the maintain 1-button as "standard" so third party software houses don't start taking 2 buttons as given
Except for one little thing: third party software houses already take 2 button mice as a given. Even Apple's own software does. There's some stuff in OS X that makes it oh so much easier to right click (oh wait, ctrl click). And Final Cut Pro is just a nightmare with one button.
You're sadly misinformed or painfully bitter. I'll vote for the latter...
Sadly misinformed? The iPod shuffle's biggest feature is that it plays songs randomly. Their campaign uses slogans like "Life is random" and "Give uncertainty a chance". Every MP3 player I've ever owned, including regular cd players and Apple's own iPod, has a random playback feature. Not to mention the fact that the only reason they're touting this 'feature' is the severe limitation of having no clue what song is coming next, since it has no LCD screen.
And Apple's own software uses products that pretty much require a 2 button mouse.
At least I don't use monikors that make me sound bitter like 'Windoze'. I bet you even use M$. Oh, how rebellious art thou! I bet if Microsoft went the 'innovative' way and used a one button mouse instead of Apple, everyone would be praising Apple for being ahead of the curve with their 2-3 button mice while Microsoft is being monopolistic bastards.
Seriously, the one-button mouse has got to be one of the stupidest 'features' I've ever seen. Frankly, if people get 'confused' by a two or three button mice, then they shouldn't be using a computer in the first place.
Firstly, lot of Apple users are designers and professionals. First thing these people do is chuck away the stupid mouse Apple ships and buy their own. It's all fine and dandy if you buy a tower Apple, but what if you bought a Powerbook? A lot of the time you won't have a mouse handy, and you're stuck with that stupid one button trackpad.
Secondly, a lot of things are made far easier with a standard mouse. Who scrolls using the scrollbar anymore? A wheel is much more intuitive to use than to drag your mouse to some little arrow across the screen, that's never in the same place, and move it.
What happened to Apple being 'innovative'? Oh wait, I forget they tend to just take features that all other similar devices have and market them as innovation (*coughipodshufflecough*). Note that they don't even 'market' their innovative one-button mouse anymore. They know it's stupid. They know people hate it. They're just too stubborn to go back and say "oops, we made a mistake".
Re:Learn online for free
on
The CSS Anthology
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· Score: 2, Informative
http://www.alistapart.com.
Might not be newbie friendly, but its got an extensive list of resources.
I mean seriously. A single retailer reduces the price on a console, and suddenly all UK retailers are somehow magically thinking of dropping the GameCube? Perhaps the single retailer has an overstock of GameCubes. Perhaps they didn't sell them as many GameCubes as competing retailers. Perhaps, you know, this is a limited time offer in an effort to spark sales.
Go to the site's gamecube listing. "Offer ends 21st January 2005. " Last thing you do is trust anything from GameCube Europe. They're just as bad as Nintendo Now.
It's probably a fluke, but I had this idea last year! Click here. Check the short flash presentation at the bottom. We had to propose an installation for a gallery for one of our classes. Bah...I should've gone forward with it.
because, as we all know, humans have three arms: one for aiming and shooting, one for holding a weapon
you can reload a real gun with one hand if you're good. (in the game one handed reloads are slow...much slower)
On the other hand, you'll never 0wnx0r a game since everybody in the level is as good as you are. That's Microsoft alright: mediocrity rules.
You can own a game. But that means because you're doing a good job, not because the other team sucks.
Re:What a dissapointment
on
More GOTY Awards
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· Score: 3, Informative
Just to drive the point home further:
1. Of the games I can remember: Played Wolf3D, Doom 1 and 2, Rise of the Triads, Half-Life, CounterStrike, Quake 1 2 and 3, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Counterstrike Source, Unreal Tournament 2004
2. Non-PC FPS: Goldeneye64, Red Faction, Time Splitter 1 and 2, Nightfire
3. UT2k4, Goldeneye, HL2 and Red Faction all had vehicles. None of the games I've played had dual wielding in which you could: a) yield two different kinds of guns and b) fire each gun individually.
4. I've never played those games, but I never say Halo 2 has the largest multiplayer maps.
5. Got an Xbox, PS2, GameCube, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Game Gear, SNES, NES, Genesis, Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn
Try not to generalize about these things. It doesn't do you good;).
You know, I wonder if all these people here who are complaining how Halo sucks (who also tend to immediately mention the name Microsoft in their post ) would think of it had Microsoft not bought Bungie, and had it come out for the Mac as planned.
Whether you like Microsoft or not, the Halo games are friggin' great, and some of the best FPSs to date. And yes, I've played a shitload of FPS, both PC and console.
And a game doesn't need to be 'innovative' to be GOTY in my opinion. What happened when a game can just be just pure fun to be considered great?
As for those who say "but Goldeneye had dual wielding too!" clearly haven't played Halo 2. Dual wielding here doesn't mean "each hand holding the same gun". Instead, you can pick and chose between the guns in your hands. This opens up a myriad of combinations and really lets you discover really cool and ass-kicking combos out there. Also, if you're dual wielding, the right trigger fires the gun in the right hand, and the left trigger fires the gun in the left hand, so effectively you can fire with one gun only until the ammo in it depletes, and while its reloading, fire with the other gun.
Besides, the vehicles are all great, and jacking really adds to the gameplay. There's nothing better than someone in a Banshee getting too close to the ground and you jacking it from him.
And online multiplayer is great, especially for those of us that don'y play 24/7. Live does a great job of matching you with people of your own skill so you never feel overpowered in any single game, which means you're having fun playing and not dying 10 seconds after respawning.
What else can I say? If you don't like it, try taking out your Halo 2 disc and cross out the 'Microsoft' logo with a marker. See if you'll like it better then;).
Re:If it's true, it's a ploy...
on
Halo 2.5 for Xbox 2
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· Score: 2, Interesting
(and anyone who says the Xbox could have really been selling on the other games besides Halo released in the first year is deluding themselves), so they could be hoping to do the same with "Halo 2.5"; IE keep Xenon sales going until better games start coming out for the Xenon.
Yes, Halo helped sell the Xbox. Why on earth does everyone complain like there's something wrong with having a good launch title? What did the PS2 have? Tekken? And the GameCube? Luigi's Mansion?
None of the other consoles had any decent games in their launch window: at least Xbox had a kickass good game. Why is there something wrong with this?
SmartFTP - Kickass FTP program. It's free for personal/educational use, but still nags you. Picasa - Great image viewing app. Trillian Basic - Greate image viewing app. Maxthon - Amazing IE shell, with all the features that should be default in IE or Firefox (with no extensions). Freemind - A 'mind mapping' software, I find it handy to design databases visually. Paint.NET - I don't use it *hugs Photoshop* but it's quite a handy freeware replacement to Paint with much more advanced features:).
That's all I can think of for now...how about listing some free (good) games too?:)
SP2 sets it up by default to automatically download patches. You can have it to do everything in the background (default), let it inform you of updates, or do it manually And Microsoft is darned good at releasing patches for their software to boot.
When an article came out sometime last month about how a lot of spam is coming from China, people here were complaining about the damned Chinese, how they should just block the whole country and be done with it, that they do nothing at all and that China just blame sucks.
Now an article with research backing it shows the US as the major culprit, and what does everyone do? Make excuses or jokes. What makes you think the Chinese don't have zombie machines? Or is it ok for the US to spam, but no one else?
And the fact of the matter is, aside from a few random Russian/Chinese emails (1 in 100), most of the spam I receive is offering goods and services in English, directed at the North American market. 'Where' the spam comes from doesn't really matter, what the spam is selling and where that thing is should.
From the article: We have reached a compromise of sorts, whereby he arranges gaming evenings with his friends only when I am out, and the rest of the time he plays only in short bursts.
But it looks like his obsession is here to stay.
What on earth is she complaining about? He enjoys it. Why are you taking away something he enjoys, when he has already addressed your 'complaint'.
This woman just wants the poor bastard to be right in front of her every single moment. He's sacrificied part of his hobby, sacrifice your whining.
Because the "Internet Connection Wizard" that you have to run to even turn on your LAN connection asks "do you want to set up a mail account now?
And Apple's wizard at first boot asks "do you want to set up a mail account now?" and sets it up in their Mail application. Not to mention their inclusion of proprietary software such as Safari, iTunes, iMovie and iPhoto.
RTA. Neither Sony nor Microsoft published the game. Take-Two's The Gathering publishes the game. The role Sony and Microsoft have is basically to see if the game is essentially 'bug free', ie it won't cause their console to burst into flames. They usually don't care about the content or the quality of the game itself, just whether or not it'll destroy their hardware.
Suing Sony and Microsoft here is like me suing a sports store where I bought those Adidas sneakers who got tangled up and caused me to fall, and scar my knees.
From the article: Why? Because the woman in question was only 17 at the time, and therefore legally incapable of giving her consent to be in The Guy Game, let alone half naked.
If she was a minor, what the frig' was she doing there, naked? I'm sure whoever was shooting checked their ages at the time (no one's going to be stupid enough NOT to). She must have had an illegal ID at hand (probably, its spring break, she was probably there drinking too). Being 17 doesn't make you stupid.
You know, instead of spending tremendous energy trying to monitor every single communications method, maybe its better to handle the problem itself?
The US government should switch its efforts to why all these 'terrorists' are targetting it. There's gotta be a reason, and the reason isn't because the US "is a shining beacon of freedom." (why aren't they targetting Holland? Sweden? Finland?).
Catching these terrorists isn't gonna solve the problem: more will popup immediately to take their place. But if the US started to address (and fix) why they're being targetted (their utter arrogance towards other nations), most of this will go away.
This whole "click on stupid rat thing and wait for it to die" kind of game play is really what puts me off from all the MMORPGs: frankly, it's extremely boring. When I'm forced to do so for hours on end just to level up my charater, it gets ridiculous.
I've played the WoW, EQ2, Guild Wars and City of Heroes betas. The first three never really held my interest: the CoH was a real step in the right direction. Besides the absolutely kickass character creation screen, there was a bit more strategy in fighting, especially when you were in groups. It was fast-paced, and more importantly it was fun. I didn't play it much though, as I had to leave the country with no internet/pc...shame.
What would be cool is something along Jedi Outcasts 'dueling' system in the multiplayer games. Would be great if an MMORPG implemented something like this: youd have the normal world, with buying, selling, living, all that jazz. Whenever you'd go in a fight with either a player or an enemy, you'd go into 'duel' mode, which basically means everything around you is irrelevant. That would open up the opportunity of focusing the bandwith being sent on the fight at hand, which would allow for far more interesting battles than the good old "click on mouse thing and wait for it to die".
To tell you the truth I generally consider that any sequel made within a year of the original was rushed out to make a quick buck. There's probably exceptions, but I can't think of any.
As for Splinter Cell: PT, the single player experience really didn't change ( I didn't play much of either, so I may be wrong, but it didn't seem like it from what I played ). The multiplayer was cool, and I agree the PC part was a bit awkard, but Live is a friggin' good platform for consoles. If you've played Halo 2 you'll see what I mean.
What's wrong with sequels? There's a difference between sequels churned out every year (ala EA), and sequels that really added some new cool things. Doom 2 was released years ago. So was the original Half-Life. Halo 2's been in the making for over 2 years. The original Sims been out for a while. The only games in that list that didn't fundementally change the gameplay were GTA:SA and MP2. In fact, all of those games, sequels or not, were in fact friggin' good games.
There's a difference between good sequels, and shoddy sequels which were just designed as quick cash machines. The Splinter Cell series and the latest Prince of Persia game are both guilty as charged, and basically any EA sports game.
Slashdot Mirror
the maintain 1-button as "standard" so third party software houses don't start taking 2 buttons as given
Except for one little thing: third party software houses already take 2 button mice as a given. Even Apple's own software does. There's some stuff in OS X that makes it oh so much easier to right click (oh wait, ctrl click). And Final Cut Pro is just a nightmare with one button.
You're sadly misinformed or painfully bitter. I'll vote for the latter...
Sadly misinformed? The iPod shuffle's biggest feature is that it plays songs randomly. Their campaign uses slogans like "Life is random" and "Give uncertainty a chance". Every MP3 player I've ever owned, including regular cd players and Apple's own iPod, has a random playback feature. Not to mention the fact that the only reason they're touting this 'feature' is the severe limitation of having no clue what song is coming next, since it has no LCD screen.
And Apple's own software uses products that pretty much require a 2 button mouse.
At least I don't use monikors that make me sound bitter like 'Windoze'. I bet you even use M$. Oh, how rebellious art thou! I bet if Microsoft went the 'innovative' way and used a one button mouse instead of Apple, everyone would be praising Apple for being ahead of the curve with their 2-3 button mice while Microsoft is being monopolistic bastards.
Firstly, lot of Apple users are designers and professionals. First thing these people do is chuck away the stupid mouse Apple ships and buy their own. It's all fine and dandy if you buy a tower Apple, but what if you bought a Powerbook? A lot of the time you won't have a mouse handy, and you're stuck with that stupid one button trackpad.
Secondly, a lot of things are made far easier with a standard mouse. Who scrolls using the scrollbar anymore? A wheel is much more intuitive to use than to drag your mouse to some little arrow across the screen, that's never in the same place, and move it.
What happened to Apple being 'innovative'? Oh wait, I forget they tend to just take features that all other similar devices have and market them as innovation (*coughipodshufflecough*). Note that they don't even 'market' their innovative one-button mouse anymore. They know it's stupid. They know people hate it. They're just too stubborn to go back and say "oops, we made a mistake".
Might not be newbie friendly, but its got an extensive list of resources.
...on the other hand, Nintendo had the Zelda rap ad on TV.
I move to eradicate all knowledge and information from the 80s.
Go to the site's gamecube listing. "Offer ends 21st January 2005. " Last thing you do is trust anything from GameCube Europe. They're just as bad as Nintendo Now.
^ I realized it was older. I just find it cool that I had a similar sort of idea :).
It's probably a fluke, but I had this idea last year! Click here. Check the short flash presentation at the bottom. We had to propose an installation for a gallery for one of our classes. Bah...I should've gone forward with it.
you can reload a real gun with one hand if you're good. (in the game one handed reloads are slow...much slower)
On the other hand, you'll never 0wnx0r a game since everybody in the level is as good as you are. That's Microsoft alright: mediocrity rules.
You can own a game. But that means because you're doing a good job, not because the other team sucks.
1. Of the games I can remember: Played Wolf3D, Doom 1 and 2, Rise of the Triads, Half-Life, CounterStrike, Quake 1 2 and 3, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Counterstrike Source, Unreal Tournament 2004
2. Non-PC FPS: Goldeneye64, Red Faction, Time Splitter 1 and 2, Nightfire
3. UT2k4, Goldeneye, HL2 and Red Faction all had vehicles. None of the games I've played had dual wielding in which you could: a) yield two different kinds of guns and b) fire each gun individually.
4. I've never played those games, but I never say Halo 2 has the largest multiplayer maps.
5. Got an Xbox, PS2, GameCube, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Game Gear, SNES, NES, Genesis, Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn
Try not to generalize about these things. It doesn't do you good ;).
Whether you like Microsoft or not, the Halo games are friggin' great, and some of the best FPSs to date. And yes, I've played a shitload of FPS, both PC and console.
And a game doesn't need to be 'innovative' to be GOTY in my opinion. What happened when a game can just be just pure fun to be considered great?
As for those who say "but Goldeneye had dual wielding too!" clearly haven't played Halo 2. Dual wielding here doesn't mean "each hand holding the same gun". Instead, you can pick and chose between the guns in your hands. This opens up a myriad of combinations and really lets you discover really cool and ass-kicking combos out there. Also, if you're dual wielding, the right trigger fires the gun in the right hand, and the left trigger fires the gun in the left hand, so effectively you can fire with one gun only until the ammo in it depletes, and while its reloading, fire with the other gun.
Besides, the vehicles are all great, and jacking really adds to the gameplay. There's nothing better than someone in a Banshee getting too close to the ground and you jacking it from him.
And online multiplayer is great, especially for those of us that don'y play 24/7. Live does a great job of matching you with people of your own skill so you never feel overpowered in any single game, which means you're having fun playing and not dying 10 seconds after respawning.
What else can I say? If you don't like it, try taking out your Halo 2 disc and cross out the 'Microsoft' logo with a marker. See if you'll like it better then ;).
None of the other consoles had any decent games in their launch window: at least Xbox had a kickass good game. Why is there something wrong with this?
Picasa - Great image viewing app.
Trillian Basic - Greate image viewing app.
Maxthon - Amazing IE shell, with all the features that should be default in IE or Firefox (with no extensions).
Freemind - A 'mind mapping' software, I find it handy to design databases visually.
Paint.NET - I don't use it *hugs Photoshop* but it's quite a handy freeware replacement to Paint with much more advanced features
That's all I can think of for now...how about listing some free (good) games too? :)
SP2 sets it up by default to automatically download patches. You can have it to do everything in the background (default), let it inform you of updates, or do it manually And Microsoft is darned good at releasing patches for their software to boot.
that's like saying anti-fun is fun, and the anti-christ is christ.
Now an article with research backing it shows the US as the major culprit, and what does everyone do? Make excuses or jokes. What makes you think the Chinese don't have zombie machines? Or is it ok for the US to spam, but no one else?
And the fact of the matter is, aside from a few random Russian/Chinese emails (1 in 100), most of the spam I receive is offering goods and services in English, directed at the North American market. 'Where' the spam comes from doesn't really matter, what the spam is selling and where that thing is should.
What on earth is she complaining about? He enjoys it. Why are you taking away something he enjoys, when he has already addressed your 'complaint'.
This woman just wants the poor bastard to be right in front of her every single moment. He's sacrificied part of his hobby, sacrifice your whining.
And Apple's wizard at first boot asks "do you want to set up a mail account now?" and sets it up in their Mail application. Not to mention their inclusion of proprietary software such as Safari, iTunes, iMovie and iPhoto.
RTA. Neither Sony nor Microsoft published the game. Take-Two's The Gathering publishes the game. The role Sony and Microsoft have is basically to see if the game is essentially 'bug free', ie it won't cause their console to burst into flames. They usually don't care about the content or the quality of the game itself, just whether or not it'll destroy their hardware.
Suing Sony and Microsoft here is like me suing a sports store where I bought those Adidas sneakers who got tangled up and caused me to fall, and scar my knees.
From the article: Why? Because the woman in question was only 17 at the time, and therefore legally incapable of giving her consent to be in The Guy Game, let alone half naked.
If she was a minor, what the frig' was she doing there, naked? I'm sure whoever was shooting checked their ages at the time (no one's going to be stupid enough NOT to). She must have had an illegal ID at hand (probably, its spring break, she was probably there drinking too). Being 17 doesn't make you stupid.
The US government should switch its efforts to why all these 'terrorists' are targetting it. There's gotta be a reason, and the reason isn't because the US "is a shining beacon of freedom." (why aren't they targetting Holland? Sweden? Finland?).
Catching these terrorists isn't gonna solve the problem: more will popup immediately to take their place. But if the US started to address (and fix) why they're being targetted (their utter arrogance towards other nations), most of this will go away.
I've played the WoW, EQ2, Guild Wars and City of Heroes betas. The first three never really held my interest: the CoH was a real step in the right direction. Besides the absolutely kickass character creation screen, there was a bit more strategy in fighting, especially when you were in groups. It was fast-paced, and more importantly it was fun. I didn't play it much though, as I had to leave the country with no internet/pc...shame.
What would be cool is something along Jedi Outcasts 'dueling' system in the multiplayer games. Would be great if an MMORPG implemented something like this: youd have the normal world, with buying, selling, living, all that jazz. Whenever you'd go in a fight with either a player or an enemy, you'd go into 'duel' mode, which basically means everything around you is irrelevant. That would open up the opportunity of focusing the bandwith being sent on the fight at hand, which would allow for far more interesting battles than the good old "click on mouse thing and wait for it to die".
Windows Xbox!
Microsoft iPod!
nVidia Radeon!
Adobe Flash!
Macromedia Photoshop!
As for Splinter Cell: PT, the single player experience really didn't change ( I didn't play much of either, so I may be wrong, but it didn't seem like it from what I played ). The multiplayer was cool, and I agree the PC part was a bit awkard, but Live is a friggin' good platform for consoles. If you've played Halo 2 you'll see what I mean.
There's a difference between good sequels, and shoddy sequels which were just designed as quick cash machines. The Splinter Cell series and the latest Prince of Persia game are both guilty as charged, and basically any EA sports game.
I'd highly recommend CSS Zen Garden, from the makers of csszengarden. It's not out yet, but I'd recommend it to any webdesigner out there.