Well maybe someone's gone back and unlocked the pages, because all of the links I tried on the "draft Policing Act" page of the wiki are certainly editable by guests.
Seriously, what can you compare then? XP SP1 with XPSP2? Or are the differences between even those so great that you're not comparing apples with apples?
It *is* useful to some users out there to know the key difference between operating systems. I'm sure my mum and dad, or non-techie friends would find it useful to read an article comparing and contrasting XP/Vista, XP/OS10.4, Win2k/Ubuntu (or whatever takes your fancy) to know if/why to upgrade. A well-written comparitive article certainly has its place (unfortunately, I haven't found one yet).
This article, while appearing to favour Vista, actually under-sells it (as far as I'm concerned). Even non-tech readers (who I'm assuming the article was written for) can handle something slightly more technical. Saying that the firewall in Vista is "similar but improved" doesn't really give anyone any indication of the (IMHO) significant improvement in the firewall. Not saying it's the be-all and end-all or anything; just that the article skates over the top so much that I'm not entirely convinced the author's actually used Vista.
You just be joking. MacOS wireless is the easiest wireless I've ever setup. Even doing complex LEAP/PEAP stuff is yonks easier than on Windows. And don't talk to me about Linux wireless -- that's just a fucking joke.
I have to disagree here. Setting up wireless on Windows XP is a documentable, replicatable process. No matter how many times I set up a Powerbook/Macbook/iBook to connect to a WPA2 wireless network with PEAP, the process still confuses me. Windows popping up all over the place - or not, if you're changing the settings rather than setting up a new connection - and going round and round to find the setting that you need to change. And I'm a 50/50 XP/OSX user. I don't think that having instructions like "if you've already set up a connection, you'll have to do A; but if it's a new connection, B will pop up automagically" is a sign of a well-thought out process.
Or you could get iWork for 49$. It's got what you're most likely needing (advanced page layout and presentation software) unless you're sitting down to do serious spreadsheet work, which would require Excel. Apple's supposed to be adding a spreadsheet application at some point. I expect it to be as well thought out and designed as Keynote and Pages, and will happily upgrade. Pages is no replacement for Word. It's a page layout application, not a word processor. I couldn't imagine anything more distracting than trying to write a 4000-word essay in Pages (unless of course you've already written it in a text editor and are pasting chunks into one of the family-newsletter templates in the hope that the shiny layout will disguise the average content).
I do concede that Keynote is a great replacement for PowerPoint.
Also, how are they going to prevent people from drinking themselves into a stupor at a friend's home then getting in the car?
The measure isn't intended to prevent people from drinking themselves into a stupor in private homes. You do what you can to reduce violence and disorder (which I believe is what the fingerprint security is trying to address); the fact that the attempt doesn't extend into all known locations of drinking doesn't make the idea less worthy.
In the end, this could be a pretty significant blow for the bars and restaurants, kind of like the smoking ban in some U.S. cities.
I think wider evidence suggests otherwise - we (in New Zealand) banned smoking in all bars, cafes and restaurants. It wasn't a "significant blow" - it did, however, increase the incidence of smoking on streets *outside* bars, cafes and restaurants.
The summary says that it only "supports" IE6 - in other words, it's only guaranteed to work in that browser. It probably works in a number of other browsers but complaints about horrible CSS issues or unexpected behaviour will fall on deaf ears. Kind of like the supported browser list for (for example) a university's course management system - you *should* use Safari, IE or Firefox, but hey, go ahead and use Opera or Konqueror anyway, because it probably will work. But "don't complain to us".
For example, say you take your laptop to the airport. You open it up, and get a wireless connection through Windows as usual. You fire up your web browser, and in a special bookmark menu you automatically see the links for arrivals, departures, and general airport information.
Pardon? If by the "special bookmark menu" you mean the Bonjour "plugin" for IE, then you would only discover such services if they were web servers running somewhere in your bonjourhood.
How is this better than simply accessing these infomational pages via a bog-standard url? Don't get me wrong, Bonjour is nice, but apart from the convenience of zero-config printing I don't see the attraction. I can already share my iTunes library across my network without installing additional software (additional to iTunes) on my Windows boxes. The "file sharing" aspect of Bonjour escapes me completely, when my "little config" system - Mac personal file sharing, and Windows file sharing - achieves exactly what I need. Bonjour doesn't appear to simplify any part of that particular process.
IE and Firefox I believe just scale text size, don't quote me on that though.
IE 7 (beta) scales all elements on the page - including (strangely) the left-right and up-down scroll bars.
WMP for Mac is abysmal - especially when attempting to play a clip as it's downloading - Quicktime has the most elegant way of doing this I've seen where the grey bar indicates how much of the clip has been downloaded while you are watching seamlessly unlike WMP's 'buffering....buffering....' crap that it does, (usually before it stops responding).
Whoah there. I think you're mistaking a Faststart (Quicktime) movie with a streaming (WMV) movie. The two are entirely different methods of delivery - don't blame the player (and your connection speed) for a decision that the webmaster made! A streaming Quicktime movie will buffer just as annoyingly, given the right circumstances.
What's new in Internet Explorer 5 for Mac OS X?
Oooh! I hear they have new-fangled "Favourites" and a neato feature where you can change the interface colour to "Blueberry" or "Key Lime".
The USGS map referenced in this "False Alarm" comment suggests that the earthquake was relatively near a subduction zone.
Is there a geologist in the house?
Slashdot Mirror
Really?
Well maybe someone's gone back and unlocked the pages, because all of the links I tried on the "draft Policing Act" page of the wiki are certainly editable by guests.
Or perhaps you're referring to something else?
Seriously, what can you compare then? XP SP1 with XPSP2? Or are the differences between even those so great that you're not comparing apples with apples?
It *is* useful to some users out there to know the key difference between operating systems. I'm sure my mum and dad, or non-techie friends would find it useful to read an article comparing and contrasting XP/Vista, XP/OS10.4, Win2k/Ubuntu (or whatever takes your fancy) to know if/why to upgrade. A well-written comparitive article certainly has its place (unfortunately, I haven't found one yet).
This article, while appearing to favour Vista, actually under-sells it (as far as I'm concerned). Even non-tech readers (who I'm assuming the article was written for) can handle something slightly more technical. Saying that the firewall in Vista is "similar but improved" doesn't really give anyone any indication of the (IMHO) significant improvement in the firewall. Not saying it's the be-all and end-all or anything; just that the article skates over the top so much that I'm not entirely convinced the author's actually used Vista.
You just be joking. MacOS wireless is the easiest wireless I've ever setup. Even doing complex LEAP/PEAP stuff is yonks easier than on Windows. And don't talk to me about Linux wireless -- that's just a fucking joke.
I have to disagree here. Setting up wireless on Windows XP is a documentable, replicatable process. No matter how many times I set up a Powerbook/Macbook/iBook to connect to a WPA2 wireless network with PEAP, the process still confuses me. Windows popping up all over the place - or not, if you're changing the settings rather than setting up a new connection - and going round and round to find the setting that you need to change. And I'm a 50/50 XP/OSX user. I don't think that having instructions like "if you've already set up a connection, you'll have to do A; but if it's a new connection, B will pop up automagically" is a sign of a well-thought out process.
Or you could get iWork for 49$. It's got what you're most likely needing (advanced page layout and presentation software) unless you're sitting down to do serious spreadsheet work, which would require Excel. Apple's supposed to be adding a spreadsheet application at some point. I expect it to be as well thought out and designed as Keynote and Pages, and will happily upgrade.
Pages is no replacement for Word. It's a page layout application, not a word processor. I couldn't imagine anything more distracting than trying to write a 4000-word essay in Pages (unless of course you've already written it in a text editor and are pasting chunks into one of the family-newsletter templates in the hope that the shiny layout will disguise the average content).
I do concede that Keynote is a great replacement for PowerPoint.
Also, how are they going to prevent people from drinking themselves into a stupor at a friend's home then getting in the car?
The measure isn't intended to prevent people from drinking themselves into a stupor in private homes. You do what you can to reduce violence and disorder (which I believe is what the fingerprint security is trying to address); the fact that the attempt doesn't extend into all known locations of drinking doesn't make the idea less worthy.
In the end, this could be a pretty significant blow for the bars and restaurants, kind of like the smoking ban in some U.S. cities.
I think wider evidence suggests otherwise - we (in New Zealand) banned smoking in all bars, cafes and restaurants. It wasn't a "significant blow" - it did, however, increase the incidence of smoking on streets *outside* bars, cafes and restaurants.
Pity it doesn't render correctly in Safari 2.0.3 :(
The summary says that it only "supports" IE6 - in other words, it's only guaranteed to work in that browser. It probably works in a number of other browsers but complaints about horrible CSS issues or unexpected behaviour will fall on deaf ears. Kind of like the supported browser list for (for example) a university's course management system - you *should* use Safari, IE or Firefox, but hey, go ahead and use Opera or Konqueror anyway, because it probably will work. But "don't complain to us".
For example, say you take your laptop to the airport. You open it up, and get a wireless connection through Windows as usual. You fire up your web browser, and in a special bookmark menu you automatically see the links for arrivals, departures, and general airport information.
Pardon? If by the "special bookmark menu" you mean the Bonjour "plugin" for IE, then you would only discover such services if they were web servers running somewhere in your bonjourhood.
How is this better than simply accessing these infomational pages via a bog-standard url? Don't get me wrong, Bonjour is nice, but apart from the convenience of zero-config printing I don't see the attraction. I can already share my iTunes library across my network without installing additional software (additional to iTunes) on my Windows boxes. The "file sharing" aspect of Bonjour escapes me completely, when my "little config" system - Mac personal file sharing, and Windows file sharing - achieves exactly what I need. Bonjour doesn't appear to simplify any part of that particular process.
IE and Firefox I believe just scale text size, don't quote me on that though. IE 7 (beta) scales all elements on the page - including (strangely) the left-right and up-down scroll bars.
1) Run 90% of your software at a crawl through emulation
It's not an emulator. Rosetta *translates* code.
WMP for Mac is abysmal - especially when attempting to play a clip as it's downloading - Quicktime has the most elegant way of doing this I've seen where the grey bar indicates how much of the clip has been downloaded while you are watching seamlessly unlike WMP's 'buffering....buffering....' crap that it does, (usually before it stops responding).
Whoah there. I think you're mistaking a Faststart (Quicktime) movie with a streaming (WMV) movie. The two are entirely different methods of delivery - don't blame the player (and your connection speed) for a decision that the webmaster made! A streaming Quicktime movie will buffer just as annoyingly, given the right circumstances.
What's new in Internet Explorer 5 for Mac OS X? Oooh! I hear they have new-fangled "Favourites" and a neato feature where you can change the interface colour to "Blueberry" or "Key Lime".
Move to New Zealand: we're built on a plate boundary, and our government kindly provides us with natural disaster insurance for earthquakes.
The USGS map referenced in this "False Alarm" comment suggests that the earthquake was relatively near a subduction zone. Is there a geologist in the house?