Microsoft's hardware research division ages back demoed a mouse that was akin to a bar of soap. You held it up in the air like a remote control, and rotated around in your hand. It could be operated from a couch or another location where didn't have a traditional hard surface. I thought it was a great idea.
Can someone recommend some good hardware to run these on?
Last time I bought a router, Linksys was doing their best to kill the WRT line it seemed by putting out new routers with less memory, and slower processors.
I bought a D-Link DIR 655 because it has a fast processor, does 802.11n, and has gigabit ports. Is there any hardware out there that is comparable (or better) that I can throw Linux on?
Windows does not have a bevy of toolkits to choose from out of the box.
Yet Windows developers often find the core Win32 API doesn't fit their needs, and waffle between toolkits like GTK, wxWidgets, Qt, and the usual cross-platform suspects. They also turn to.NET, Java (technically a whole language), MFC and others.
I constantly run into issues where I need to download a runtime to run a Windows app, because many developers don't simply develop for what is out of the box with a standard Windows install.
I've seen native X11 apps offer up checkboxes, form elements, and the like. So it is possible. It just doesn't look nice.
Developing audio on Windows is not necessarily standard, not easy. That is why apps might ship with their own separate audio library like OpenAL, tie into QuickTime, etc.
I have some non-trivial Windows apps that were built for Win95 that still run in Windows7.
Sadly, there were many Windows 95 era apps that were still 16 bit, which don't work in x64 versions of Windows 7. Half of my games (mostly from the XP era, not Win95 era) wouldn't work properly in Windows 7. Windows breaks compatibility all the time, even with service packs. Saying you have a particular app that still works doesn't mean the Win32 API has stayed the same, because it hasn't.
The GTK API has stayed mostly the same over the 2.x life-cycle. That is likely to change with GTK 3.
Now, I'm not a fan of GTK by any means. However, the GTK 2.x API has been around since 2002. Anything written for that API should still work fine today.
If they wanted the easy way out, they would have used wxWidgets, which at least feels native (by using the native toolkits) across Windows and Mac, and GTK on other Unixes.
That is basically what I said, except you apparently didn't get that. I suggested they use Qt (like wxWidgets is a cross-platform toolkit). Qt makes more sense for a variety of reasons, such as native bindings to Webkit (the heart of Chrome), and very easy audio development where you write code once, and then the audio works on Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.
Really what is so different other than the number of pixels on the display?
Varying color depth, widescreen display ratios, scaling elements to varying resolutions, transparency and composite effects, GEM, KMS, DRI, hardware and software acceleration, modern font rendering, sub-pixel hinting, LCD displays, anti-aliasing, etc.
On the input front you have mice that with 8 buttons, multiple mice, touchpads, joysticks, touchscreens, mice that poll at varying rates with varying "resolution", etc.
I also know that graphic displays and inputs are vastly different today than they were 10 and 20 years ago.
Do I know that X11 is inefficient? No, but I sure read plenty of other people making those claims. However, I suspect that X11 wasn't developed initially with today's needs in mind. I do know that the X team keeps promising features, cutting them, and then still shipping six months past their projected release dates.
Novell has guys working on Mono, Evolution, OOo, KDE, Gnome, the kernel, etc. What I don't see a whole lot of is major distro companies (Red Hat, Novell, Canonical) paying for major upstream development with X. Maybe it just needs a little more love, some deprecation of old cruft, and a new forward-thinking design. There seems to be somewhat of a future direction (GEM, DRI2, MPX), but perhaps X needs a revolution.
How about a Qt build of Chromium as opposed to a GTK build of Chromium? I'd be real curious to see how it performs.
I was also saddened to see the port team bitch and complain initially that they had to use GTK, because GTK is "the standard toolkit" for Linux, while in the same paragraph complaining that Linux doesn't simply have one standard toolkit. Last time I checked, Windows has a bevy of toolkits and APIs to choose from as well. They also complained that writing audio in Linux was difficult.
If they had written a Qt app from day one, porting would be minimal, they wouldn't have to maintain this huge separate trunks, it would have worked from day 1 on Solaris, Mac, Linux, Windows, BSD, etc. Audio would have been very easy to code with Phonon.
I'm curious to see if Chrome (the browser and OS) are indeed both developed with GTK, then will they both need some retrofits when GTK 3.0 ships, further complicating the matter?
Viewers and advertisers care about content. Networks care about them.
There was plenty of protest when ABC showed two women in bed together last year on Grey's Anatomy. Major groups threatened to boycott the network. (In theory the Christian Coalition already boycotts everything Disney because Disney doesn't go out of their way to stop the "gay" days at Disney, which Disney neither endorses nor organizes).
The network was terrified of the boycott and eliminated the lesbian couple. Then there was a backlash about discrimination against gays, so now the girl has a new girlfriend, but they won't be seen in bed together.
I believe it was inadvertent in that the network wasn't in on it. There seemed to be some genuine shock. Was it an intentional move by Janet and Justin? Maybe.
Either way, I don't think the FCC should have the right to fine radio stations or TV stations. Let the market decide.
That is correct. Google does provide a few closed-source apps, but Android itself is FOSS controlled by the Open Handset Alliance. Google wrote the initial codebase for Android, and then handed it over to the Alliance.
The FCC shouldn't fine a network over an inadvertent nipple slip.
Mostly like the (somewhat broken) MPAA, there should merely by ratings and guidelines that enable parents to make decisions for themselves on how to raise their kids.
I don't want my daughter playing Grand Theft Auto. But I certainly don't want anyone telling me how to raise my kid. Voluntary rating systems are the way to go. However, unlike the MPAA, the rules for how the ratings are determined should be transparent.
Google does not control Android. Google can't singularly hold back an Android release. Google can't sign an exclusive deal where only one carrier gets an Android release.
Android is FOSS that is owned by the Open Handset Alliance.
Google offers various versions of Android to carriers with differing levels of Google branding, but given that the entire trunk is open to developers, AT&T has the same capability of obtaining Android code as Verizon, or any theoretical carrier.
It should also be noted that bug isn't a simple bug to fix. It involves rewriting major core aspects of OOo. It should also be noted that they are working on rewriting those parts. They are working to address the issue.
Plenty of that happens in the OSS community. There is no denying it. It has happened to me where I submit a bug or feature request and see it ignored, or closed WONTFIX.
However, other developers have fixed issues that I've opened. Having some issues fixed because of my feedback is better than none.
In XP you can't run a chkdsk on a mounted drive. You have to reboot, scan, and repair the damage before you finish booting into the OS.
With self-healing NTFS, it will attempt to fix errors while the drive is mounted without requiring a reboot.
Server 2008 also has hot-patching without reboots. 7 probably has it as well, but I can't recall off hand.
Mind you, I'm not really trying to justify the cost of 100 Euros. I'm just trying to throw these things out there so others can make their own decisions.
I actually tend to agree. Especially consider the massage business. A person is paid to perform a service in which they physically interact with you to provide relief of muscle tension and physical enjoyment. Tell me again how this is so different from prostitution?
I have problems with underage prostitution. But I don't think the government should tell consenting adults how they can have sex, period.
Honestly as a home user you get ipv6 (which you may not really benefit from if you're behind an ipv4 router), self-healing NTFS, DirectX 11, a new taskbar (which is admittedly pretty neat) and not a whole lot more.
You get continued security updates for a longer period of time.
Is it worth paying to upgrade?
Probably not. I bought a copy for DirectX 11 because the only reason I keep Windows around for is gaming. I also got the upgrade when it was $50 (USD) so it was a much easier pill to swallow. Your mileage may vary.
As a footnote, many people don't realize you can't really upgrade from XP either. Your upgrade is wiping your computer, and installing everything from scratch. I consider this a terrible mistake on Microsoft's part, to constantly shut down upgrade paths. It is almost like they don't want their customers to spend money to upgrade. They do their best to dissuade them. We're looking at a scenario here where we won't be able to upgrade to the latest Exchange 2010 because we're on 2003, and there is no direct upgrade path. And we're not wiping out entire Exchange server and starting anew.
I don't want to sound like a broken record here, but one of the things I truly love about OSS development is how transparent development is. I can easily contact the developers. I can submit bugs.
I have tons of usability gripes with Windows. I've never felt like I could submit feedback to Microsoft that might be seen and looked at.
It was certainly reduced in functionality at launch, because it was largely rewritten. It took a while to reach feature parity.
The problem is that with many distros, if you got an older version when you installed your distro, it won't push a major update until you upgrade your distro.
For instance, if you're running openSUSE 11.1 right now, you probably still have KDE 4.1, which frankly isn't that great. KDE 4.3 really meets feature parity with KDE 3, but adds tons of new features, and not just eye candy.
Krunner is extremely useful for instance.
I run weekly KDE snapshops in openSUSE. It really helps to see what is coming down the pipe, instead of waiting six months for new features.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's hardware research division ages back demoed a mouse that was akin to a bar of soap. You held it up in the air like a remote control, and rotated around in your hand. It could be operated from a couch or another location where didn't have a traditional hard surface. I thought it was a great idea.
Whatever happened to it?
Can someone recommend some good hardware to run these on?
Last time I bought a router, Linksys was doing their best to kill the WRT line it seemed by putting out new routers with less memory, and slower processors.
I bought a D-Link DIR 655 because it has a fast processor, does 802.11n, and has gigabit ports. Is there any hardware out there that is comparable (or better) that I can throw Linux on?
Qt has pen input that works on all platforms. Just saying.
Windows does not have a bevy of toolkits to choose from out of the box.
Yet Windows developers often find the core Win32 API doesn't fit their needs, and waffle between toolkits like GTK, wxWidgets, Qt, and the usual cross-platform suspects. They also turn to .NET, Java (technically a whole language), MFC and others.
I constantly run into issues where I need to download a runtime to run a Windows app, because many developers don't simply develop for what is out of the box with a standard Windows install.
I've seen native X11 apps offer up checkboxes, form elements, and the like. So it is possible. It just doesn't look nice.
Developing audio on Windows is not necessarily standard, not easy. That is why apps might ship with their own separate audio library like OpenAL, tie into QuickTime, etc.
I have some non-trivial Windows apps that were built for Win95 that still run in Windows7.
Sadly, there were many Windows 95 era apps that were still 16 bit, which don't work in x64 versions of Windows 7. Half of my games (mostly from the XP era, not Win95 era) wouldn't work properly in Windows 7. Windows breaks compatibility all the time, even with service packs. Saying you have a particular app that still works doesn't mean the Win32 API has stayed the same, because it hasn't.
The GTK API has stayed mostly the same over the 2.x life-cycle. That is likely to change with GTK 3.
Now, I'm not a fan of GTK by any means. However, the GTK 2.x API has been around since 2002. Anything written for that API should still work fine today.
If they wanted the easy way out, they would have used wxWidgets, which at least feels native (by using the native toolkits) across Windows and Mac, and GTK on other Unixes.
That is basically what I said, except you apparently didn't get that. I suggested they use Qt (like wxWidgets is a cross-platform toolkit). Qt makes more sense for a variety of reasons, such as native bindings to Webkit (the heart of Chrome), and very easy audio development where you write code once, and then the audio works on Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.
Konqueror doesn't even run on Webkit.
Rekonq does use Webkit from Qt, and it is a promising browser. However, it doesn't have a multiple-process, sandbox model that Chromium does.
Really what is so different other than the number of pixels on the display?
Varying color depth, widescreen display ratios, scaling elements to varying resolutions, transparency and composite effects, GEM, KMS, DRI, hardware and software acceleration, modern font rendering, sub-pixel hinting, LCD displays, anti-aliasing, etc.
On the input front you have mice that with 8 buttons, multiple mice, touchpads, joysticks, touchscreens, mice that poll at varying rates with varying "resolution", etc.
This is the one gripe about X that I can understand and get behind.
Wayland is not designed to be network transparent, nor do remote rendering. I'd rather have a system like that.
I'm wary of any real old legacy code.
I also know that graphic displays and inputs are vastly different today than they were 10 and 20 years ago.
Do I know that X11 is inefficient? No, but I sure read plenty of other people making those claims. However, I suspect that X11 wasn't developed initially with today's needs in mind. I do know that the X team keeps promising features, cutting them, and then still shipping six months past their projected release dates.
Novell has guys working on Mono, Evolution, OOo, KDE, Gnome, the kernel, etc. What I don't see a whole lot of is major distro companies (Red Hat, Novell, Canonical) paying for major upstream development with X. Maybe it just needs a little more love, some deprecation of old cruft, and a new forward-thinking design. There seems to be somewhat of a future direction (GEM, DRI2, MPX), but perhaps X needs a revolution.
Is Wayland a step in the right direction?
How about a Qt build of Chromium as opposed to a GTK build of Chromium? I'd be real curious to see how it performs.
I was also saddened to see the port team bitch and complain initially that they had to use GTK, because GTK is "the standard toolkit" for Linux, while in the same paragraph complaining that Linux doesn't simply have one standard toolkit. Last time I checked, Windows has a bevy of toolkits and APIs to choose from as well. They also complained that writing audio in Linux was difficult.
If they had written a Qt app from day one, porting would be minimal, they wouldn't have to maintain this huge separate trunks, it would have worked from day 1 on Solaris, Mac, Linux, Windows, BSD, etc. Audio would have been very easy to code with Phonon.
I'm curious to see if Chrome (the browser and OS) are indeed both developed with GTK, then will they both need some retrofits when GTK 3.0 ships, further complicating the matter?
Viewers and advertisers care about content. Networks care about them.
There was plenty of protest when ABC showed two women in bed together last year on Grey's Anatomy. Major groups threatened to boycott the network. (In theory the Christian Coalition already boycotts everything Disney because Disney doesn't go out of their way to stop the "gay" days at Disney, which Disney neither endorses nor organizes).
The network was terrified of the boycott and eliminated the lesbian couple. Then there was a backlash about discrimination against gays, so now the girl has a new girlfriend, but they won't be seen in bed together.
Actually the video game industry, the music industry and the movie industry use voluntary rating systems without full government control.
The systems aren't perfect, but they work reasonably well.
I believe it was inadvertent in that the network wasn't in on it. There seemed to be some genuine shock. Was it an intentional move by Janet and Justin? Maybe.
Either way, I don't think the FCC should have the right to fine radio stations or TV stations. Let the market decide.
That is correct. Google does provide a few closed-source apps, but Android itself is FOSS controlled by the Open Handset Alliance. Google wrote the initial codebase for Android, and then handed it over to the Alliance.
The FCC shouldn't fine a network over an inadvertent nipple slip.
Mostly like the (somewhat broken) MPAA, there should merely by ratings and guidelines that enable parents to make decisions for themselves on how to raise their kids.
I don't want my daughter playing Grand Theft Auto. But I certainly don't want anyone telling me how to raise my kid. Voluntary rating systems are the way to go. However, unlike the MPAA, the rules for how the ratings are determined should be transparent.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493459/
Google does not control Android. Google can't singularly hold back an Android release. Google can't sign an exclusive deal where only one carrier gets an Android release.
Android is FOSS that is owned by the Open Handset Alliance.
Google offers various versions of Android to carriers with differing levels of Google branding, but given that the entire trunk is open to developers, AT&T has the same capability of obtaining Android code as Verizon, or any theoretical carrier.
I will have to check that out.
It should also be noted that bug isn't a simple bug to fix. It involves rewriting major core aspects of OOo. It should also be noted that they are working on rewriting those parts. They are working to address the issue.
Plenty of that happens in the OSS community. There is no denying it. It has happened to me where I submit a bug or feature request and see it ignored, or closed WONTFIX.
However, other developers have fixed issues that I've opened. Having some issues fixed because of my feedback is better than none.
And all those independent contractors on the second Death Star where killed when Lando Calrissian blew it up.
In XP you can't run a chkdsk on a mounted drive. You have to reboot, scan, and repair the damage before you finish booting into the OS.
With self-healing NTFS, it will attempt to fix errors while the drive is mounted without requiring a reboot.
Server 2008 also has hot-patching without reboots. 7 probably has it as well, but I can't recall off hand.
Mind you, I'm not really trying to justify the cost of 100 Euros. I'm just trying to throw these things out there so others can make their own decisions.
I actually tend to agree. Especially consider the massage business. A person is paid to perform a service in which they physically interact with you to provide relief of muscle tension and physical enjoyment. Tell me again how this is so different from prostitution?
I have problems with underage prostitution. But I don't think the government should tell consenting adults how they can have sex, period.
I'm androgynous, you insensitive clod!
Honestly as a home user you get ipv6 (which you may not really benefit from if you're behind an ipv4 router), self-healing NTFS, DirectX 11, a new taskbar (which is admittedly pretty neat) and not a whole lot more.
You get continued security updates for a longer period of time.
Is it worth paying to upgrade?
Probably not. I bought a copy for DirectX 11 because the only reason I keep Windows around for is gaming. I also got the upgrade when it was $50 (USD) so it was a much easier pill to swallow. Your mileage may vary.
As a footnote, many people don't realize you can't really upgrade from XP either. Your upgrade is wiping your computer, and installing everything from scratch. I consider this a terrible mistake on Microsoft's part, to constantly shut down upgrade paths. It is almost like they don't want their customers to spend money to upgrade. They do their best to dissuade them. We're looking at a scenario here where we won't be able to upgrade to the latest Exchange 2010 because we're on 2003, and there is no direct upgrade path. And we're not wiping out entire Exchange server and starting anew.
I don't want to sound like a broken record here, but one of the things I truly love about OSS development is how transparent development is. I can easily contact the developers. I can submit bugs.
I have tons of usability gripes with Windows. I've never felt like I could submit feedback to Microsoft that might be seen and looked at.
It was certainly reduced in functionality at launch, because it was largely rewritten. It took a while to reach feature parity.
The problem is that with many distros, if you got an older version when you installed your distro, it won't push a major update until you upgrade your distro.
For instance, if you're running openSUSE 11.1 right now, you probably still have KDE 4.1, which frankly isn't that great. KDE 4.3 really meets feature parity with KDE 3, but adds tons of new features, and not just eye candy.
Krunner is extremely useful for instance.
I run weekly KDE snapshops in openSUSE. It really helps to see what is coming down the pipe, instead of waiting six months for new features.