That's what I used to do too (before switching), but the point remains that non-power user will never touch their Start Menus, meaning they clutter with crap. What was Microsoft's solution? Was it to tell developers to knock it off and set a good example themselves? Nah! It was to have the Start Menu automatically rearrange itself. Which as other posters have noted ruins muscle memory, among other ill effects.
One of the problems with the Start Menu is that it never achieved what it set out to do, simplify application selection. In those days, Mac users were of course used to just going into their Hard Disk folder in Finder to launch applications, but given the way application are stored in Windows, in a sub-folder of "Program files" and mixed in with a bunch of.dlls and.ini and other inscrutable crap, it made sense (sort of) for Microsoft to make a simple place to list JUST the applications and not all the crap that 99% of the time users don't care about at all. (Of course it would have been even better for Microsoft to have also specified that executable files are stored in "Program Files" but support files stored away from them in some other folder, but whatever.) The trouble was that even though the Start Menu existed to be simple, it quickly became crowded because developers abused it for self-promotion.
Let's say I install application "Foo" from "Bar Corp." What do I want added to my Start Menu: the application.
What will end up in my Start Menu? We all know the answer: a "Bar Corp." folder with a "Foo" sub-folder which will contain "Foo," "Uninstall Foo" (in spite of the uninstaller being in the Control Panel!!!!!!), and "Foo ReadMe" (in spite of the existence of a Help file). Ugh!
Now, that's not totally Microsoft's fault, but it does still suck that without manual pruning Start Menus naturally become crowded with crap. Developer, developers, developers, eh?
It's exactly that attitude that will keep me on OS X for the foreseeable future.
While it's true that a UI can be whipped up quickly, a good UI is the product of testing, testing, and more testing in order to smooth away rough edges, figure out where users are confused and make the application better fit to how one would expect the application to be. None of that can be done quickly.
Slightly OT, but is any one else here an educator in Japan using the "Unicorn" book? (They have a chapter about Alex and Pepperberg. There's nothing quite as fun as getting a room full of Japanese high school students to say, "ayuur," in imitation of a parrot's broken English.)
If you want to make a website called "goggel" that isn't a search engine, that's fine. If you want to make a website called "goggel" that is a search engine or worse just attempts to infect computers, then you're using Google's name for your own gain, which is wrong. If you want to make a name, you have to do it on your own merit.
Also, your line about the "nanny state" is out of place, since I never said anything about the government working to enforce such restrictions. The onus is first on registrars to work proactively to prevent infringement, then on trademark holders to notify service providers of infringement. The state only becomes involved in case things cannot be worked out civilly, and someone brings suit. Such cases should be rare, however.
Look, let's go back to the definition of trademark violation:
Does it cause confusion for consumers?
And the answer here is clearly, YES! Now, if someone wants to register google-sucks.com, more power to them, because we can all tell clearly that the site is not affiliated with google.com. On the other hand, a consumer typing in gooogle.com or whatever is clearly looking for google.com. When they get the page, they think, oh good, here's google! Meanwhile, some hole in IE is being exploited in the background. That's not right. That's clear trademark infringement-- deceiving the consumers for personal gain.
What's worse are all the paypal variants: paypa1, pay-pal, and the like. Those sites also exist merely to rip consumers off. People think "OK, here's the paypal homepage; let's put in my info!" Meanwhile, their accounts get drained of every cent. It's 100% criminal, and it's being aided by obvious, blatant trademark infringement.
Now, I understand that registrars may not be able to stop all infringing registration when they happen, but they should make a reasonable effort. Anyone can tell at a glance that "gooogle.com" is up to no good. And what's even more important is that when an infringing registration is pointed out to them, they must take it down as soon as they can verify the facts. To do otherwise is to risk consumer deception.
Let's not jump to conclusions. He/she might not be racist. They might just be a name-ist who assumes that all people with Middle Eastern-sounding names are terrorists, rather than all Middle Easterners. So to their mind, an Protestant American named "Fareed" is more likely to murder civilians than a disgruntled, unemployed Palestinian named "Robert."
On the other hand, I think we all can agree that this wanker (racist, wanker, or whatever) needs to die before spreading their stupidity.
Questions for those with access to the beta
on
Longhorn Beta Begins
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Did they fix the "Shut do..." menu? Did they get rid of the 16-color icons sprinkled into the last version? Are they still putting the menu bar under the location bar, but above the toolbar for no discernible reason? Does the UI still suck?
I know the last alpha or whatever that people had screenshots of was supposed to be for testing driver or whatever, but holy crap, it was a total UI train wreck. Just ugly, with styles mashed together at random, for no reason.
So, has it been fixed? Or will that be in Longhorn SP2?
A 300 hour game would take at least 5 if not 10 times as long to program. Unless they charged proportionally more than the regular price of a game and still got a normal amount of sales, they would lose a bundle of cash.
Roll your own BT client, then do it the way iTunes does it-- the DRM is added by the client after download. DVD Jon, of course, figured this out, and has released software that connects to the store, pretends to be iTunes, sends legitimate CC info, and gets back non-DRMed tracks. It's true that Jon 'breaking' iTunes is a little bit of a concern, but the fact is everything that's on DVD can already be pirated. You can't slow down pirating without stopping releasing things on DVD at all, which isn't gonna happen in the near future.
It's like this: even if you don't lock your door, you still have a right to be mad when you walk inside and find someone eating the cookies in your kitchen. On the other hand, if you don't build a fence, you can't get mad when the neighbor walks his dog and it pees on your grass.
It's the same thing with Wifi: you have every right to be pissed off if someone tries to get stuff off of your computer, even if you're dumbass fault that they were able to. On the other hand, if someone is using your bandwidth, it might be sort of annoying to you, but unless you take steps to put a stop to it, it's your fault they're doing it.
The fact is, for most broadband connections, unless the person is file sharing or using VOIP, it's no skin off your nose that they're doing it. If for some reason, it bothers you to be neighborly, the onus is on you to secure your stuff.
Excellent. I've been saying for years that I want a cellphone with a woodgrain case and real metal buttons. The more people look at this iPod case mod, the closer my dream comes to being true.
For what it's worth, I'm on YahooBB, and I find the quality to be as good or better than copper to copper in the States. Anytime I hear fuzziness on Yahoo's VoIP, the blame can usually be put on the cellphone in the States that I'm connecting to.
Dude, are you nuts? That formula produces toxic amounts of Chlorine gas!! Anyone fool enough to try to extract the gold from that mixture would have their lungs dissolve in their chest.
Much safer is Pa + U = P + Au. Nothing dangerous about good old phosphorus, right?
Just yesterday, I was playing my DS and thinking a little about the whole Nintendo v. Sony thing, and I wondered whether Microsoft would ever enter the handheld game market. Reflecting on it, I realized that a) they're going to wait until the next generation (duh) and b) they're likely to follow their usual MO, which is to release a spec and let someone else build it. In other words, PocketPC -> PocketGB.
To be honest, it's a little strange that MS decided to enter the hardware market with the XBox. I wouldn't be surprised to find that they'd prefer for someone else to start taking the however many hundred dollar loss on the individual consoles. The biggest problem with the strategy is that the price of the hardware is inflated, since the manufactures are unwilling to take a loss if they don't get a cut from the software sales. Also, having a lot of different manufactures could confuse consumers. Still, this sounds much more like the way MS likes to work: stand back, let other people bust their asses cutting prices on hardware, and collect a fee off of every item sold.
Yeah, but if you have write access to arbitrary locations, you could always just write over applications with your own stuff. This isn't any more dangerous than usual. There's no remote or even local exploit here, just a good spot for trojans to lurk, which can always be done anyway.Well, at least until we get a per-application security model to replace the per-user one.
Even if Moore's law continues for a while (and continuing forever is impossible), there're still pretty big software engineering challenges to overcome. Other species have brains as big as ours, but not our intelligence. The difference is the way their brains work-- they don't have as many connections between nodes. Meaning the "software" of their brains isn't as complex, even if the raw hardware might allow for such complexity.
Software engineering has always been a big challenge and I don't see that disappearing in the future. When you have a problem that's X+1 complex, it frequently takes 2X as much work. Meanwhile, all the good software is written by teams of just a few people, and throwing more people on a project gives it more stability and more ability to handle gruntwork, but not much more algorithmic complexity.
"Yea, but if I'm forced to download those extra digits then they better be worth my time."
No one's "forcing" you to do anything. If you want the CD version, you're welcome to download it. In fact, you're welcome to not download anything if each digit used on your internet connection is so precious to you....
Meanwhile, informal office survey:
Of the 5 different desks with 5 different laptops on them around me, 4 have DVDs. Besides, if you're already carrying around a separate PPC disc, one more won't break your back.
How someone can complain about having more good choices is beyond me.
"Why did they make a DVD version? Don't they know I'll just keep using the CD version! I'm so upset!"
Slashdot Mirror
That's what I used to do too (before switching), but the point remains that non-power user will never touch their Start Menus, meaning they clutter with crap. What was Microsoft's solution? Was it to tell developers to knock it off and set a good example themselves? Nah! It was to have the Start Menu automatically rearrange itself. Which as other posters have noted ruins muscle memory, among other ill effects.
One of the problems with the Start Menu is that it never achieved what it set out to do, simplify application selection. In those days, Mac users were of course used to just going into their Hard Disk folder in Finder to launch applications, but given the way application are stored in Windows, in a sub-folder of "Program files" and mixed in with a bunch of .dlls and .ini and other inscrutable crap, it made sense (sort of) for Microsoft to make a simple place to list JUST the applications and not all the crap that 99% of the time users don't care about at all. (Of course it would have been even better for Microsoft to have also specified that executable files are stored in "Program Files" but support files stored away from them in some other folder, but whatever.) The trouble was that even though the Start Menu existed to be simple, it quickly became crowded because developers abused it for self-promotion.
Let's say I install application "Foo" from "Bar Corp." What do I want added to my Start Menu: the application.
What will end up in my Start Menu? We all know the answer: a "Bar Corp." folder with a "Foo" sub-folder which will contain "Foo," "Uninstall Foo" (in spite of the uninstaller being in the Control Panel!!!!!!), and "Foo ReadMe" (in spite of the existence of a Help file). Ugh!
Now, that's not totally Microsoft's fault, but it does still suck that without manual pruning Start Menus naturally become crowded with crap. Developer, developers, developers, eh?
UI can be done overnight
It's exactly that attitude that will keep me on OS X for the foreseeable future.
While it's true that a UI can be whipped up quickly, a good UI is the product of testing, testing, and more testing in order to smooth away rough edges, figure out where users are confused and make the application better fit to how one would expect the application to be. None of that can be done quickly.
Slightly OT, but is any one else here an educator in Japan using the "Unicorn" book? (They have a chapter about Alex and Pepperberg. There's nothing quite as fun as getting a room full of Japanese high school students to say, "ayuur," in imitation of a parrot's broken English.)
If you want to make a website called "goggel" that isn't a search engine, that's fine. If you want to make a website called "goggel" that is a search engine or worse just attempts to infect computers, then you're using Google's name for your own gain, which is wrong. If you want to make a name, you have to do it on your own merit.
Also, your line about the "nanny state" is out of place, since I never said anything about the government working to enforce such restrictions. The onus is first on registrars to work proactively to prevent infringement, then on trademark holders to notify service providers of infringement. The state only becomes involved in case things cannot be worked out civilly, and someone brings suit. Such cases should be rare, however.
Look, let's go back to the definition of trademark violation:
Does it cause confusion for consumers?
And the answer here is clearly, YES! Now, if someone wants to register google-sucks.com, more power to them, because we can all tell clearly that the site is not affiliated with google.com. On the other hand, a consumer typing in gooogle.com or whatever is clearly looking for google.com. When they get the page, they think, oh good, here's google! Meanwhile, some hole in IE is being exploited in the background. That's not right. That's clear trademark infringement-- deceiving the consumers for personal gain.
What's worse are all the paypal variants: paypa1, pay-pal, and the like. Those sites also exist merely to rip consumers off. People think "OK, here's the paypal homepage; let's put in my info!" Meanwhile, their accounts get drained of every cent. It's 100% criminal, and it's being aided by obvious, blatant trademark infringement.
Now, I understand that registrars may not be able to stop all infringing registration when they happen, but they should make a reasonable effort. Anyone can tell at a glance that "gooogle.com" is up to no good. And what's even more important is that when an infringing registration is pointed out to them, they must take it down as soon as they can verify the facts. To do otherwise is to risk consumer deception.
Let's not jump to conclusions. He/she might not be racist. They might just be a name-ist who assumes that all people with Middle Eastern-sounding names are terrorists, rather than all Middle Easterners. So to their mind, an Protestant American named "Fareed" is more likely to murder civilians than a disgruntled, unemployed Palestinian named "Robert."
On the other hand, I think we all can agree that this wanker (racist, wanker, or whatever) needs to die before spreading their stupidity.
Did they fix the "Shut do..." menu? Did they get rid of the 16-color icons sprinkled into the last version? Are they still putting the menu bar under the location bar, but above the toolbar for no discernible reason? Does the UI still suck?
I know the last alpha or whatever that people had screenshots of was supposed to be for testing driver or whatever, but holy crap, it was a total UI train wreck. Just ugly, with styles mashed together at random, for no reason.
So, has it been fixed? Or will that be in Longhorn SP2?
Not gonna happen.
A 300 hour game would take at least 5 if not 10 times as long to program. Unless they charged proportionally more than the regular price of a game and still got a normal amount of sales, they would lose a bundle of cash.
An album of 11+ songs can still only cost $9.99.
Roll your own BT client, then do it the way iTunes does it-- the DRM is added by the client after download. DVD Jon, of course, figured this out, and has released software that connects to the store, pretends to be iTunes, sends legitimate CC info, and gets back non-DRMed tracks. It's true that Jon 'breaking' iTunes is a little bit of a concern, but the fact is everything that's on DVD can already be pirated. You can't slow down pirating without stopping releasing things on DVD at all, which isn't gonna happen in the near future.
Pico? Pfff. Real men use emacs.
Also, since I said that, you know I'm a total geek, so you have to like me now. Please?
It's like this: even if you don't lock your door, you still have a right to be mad when you walk inside and find someone eating the cookies in your kitchen. On the other hand, if you don't build a fence, you can't get mad when the neighbor walks his dog and it pees on your grass.
It's the same thing with Wifi: you have every right to be pissed off if someone tries to get stuff off of your computer, even if you're dumbass fault that they were able to. On the other hand, if someone is using your bandwidth, it might be sort of annoying to you, but unless you take steps to put a stop to it, it's your fault they're doing it.
The fact is, for most broadband connections, unless the person is file sharing or using VOIP, it's no skin off your nose that they're doing it. If for some reason, it bothers you to be neighborly, the onus is on you to secure your stuff.
For a flip phone?
Excellent. I've been saying for years that I want a cellphone with a woodgrain case and real metal buttons. The more people look at this iPod case mod, the closer my dream comes to being true.
For what it's worth, I'm on YahooBB, and I find the quality to be as good or better than copper to copper in the States. Anytime I hear fuzziness on Yahoo's VoIP, the blame can usually be put on the cellphone in the States that I'm connecting to.
My girlfriend is basically a non-gamer, but she just spent all yesterday playing Nintendogs on a imported, pink DS.
Why those things aren't available in the US yet is the real question.
It creates unwanted biproducts, Ca + Ru, but otherwise it's OK.
Hey, the Stalin defense isn't as bad as Amazon's One Click Patent, therefore the Stalin defense is good in every possible way!
Dude, are you nuts? That formula produces toxic amounts of Chlorine gas!! Anyone fool enough to try to extract the gold from that mixture would have their lungs dissolve in their chest.
Much safer is Pa + U = P + Au. Nothing dangerous about good old phosphorus, right?
Just yesterday, I was playing my DS and thinking a little about the whole Nintendo v. Sony thing, and I wondered whether Microsoft would ever enter the handheld game market. Reflecting on it, I realized that a) they're going to wait until the next generation (duh) and b) they're likely to follow their usual MO, which is to release a spec and let someone else build it. In other words, PocketPC -> PocketGB.
To be honest, it's a little strange that MS decided to enter the hardware market with the XBox. I wouldn't be surprised to find that they'd prefer for someone else to start taking the however many hundred dollar loss on the individual consoles. The biggest problem with the strategy is that the price of the hardware is inflated, since the manufactures are unwilling to take a loss if they don't get a cut from the software sales. Also, having a lot of different manufactures could confuse consumers. Still, this sounds much more like the way MS likes to work: stand back, let other people bust their asses cutting prices on hardware, and collect a fee off of every item sold.
Yeah, but if you have write access to arbitrary locations, you could always just write over applications with your own stuff. This isn't any more dangerous than usual. There's no remote or even local exploit here, just a good spot for trojans to lurk, which can always be done anyway.Well, at least until we get a per-application security model to replace the per-user one.
So, put a sign on all the scanners:
...
"WARNING: WILL NOT WORK WITH SEVERED HANDS!!"
Mmm, served hams...
Even if Moore's law continues for a while (and continuing forever is impossible), there're still pretty big software engineering challenges to overcome. Other species have brains as big as ours, but not our intelligence. The difference is the way their brains work-- they don't have as many connections between nodes. Meaning the "software" of their brains isn't as complex, even if the raw hardware might allow for such complexity.
Software engineering has always been a big challenge and I don't see that disappearing in the future. When you have a problem that's X+1 complex, it frequently takes 2X as much work. Meanwhile, all the good software is written by teams of just a few people, and throwing more people on a project gives it more stability and more ability to handle gruntwork, but not much more algorithmic complexity.
All I'm saying is, AI won't be easy.
"Yea, but if I'm forced to download those extra digits then they better be worth my time."
No one's "forcing" you to do anything. If you want the CD version, you're welcome to download it. In fact, you're welcome to not download anything if each digit used on your internet connection is so precious to you....
Meanwhile, informal office survey:
Of the 5 different desks with 5 different laptops on them around me, 4 have DVDs. Besides, if you're already carrying around a separate PPC disc, one more won't break your back.
How someone can complain about having more good choices is beyond me.
"Why did they make a DVD version? Don't they know I'll just keep using the CD version! I'm so upset!"