Hear hear. I think it's a fantastic offering. Someone may want to reformat the family machine to a Linux box but has someone that uses XP for a bit of wordprocessing/browsing. Install the XP theme plus Abiword and Firebird and then no complaints... they simply won't notice the difference.
If you read the homepage, it's only an additional simple window manager you can install if you choose. It's not a commercial OS offering, just someone writing it for fun.
So feel free to be embarrassed (original poster, not parent) to use Linux. The rest of us will just have fun. Whether it's XP, Aqua, Star Trek, or what-ever anyone fancies writing.
An additional plus is that if it's always on you then it won't get stolen (useful if you are a student, or have offices that aren't particularly secure).
Yes, the one thing I am sick of under Linux is the stupid Windows-copy file selector. Every time I want to save a file I have to pop it up and wend my way tediously from the normally illogical default start point. I would love an Acorn-like drag-and-drop system, much like ROX tries to do. Make it globally selectable in KDE/Gnome what file selector module to use so those that prefer the old way can keep it but those that need the drag and drop can have it in all their apps.
The US government DID invade a soveriegn nation. It did so without international support. It did so in violation of international law. The means, especially in this case, do not justify the ends.
I shall respect your own personal opinion, but stating things as fact doesn't make it so. America maintains that the existing UN resolutions gave them the right to invade, and the existing text seems to support the US position. How did they violate international law then?
There are some fantastic looking STB-style PCs someone else pointed out here and they look perfect for installing MythTV as discussed here. I'm put off by the comments posted next to the parent of this comment by talk of reliability and difficulty of installing Linux. Does anyone else have any experience of these boards, and especially installing Gentoo on it?
Do you think people in France will be thrilled when France decides to do something different? That they can no longer access all the other sites.
A fair few French still use Minitel and don't bother with the Internet. Those that use the Internet can access Minitel via a gateway, and vice versa. I'm not sure they were too thrilled when the French government thrust this 'different' system on them all that time ago, but it's served them pretty well for the past couple of decades.
It's because SVG sucks ass and designers (myself included) are the ones who bring you vector graphics over the web. They decide. Simple as that. FlashMX is THE standard for vector design - not to mention a complete development environment to make all those nice applications and games.
SVG appears to be far superior to Flash for Vector graphics, especially the way it's so easy for a scripting language to modify it on the fly. FlashMX isn't the standard for vector design, it's a tiny niche market for web designers like yourself. The vector graphic designers include everybody on the face of the planet that uses an application such as Adobe Illustrator.
When SVG becomes de facto, we will see small web design firms become far more productive: * designer fires up Illustrator (or whatever) and knocks up a pretty design * designer points out that his texts COMPANY_NAME_HERE and SLOGAN_HERE need to be dynamic * client-side programmer takes 10 seconds writing a script that reads in the file, does a str_replace() with the company details in the database, and spits it out
Thankfully all the menu buttons can be done this way, which wastes a lot of our designers time and soaks up bandwidth for no practical purpose. The alternative of Flash for buttons is not good as it cuts out those without the plug-in, and people losing or not sending the source means we have maintenance troubles.
First of all, it has a little bit of the "me too" syndrome, considering that Mac OS X already has some nice eye candy that uses the same techniques: fast compositing and scaling, to run videos in an icon; translucent windows; windows that easily shift and scale without losing clarity (Expose). Heck, Microsoft demo'd their "me too" six months ago with early images of Longhorn.
RiscOS had fast vector graphics, transparent dragging of windows, even the ability to have a different video running *in* each of your scroll-bars, etc. It had eye candy galore. And this was over a decade ago. Yet it's far more usable today than Windows, OS X and Linux desktops for me. Reasons include:
* standard actions for left and right buttons - left selects and right normally does the opposite, middle button is always context sensitive menu * left-button-drag on a windows acts as you would expect, but right button and drag selects both horizonal and vertical scroll bars. This means you can 'pan' around a page just by moving the mouse. I can't tell you how much I miss this! * the whole drag-and-drop concept where it's actually done _properly_. Look at the popular ROX Filer, which is based on the RiscOS desktop.
I'm not going to go on and on, but there are so many things to fix. One that is VERY annoying under both Windows and Linux:
* trying to select some text where it extends past the end of the viewable window, as you scroll and select your mouse inevitably wanders off the line and suddenly jumps down to the next line forcing you to start again. I know I should just select a few chars and then shift click as a work-around, but it would be better if there was a short time-delay before the select jumps down.
It's these little things that can annoy users more than perceived code bloat or pretty windows.
Add me to that list: I don't like the way Evolution throws all my inboxes into on INBOX, just like Outlook. I'd rather have separate ones. At least make it optional so both worlds can be pleased!
Incubated in a geeky part of the U.S. Department of Defense decades ago, the Internet has become a thriving global marketplace since being fully turned over to the private business community in the early 1990s.
So the Internet didn't take off until Big Business wrested control of it from the Geeky Nerds? Let's hear it for Corporate America! Woo-hoo! Slap another software patent on the barbeque and pass me a Coca-Cola (and please, no free beer).
Instead of the revised history, this may be more accurate: Take from the U.S. Department of Defense decades ago and turned into the worlds largest and most powerful communications tool, the Internet has become a haven for fraud, clogged up by spam, and had its resources that were generously bestowed upon the world for free abused and misused since being fully turned over to the private business community in the early 1990s.
As you may know, there is a viable alternative to Windows: OS X.
As you may know, there is a viable alternative to Windows: Linux.
Risc OS was imho the best desktop in existence, before Acorn got bought by Pace and it went the way of BeOS. It provided the inspiration for Windows 95, and gave us the best filer for linux.
I downloaded onto floppy disc the program here and had reset the admin password on my Win XP box within seconds. Never seen anything so simple in my life. Though others recommend LC4 which also works.
Apple has been pretty liberal with their protected aac files compared to some other digital music retailers. Play on up to 3 computers, burn to cd, play on iPod.
It's still DRMed.
I've bought about 250-300 songs from iTMS and have never been inconvenienced by their DRM.
You've found a service you find reasonable priced and easy to use. That's good news.
Do you think their DRM being cracked might change any of this?
No. Anyone that wants music with no DRM will just download it off Kazaa, etc.
I can just imagine the RIAA trying to use this as an excuse to implement some sort of draconian measures.
When have they ever needed an excuse?
For years now people have been screaming for fair online digital distribution.
And the music industry decided to ignore the people and try and sue anyone that tried to implement anything reasonable. So they got exactly what they deserved. I've very little sympathy.
We finally get something that works well and is fair on both sides and some jackass cracks it.
Just because you like something doesn't mean you speak for everybody. For instance, not a single Linux user can use the service.
I sort of feel like next time the RIAA dupes some ignorant senator into introducing some insane bill that completely infringes on our rights we're not going to have a leg to stand on.
That kind of panic isn't very helpful. You should debate each bill on its merits.
Apple gave people what they asked for, then got shit on. What does everyone else think?
I think that Apple isn't the benevolent benefactor to mankind you make out, and they really want to sell more iPods.
I went for an interview where they fired technical question one after another at me, and after they rattled them off one after another at me they just walked out of the room. I had to walk out of the interview room and ask the receptionist if the interview was over. They didn't ask a single question about my past, what I wanted to do, or why I wanted to work for the company. I've no idea if they wanted to offer me a post or not as I never even bothered the agent to inquire as I wouldn't be interested.
I disagree that a good tech exam won't tell you anything, as I expect a thorough one every time I walk into an interview. I expect the company to put itself underneath the same microscope and sell itself to me though.
Having said that, if a company set me a deadline of 15 minutes I wouldn't be interested in working for them. It would be so obvious it was a cowboy outfit. A professional company would be interested in why I came about my solution, the algorithms behind it, my coding style, how I would intend to maintain the code, etc.
The lawyers are mostly being paid in stock options, and are deliberately taking part in a pump-and-dump scheme. Their incentive is maximise their profits whilst protecting themselves from fraud charges. There is nothing to stop them from using Darl as the fall guy.
If I have to hear, hear as in read, one more person explain the difference between free beer and liberated software, or one more time how it should appropriately called GNU/Linux, I swear to god someone is going to pay.
What operating system do I use? GNU/KDE/GNOME/QT/XFREE/LINUX of course!
The shmucks stole the device but not the software?
Whatever country tries to reverse engineer this thing is going to have a bitch trying to control it.
Let's see. They knew exactly where it was being stored, and didn't need the software? If it was, as it sounds, an inside job then it's fair to assume they already have a copy on CD-ROM or uploaded to an anonymous FTP server.
From the article: A spokeswoman for Nominet UK - the registry for all.uk domains - confirmed that hotmail.co.uk had failed to be renewed and was placed back into pool of available domains.
For Nominet's part, she confirmed that "all the standard renewal procedures were followed regarding hotmail.co.uk".
Until there is an announcement on the PHP homepage stating that PHP is totally stable under Apache 2, and that moving to Apache 2 will offer far greater performance, I don't see the ratio changing in the near future. The last advice I read was "don't use mod_php under Apache 2", and haven't heard anything to the contrary recently.
How much coal, oil, gas is required on a large scale to make all of that extra electricity that would be required? Seems to be close to a zero sum proposition.
With every country but the USA moving to minimum renewable energy targets, it's an increasingly attractive proposition. Plus you can generate your own electricity if you wish, using renewable sources. I won't rehash all the benefits of centralising the cleaning of fumes in a power station as opposed to millions of portable generators, as already discussed dozens of times on Slashdot, so even in todays infrastructure it still makes sense (especially countries like France where over 80% of energy is nuclear).
Slashdot Mirror
Linux is also about choice
Hear hear. I think it's a fantastic offering. Someone may want to reformat the family machine to a Linux box but has someone that uses XP for a bit of wordprocessing/browsing. Install the XP theme plus Abiword and Firebird and then no complaints... they simply won't notice the difference.
If you read the homepage, it's only an additional simple window manager you can install if you choose. It's not a commercial OS offering, just someone writing it for fun.
So feel free to be embarrassed (original poster, not parent) to use Linux. The rest of us will just have fun. Whether it's XP, Aqua, Star Trek, or what-ever anyone fancies writing.
Phillip.
You can still run Linux using a ports-like system, compiling everything from source: check out Gentoo Linux.
Phillip.
An additional plus is that if it's always on you then it won't get stolen (useful if you are a student, or have offices that aren't particularly secure).
Phillip.
First issue: DnD is not standardized in tasks performed in response to a given action
The Acorn style rules determine this in an unambiguous manner. In practice it's fairly intuitive what is going to happen.
Second issue: DnD does not have an obvious keyboard equivalent in current desktop environments
This is true.
Third issue: current widget sets (and perhaps this was not the case on the Acorn) do not provide good default DnD behavior.
Can you please explain further? There is one standard drag-and-drop box.
Last I looked, nobody implemented DnD globally and consistently enough for it to be worthwhile.
On the Acorn platform it's the _only_ way of doing things, and works in 100% of the applications.
Fourth issue: By overloading some interface actions, DnD may be detrimental to the user.
The example you gave doesn't apply if you are only replacing the "Save as..." box.
Phillip.
Yes, the one thing I am sick of under Linux is the stupid Windows-copy file selector. Every time I want to save a file I have to pop it up and wend my way tediously from the normally illogical default start point. I would love an Acorn-like drag-and-drop system, much like ROX tries to do. Make it globally selectable in KDE/Gnome what file selector module to use so those that prefer the old way can keep it but those that need the drag and drop can have it in all their apps.
Phillip.
I guess the poster accidentally wrote "equivalent of" instead of "puppet of"...
;-)
Phillip.
PS Not Norwegian, just a tongue in cheek comment
Since then we would have had proof the competition was fixed!
Even if you let the software engineer doing the designing enter the competition, the chances are that his guess will be the furthest off.
Phillip.
The US government DID invade a soveriegn nation. It did so without international support. It did so in violation of international law. The means, especially in this case, do not justify the ends.
I shall respect your own personal opinion, but stating things as fact doesn't make it so. America maintains that the existing UN resolutions gave them the right to invade, and the existing text seems to support the US position. How did they violate international law then?
Phillip.
There are some fantastic looking STB-style PCs someone else pointed out here and they look perfect for installing MythTV as discussed here. I'm put off by the comments posted next to the parent of this comment by talk of reliability and difficulty of installing Linux. Does anyone else have any experience of these boards, and especially installing Gentoo on it?
Thanks,
Phillip.
Do you think people in France will be thrilled when France decides to do something different? That they can no longer access all the other sites.
A fair few French still use Minitel and don't bother with the Internet. Those that use the Internet can access Minitel via a gateway, and vice versa. I'm not sure they were too thrilled when the French government thrust this 'different' system on them all that time ago, but it's served them pretty well for the past couple of decades.
Phillip.
It's because SVG sucks ass and designers (myself included) are the ones who bring you vector graphics over the web. They decide. Simple as that. FlashMX is THE standard for vector design - not to mention a complete development environment to make all those nice applications and games.
SVG appears to be far superior to Flash for Vector graphics, especially the way it's so easy for a scripting language to modify it on the fly. FlashMX isn't the standard for vector design, it's a tiny niche market for web designers like yourself. The vector graphic designers include everybody on the face of the planet that uses an application such as Adobe Illustrator.
When SVG becomes de facto, we will see small web design firms become far more productive:
* designer fires up Illustrator (or whatever) and knocks up a pretty design
* designer points out that his texts COMPANY_NAME_HERE and SLOGAN_HERE need to be dynamic
* client-side programmer takes 10 seconds writing a script that reads in the file, does a str_replace() with the company details in the database, and spits it out
Thankfully all the menu buttons can be done this way, which wastes a lot of our designers time and soaks up bandwidth for no practical purpose. The alternative of Flash for buttons is not good as it cuts out those without the plug-in, and people losing or not sending the source means we have maintenance troubles.
Phillip.
First of all, it has a little bit of the "me too" syndrome, considering that Mac OS X already has some nice eye candy that uses the same techniques: fast compositing and scaling, to run videos in an icon; translucent windows; windows that easily shift and scale without losing clarity (Expose). Heck, Microsoft demo'd their "me too" six months ago with early images of Longhorn.
RiscOS had fast vector graphics, transparent dragging of windows, even the ability to have a different video running *in* each of your scroll-bars, etc. It had eye candy galore. And this was over a decade ago. Yet it's far more usable today than Windows, OS X and Linux desktops for me. Reasons include:
* standard actions for left and right buttons - left selects and right normally does the opposite, middle button is always context sensitive menu
* left-button-drag on a windows acts as you would expect, but right button and drag selects both horizonal and vertical scroll bars. This means you can 'pan' around a page just by moving the mouse. I can't tell you how much I miss this!
* the whole drag-and-drop concept where it's actually done _properly_. Look at the popular ROX Filer, which is based on the RiscOS desktop.
I'm not going to go on and on, but there are so many things to fix. One that is VERY annoying under both Windows and Linux:
* trying to select some text where it extends past the end of the viewable window, as you scroll and select your mouse inevitably wanders off the line and suddenly jumps down to the next line forcing you to start again. I know I should just select a few chars and then shift click as a work-around, but it would be better if there was a short time-delay before the select jumps down.
It's these little things that can annoy users more than perceived code bloat or pretty windows.
Phillip.
Add me to that list: I don't like the way Evolution throws all my inboxes into on INBOX, just like Outlook. I'd rather have separate ones. At least make it optional so both worlds can be pleased!
Phillip.
So the Internet didn't take off until Big Business wrested control of it from the Geeky Nerds? Let's hear it for Corporate America! Woo-hoo! Slap another software patent on the barbeque and pass me a Coca-Cola (and please, no free beer).
Instead of the revised history, this may be more accurate:
Take from the U.S. Department of Defense decades ago and turned into the worlds largest and most powerful communications tool, the Internet has become a haven for fraud, clogged up by spam, and had its resources that were generously bestowed upon the world for free abused and misused since being fully turned over to the private business community in the early 1990s.
Phillip.
As you may know, there is a viable alternative to Windows: OS X.
As you may know, there is a viable alternative to Windows: Linux.
Risc OS was imho the best desktop in existence, before Acorn got bought by Pace and it went the way of BeOS. It provided the inspiration for Windows 95, and gave us the best filer for linux.
Phillip.
I downloaded onto floppy disc the program here and had reset the admin password on my Win XP box within seconds. Never seen anything so simple in my life. Though others recommend LC4 which also works.
Phillip.
Apple has been pretty liberal with their protected aac files compared to some other digital music retailers. Play on up to 3 computers, burn to cd, play on iPod.
It's still DRMed.
I've bought about 250-300 songs from iTMS and have never been inconvenienced by their DRM.
You've found a service you find reasonable priced and easy to use. That's good news.
Do you think their DRM being cracked might change any of this?
No. Anyone that wants music with no DRM will just download it off Kazaa, etc.
I can just imagine the RIAA trying to use this as an excuse to implement some sort of draconian measures.
When have they ever needed an excuse?
For years now people have been screaming for fair online digital distribution.
And the music industry decided to ignore the people and try and sue anyone that tried to implement anything reasonable. So they got exactly what they deserved. I've very little sympathy.
We finally get something that works well and is fair on both sides and some jackass cracks it.
Just because you like something doesn't mean you speak for everybody. For instance, not a single Linux user can use the service.
I sort of feel like next time the RIAA dupes some ignorant senator into introducing some insane bill that completely infringes on our rights we're not going to have a leg to stand on.
That kind of panic isn't very helpful. You should debate each bill on its merits.
Apple gave people what they asked for, then got shit on. What does everyone else think?
I think that Apple isn't the benevolent benefactor to mankind you make out, and they really want to sell more iPods.
Phillip.
I went for an interview where they fired technical question one after another at me, and after they rattled them off one after another at me they just walked out of the room. I had to walk out of the interview room and ask the receptionist if the interview was over. They didn't ask a single question about my past, what I wanted to do, or why I wanted to work for the company. I've no idea if they wanted to offer me a post or not as I never even bothered the agent to inquire as I wouldn't be interested.
I disagree that a good tech exam won't tell you anything, as I expect a thorough one every time I walk into an interview. I expect the company to put itself underneath the same microscope and sell itself to me though.
Having said that, if a company set me a deadline of 15 minutes I wouldn't be interested in working for them. It would be so obvious it was a cowboy outfit. A professional company would be interested in why I came about my solution, the algorithms behind it, my coding style, how I would intend to maintain the code, etc.
Phillip.
The lawyers are mostly being paid in stock options, and are deliberately taking part in a pump-and-dump scheme. Their incentive is maximise their profits whilst protecting themselves from fraud charges. There is nothing to stop them from using Darl as the fall guy.
Phillip.
From the front page:
:pserver:anonymous@rygannon.com:/home/deanjx/cvs login
:pserver:anonymous@rygannon.com:/home/deanjx/cvs co rekall
"You can check out a copy of the Rekall source code from our cvs:
cvs -d
(password: anoncvs)
cvs -d
I shall add the source tarball to the download section shortly. Please refer to the Contents section for the build instructions"
Sounds simple enough to me.
Phillip.
If I have to hear, hear as in read, one more person explain the difference between free beer and liberated software, or one more time how it should appropriately called GNU/Linux, I swear to god someone is going to pay.
What operating system do I use? GNU/KDE/GNOME/QT/XFREE/LINUX of course!
Phillip.
The shmucks stole the device but not the software?
Whatever country tries to reverse engineer this thing is going to have a bitch trying to control it.
Let's see. They knew exactly where it was being stored, and didn't need the software? If it was, as it sounds, an inside job then it's fair to assume they already have a copy on CD-ROM or uploaded to an anonymous FTP server.
Phillip.
From the article: .uk domains - confirmed that hotmail.co.uk had failed to be renewed and was placed back into pool of available domains.
A spokeswoman for Nominet UK - the registry for all
For Nominet's part, she confirmed that "all the standard renewal procedures were followed regarding hotmail.co.uk".
ie it was up for grabs.
Phillip.
Until there is an announcement on the PHP homepage stating that PHP is totally stable under Apache 2, and that moving to Apache 2 will offer far greater performance, I don't see the ratio changing in the near future. The last advice I read was "don't use mod_php under Apache 2", and haven't heard anything to the contrary recently.
Phillip.
How much coal, oil, gas is required on a large scale to make all of that extra electricity that would be required? Seems to be close to a zero sum proposition.
With every country but the USA moving to minimum renewable energy targets, it's an increasingly attractive proposition. Plus you can generate your own electricity if you wish, using renewable sources. I won't rehash all the benefits of centralising the cleaning of fumes in a power station as opposed to millions of portable generators, as already discussed dozens of times on Slashdot, so even in todays infrastructure it still makes sense (especially countries like France where over 80% of energy is nuclear).
Phillip.