentations in proprietary Apple formats that are hard to liberate. Much worse than Microsoft lock-in.
Very nice summary. Tom Baker is the high point of the original set, and his energy is clearly the inspiration for all the latter-day doctors. I would differ only in a couple of areas:
* A new viewer should start with the "reboot" (2005) and should leave the old episodes alone until getting fully caught up. (Netflix is the place to go.) For modern viewers, the cheesy production values of the original series can be jarring. And accidentally tapping into the Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy eras could put you off Dr. Who forever. There's a reason Dr. Who disappeared from the screen.
* Watch Torchwood. Watch all of Torchwood. It's very well done. (But discover Jack Harkness through Dr. Who first.)
* Do not watch ANY Dr. Who movies until you're hooked, and even then only as an academic exercise -- did you know Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars) played the Doctor? But not the canonical Doctor.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't need to jailbreak a Kindle Fire to replace the launcher. You can sideload an alternative launcher and set it as the default without root access.
I still have to ask the general public whether, desktop Linux still matters. Does it?
Honestly? The only reason for a "visible" operating system is local storage, mostly of photos, and "edge case" applications that have not yet been implemented as web apps. As for which is best ... Windows can die in a fire, OS X is bouncy happy joyful brain-dead moonbeam cultware, and both Unity and Gnome 3 are headed straight for hell.
I want operating systems to just leave me alone. Stop annoying me. Stop moving my stuff without my permission. Stop demanding that I upgrade and reboot. Stop messing with the menu that I customized just because some designer says so. Stop breaking things that work, Ubuntu. LEAVE ME ALONE.
I spend almost all my time in a Web browser -- specifically, Chrome. Pretty much everything I do daily is already better on the Web.
I should be running ChromeOS. I can't bring myself to switch to a Chromebook, but not for rational reasons. If you believed the arguments people raise against the Chromebook, you'd think we all lived half our lifetimes in airplanes that don't have wi-fi. You know what I do when I get in an airplane? I put in my headphones and close my eyes.
Almost nobody really needs Office ... unless somebody is emailing them weird formatted file attachments, in which case the real problem is submission to vendor lock-in.
Nearly everybody who uses a spreadsheet does so for just very basic purposes -- often just formatting text in a table.
And Word: Memos? Letters? SNAIL MAIL? WTF? Are you writing memos in Word and attaching them to emails? What century is this?
Powerpoint? Take a real close look at what really gets made with Powerpoint.
I've moved all my office document processing to Google Docs. Shareability and live simultaneous editing are killer features. All the rest is crap.
$199 11.6-inch Win7 Acer laptop (from Target) - Win7 + Ubuntu and you're better to go at less than half the price.
Installating Linux takes less time than first bootup of Win7.
The antiivirus and bloatware that comes with Windows are reasons enough to stay away. Office 2010 adds even more.
I I'm sort of wondering if Amazon is abandoning what was so good about the platform, namely electronic ink.
Five E-Ink Kindles vs one video-capable tablet doesn't quite add up to abandonment.
Can that tag be applied to users, too?
Bangkok Tuk-Tuk drivers.
New Delhi motorcycle taxis.
Hmm. kju, who is absolutely right, was modded "troll" and the thread is being swarmed by MSFT defenders. I have to wonder whether they are paid shills, or merely lacking in any historical perspective.
For decades now, MSFT has done everything it could get away with to kill competition, and has been hauled into court repeatedly over charges of antitrust law violations in the US and EU.
Anyone who genuinely thinks hardware manufacturers would be the responsible parties in this travesty really needs another cup of coffee. MSFT has dictated configurations for years.PC manufacturers have no real choice. There is no free, open, competitive PC software market. It's Redmond's way or the highway.
But the world is changing. Microsoft is desperate to move into the tablet word. But if Linux or Android could be installed, it would be shoved aside just as it's been shoved aside in mobile phones. It needs locked-down systems to prevent open programming and open competition.
A decade ago, you might look at Richard Stallman as an alarmist and extremist. Increasingly he's looking like a prophet.
Then you're doing it wrong.
Put some interesting people in your circles. It's not all geeks. There's a very active bunch of photographers sharing images, people talking about cooking, local conversations (the mobile app does geolocation-based searches), and group video chat (Hangouts).
Plenty is happening when I log in, but then I have about 500 people in my circles, and more than twice that number have me in their circles. My circles are quite a bit more active (and informative) than my Facebook news feed, but less than my Twitter feed.
There is room for multiple services. This isn't the Highlander.
Ubuntu upgraded to FF 5 this morning. I was surprised, given that Ubuntu has not been too swift with previous FF upgrades. I suppose the EOL is the reason.
GEM was picked up by Atari for its Motorola 68000-based system, which ran a rewrite of CP/M called GEMdos. Early versions were disk-based but it was quickly moved into ROM. It primarily competed with the Commodore Amiga (which was much more sophisticated), also launched in 1985, for the home market. I think I paid $800 for my Atari 520ST. PCs, including the Amstrad, were much more expensive back then.
Very little commercial software was developed for the platform.
GEM implemented a cooperative multitasking model but as I recall, you could only run one full-fledged GEM application. Multiple "desk accessories" could run simultaneously.
Sure but the Google Apps don't support offline versions. Nice try, though. Read the link I posted after this that points this out:
This comes up every time ChromeOS is mentioned on Slashdot.
Google implemented offline editing in Google Docs years ago (using Gears), then withdrew it in favor of a standards-based solution.
At GoogleIO, it was announced that offline functionality for Google Docs, using HTML5 standards, is already working, is already deployed internally at Google, and will be externally available by July. Offline functionality for some other, simpler apps is already available.
Removing or somehow downgrading or burying any posts other than spam for commercial purposes is CENSORSHIP and should not be allowed!
Wrong. Censorship is government suppression. Cleaning up comments is just taking out the garbage -- a public service. If you don't like it, find somewhere else to take your dump. There are plenty of options.
Cracking down on arrogant complainers may have little to do with airline safety and terrorism, but if it succeeds, it just might be the first positive thing the TSA has done for air travel. Just think: Jackass-free flights! Now, if they could do something about the Atlanta gate agents....
There's not much point in plugging faster airplanes into a hub-and-spoke air transit system with chronic Air Traffic Control delays (assuming they're not asleep), 45-minute airport security lines and 20-minute waits for your baggage.
Running the OS on an ARM chip isn't even half the battle. What about the apps? Has Microsoft created a "fat binary" format, the way Apple did for its migration from PowerPC to Intel? Are the development tools ready? Are all the Windows application developers lined up to recompile and migrate? How much of that stuff is still tangled up in assembler, anyway?
Microsoft's advantage has always been the breadth of its ecosystem. Now that's Microsoft's disadvantage. There's not much point to owning a power-miserly ARM-based Windows machine if the apps you've come to depend on aren't available. You might as well swallow the medicine and migrate to a more secure, stable OS with a future.
Or rig the capacitors to discharge back into the shoe. Perpetual motion!
In other news, some random computer journal writer said the existence of the right hand should not mean we cut off the left.
The soldier who saw everything twice nodded weakly and sank
back on his bed. Yossarian nodded weakly too, eyeing his talented
roomate with great humility and admiration. He knew he was in the
presence of a master. His talented roomate was obviously a person to
be studied and emulated. During the night, his talented roomate died,
and Yossarian decided that he had followed him far enough.
'I see everything once!' he cried quickly.
-- Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Making sure everyone has fast, reliable access available is great; but the FCC also has to worry about internet caps! Now that AT&T is cutting people off after a certain amount of bandwidth use, someone with the power to stop this monopolistic abuse needs to flex some muscle. What is the FCC doing about internet caps?
I'm just guessing, but perhaps it would be wise to first measure and document what the carriers do, as opposed to what they say?
I thought it was "All Hitler, all the time..."
Those were the good old days, when it was actually about History.
When sci-fi was on Sci-Fi instead of wrestling and sharks, the Travel channel had travelogues instead of poker, TLC had something to do with learning, and A&E had "arts" and "entertainment."
The general pattern is: Establish a brand, turn it over to some idiot who corrupts it, then change the name of the network to something that makes no sense at all (Spike).
It can, but...
* You're still stuck with the lame Mac keyboard.
* Bootcamp insists on Mac first, and labeling Linux as "Windows." (If you have some way to fix the order and labeling, I'd love to know it.)
I haven't intentionally booted OS X in a year or so. Haven't missed it. Not one bit. My only regret is having done some documents and presentations in proprietary Apple formats that are hard to liberate. Much worse than Microsoft lock-in.
That's not what the blog post is about.
And personally, I won't hire somebody who doesn't bother to read the citation.
Very nice summary. Tom Baker is the high point of the original set, and his energy is clearly the inspiration for all the latter-day doctors. I would differ only in a couple of areas:
* A new viewer should start with the "reboot" (2005) and should leave the old episodes alone until getting fully caught up. (Netflix is the place to go.) For modern viewers, the cheesy production values of the original series can be jarring. And accidentally tapping into the Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy eras could put you off Dr. Who forever. There's a reason Dr. Who disappeared from the screen.
* Watch Torchwood. Watch all of Torchwood. It's very well done. (But discover Jack Harkness through Dr. Who first.)
* Do not watch ANY Dr. Who movies until you're hooked, and even then only as an academic exercise -- did you know Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars) played the Doctor? But not the canonical Doctor.
* Don't forget to watch the Red Nose Day comedies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-wDPoC6GM and John Barrowman singing the theme song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtdGwiMtZ08 and Craig Ferguson's version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9P4SxtphJ4 ... Dr. Who isn't just a TV show, it's a cultural phenomenon subject to many interpretations.
And if you're very, very brave, watch the Beedeer Dr. Who. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxcMCr_lA7M