I recently bought an Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 for about $50 after rebates, to replace my aging ATI Rage Fury Pro.
This card I bought is as low end as they get, however I can play Enemy Territory under Linux just fine with it, at a resolution of 800x600. The graphics look fine at that resolution, and I don't experience any slowdowns.
Is it really worth it to spend $400+ on a video card? I don't think I've ever seen a game being played using one of the high end video cards, therefore I might be blissfully ignorant, but I believe a low end card is enough for a satisfying gaming experience.
When you write some code that has the potential of throwing an exception, Eclipse will underline the code with a MS Wordish squigly red line, you will see a light bulb with a white "x" inside a red circle next to it, if you hit ctrl+1 when the cursor is on the offending line, a pop up menu will show up, giving the options mentioned above.
For more tips and tricks, from Eclipse, go to Help->Tips and Tricks->Eclipse Java Development Tools
That seemed odd to me too, especially since in a recent survey, Eclipse came up as the most popular IDE, with 34% of the respondents saying they use it.
I used to write all my Java code using vi. I had tried using IDE's in the past, but felt they got on the way more than they helped.
About 2 months ago, I was writing a J2EE app using JBoss as the application server. I noticed there was an Eclipse plugin to allow remote debugging of EJBs for JBoss.
Since I didn't feel like messing around with VM parameters and what not to be able to do remote debugging, I downloaded both Eclipse and the plugin.
Once I tried Eclipse, I was hooked. When writing Java code, it saves a lot of time taking care of mundane tasks. For example, when writing code that has the potential of throwing an exception, Eclipse gives you the option of automatically wrapping the code with a try/catch block, add a catch block to an existing, enclosing try/catch block, or add a throws clause to your method.
It also has outstanding code completion.
Once I tried Eclipse, going back to writing Java code using vi I felt like I was wasting so much time by having to add my own try catchs, having to refer to JavaDocs to remember method parameters, etc.
I am now a loyal Eclipse user.
Kudos to the Eclipse Consortium for an outstanding job.
What about a model where OSS developers get paid for the quality of code they check in?
The problem with this is, who will judge the quality of the developer's code? How do we determine if code by one developer is "better" than the code of another developer?
I am a software developer, I work on a contract basis, with projects lasting approximately 1 year, then moving to another client.
During my last 5 contracts, I have had the opportunity to work with several H1-B visa holders (approximately 40 total, there was a project in which the development team was approximately 90% H1-B's).
For the most part, these foreigners technical skill is below average, in many cases, they are plain incompetent. Maybe one or two have been average, and only 2 I might consider "brilliant"
My grief with H1-B visas is that it is not being used the way it is intended.
It is used as a way to bring cheap labor, not as a way to bring *skilled* labor.
I wouldn't have a problem with the program if the H1-B visa holders actually were competent.
Sure, Runescape doesn't have the best graphics (though they are planning on changing that soon), but you can play it for free as long as you want (they have and enhanced "members" version, for which you need to fork a $5 monthly fee) and it runs on any platform with a Java 2 plugin available (I play it on Linux).
I disagree. I like interactive fiction, but I hate entering text via the stylus. The games are much more enjoyable using a keyboard.
Just this fact has had me thinking about getting either a Handspring Treo or a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 (both PDA's feature a keyboard, in case you don't know) and dump my Visor Deluxe.
But I can't justify spending $300 - $400 to play interactive fiction on the go.
If all they do is email and web browsing, they should have no trouble with using Linux at all.
My wife is as computer illiterate as it gets, and she uses the computer for exactly those 2 reasons only.
I gave her an account on my Debian box, set up icons for Evolution and Galeon on the GNOME panel, and she has happily been a Linux user for quite some time now.
We used to dual boot all the time because she thought Linux was "too difficult", once I showed her she just had to click on an icon to read her email or browse the web, we haven't gone back to Windows for the longest time (she actually prefers Linux now).
I had to set her pop account on Galeon, but I had to do that on the Windows partition as well.
And it was hilarious. I actually saw Douglas Adams once (he was a speaker at Java One, which I attended that year). I had heard of his work but never actually read any of it.
I laughed outloud many times while reading Hitchhiker. I'm planning on getting "The Penultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which contains all 5 books in the series.
If you've never read his work I highly recommend it, you will not regret it.
I look forward to seeing the movie, but, like many other posters, I am concerned it will not make justice to the book.
I agree that the Blender Book (The Bull book) is very good.
I have never been a very good artist, but I have been going through the tutorials on this book, and I'm starting to create some pretty impressive models.
There are a couple of excellent gaming APIs that will make your games portable with little or no effort.
Write using SDL or Allegro of Crystal Space and OpenGL and your games will be portable across a number of platforms, including Linux, Windows, Macs and BeOS.
As a former Atari Computer user myself, I really enjoy your port of old Atari favorites. My favorite ones are Circus Linux! and Mad Bomber. I used to be a Kaboom! junkie back in the 80's.
My first computer ever was an Atari 800, which was a hand me down from my uncle, in the mid 80's, I was in junior HS at the time. I wrote my first lines of code on it as well. Eventually it died and I got a used 1200XL while in high school, which died as well in the late 90's, by then I decided it was too obsolete to get another Atari 8 bit, and went "computer less" until my 3rd year of college, when I took a student loan to buy my first PC.
In summary, been a former Atari 8-bit enthusiast, moving to a Linux enthusiast as well, I really enjoy your work.
I know you can find software packages not included on the official distribution elsewhere, however I am quite content with GNOME 1.4 for the time being and I can wait until it is incorporated into Sid, I don't use KDE so it is for me it is irrelevant if its ever ported to Sid.
After many years of using RPM based distros (first Red Hat, then Mandrake), I switched to Debian about a year ago. I had heard so many wonderful things about apt and I wanted to try it for myself.
The best decision I ever made. I had many frustrating moments trying to install or upgrade RPM based software, in many cases hosing the system (XFree86 comes to mind). Upgrading software using apt-get is a snap, I was so pleased when I upgraded from XFree86 v 3.x to 4.x (can't remember exact versions) using apt without a glitch.
One thing that kept me from switching to Debian earlier was I heard it was out of date, not a problem for me, I run the "unstable" distro, also known as Sid, and I haven't had any significant problems, and the software packages are (for the most part, KDE3 and GNOME 2 are not there yet) up to date.
Slashdot Mirror
I only see an windows executable (.exe) file for download on the links. Is the same source code used for Windows and Linux?
I recently bought an Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 for about $50 after rebates, to replace my aging ATI Rage Fury Pro.
This card I bought is as low end as they get, however I can play Enemy Territory under Linux just fine with it, at a resolution of 800x600. The graphics look fine at that resolution, and I don't experience any slowdowns.
Is it really worth it to spend $400+ on a video card? I don't think I've ever seen a game being played using one of the high end video cards, therefore I might be blissfully ignorant, but I believe a low end card is enough for a satisfying gaming experience.
When you write some code that has the potential of throwing an exception, Eclipse will underline the code with a MS Wordish squigly red line, you will see a light bulb with a white "x" inside a red circle next to it, if you hit ctrl+1 when the cursor is on the offending line, a pop up menu will show up, giving the options mentioned above.
For more tips and tricks, from Eclipse, go to Help->Tips and Tricks->Eclipse Java Development Tools
Heffel
That seemed odd to me too, especially since in a recent survey, Eclipse came up as the most popular IDE, with 34% of the respondents saying they use it.
Heffel
I used to write all my Java code using vi. I had tried using IDE's in the past, but felt they got on the way more than they helped.
About 2 months ago, I was writing a J2EE app using JBoss as the application server. I noticed there was an Eclipse plugin to allow remote debugging of EJBs for JBoss.
Since I didn't feel like messing around with VM parameters and what not to be able to do remote debugging, I downloaded both Eclipse and the plugin.
Once I tried Eclipse, I was hooked. When writing Java code, it saves a lot of time taking care of mundane tasks. For example, when writing code that has the potential of throwing an exception, Eclipse gives you the option of automatically wrapping the code with a try/catch block, add a catch block to an existing, enclosing try/catch block, or add a throws clause to your method.
It also has outstanding code completion.
Once I tried Eclipse, going back to writing Java code using vi I felt like I was wasting so much time by having to add my own try catchs, having to refer to JavaDocs to remember method parameters, etc.
I am now a loyal Eclipse user.
Kudos to the Eclipse Consortium for an outstanding job.
Heffel
The problem with this is, who will judge the quality of the developer's code? How do we determine if code by one developer is "better" than the code of another developer?
I am a software developer, I work on a contract basis, with projects lasting approximately 1 year, then moving to another client.
During my last 5 contracts, I have had the opportunity to work with several H1-B visa holders (approximately 40 total, there was a project in which the development team was approximately 90% H1-B's).
For the most part, these foreigners technical skill is below average, in many cases, they are plain incompetent. Maybe one or two have been average, and only 2 I might consider "brilliant"
My grief with H1-B visas is that it is not being used the way it is intended.
It is used as a way to bring cheap labor, not as a way to bring *skilled* labor.
I wouldn't have a problem with the program if the H1-B visa holders actually were competent.
Sure, Runescape doesn't have the best graphics (though they are planning on changing that soon), but you can play it for free as long as you want (they have and enhanced "members" version, for which you need to fork a $5 monthly fee) and it runs on any platform with a Java 2 plugin available (I play it on Linux).
Heffel
It is a very good book.
It got me started into SDL programming.
If you are looking to get started with SDL this is the best intro I have seen.
I disagree. I like interactive fiction, but I hate entering text via the stylus. The games are much more enjoyable using a keyboard.
Just this fact has had me thinking about getting either a Handspring Treo or a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 (both PDA's feature a keyboard, in case you don't know) and dump my Visor Deluxe.
But I can't justify spending $300 - $400 to play interactive fiction on the go.
If all they do is email and web browsing, they should have no trouble with using Linux at all.
My wife is as computer illiterate as it gets,
and she uses the computer for exactly those 2 reasons only.
I gave her an account on my Debian box,
set up icons for Evolution and Galeon on the
GNOME panel, and she has happily been a Linux
user for quite some time now.
We used to dual boot all the time because she thought Linux was "too difficult", once I showed her she just had to click on an icon to read her email or browse the web, we haven't gone back to Windows for the longest time (she actually prefers Linux now).
I had to set her pop account on Galeon, but I had to do that on the Windows partition as well.
Heffel
And it was hilarious. I actually saw Douglas Adams once (he was a speaker at Java One, which I attended that year). I had heard of his work but never actually read any of it.
I laughed outloud many times while reading Hitchhiker. I'm planning on getting "The Penultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which contains all 5 books in the series.
If you've never read his work I highly recommend it, you will not regret it.
I look forward to seeing the movie, but, like many other posters, I am concerned it will not make justice to the book.
Heffel
I agree that the Blender Book (The Bull book) is very good.
I have never been a very good artist, but I have been going through the tutorials on this book, and I'm starting to create some pretty impressive models.
Heffel
There are a couple of excellent gaming APIs
that will make your games portable with
little or no effort.
Write using SDL or Allegro of Crystal Space
and OpenGL and your games will be portable
across a number of platforms, including
Linux, Windows, Macs and BeOS.
Heffel
I love Galeon as well, however,
every now and then (actually pretty frequently)
it fails to display forms correctly.
The fonts and input fields look huge.
It is very annoying and I would like to know what causes it and how to fix it.
Logging out and back in fixes the problem, but that gets annoying after a while.
Something similar happens with Mozilla, so the problem probably lies in one of the common components.
I have some screenshots of what I am talking about
here for galeon and here for mozilla.
Does anyone know how to fix this?
I am running Debian Sid, if it makes any difference.
Heffel
I can't understand how in vi select some block of text and write it to some other
file... (can someone reply me with explanations how to do it? )
1. first set vi to view line numbers:
2. if (for example, you want to write lines
10 through 20 to a file called foo.txt:
done. Of course, replace 10 and 20 with the actual line numbers you want to save to a file, and foo.txt with whatever file name you want.
Heffel
I would, but I get enough grief from the :(
sysadmins about being a "disk hog" as it is
Heffel
Mods, please check the link before
moderating to 5 Informative.
You get spoiled by it's features.
I use Vim on my Debian box at home, but I am stuck with standard vi on the Solaris boxes at work.
I really miss some of its features when I'm "stuck" with "vanilla" vi.
I'm afraid if I get this book I'll miss it even more.
Heffel
I own a good old
ATI Rage Fury Pro and I love it.
Works well both under Windows and Linux.
My 1200XL died in the late 80's not 90's. (I wished it had lasted that long).
Heffel
As a former Atari Computer user myself, I really enjoy your port of old Atari favorites. My favorite ones are Circus Linux! and Mad Bomber. I used to be a Kaboom! junkie back in the 80's.
My first computer ever was an Atari 800, which was a hand me down from my uncle, in the mid 80's, I was in junior HS at the time. I wrote my first lines of code on it as well. Eventually it died and I got a used 1200XL while in high school, which died as well in the late 90's, by then I decided it was too obsolete to get another Atari 8 bit, and went "computer less" until my 3rd year of college, when I took a student loan to buy my first PC.
In summary, been a former Atari 8-bit enthusiast, moving to a Linux enthusiast as well, I really enjoy your work.
Thanks for bringing back such fond memories.
Heffel
I know you can find software packages not
included on the official distribution elsewhere,
however I am quite content with GNOME 1.4 for the time being and I can wait until it is incorporated into Sid, I don't use KDE so it is for me it is irrelevant if its ever ported to Sid.
Thanks anyway for the info.
Heffel
After many years of using RPM based distros
(first Red Hat, then Mandrake), I switched to Debian about a year ago. I had heard so many wonderful things about apt and I wanted to try it for myself.
The best decision I ever made. I had many frustrating moments trying to install or upgrade
RPM based software, in many cases hosing the system (XFree86 comes to mind). Upgrading software using apt-get is a snap, I was so pleased when I upgraded from XFree86 v 3.x to 4.x (can't remember exact versions) using apt without a glitch.
One thing that kept me from switching to Debian earlier was I heard it was out of date, not a problem for me, I run the "unstable" distro, also known as Sid, and I haven't had any significant problems, and the software packages are (for the most part, KDE3 and GNOME 2 are not there yet) up to date.
Heffel