...but I'm a big fan of giving machines actual names, after TV shows, bands, movies, fiction, etc. I prefer to log into "Trixie.mycompany.com" instead of "LAUX001"; the former, in addition to being easier to remember, just gives the machine a trifle bit of "personality". Yes, I realize that the latter may convey more information (mail servers especially seem to do this: "CHIMAIL01", "NYCEXCH05", etc.), but it feels cold and impersonal; if you treat your machines as just machines, as just any old random tool you'd grab and work with, then they become just a series of interchangeable parts. Giving a machine a name invokes something, typically whimsical, that just adds a touch of humanity back into the system. Yes it's still a machine, yes it's going to spit out a thousand nonsensical errors when you forget a semicolon somewhere in your C++ file, and yes it will eventually be replaced, but for that period of time when you're working with it, you're just that little bit more connected to something more... personal.
FWIW, I find this to be incredibly useful when the machines become salient and might otherwise try to eradicate the human race.
Vendors who contribute heavily to open source projects do so in large part because their products are used with open source software. To use IBM as an example, some portion of every dollar spent on IBM hardware goes towards furthering open source development. The ultimate corporate consumers do therefore contribute, albeit not directly. Whether or not they should be making more direct or more substantive contributions may still be up for debate, but it seems clear - to me at least - that IBM's model would not exist if these companies were not using Linux.
I couldn't agree with your statements more. Our introductory computer science course (a "primer" for non-majors) spends the first third of the class learning how to use Linux. In my opinion, this is the dumbest use of class time possible. There is absolutely no value in knowing the Linux prompt; all this section of the course does is show students how to use the command prompt to traverse the familiar filesystem abstractions instead of a GUI.
This Linux ramp-up literally serves the sole purpose of getting students ready to use gcc when they learn C++ in the next third. Intro students would be better served by learning more about what it means to write a program. Frankly, I would be more than happy to have intro students learn VBA to script Microsoft Office.
The point is that intro students should learn why computer science is useful, and how computers can be put to good use in general. I know too many people who spend hours doing repetitive tasks that I could solve in 10 minutes with a short script. Intro classes should show students, at the very least, when asking a computer professional for advice can save them lots of time.
I'm a few years out of programming languages, but it sounds to me that you're butchering the use of dynamic vs. static languages. To my knowledge, dynamic/static is used in programming languages to refer to two properties: scope and typing. This is, of course, not to be confused with compiled vs. interpreted languages.
So, why are dynamically typed languages popular? They're popular because they know how to do things implicitly. We get these niceties like the ability to use numbers as strings without calling atoi, or use input strings to do math. Basically, dynamic typing lets you code faster because you don't have to constantly worry about casting things to the appropriate type.
Dynamically scoped languages are, in my opinion, rarely useful. The only valid use that I have ever had is to temporarily override a global parameter. For example, in Perl I might call local $/ = undef; to temporarily enable 'slurp mode' in Perl. However, this is pure laziness, I could just as easily store $/ in a temporary variable and restore it when I'm through. Finally, even though languages like Perl are dynamically scoped, a sane programmer would never take advantage of this feature. How can you debug a value when you aren't sure where it came from?
Finally, Java/C are not free from runtime type detection errors. Java will happily throw a ClassCastException if you try to cast an Object to something that it is not. C makes it even worse and will dutifully make the cast and entirely muck up your data structures when you try to use the improperly cast object.
In my opinion, people don't use languages like Ruby/Perl/Python because they are superior architectures. They use them because they are easier to learn.
Many new cars these days have passenger seat-belt indicators. When a passenger is sitting in the seat, the indicator blinks until the seat belt is buckled. It's really annoying if you throw something heavy on your passenger side seat. I would think that the same sensor could be used to allow input while driving only if the passenger is in the seat.
I think that the problem might be a little bit more subtle. Let's use MySQL as the example here. They offer an open-source, free-as-in-beer version of the application. They also offer a closed-source, commercial version that comes with more support.
A second market for MySQL is commercial licenses of the DB. In other words, some company wants to distribute MySQL or tightly couple MySQL to their closed source application. Because the GPL prohibits such coupling in closed-source software, these companies need to acquire a commercial license.
Now, lets say that MySQL is bought out by Evil Enterprises. Bless the open source community, they successfuly fork MySQL and cleverly call it OurSQL. Unfortunately, OurSQL uses 100% GPL code. The implication? The OurSQL developers can't offer the commercial closed-source license that MySQL could. This closes a potential source of revenue for developers of this new OurSQL software.
I don't know if its a big issue or not, but I certainly haven't seen it mentioned on the forums yet. Feel free to bash me as you see fit.
Sorry, this article didn't really teach me anything interesting about filesystems. In general, the article was poorly written. For example, taking two sentences to say: "B+Trees are complex. Let me rephrase that. B+Trees are very, very complex." Readers of all types appreciate their time and don't want to have to waste it.
You were lost at points between trying to sound like an expert to trying to sound like a grandfather explaining the grande old days of filesystem development. Are you a storyteller or a teacher? Pick one.
Content-wise, there wasn't really much there for me. You spent a lot of time explaining the problems of a binary tree, but I think that your target audience already understands the time complexity of a binary tree. Then, you glaze over the B+ tree because its complicated.
Sorry if I sound harsh. I hope that this comes off as constructive criticism.
This camera seems ominously similar to the Olympus E-10 and E-20 cameras. The camera used a prism to split light between the sensor and the viewfinder. You could turn the sensor on and use that instead of the viewfinder. The lens was also fixed, like this Sony camera. Of course, it was only a 4MP camera, but that was years ago!
I don't really think that there's anything to see here.
Just to clarify, the AIM protocol does allow you to go invisible. There's a little eye-ball looking thing at the top of your buddy list in the AIM client. Click it, and the eye closes. Voila! You are invisible. In GAIM, the same can be done under GAIM. Tools->Away->Invisible.
Frankly, it doesn't matter how much time these kids spend. Let's assume, for a second, that a CR does nothing beyond putting up posters around campus. Now, give that student a fancy new iPod Nano or Apple iBook.
Ya know what? I saw the nano (a few weeks after it came out), and was just astonished at how small it was. No amount of advertising could have had the same impact. Even if you see that the nano is the size of two fingers on a large poster, when the image is poster-sized, you don't realize how small it is!
But, back to my point... The students don't necessarily have to actively promote the product. Just *using* it is sometimes enough. For example, if someone is using MS OneNote to take notes in class, maybe peers would take notice? I know that I started using OneNote because a prof used it to project all of the notes for a class...
NATs at home can only hold IPv4 together for so much longer. Soon a killer ap will come out that just doesn't want to be NATted, and the whole Internet using public will demand direct addressing [at least they'll demand a solution that requires direct IP addressing].
I don't think that's really true. With the current state of uPnP aware routers, I can't imagine a scenario when this would be a problem. (Unless there is truly a need for a well defined service port, and even then I can imagine several workarounds). I know that Azeurus happily opens up a few ports on my router every time that I start it up. Whether this is a good idea security wise is another story...
SQlite is not meant to compete with mySQL. All locking, IIRC in the most recent version is file based. Since each database is a file, this means that only a single write to a database can happen at a time. If you really need concurrent access, that's not going to scale well for large databases with many concurrent reads/writes.
That said, SQLite is fantastic! I really mean that. I use it mostly in single-user/light-concurrency situations when a full scale DMBS isn't needed. It's great if you want to write a script/small app that deals with relational data or even a single table. It makes querying/massaging the data a breeze.
It's also pretty good for an offline demo. If you want to demo an application that normally relies on a database server, plugging in an SQLite driver in place of, say, a mySQL driver will yield very good results. SQLite is designed to support basic syntax for a variety of databases; as long as you aren't doing anything too fancy, you should be able to just swap out the drivers and go!
Ok. Let's look at everything wrong with this product...
No monitor. How does a product designed for "first-time technology users" not include a monitor? What exactly are they expected to plug it in to? The typical first-time users do not have old CRT monitors sitting around, colecting dust like most/.ers.
Cheap, cheap disk. 10GB hard drive? TigerDirect.com advertises a 300GB SATA hard drive for $90. 10GB is pathetic.
Limited software. Ok. I've said this before.. The few reasons that I use windows are MS Office and the wealth of generally available software. This machine doesn't even come with Office and it doesn't even sound like it will let you install it! I bet FireFox is a no-no, too.
Overpriced. In the past, I've priced out $300-$400 systems with generous RAM & hard disk, a good Athlon XP processor, CD burner, etc with no monitor. Of course, that's sans OS and monitor. I wonder how much of that $300 goes to Microsoft for the Windows Operating System?
Although I am by no means a supporter of Linux on the desktop, I think that this is certainly a case where Linux and open source should have been used. As long as they aren't shipping with Office, why not use OpenOffice instead of "TextMaker"? What's the point of paying Microsoft for Licensing if you aren't going to give the customers any of the benefits of MS Office? They won't even have to deal with the fact that users are just used to Windows since these are targeted at "first-timers"
Just my 2 cents...
Re:how many people actually _like_ windows?
on
Pepping Up Windows
·
· Score: 1
When FF crashes, I usually lose 10-20 tabs that I was looking at and will never recover.
Awesome. Thanks!
Re:how many people actually _like_ windows?
on
Pepping Up Windows
·
· Score: 1
Fedora is slow for a Linux system, my system is now 3-5 times faster at most things than when it was running Fedora.
Then please share? What distro are you using that's so much faster?
Linux needs better package installation? Windows doesn't even have a package manager for installation!
Wasn't MSI supposed to be a package manager of sorts? That said, I know that its pretty unwieldy. However, even without a package manager, when's the last time that you had a windows program that just wouldn't install? I've never had a problem getting software installed that a simple uninstall/reinstall didn't miss. I do understand that there are fundamental problems with that (for example, installing software in different order can result in different libraries being loaded, etc), but in general I find that most commercial software does a good job with a simple.EXE file.
It's also easier to actually write an installer.exe file in Windows because just about every system has the same general layout! Linux, on the other hand, may have different library locations depending on the distro..
Re:how many people actually _like_ windows?
on
Pepping Up Windows
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I like windows. There.. I said it. Will anyone on/. actually continue to read my comment? Only time will tell....
And it's not just because I'm an MS fanboy either. It's a good operating system.
It's stable. It has gone BSOD on me a few times, and that was because I had a bad HP print driver that was bringing it down. I never feel a need to reboot it because its "getting sluggish". The programs that crash on my PC most frequently are Mozilla Firefox followed by Microsoft Outlook. In fact, I prefer when Outlook Crashes. It just restarts and repairs itself and I pick up where I left off. When FF crashes, I usually lose 10-20 tabs that I was looking at and will never recover.
The software is good. Despite/. popular opinion, MS Office is good software. I tried using OpenOffice once, and it was just as good. But the Mail Merge interface sucked, and that was an important feature for me.
It's faster. My 1.8ghz Celeron laptop with 192MB of ram runs Windows 100x better than Linux. Fedora Core takes significantly longer to start up and feels more sluggish when running applications (I use gnome, the FC default environment).
Easier to install applications. I think that's a given. Linux needs a better package installation system, period. Yum and apt are good, but they don't hold a candle. Windows' automatic updates are far superior to RHN
Configuration Utilities. They're just better in Windows. Period. The closest that I've ever had to get to a command line for Windows Administration is the "ipconfig" utility. Windows doesn't have nasty configuration files. I've only HAD to enter the registry to fix something (which is nasty) once.
Even when there is a GUI configuration tool in Linux, I have a hard time finding it in FC. There are at least two different interfaces to configure network adapters, but only one of those two interfaces can start/stop the network card. It just doesn't make sense.
As a disclaimer, I am not a sheltered Windows fanboy who has only ever tried Linux out for 5 minutes. I do all my my development for CS classes in Linux, and I am no stranger to the command line. I *do* run Linux on my laptop, but the most common way for me to interact with it is by running an X server on my windows machine and an ssh connection to the laptop.
I am convinced that Open Source development is a superior model, but I am not convinced that Linux is a superior system simply because it is an open source OS. At least not on the desktop.
I've often wondered; why can't a regular IMAP store be used to store calendar information? task information? Then, someone can write a client that interprets individual headers/messages as mail/task items.
Granted, it doesn't give you shared calendars and all that jazz, but we don't have that now anyway. And for people like me, who just want to be able to get to their calendar and mail from different locations, it seems like an optimal solution.
And thats really what the mac desktop promises isnt it? It just works.
You can say that things on a Mac just work, but I also think that you'll find it much easier to write sound drivers if there is only one sound card on the market.
If every Linux programmer agreed to use the exact same hardware, we'd have a bulletproof distro. The problem is that the different hardware combinations possible on the x86 architecture make it all but impossible to accomodate everyone.
You know what I'm gonna patent? The business practice of patenting absolutely anything and everything under the sun. Then I can sue MS and Amazon for like a bazillion kajillion dollars. Or else sell one of them the patent rights and live like a king.
I think there's already sufficient prior art for that.
"We processed the film, balanced the color and took care of printing - and we got it right. Now, with digital, our customers have taken on a great deal of that responsibility."
If you ask me, this is one of the things that is killing pro photographer's foray into the digital world. I work with a local pro photographer, and the quality of the prints that we get is consistently terrible, even though they look great (or at least acceptable) on the screen.
Pro labs ASSUME that their customers "know what they're doing" and tweak their pictures until they are "just right". Consequently, the labs are not enough effort into color corrections, and digital just doesn't come out as well.
Photographers going digital have to basically abandon everything that they know about film. Forget forgiving exposure; digital sensors tolerate exposure within only a few stops. Photographers who used to load film and shoot now have to worry about color correction, saturation & contrast settings on-camera, which file-format to use... It's a whole new world.
Just my two cents; maybe the labs around here just suck..
Josh
Slashdot Mirror
...but I'm a big fan of giving machines actual names, after TV shows, bands, movies, fiction, etc. I prefer to log into "Trixie.mycompany.com" instead of "LAUX001"; the former, in addition to being easier to remember, just gives the machine a trifle bit of "personality". Yes, I realize that the latter may convey more information (mail servers especially seem to do this: "CHIMAIL01", "NYCEXCH05", etc.), but it feels cold and impersonal; if you treat your machines as just machines, as just any old random tool you'd grab and work with, then they become just a series of interchangeable parts. Giving a machine a name invokes something, typically whimsical, that just adds a touch of humanity back into the system. Yes it's still a machine, yes it's going to spit out a thousand nonsensical errors when you forget a semicolon somewhere in your C++ file, and yes it will eventually be replaced, but for that period of time when you're working with it, you're just that little bit more connected to something more ... personal.
FWIW, I find this to be incredibly useful when the machines become salient and might otherwise try to eradicate the human race.
Cheers.
Vendors who contribute heavily to open source projects do so in large part because their products are used with open source software. To use IBM as an example, some portion of every dollar spent on IBM hardware goes towards furthering open source development. The ultimate corporate consumers do therefore contribute, albeit not directly. Whether or not they should be making more direct or more substantive contributions may still be up for debate, but it seems clear - to me at least - that IBM's model would not exist if these companies were not using Linux.
For gas and electricity, I pay PSE&G in New Jersey a distribution charge on top of what they charge for the actual gas/elec consumption.
I couldn't agree with your statements more. Our introductory computer science course (a "primer" for non-majors) spends the first third of the class learning how to use Linux. In my opinion, this is the dumbest use of class time possible. There is absolutely no value in knowing the Linux prompt; all this section of the course does is show students how to use the command prompt to traverse the familiar filesystem abstractions instead of a GUI.
This Linux ramp-up literally serves the sole purpose of getting students ready to use gcc when they learn C++ in the next third. Intro students would be better served by learning more about what it means to write a program. Frankly, I would be more than happy to have intro students learn VBA to script Microsoft Office.
The point is that intro students should learn why computer science is useful, and how computers can be put to good use in general. I know too many people who spend hours doing repetitive tasks that I could solve in 10 minutes with a short script. Intro classes should show students, at the very least, when asking a computer professional for advice can save them lots of time.
I'm a few years out of programming languages, but it sounds to me that you're butchering the use of dynamic vs. static languages. To my knowledge, dynamic/static is used in programming languages to refer to two properties: scope and typing. This is, of course, not to be confused with compiled vs. interpreted languages.
So, why are dynamically typed languages popular? They're popular because they know how to do things implicitly. We get these niceties like the ability to use numbers as strings without calling atoi, or use input strings to do math. Basically, dynamic typing lets you code faster because you don't have to constantly worry about casting things to the appropriate type.
Dynamically scoped languages are, in my opinion, rarely useful. The only valid use that I have ever had is to temporarily override a global parameter. For example, in Perl I might call local $/ = undef ; to temporarily enable 'slurp mode' in Perl. However, this is pure laziness, I could just as easily store $/ in a temporary variable and restore it when I'm through. Finally, even though languages like Perl are dynamically scoped, a sane programmer would never take advantage of this feature. How can you debug a value when you aren't sure where it came from?
Finally, Java/C are not free from runtime type detection errors. Java will happily throw a ClassCastException if you try to cast an Object to something that it is not. C makes it even worse and will dutifully make the cast and entirely muck up your data structures when you try to use the improperly cast object.
In my opinion, people don't use languages like Ruby/Perl/Python because they are superior architectures. They use them because they are easier to learn.
Funny, when I first read it, I thought that CLASH stood for "Common Lisp AS Hell."
Many new cars these days have passenger seat-belt indicators. When a passenger is sitting in the seat, the indicator blinks until the seat belt is buckled. It's really annoying if you throw something heavy on your passenger side seat. I would think that the same sensor could be used to allow input while driving only if the passenger is in the seat.
I think that the problem might be a little bit more subtle. Let's use MySQL as the example here. They offer an open-source, free-as-in-beer version of the application. They also offer a closed-source, commercial version that comes with more support.
A second market for MySQL is commercial licenses of the DB. In other words, some company wants to distribute MySQL or tightly couple MySQL to their closed source application. Because the GPL prohibits such coupling in closed-source software, these companies need to acquire a commercial license.
Now, lets say that MySQL is bought out by Evil Enterprises. Bless the open source community, they successfuly fork MySQL and cleverly call it OurSQL. Unfortunately, OurSQL uses 100% GPL code. The implication? The OurSQL developers can't offer the commercial closed-source license that MySQL could. This closes a potential source of revenue for developers of this new OurSQL software.
I don't know if its a big issue or not, but I certainly haven't seen it mentioned on the forums yet. Feel free to bash me as you see fit.
Sorry, this article didn't really teach me anything interesting about filesystems. In general, the article was poorly written. For example, taking two sentences to say: "B+Trees are complex. Let me rephrase that. B+Trees are very, very complex." Readers of all types appreciate their time and don't want to have to waste it.
You were lost at points between trying to sound like an expert to trying to sound like a grandfather explaining the grande old days of filesystem development. Are you a storyteller or a teacher? Pick one.
Content-wise, there wasn't really much there for me. You spent a lot of time explaining the problems of a binary tree, but I think that your target audience already understands the time complexity of a binary tree. Then, you glaze over the B+ tree because its complicated.
Sorry if I sound harsh. I hope that this comes off as constructive criticism.
This camera seems ominously similar to the Olympus E-10 and E-20 cameras. The camera used a prism to split light between the sensor and the viewfinder. You could turn the sensor on and use that instead of the viewfinder. The lens was also fixed, like this Sony camera. Of course, it was only a 4MP camera, but that was years ago!
I don't really think that there's anything to see here.
Just to clarify, the AIM protocol does allow you to go invisible. There's a little eye-ball looking thing at the top of your buddy list in the AIM client. Click it, and the eye closes. Voila! You are invisible. In GAIM, the same can be done under GAIM. Tools->Away->Invisible.
Frankly, it doesn't matter how much time these kids spend. Let's assume, for a second, that a CR does nothing beyond putting up posters around campus. Now, give that student a fancy new iPod Nano or Apple iBook.
Ya know what? I saw the nano (a few weeks after it came out), and was just astonished at how small it was. No amount of advertising could have had the same impact. Even if you see that the nano is the size of two fingers on a large poster, when the image is poster-sized, you don't realize how small it is!
But, back to my point... The students don't necessarily have to actively promote the product. Just *using* it is sometimes enough. For example, if someone is using MS OneNote to take notes in class, maybe peers would take notice? I know that I started using OneNote because a prof used it to project all of the notes for a class...
Hours don't matter. It's all about exposure.
NATs at home can only hold IPv4 together for so much longer. Soon a killer ap will come out that just doesn't want to be NATted, and the whole Internet using public will demand direct addressing [at least they'll demand a solution that requires direct IP addressing].
I don't think that's really true. With the current state of uPnP aware routers, I can't imagine a scenario when this would be a problem. (Unless there is truly a need for a well defined service port, and even then I can imagine several workarounds). I know that Azeurus happily opens up a few ports on my router every time that I start it up. Whether this is a good idea security wise is another story...
SQlite is not meant to compete with mySQL. All locking, IIRC in the most recent version is file based. Since each database is a file, this means that only a single write to a database can happen at a time. If you really need concurrent access, that's not going to scale well for large databases with many concurrent reads/writes.
That said, SQLite is fantastic! I really mean that. I use it mostly in single-user/light-concurrency situations when a full scale DMBS isn't needed. It's great if you want to write a script/small app that deals with relational data or even a single table. It makes querying/massaging the data a breeze.
It's also pretty good for an offline demo. If you want to demo an application that normally relies on a database server, plugging in an SQLite driver in place of, say, a mySQL driver will yield very good results. SQLite is designed to support basic syntax for a variety of databases; as long as you aren't doing anything too fancy, you should be able to just swap out the drivers and go!
Ok. Let's look at everything wrong with this product...
No monitor. How does a product designed for "first-time technology users" not include a monitor? What exactly are they expected to plug it in to? The typical first-time users do not have old CRT monitors sitting around, colecting dust like most /.ers.
Cheap, cheap disk. 10GB hard drive? TigerDirect.com advertises a 300GB SATA hard drive for $90. 10GB is pathetic.
Limited software. Ok. I've said this before.. The few reasons that I use windows are MS Office and the wealth of generally available software. This machine doesn't even come with Office and it doesn't even sound like it will let you install it! I bet FireFox is a no-no, too.
Overpriced. In the past, I've priced out $300-$400 systems with generous RAM & hard disk, a good Athlon XP processor, CD burner, etc with no monitor. Of course, that's sans OS and monitor. I wonder how much of that $300 goes to Microsoft for the Windows Operating System?
Although I am by no means a supporter of Linux on the desktop, I think that this is certainly a case where Linux and open source should have been used. As long as they aren't shipping with Office, why not use OpenOffice instead of "TextMaker"? What's the point of paying Microsoft for Licensing if you aren't going to give the customers any of the benefits of MS Office? They won't even have to deal with the fact that users are just used to Windows since these are targeted at "first-timers"
Just my 2 cents...
When FF crashes, I usually lose 10-20 tabs that I was looking at and will never recover.
Awesome. Thanks!
Fedora is slow for a Linux system, my system is now 3-5 times faster at most things than when it was running Fedora.
Then please share? What distro are you using that's so much faster?
Linux needs better package installation? Windows doesn't even have a package manager for installation!
Wasn't MSI supposed to be a package manager of sorts? That said, I know that its pretty unwieldy. However, even without a package manager, when's the last time that you had a windows program that just wouldn't install? I've never had a problem getting software installed that a simple uninstall/reinstall didn't miss. I do understand that there are fundamental problems with that (for example, installing software in different order can result in different libraries being loaded, etc), but in general I find that most commercial software does a good job with a simple .EXE file.
It's also easier to actually write an installer .exe file in Windows because just about every system has the same general layout! Linux, on the other hand, may have different library locations depending on the distro..
I like windows. There.. I said it. Will anyone on /. actually continue to read my comment? Only time will tell....
And it's not just because I'm an MS fanboy either. It's a good operating system.
It's stable. It has gone BSOD on me a few times, and that was because I had a bad HP print driver that was bringing it down. I never feel a need to reboot it because its "getting sluggish". The programs that crash on my PC most frequently are Mozilla Firefox followed by Microsoft Outlook. In fact, I prefer when Outlook Crashes. It just restarts and repairs itself and I pick up where I left off. When FF crashes, I usually lose 10-20 tabs that I was looking at and will never recover.
The software is good. Despite /. popular opinion, MS Office is good software. I tried using OpenOffice once, and it was just as good. But the Mail Merge interface sucked, and that was an important feature for me.
It's faster. My 1.8ghz Celeron laptop with 192MB of ram runs Windows 100x better than Linux. Fedora Core takes significantly longer to start up and feels more sluggish when running applications (I use gnome, the FC default environment).
Easier to install applications. I think that's a given. Linux needs a better package installation system, period. Yum and apt are good, but they don't hold a candle. Windows' automatic updates are far superior to RHN
Configuration Utilities. They're just better in Windows. Period. The closest that I've ever had to get to a command line for Windows Administration is the "ipconfig" utility. Windows doesn't have nasty configuration files. I've only HAD to enter the registry to fix something (which is nasty) once.
Even when there is a GUI configuration tool in Linux, I have a hard time finding it in FC. There are at least two different interfaces to configure network adapters, but only one of those two interfaces can start/stop the network card. It just doesn't make sense.
As a disclaimer, I am not a sheltered Windows fanboy who has only ever tried Linux out for 5 minutes. I do all my my development for CS classes in Linux, and I am no stranger to the command line. I *do* run Linux on my laptop, but the most common way for me to interact with it is by running an X server on my windows machine and an ssh connection to the laptop.
I am convinced that Open Source development is a superior model, but I am not convinced that Linux is a superior system simply because it is an open source OS. At least not on the desktop.
I've often wondered; why can't a regular IMAP store be used to store calendar information? task information? Then, someone can write a client that interprets individual headers/messages as mail/task items.
Granted, it doesn't give you shared calendars and all that jazz, but we don't have that now anyway. And for people like me, who just want to be able to get to their calendar and mail from different locations, it seems like an optimal solution.
I, for one, welcome our new HP overlords.
You can say that things on a Mac just work, but I also think that you'll find it much easier to write sound drivers if there is only one sound card on the market.
If every Linux programmer agreed to use the exact same hardware, we'd have a bulletproof distro. The problem is that the different hardware combinations possible on the x86 architecture make it all but impossible to accomodate everyone.
-JoshYou know what I'm gonna patent? The business practice of patenting absolutely anything and everything under the sun. Then I can sue MS and Amazon for like a bazillion kajillion dollars. Or else sell one of them the patent rights and live like a king.
I think there's already sufficient prior art for that.
"We processed the film, balanced the color and took care of printing - and we got it right. Now, with digital, our customers have taken on a great deal of that responsibility." If you ask me, this is one of the things that is killing pro photographer's foray into the digital world. I work with a local pro photographer, and the quality of the prints that we get is consistently terrible, even though they look great (or at least acceptable) on the screen. Pro labs ASSUME that their customers "know what they're doing" and tweak their pictures until they are "just right". Consequently, the labs are not enough effort into color corrections, and digital just doesn't come out as well. Photographers going digital have to basically abandon everything that they know about film. Forget forgiving exposure; digital sensors tolerate exposure within only a few stops. Photographers who used to load film and shoot now have to worry about color correction, saturation & contrast settings on-camera, which file-format to use... It's a whole new world. Just my two cents; maybe the labs around here just suck.. Josh