quite a lot of us are looking at it from our decades of geek experience standpoint. mere mortals (TM) want their computers to act like their microwave oven:
1. insert pie
2. set time
3. wait
4. remove pie
5. eat
hence
1. turn on
2. write letter to aunt gertrude
3. print
4. turn off
5. post letter
it IS the 21st century, ok so we havent got flying cars, silver jump suits and ray guns but if computers worked like the above then lots of people would be much happier with them. it's all very well spouting "gawd, all you have to do is format this, command prompt that, download the thingy, install such and such etc." do i command prompt/download/upgrade/reboot my car when i get a flat tire? no i stick the spare on and carry on with my journey, requires only a wrench and a jack. both handily seated by said spare wheel with a nice pictorial instruction booklet. try making an ikea style instruction booklet for removing spyware and viruses from your winbox.
yeah i know it's all microsoft's fault, they havent exactly come on in leaps and bounds in usability since amigaos back in 84 but instead of trying to change peoples behaviour re: computers as appliances we should be striving to make (home) computers like appliances. unfortunatley linux takes it in the opposite direction, i'm a quantum physisist and i can't figure linux out!
media player 6.4 works fine for me, and so far i have managed to not let windows update force me to upgrade, i'm a quantumn physisist and any newer version just plain scares me!
yeah that's the one, i was on a uni network so the bandwidth might have been there, didnt try it on my (cutting edged!) 33.6k at home. my skeptisism is based entirely on wether or not video streaming actually existed in the mid 90s, when gopher was still in use and the www was grinding to a start. (cue dewey eyed memories)
AFAIK this was a fake too, think it was back in 96. the track was a loop with 2 trains and 3 station platforms, you chose the train and the destination platform and it cycled. only 6 videos needed to produce the effect, was probably animated gifs, come to think of it as it was pre realplayer.
i agree with the comments about UI optimisation, a maximised window in xp can be closed by slapping the mouse to the top right, and it wouldnt take too much effort to invisbly expand a maximised app's menubar up over the titlebar to the top of the screen too now, would it? (note: if i wanted to do everything by keyboard shortcuts i wouldn't own a mouse, now, would i?)
sorry if i'm really lamely late here but perhaps the reason it's taking so long to produce this version of windows XP is that it is genuinely being written from scratch. ergo: it's not windows, it's longhorn. 100% undiluted longhorn. rendering all previous antitrust settlements null and void....
FFS they better make it turnoffable it's getting quite difficult to keep my copy of XP from spontaneously deciding to do funky stuff without my permission. i just want to use the bloody thing, if i want flishy flashy pretty 3d zoomey eye candy computing then i'd take lsd first
maybe i'm missing something really special here but WTF is this obsession with ALL OS's of storing all settings in one place? linux is the biggest bitch for this, it's impossible to install anything to it without it sticking fingers in about 8 directories and 12 text/config files spread out throughout the os (e.g. apache). ffs. imagine an email app that stores it's settings and mailboxes in it's OWN folder... imagine it being on a different partition to the OS... killed your os? oh look all your emails and email accounts are still there next time you reinstall... all it takes is sticking a shortcut back on the desktop. magic! if i want to uninstall the app? delete the folder and the desktop shortcut. oh look, no garbage left behind. miraculous!
there are indeed such email apps, i use one. just wish firefox would do the same (hell, then you could run it on any winbox instead of IE... from a USB stick!). the only settings the os should hoarde are the ones that concern the os itself.
clipped a kerb on the way to work this morning trying to take the racing line around a roundabout at 60mph... within the speed limit of course but if i'd have gotten it a bit wronger i'd have rolled. though i have noticed that roundabouts in otherwise national-speed-limit areas are starting to get their own local 30mph zones
let's face it, p2p networks are stuffed full of britney spears and general pop crap that us old gippers just cant stand. and i havent been to itunes ever but i doubt very much that any of these systems will help me get hold of copies of the complete works of the four tops, for example. i'm having slow but limited success in this area with the occasional scouring of charity shops and buying said albums for 50p a time. something that probably would break todays license agreements and/or be made impossible with the advent of DRM if i were to attempt the same electronically.
i expect the same will be true of movies too. yeah great bandwith, sharing, download dvd copies legally yay. films with j-lo in? easy to get... 50s japanese samurai epics? doubtful.
so basically i'm either condemned to follow the corporate brainwashing and join the herd or physically track down hardcopy while it's still available/legal.
i cant remember what my point was,now, darnit!
been qwerty coding for 20+ years now and i second all the comments about braces etc. having to press shift for () and {} is a major pain, at least i get the ; luxury. however since getting bad wrist strain a few years back i now sit up straighter, have the keyboard at a shallow angle and rest my fore-arms on a long foam pad about 1.5cm thick, with a 10cm gap to the keyboard in which my wrists float about, needs a fair amount of desk-depth but works a treat!
hmm, one could then write a script that generates a text file full of "valid" numbers. then the anti-phish script can randomly pull them out. you can leave the first script running one day when you go to work:-)
i've suspected that i've had aspergers for a couple of years now but have no idea where to look for support (UK) not interested particularly in being diagnosed, dont want sympathy or handouts so dont go flaming me!
however, after about 5 years of low self esteem and dipping in and out of depression i managed to stumble upon a part time bar job and in a relatively short space of time i have gained a real job doing server side web site programming, a beautiful girlfriend and a child on the way! somehow without any social, small talk or job interview skills at all. just sheer bloody mindedness!
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quite a lot of us are looking at it from our decades of geek experience standpoint. mere mortals (TM) want their computers to act like their microwave oven: 1. insert pie 2. set time 3. wait 4. remove pie 5. eat hence 1. turn on 2. write letter to aunt gertrude 3. print 4. turn off 5. post letter it IS the 21st century, ok so we havent got flying cars, silver jump suits and ray guns but if computers worked like the above then lots of people would be much happier with them. it's all very well spouting "gawd, all you have to do is format this, command prompt that, download the thingy, install such and such etc." do i command prompt/download/upgrade/reboot my car when i get a flat tire? no i stick the spare on and carry on with my journey, requires only a wrench and a jack. both handily seated by said spare wheel with a nice pictorial instruction booklet. try making an ikea style instruction booklet for removing spyware and viruses from your winbox. yeah i know it's all microsoft's fault, they havent exactly come on in leaps and bounds in usability since amigaos back in 84 but instead of trying to change peoples behaviour re: computers as appliances we should be striving to make (home) computers like appliances. unfortunatley linux takes it in the opposite direction, i'm a quantum physisist and i can't figure linux out!
media player 6.4 works fine for me, and so far i have managed to not let windows update force me to upgrade, i'm a quantumn physisist and any newer version just plain scares me!
...because providing scifi works for free undercuts the big scifi companies proft margins and is therefore bad for competition? see: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/13/02 22247&tid=141&tid=17
and the one about the french bus company and the car-pool
yeah that's the one, i was on a uni network so the bandwidth might have been there, didnt try it on my (cutting edged!) 33.6k at home. my skeptisism is based entirely on wether or not video streaming actually existed in the mid 90s, when gopher was still in use and the www was grinding to a start. (cue dewey eyed memories)
AFAIK this was a fake too, think it was back in 96. the track was a loop with 2 trains and 3 station platforms, you chose the train and the destination platform and it cycled. only 6 videos needed to produce the effect, was probably animated gifs, come to think of it as it was pre realplayer.
i agree with the comments about UI optimisation, a maximised window in xp can be closed by slapping the mouse to the top right, and it wouldnt take too much effort to invisbly expand a maximised app's menubar up over the titlebar to the top of the screen too now, would it? (note: if i wanted to do everything by keyboard shortcuts i wouldn't own a mouse, now, would i?) sorry if i'm really lamely late here but perhaps the reason it's taking so long to produce this version of windows XP is that it is genuinely being written from scratch. ergo: it's not windows, it's longhorn. 100% undiluted longhorn. rendering all previous antitrust settlements null and void....
FFS they better make it turnoffable it's getting quite difficult to keep my copy of XP from spontaneously deciding to do funky stuff without my permission. i just want to use the bloody thing, if i want flishy flashy pretty 3d zoomey eye candy computing then i'd take lsd first
maybe i'm missing something really special here but WTF is this obsession with ALL OS's of storing all settings in one place? linux is the biggest bitch for this, it's impossible to install anything to it without it sticking fingers in about 8 directories and 12 text/config files spread out throughout the os (e.g. apache). ffs. imagine an email app that stores it's settings and mailboxes in it's OWN folder... imagine it being on a different partition to the OS... killed your os? oh look all your emails and email accounts are still there next time you reinstall... all it takes is sticking a shortcut back on the desktop. magic! if i want to uninstall the app? delete the folder and the desktop shortcut. oh look, no garbage left behind. miraculous! there are indeed such email apps, i use one. just wish firefox would do the same (hell, then you could run it on any winbox instead of IE... from a USB stick!). the only settings the os should hoarde are the ones that concern the os itself.
clipped a kerb on the way to work this morning trying to take the racing line around a roundabout at 60mph... within the speed limit of course but if i'd have gotten it a bit wronger i'd have rolled. though i have noticed that roundabouts in otherwise national-speed-limit areas are starting to get their own local 30mph zones
>'Do onto others, as you would have them do to you' i would have people do oral sex unto me, but wouldn't always be keen to do it unto others.
let's face it, p2p networks are stuffed full of britney spears and general pop crap that us old gippers just cant stand. and i havent been to itunes ever but i doubt very much that any of these systems will help me get hold of copies of the complete works of the four tops, for example. i'm having slow but limited success in this area with the occasional scouring of charity shops and buying said albums for 50p a time. something that probably would break todays license agreements and/or be made impossible with the advent of DRM if i were to attempt the same electronically. i expect the same will be true of movies too. yeah great bandwith, sharing, download dvd copies legally yay. films with j-lo in? easy to get... 50s japanese samurai epics? doubtful. so basically i'm either condemned to follow the corporate brainwashing and join the herd or physically track down hardcopy while it's still available/legal. i cant remember what my point was,now, darnit!
been qwerty coding for 20+ years now and i second all the comments about braces etc. having to press shift for () and {} is a major pain, at least i get the ; luxury. however since getting bad wrist strain a few years back i now sit up straighter, have the keyboard at a shallow angle and rest my fore-arms on a long foam pad about 1.5cm thick, with a 10cm gap to the keyboard in which my wrists float about, needs a fair amount of desk-depth but works a treat!
oh goody, someone else got it, thought i might be the only geek around here for a second there... oh
hmm, one could then write a script that generates a text file full of "valid" numbers. then the anti-phish script can randomly pull them out. you can leave the first script running one day when you go to work :-)
maybe they think it's all comedy, especially that reality tv show broadcast on lots of channels about that bush guy, f**king hilarious satire!
i've suspected that i've had aspergers for a couple of years now but have no idea where to look for support (UK) not interested particularly in being diagnosed, dont want sympathy or handouts so dont go flaming me!
however, after about 5 years of low self esteem and dipping in and out of depression i managed to stumble upon a part time bar job and in a relatively short space of time i have gained a real job doing server side web site programming, a beautiful girlfriend and a child on the way! somehow without any social, small talk or job interview skills at all. just sheer bloody mindedness!