Not to flaunt my SUSE fanboyism or anything, but YaST handles most.conf files very well. A couple of years ago when I first made the switch and was checking out different distros, SUSE was way ahead of the crowd on the control-panel like access to almost all system services and settings.
TCP/IP settings, add / remove users, add / remove software, power management and firewall settings are all available in the same spot. And for the most part the panels they open are easy to understand, offering much more help towards the options than Windows does.
PlaysForSure is Microsoft proprietary DRM and is only available via Microsoft WMP and 3rd-party OEM's that license PlaysForSure code from Microsoft. Presumably the upcoming Microsoft Zune will also support PlaysForSure.
Microsoft has already stated that Zune WILL NOT be compatible with PlaysForSure. Ironic, I know.
Unfortunately chances are that when you submit a bug, the person reviewing it isn't the person responsible for the bug. I find it to be a responsibility to fix bugs that I have created. If you can point one to me, then great you saved me some time finding it myself.
The real pain in my opinion is fixing the work of someone else. First of all, I didn't create the bug. Second and more importantly, I didn't create that piece of the software - I'm not familiar with it. If it's fairly complex then I must spend a lot of time adapting to their coding style, understanding how exactly they accomplish the task, identify where the bug comes in and THEN fix it. I'd feel better re-writing the whole piece but that isn't progress, I'll maybe save a few KB of source but I'm re-inventing that wheel.
Yeah so I sat my Blackberry down this morning in the kitchen and went to make some toast. I forgot to enter the activation code and all of my data was erased. Now the device won't turn on and I missed an important phone call.. shit.
I would also like to add that there is a strong difference between cheating at a single player game, and having fun figuring out the save system, and cheating at multiplayer. When you're cheating by yourself, whether it be because you enjoy reverse-engineering the save file or because you simply want to advance faster, it has no impact on anybody else.
I completely agree. The worst part of this is that Microsoft charges $6/mo. ($8/mo. if you have a 360!) for the ability to play user-hosted multiplayer games online. I haven't seen a patch for Halo 2 in nine months, but it's possible a friend downloaded one when borrowing the system. My point is when I'm paying for a matchmaking service, they'd better match me up with other people who aren't cheating.
I've finally taken action about the situation and cancelled my XBLive subscription. If I had the time I would get back into PC gaming, with dedicated hosts and all.
I have a co-worker who saved $5 / mo. by switching his TimeWarner Road Runner account over to Earthlink. In return he was given a faster line speed on the same network (Until Time Warner increased theirs to match) and isn't charged an extra $10/mo. for not being a Time Warner Cable subscriber.
They're the only company in my area that will lease me a Time Warner line for less than what TW would charge me themselves, and I feel good by not cutting those bastards a check.
I agree whole heartedly with the parent. To add my $.02 I believe the competetion is great because when one team comes up with SuperSnazzyFeature2.0 the other team recognizes it as a great idea and implements it. Would be ashamed if everyone was working on one project and SuperSnazzyFeature0.3beta was killed because too many team members rejected the idea.
We have to re-invent ideas between the two desktops but they make great proving grounds for new UI adjustments.
And my idea of moving to Australia to a) Not have to learn another language and b) get away from these over-reaching bullshit laws was just shot to all hell. Where on Earth can I escape the stupidity!?
I too recently purchased a nice HDTV. Not because I had to have HD, but because I'm young and have the money and wanted to invest in something nice. I don't feel I'll need another set for at least 10 years. Anyways I feel that most companies are keeping the price of HD artificially high simply because they can. There are too many people out there that just *have* to have the best at any cost, and as long as they're paying that's all that matters to manufacturers.
My biggest complaint is the lack of decent HD programming out there. Even ESPN HD is almost 50% SD content because the cameras or original image weren't captured in high def or 16:9 format. Cable companies are the only people I see charging more money for the HD content and box while satellite has always had the extra equipment cost so the added abilities come free.
I scoff at the fact HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are going to cost a decent amount more when I feel Hollywood should have been producing higher quality formats 10 years ago.
I'm very disappointed in their small release of fairly pricey roms for the virtual console. One of my biggest reasons to wait for the Wii was the fact I could play my favorite NES, SNES and 64 games all on the same system. I can't believe the 30 games they will release for it will happen to be *ALL* 30 that I had planned to purchase within a week of its release.
$5-$10 per game download? Come on Nintendo! I could go out and buy myself 10 original NES cartridges for less than $10! I expected an iTunes-style library with thousands of games and a "click-to-charge" download interface.. instead I get a stingy collection with stingy prices. I'll be shocked to enjoy any of these next-gen systems.
I agree with you completely, I was asking the question to make a point. The previous poster made it sound like Apple didn't even care for DRM but it does provide an advantage to them as well.
I don't think "the iTunes people" really care. But they don't have a choice if they want to sell music. It's all about what the record labels want, not Apple.
The XBOX is a great platform for this because of its simplicity. You plug in a power cable and an AV cord and that's it, you have the display on your television screen. The XBOX is small(ish) compared to most PCs and easily hooks into any input your TV requires. Plus, it's built on standard hardware.
$100 for an HDMI cable? I know that HDTVs have yet to become common in living rooms, and even so not all of them have HDMI.. but really have you ever seen the cable? The connections remind me of SATA meets USB. They SLIDE into place, there aren't even thumbscrews to spin but they charge INSTALLATION for these things?
I'm currently enjoying the recent purchase of an HDTV, but I'm pretty ticked off with the price of cables for this thing. Walk into a store and buy a set of Composite (Yellow, Red, White connectors) cables for $8 because composite cables have been around forever. Look at the $25 price tag on the "Component" video cables (Blue, Green, Red connectors) that cost so much because they do "Hi Def" TV. Buy the $8 set of cords, match the connectors up properly and watch your video signal come through exactly as it would have for almost $20 more.
Since purchasing my TV I have spent close to a hundred dollars between cables for my PS2, XBOX, Satellite Receiver and 5.1 surround system. Had I not been an informed consumer I easily could have spent $250. Once companies know you've bought an HDTV, everybody wants to nickel and dime you to death with $50 cables that aren't any nicer than the differently-colored-connectors of a composite cable. So sure it's easy to say "Yeah $30 isn't bad for people who can afford the system" but they don't realize that the PS3 isn't the only thing being plugged into the system. $30 x 3 different boxes seems pretty ludicrous for the same copper wire I've been plugging into TV for years. [/gripe]
Why is VMWare even part of the picture here? It seems to just complicate the fact that you'd basically re-image a users PC every time they log in. That's not a good solution. Why don't you drop user's profiles onto the network somewhere, and re-image only when they have problems? We have our images configured so when a user calls the helpdesk and we reformat, they can't tell anything moved. I just don't see the benefit in blowing full installs down every morning a user logs in.
I'm not sure why so many people think they need to standardize on one or a few Linux distros. The IT staff of each school district is already managaging their own systems and images, why not let them choose? I would find it absurd for the state to come up with "official" distros to use, even more so if they're supplying the images. In my district IT is completely underfunded, so any mandates on technology are incredibly draining of the staff. Leave the choices to them!
Once you cross the very distinct line of the law when it comes to doing drugs, other illegal drugs don't seem so bad. Take marijuana for example, most people regard it as harmless, unless you *really* buy into the "Reefer Madness" propoganda. Mary Jane is your average "I get high to party" kind of gal. But in order to enjoy this relatively harmless drug she has to go to a drug dealer on the shady side of town. While at the dealer's home she is knowingly and willingly breaking the law. Laid out next to her bag of dope are much harder and more dangerous drugs but they are just as illegal as the marijuana she enjoys. She's already a criminal, why not try some of these other drugs on the table?
On the other hand, if Mary Jane were allowed to go visit her favorite coffee / tea / marijuana shop on the other side of town she could stop by on the way home. No more trips to the dangerous side of town, no more hanging out with criminals, and no exposure to the harder, probably-should-be-illegal drugs. Smoking pot doesn't make one more likely to try harder drugs, being exposed to harder drugs makes you more likely to try them.
Image ALT Tags are useful for more than text-based browsers - they also help blind users surf the web.
When images are used as links, the ALT text can help a blind user know what they're getting into before following the link.
ComputerWorld had a decent article on websites and their accessibility - they found that most online shopping websites (Like Target or Walmart) don't have any helpful information in the filenames or ALT tags of their images, making it much harder to shop online.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to flaunt my SUSE fanboyism or anything, but YaST handles most .conf files very well. A couple of years ago when I first made the switch and was checking out different distros, SUSE was way ahead of the crowd on the control-panel like access to almost all system services and settings.
TCP/IP settings, add / remove users, add / remove software, power management and firewall settings are all available in the same spot. And for the most part the panels they open are easy to understand, offering much more help towards the options than Windows does.
Microsoft has already stated that Zune WILL NOT be compatible with PlaysForSure. Ironic, I know.
Unfortunately chances are that when you submit a bug, the person reviewing it isn't the person responsible for the bug. I find it to be a responsibility to fix bugs that I have created. If you can point one to me, then great you saved me some time finding it myself.
The real pain in my opinion is fixing the work of someone else. First of all, I didn't create the bug. Second and more importantly, I didn't create that piece of the software - I'm not familiar with it. If it's fairly complex then I must spend a lot of time adapting to their coding style, understanding how exactly they accomplish the task, identify where the bug comes in and THEN fix it. I'd feel better re-writing the whole piece but that isn't progress, I'll maybe save a few KB of source but I'm re-inventing that wheel.
Yeah so I sat my Blackberry down this morning in the kitchen and went to make some toast. I forgot to enter the activation code and all of my data was erased. Now the device won't turn on and I missed an important phone call.. shit.
Sounds to me like Microsoft is making a mockery of themselves.. "PlaysForSure" yup that's a good name let's use it!
I've finally taken action about the situation and cancelled my XBLive subscription. If I had the time I would get back into PC gaming, with dedicated hosts and all.
I have a co-worker who saved $5 / mo. by switching his TimeWarner Road Runner account over to Earthlink. In return he was given a faster line speed on the same network (Until Time Warner increased theirs to match) and isn't charged an extra $10/mo. for not being a Time Warner Cable subscriber.
They're the only company in my area that will lease me a Time Warner line for less than what TW would charge me themselves, and I feel good by not cutting those bastards a check.
I agree whole heartedly with the parent. To add my $.02 I believe the competetion is great because when one team comes up with SuperSnazzyFeature2.0 the other team recognizes it as a great idea and implements it. Would be ashamed if everyone was working on one project and SuperSnazzyFeature0.3beta was killed because too many team members rejected the idea.
We have to re-invent ideas between the two desktops but they make great proving grounds for new UI adjustments.
And my idea of moving to Australia to a) Not have to learn another language and b) get away from these over-reaching bullshit laws was just shot to all hell. Where on Earth can I escape the stupidity!?
Yeah this WAS at a *PHP* developer's conference where they were learning about the best ways to implement (wait this is a shocker): PHP.
I too recently purchased a nice HDTV. Not because I had to have HD, but because I'm young and have the money and wanted to invest in something nice. I don't feel I'll need another set for at least 10 years. Anyways I feel that most companies are keeping the price of HD artificially high simply because they can. There are too many people out there that just *have* to have the best at any cost, and as long as they're paying that's all that matters to manufacturers.
My biggest complaint is the lack of decent HD programming out there. Even ESPN HD is almost 50% SD content because the cameras or original image weren't captured in high def or 16:9 format. Cable companies are the only people I see charging more money for the HD content and box while satellite has always had the extra equipment cost so the added abilities come free.
I scoff at the fact HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs are going to cost a decent amount more when I feel Hollywood should have been producing higher quality formats 10 years ago.
So Vista's going to cost even *more* for businesses to use?
Yikes.
That old standby, radio carries the songs that the RIAA pays them to. It's called Payola.
I'm very disappointed in their small release of fairly pricey roms for the virtual console. One of my biggest reasons to wait for the Wii was the fact I could play my favorite NES, SNES and 64 games all on the same system. I can't believe the 30 games they will release for it will happen to be *ALL* 30 that I had planned to purchase within a week of its release.
$5-$10 per game download? Come on Nintendo! I could go out and buy myself 10 original NES cartridges for less than $10! I expected an iTunes-style library with thousands of games and a "click-to-charge" download interface.. instead I get a stingy collection with stingy prices. I'll be shocked to enjoy any of these next-gen systems.
29 pages for a top FIVE list? Yeah, didn't make it past the first page.
I agree with you completely, I was asking the question to make a point. The previous poster made it sound like Apple didn't even care for DRM but it does provide an advantage to them as well.
Then why won't Apple license FairPlay?
The XBOX is a great platform for this because of its simplicity. You plug in a power cable and an AV cord and that's it, you have the display on your television screen. The XBOX is small(ish) compared to most PCs and easily hooks into any input your TV requires. Plus, it's built on standard hardware.
$100 for an HDMI cable? I know that HDTVs have yet to become common in living rooms, and even so not all of them have HDMI.. but really have you ever seen the cable? The connections remind me of SATA meets USB. They SLIDE into place, there aren't even thumbscrews to spin but they charge INSTALLATION for these things?
$10 HDMI cables
Once companies find out you dropped a pretty penny on an HDTV set they will be out to screw you any way possible.
I'm currently enjoying the recent purchase of an HDTV, but I'm pretty ticked off with the price of cables for this thing. Walk into a store and buy a set of Composite (Yellow, Red, White connectors) cables for $8 because composite cables have been around forever. Look at the $25 price tag on the "Component" video cables (Blue, Green, Red connectors) that cost so much because they do "Hi Def" TV. Buy the $8 set of cords, match the connectors up properly and watch your video signal come through exactly as it would have for almost $20 more.
Since purchasing my TV I have spent close to a hundred dollars between cables for my PS2, XBOX, Satellite Receiver and 5.1 surround system. Had I not been an informed consumer I easily could have spent $250. Once companies know you've bought an HDTV, everybody wants to nickel and dime you to death with $50 cables that aren't any nicer than the differently-colored-connectors of a composite cable. So sure it's easy to say "Yeah $30 isn't bad for people who can afford the system" but they don't realize that the PS3 isn't the only thing being plugged into the system. $30 x 3 different boxes seems pretty ludicrous for the same copper wire I've been plugging into TV for years. [/gripe]
With Americans-(MY) money.
Why is VMWare even part of the picture here? It seems to just complicate the fact that you'd basically re-image a users PC every time they log in. That's not a good solution. Why don't you drop user's profiles onto the network somewhere, and re-image only when they have problems? We have our images configured so when a user calls the helpdesk and we reformat, they can't tell anything moved. I just don't see the benefit in blowing full installs down every morning a user logs in.
I'm not sure why so many people think they need to standardize on one or a few Linux distros. The IT staff of each school district is already managaging their own systems and images, why not let them choose? I would find it absurd for the state to come up with "official" distros to use, even more so if they're supplying the images. In my district IT is completely underfunded, so any mandates on technology are incredibly draining of the staff. Leave the choices to them!
Once you cross the very distinct line of the law when it comes to doing drugs, other illegal drugs don't seem so bad. Take marijuana for example, most people regard it as harmless, unless you *really* buy into the "Reefer Madness" propoganda. Mary Jane is your average "I get high to party" kind of gal. But in order to enjoy this relatively harmless drug she has to go to a drug dealer on the shady side of town. While at the dealer's home she is knowingly and willingly breaking the law. Laid out next to her bag of dope are much harder and more dangerous drugs but they are just as illegal as the marijuana she enjoys. She's already a criminal, why not try some of these other drugs on the table?
On the other hand, if Mary Jane were allowed to go visit her favorite coffee / tea / marijuana shop on the other side of town she could stop by on the way home. No more trips to the dangerous side of town, no more hanging out with criminals, and no exposure to the harder, probably-should-be-illegal drugs. Smoking pot doesn't make one more likely to try harder drugs, being exposed to harder drugs makes you more likely to try them.
Image ALT Tags are useful for more than text-based browsers - they also help blind users surf the web. When images are used as links, the ALT text can help a blind user know what they're getting into before following the link. ComputerWorld had a decent article on websites and their accessibility - they found that most online shopping websites (Like Target or Walmart) don't have any helpful information in the filenames or ALT tags of their images, making it much harder to shop online.