The HP laptop I'm using to type this has an AMD Turion 64. Although HP still won't allow the good video cards (256MB GeForce 7800 vs. 128MB ATI) with AMD Turions, the processor was the major reason I bought this one. AMD is just plainly ahead of Intel STILL, because the 32-bit translator built into their CPUs is far better than the software-based one Intel uses. 64-bit is just the way to go, and Intel took forever to realize that and is still realizing as far as I know. I think HP realized this when they made their agreement with AMD. I personally love being able to use 64-bit (it DOES increase video encoding speeds with the AMD64 build of VDub by about 40%).
I find it quite offensive still that only Intel CPUs get the best video cards on HP laptops, but I think soon people will want to stop getting bombarded with that Intel sound and the logo, and stickers etc. With AMD there as an option again (Compaq used AMDs in their systems back in '99), and if it's cheaper, I think people will make the switch to AMD (similar to the Windows -> Mac switch).
Right now, HP and Alienware are some of the few computer companies offering AMD. Dell (the most known for quality for anybody who knows nothing about computers) still praises Intel (probably a contractual agreement).
Actually, I've never had an issue doing complete reinstalls with Windows discs (not restore discs) on laptops. And on my old laptop, Vista took a long time to install but it did work. Then it takes over every kind of boot loader and replaces it with its own. I don't doubt it will work on my new laptop. But the last time I tried Vista (a few months ago), I thought it was pointless. And where is the Folders button? How the fuck can you do anything without a folder tree?
Probably what the.xxx registry wants. And it's not a terrible idea I guess, for "responsible parents".
I kinda see myself as an example. The "every kid" who got away with looking at porn online throughout my under-18 years (meanwhile some of my friends got caught, being stupid). Do I want my kids to look at porn? I think that up to age 9 they'll think it's gross, and they'll probably think erected penises and penetration is gross until another point shortly after. If they came across it online at that age, they would probably close it out right away. Kids at age 9 are online?
When I was 11 I started to look every once in a while, and then went on from there. I think to be a so-called responsible parent, you should probably block. But I don't think pornography has really had an effect on me, and I've seen tons, of many genres. Who hasn't?
It is an easy way to block.xxx. But is Interpol gonna go nuts on anyone who has porn on a.com, or.org? I don't think so. Neither will any government agency. Also, what's porn? Is this? Or this? I think some may think they are and need warnings on the pages. There is never ever going to be a definition of porn. This is what's so bad about filters.
I'm not concerned so much about that (I would search porn all the time when I was under 18). But I think plenty of parents would agree to.xxx be approved and strict regulations that EVERY porn site gets put on that domain. It's easier to block this way. If they know anything about computers, *.xxx would work fine as a filter on any server or software (even Adblock on Firefox could do this). Any "easy-to-use" "dumbass" filter software could just have a tickbox saying "Block adult sites" meaning to apply *.xxx to the filter list. AOL would of course do this.
The issue I think is that so many sites on.com's and such would have to be moved if they are actually porn sites. It brings in more government regulation on pornography which is something obviously they don't want. I don't think any customers would like this either. So many sites shut down after 2257 was revised, and this just adds on to that.
First of all, who cares if the US pressured them into rejecting the domain.
Secondly, if.xxx sites get registered it'll make it even EASIER for kids to find porn now. Why would parents want to make it easier? EVERY kid knows what XXX means, and there's tons of free porn that would be hosted on these sites. A lot of kids have a fun time looking at previews of pay sites as well.
I agree with the rejection of.xxx, nor would I really care if it got approved.
I have an HDTV, and it's Component input (2 of them). I'm not buying a new TV just for some HDMI port that tramples upon my rights. And the PS3 is not going to be outputting HDTV any other way.
What is a business to do? A guy who owns an HDTV with component input (let's say like me) at a store gets offered a new HDTV with HDMI ports ready-to-go all-digital like DVI, and unlike component which is still analog and requires the TV to figure out the positioning. It's bullshit to have to get a new TV just for HD when many of us have already bought "HDTVs". The people that made HDMI, HDCP, and any Macrovision protection are the REAL criminals. It's like totalarianism. And for WHAT? Crappy movies and music?
[i]Any competently designed identification system consists of two parts: the public identifier, and the private key.[/i]
I completely agree. However, old peole don't want to have to remember another number, even for protection.
The real issue is that everywhere wants to check credit history (even when considering for hire). I don't think this is unfair, but a lot of people do.
Also, I used to sell credit cards (as part of my job, commission for every card I got). I had to ask even old people for their SSN and many were just thunderstruck that I had to ask for that information, which surprises me since they already have CC's, and many completely say no way at that point (which in turn sucked for me for commission). The fact that they had to say it aloud really pushed them to their limit as well; many would do it quietly, but they of course worried that I would remember numbers (you get better at remembering numbers in the short-term when you are a cashier) and use them for my own purposes. At our store, we could have the signature pad (digital) be used for the purpose of entering it in (by the customer), but of course we don't.
I think the only way right now to safely transfer this kind of information is to have a card system with a stripe and no numbers that identify the actual number on the card. And it would have a key to get the information from this card (like said in parent post) ANYWHERE it is used. The only way for someone who takes the card to get the info would be to know the key or bruteforce with some card reader connected to a computer, which is why keys would have to be assigned by the person but follow strict rules. Every system is crackable of course, but having to crack would probably be a deterrent, especially if it took a long time.
Let's remember how many useless features there are in MS Word (smart tags anyone?).
Honestly, right now, Office 97 suits plenty of people's needs compared to 2003 or XP or 2000. A lot of offices still use Office 2000 or XP and will not bother with getting 2003 ever. There's just no need. The amount of money and time to deploy on systems is not worth it to them. Secondly, what are the new features after XP to 2003 that are so important? Nothing at all. Not even from 97.
I like to think of what I did with Office when I used it (I now use OO). I do the exact same thing I do in OO now (using OO by principle). All I ever did (as a student) was type Word documents and Excel spreadsheets to make graphs. That's all I do now with Writer and Calc. I do double spacing, after and before line spacing, centering, different fonts (I never used WordArt, still looks like crap even on 2003). All this can be done in OO, KOffice, etc.
Microsoft is definitely lying in hopes to have customers believing that OO and the rest are completely inferior to M$'s Office. I'm completely not surprised by the statement made in the article.
Absolutely what I was thinking. I'm thinking that soon the only people allowed to encrypt or crack (disassemblers to be made illegal soon also) ANYTHING will be the government.
For now, I use Skype to talk to some people. And I speak in different languages on it than English sometimes. I should now change that to all the time.
I completely agree with the government being unwilling to get warrants to tap lines nowadays. The government would simply ask you why you don't want to be monitored. I think that's ridiculous. Look for the government saying something like "What are you doing if you disagree with being monitored without warrant?"
I know there are some people here who will agree with that statement, stating that the government seems to be unable to issue 1000 warrants at once and by the time they do, the "criminal" gets away.
I'd love to talk to one of my school's admins about using something other M$ Office (anything that supports ODF so I don't have to have two copies or have to have OpenOffice on my flash drive). One reason is because of money, and my school seems to act like they have endless amounts. The ONLY free software used at my school is Daemon Tools, and even that's not free in that kind of environment (license required for "commercial" network use, especially when somehow SimCity 3000 became relevant to a class and they didn't buy 30 copies of it, they just used Daemon Tools to have it on 30 systems or so).
The major reason, I'm guessing, that my school has apps like Adobe Photoshop (as opposed to Gimp) and M$ Office (as opposed to KOffice or OpenOffice), is because that's what's most likely to be seen in a real commercial setting, especially Photoshop compared to Gimp because of support (is it better than Gimp? I have no idea). Microsoft is pushing all schools to use M$ software ("alliance") and my school has all HP's and Microsoft is still pushing HP to stop selling "untaxed" PCs (ones without Windows) and ones with Linux. The other school I attended used Visual Studio.NET 2003 and with the "alliance" us students could bring it home to install. They did not have anything else.
And it's absolutely true at the moment, unfortunately. Almost everywhere you go, Windows is being used (even at the airport and bank!) instead of Linux or anything else. And at my school you can see that teachers use Microsoft Outlook to read email, they write documents in Microsoft Word, and Windows apps are used for everything else. What's protecting the school from viruses? Symantec AV! My own dentist is using Windows XP with his high resolution tooth x-ray photo software. Since his computers are all Dells I would assume he only knows how to click around WIndows and install software and use that x-ray software. My dad uses AutoCAD and Autodesk continually does not make a port to Linux. Hopefully Alias Wavefront is seriously making an example with their Linux version of Maya. From a behind the scenes video (Monsters Inc DVD extra), I could tell it was Maya running on Linux easily.
Lastly, how many games per year come out that support OpenGL and/or Linux? You may say names like Half-Life 2, Half-Life 1, Unreal Tournament 2003 (Linux version is available). But that's the only ones I can think of. The rest are, of course, DirectX.
Haha so true. I've done so many things with computers for girls and always, I think, any straight guy will get this feeling like they'll get to do things somehow because of it. It never happens. It's like a salesman at a store who sells an item to a girl he finds attractive for a lower price, breaking the rules.
Believe me, I would. And you're completely right about this. However, at the moment, it seems every school is still teaching MS VS AT LEAST as well as the A+ certification courses, and the M$ tests. I'd like to be ahead when I attend college in a Computer Science major (just like I already study Chinese, Japanese & Korean on my own and want to be ahead in those classes as well).
I have already ran Ubuntu, Knoppix, and Slackware before. They are great OS's and I still have a lot to learn in them.
That's what I was thinking! My school is too stupid to do that. Some fat lady is the admin and the only smart thing she knows is to do is disable access to the registry and the Run command (even the Windows + R).
True. Everyone at my school would rather play WoW then learn something. I have never been a so called "extreme gamer" and have always been interested in learning something instead (or keeping my files tidy). I was learning more about the innards of Windows 98 way back in 99 instead of playing games available for it. And of course "innards of Windows 98" sounds really lame but that's all I had at the time and I didn't even have Internet till like Sept 1999 and that was AOhell.
B) Allow specialized "tracks" of education.. Where a child is placed into one of several specialized school systems.. focusing on math/science, or arts, or fine-arts, or eventual business, or janitorial level work, etc.
That would be like vocational schools which are almost always available at least in MA. Even I went to one for a short time to discover that having normal school and vocational switch off is just not my sorta thing. I would've preferred to have been in that Computer Programming class for like 2 hours at the most per day, NOT 8 hours everyday every other week. It was just so unbelievably cumbersome.
Completely true. One lab does teach HTML but they also use FrontPage to help (can't say I didn't myself when I started learning at like age 11 (what age are you in 4th grade?)). If I were going to teach someone nowadays, I would teach them straight through without any help from software other than the browser (and I would recommend Firefox for testing) and something like Notepad (Textpad, Notepad++, etc). I'd recommend Notepad++.
In my school the computers are very very very locked down. If you right-click the desktop and go to Properties, there are absolutely no options. The screen is all fucked up to be blanked out of options. So we can't have roaming profiles (which baffles me, I cannot stand that shitty blue taskbar and crap like that). Also, by using network booting, they force Windows XP to load on some really really really old computers, which baffles me as well. Why is this bad? Because kids can't tell the difference! One girl was working on a video project (in shitty WMM) on an old computer. She then wanted to finish it off and get it encoded and when she hit encode the computer just froze entirely. She said she didn't save at all either (her fault). I had to tell her that she had to do it again and that if she saved it would be okay but then I had to tell her that these computers she was on are not made for video encoding and if they didn't freeze on encoding they would take a year to encode anything at all. She was then all confused because I used the word "encoding" and pissed off.
My only hope for not using that piece of shit IE at my school is putting in my flash drive (USB 1.0 on the old computers that have USB so I never try) and running Firefox off of it (which works okay). I can also run several other apps. Otherwise, I wish my school would use OpenOffice also instead of buying a million licenses for M$ software (Office) (Right now I have to keep OO and M$ format on my flash drive). Whenever there's a legally freeware alternative to anything, it's like they completely ignore it. Firefox would be great on the systems, along with the teachers using Thunderbird instead of Outlook, etc.
As far as programming, schools get a huge discount when they join some kind of thing with M$ and then they get Visual Studio and the license also allows students to take it home and install (I pirate mine for now). My school has not done this and I don't think they plan to. Since I'm taking the online course in AP Computer Science next year, I have yet to figure out how one would do programming without a compiler installed.
Staying on topic, I guess I am a kid (17 about to turn 18, started doing shit at 11). I have experience in HTML, C, C++, and Java. I have not mastered any yet, but still working on it. At age 11, my parents got me a decent computer (although it was a Compaq:/) and I began to just play and play till I learned, because my previous computer had Windows 3.1 and 98 was different in a lot of ways. I used what I learned from school since they had 98 and then tested things out. Best way to learn and no one but me seems to understand this. After making my first HTML pages in FrontPage I saw a View Source option in the program and began to understand HTML easily. Unfortunately, I expected other languages to be as easy and was soon dumbfounded. I picked up a book on C one day and got my hands on a copy of Visual C++ 6.0 (still used by many today). Did the same for C++ and Java. I have a lot more reading to do and I am working on a few apps. Just the other day I needed an app that could modify an INI file based on what I input, which would be easier than opening the INI file in Notepad just before every time I opened the app. It's a handy app but only useful to me. Did that in C++ in about 5 minutes. After getting that Compaq I learned about the innards of a system from one of my dad's friends, and started building my own PCs.
Pretty much everyone else at my school has no clue (there are a few that do). They have no idea how computers work and they recently learne
Since I convert most every DVD I get to XviD, I wouldn't mind downloading $1.50 or so for the DVD-9 quality MPEG2 I was takling about. All non-DRM. Otherwise, forget it.
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The HP laptop I'm using to type this has an AMD Turion 64. Although HP still won't allow the good video cards (256MB GeForce 7800 vs. 128MB ATI) with AMD Turions, the processor was the major reason I bought this one. AMD is just plainly ahead of Intel STILL, because the 32-bit translator built into their CPUs is far better than the software-based one Intel uses. 64-bit is just the way to go, and Intel took forever to realize that and is still realizing as far as I know. I think HP realized this when they made their agreement with AMD. I personally love being able to use 64-bit (it DOES increase video encoding speeds with the AMD64 build of VDub by about 40%).
I find it quite offensive still that only Intel CPUs get the best video cards on HP laptops, but I think soon people will want to stop getting bombarded with that Intel sound and the logo, and stickers etc. With AMD there as an option again (Compaq used AMDs in their systems back in '99), and if it's cheaper, I think people will make the switch to AMD (similar to the Windows -> Mac switch).
Right now, HP and Alienware are some of the few computer companies offering AMD. Dell (the most known for quality for anybody who knows nothing about computers) still praises Intel (probably a contractual agreement).
Soccer is horrible! How can anyone watch that?!
I'm a member.
Actually, I've never had an issue doing complete reinstalls with Windows discs (not restore discs) on laptops. And on my old laptop, Vista took a long time to install but it did work. Then it takes over every kind of boot loader and replaces it with its own. I don't doubt it will work on my new laptop. But the last time I tried Vista (a few months ago), I thought it was pointless. And where is the Folders button? How the fuck can you do anything without a folder tree?
(tests for sarcasm)
Probably what the .xxx registry wants. And it's not a terrible idea I guess, for "responsible parents".
.xxx. But is Interpol gonna go nuts on anyone who has porn on a .com, or .org? I don't think so. Neither will any government agency. Also, what's porn? Is this? Or this? I think some may think they are and need warnings on the pages. There is never ever going to be a definition of porn. This is what's so bad about filters.
I kinda see myself as an example. The "every kid" who got away with looking at porn online throughout my under-18 years (meanwhile some of my friends got caught, being stupid). Do I want my kids to look at porn? I think that up to age 9 they'll think it's gross, and they'll probably think erected penises and penetration is gross until another point shortly after. If they came across it online at that age, they would probably close it out right away. Kids at age 9 are online?
When I was 11 I started to look every once in a while, and then went on from there. I think to be a so-called responsible parent, you should probably block. But I don't think pornography has really had an effect on me, and I've seen tons, of many genres. Who hasn't?
It is an easy way to block
I'm not concerned so much about that (I would search porn all the time when I was under 18). But I think plenty of parents would agree to .xxx be approved and strict regulations that EVERY porn site gets put on that domain. It's easier to block this way. If they know anything about computers, *.xxx would work fine as a filter on any server or software (even Adblock on Firefox could do this). Any "easy-to-use" "dumbass" filter software could just have a tickbox saying "Block adult sites" meaning to apply *.xxx to the filter list. AOL would of course do this.
.com's and such would have to be moved if they are actually porn sites. It brings in more government regulation on pornography which is something obviously they don't want. I don't think any customers would like this either. So many sites shut down after 2257 was revised, and this just adds on to that.
The issue I think is that so many sites on
3rd post.
.xxx sites get registered it'll make it even EASIER for kids to find porn now. Why would parents want to make it easier? EVERY kid knows what XXX means, and there's tons of free porn that would be hosted on these sites. A lot of kids have a fun time looking at previews of pay sites as well.
.xxx, nor would I really care if it got approved.
First of all, who cares if the US pressured them into rejecting the domain.
Secondly, if
I agree with the rejection of
Excellent.
I have an HDTV, and it's Component input (2 of them). I'm not buying a new TV just for some HDMI port that tramples upon my rights. And the PS3 is not going to be outputting HDTV any other way.
What is a business to do? A guy who owns an HDTV with component input (let's say like me) at a store gets offered a new HDTV with HDMI ports ready-to-go all-digital like DVI, and unlike component which is still analog and requires the TV to figure out the positioning. It's bullshit to have to get a new TV just for HD when many of us have already bought "HDTVs". The people that made HDMI, HDCP, and any Macrovision protection are the REAL criminals. It's like totalarianism. And for WHAT? Crappy movies and music?
...the gayest name EVER?!
[i]Any competently designed identification system consists of two parts: the public identifier, and the private key.[/i]
I completely agree. However, old peole don't want to have to remember another number, even for protection.
The real issue is that everywhere wants to check credit history (even when considering for hire). I don't think this is unfair, but a lot of people do.
Also, I used to sell credit cards (as part of my job, commission for every card I got). I had to ask even old people for their SSN and many were just thunderstruck that I had to ask for that information, which surprises me since they already have CC's, and many completely say no way at that point (which in turn sucked for me for commission). The fact that they had to say it aloud really pushed them to their limit as well; many would do it quietly, but they of course worried that I would remember numbers (you get better at remembering numbers in the short-term when you are a cashier) and use them for my own purposes. At our store, we could have the signature pad (digital) be used for the purpose of entering it in (by the customer), but of course we don't.
I think the only way right now to safely transfer this kind of information is to have a card system with a stripe and no numbers that identify the actual number on the card. And it would have a key to get the information from this card (like said in parent post) ANYWHERE it is used. The only way for someone who takes the card to get the info would be to know the key or bruteforce with some card reader connected to a computer, which is why keys would have to be assigned by the person but follow strict rules. Every system is crackable of course, but having to crack would probably be a deterrent, especially if it took a long time.
Same here. And birth certificate.
What if you're FedEx'ing a home movie of your child's birth (including states of undress of the mother)...
No one wants to see that!
IMO, hardly anyone is truly using these features in an office or school setting and those are M$'s biggest customers.
Let's remember how many useless features there are in MS Word (smart tags anyone?).
Honestly, right now, Office 97 suits plenty of people's needs compared to 2003 or XP or 2000. A lot of offices still use Office 2000 or XP and will not bother with getting 2003 ever. There's just no need. The amount of money and time to deploy on systems is not worth it to them. Secondly, what are the new features after XP to 2003 that are so important? Nothing at all. Not even from 97.
I like to think of what I did with Office when I used it (I now use OO). I do the exact same thing I do in OO now (using OO by principle). All I ever did (as a student) was type Word documents and Excel spreadsheets to make graphs. That's all I do now with Writer and Calc. I do double spacing, after and before line spacing, centering, different fonts (I never used WordArt, still looks like crap even on 2003). All this can be done in OO, KOffice, etc.
Microsoft is definitely lying in hopes to have customers believing that OO and the rest are completely inferior to M$'s Office. I'm completely not surprised by the statement made in the article.
Absolutely what I was thinking. I'm thinking that soon the only people allowed to encrypt or crack (disassemblers to be made illegal soon also) ANYTHING will be the government.
For now, I use Skype to talk to some people. And I speak in different languages on it than English sometimes. I should now change that to all the time.
I completely agree with the government being unwilling to get warrants to tap lines nowadays. The government would simply ask you why you don't want to be monitored. I think that's ridiculous. Look for the government saying something like "What are you doing if you disagree with being monitored without warrant?"
I know there are some people here who will agree with that statement, stating that the government seems to be unable to issue 1000 warrants at once and by the time they do, the "criminal" gets away.
There's not even Notepad?
.NET 2003 and with the "alliance" us students could bring it home to install. They did not have anything else.
I'd love to talk to one of my school's admins about using something other M$ Office (anything that supports ODF so I don't have to have two copies or have to have OpenOffice on my flash drive). One reason is because of money, and my school seems to act like they have endless amounts. The ONLY free software used at my school is Daemon Tools, and even that's not free in that kind of environment (license required for "commercial" network use, especially when somehow SimCity 3000 became relevant to a class and they didn't buy 30 copies of it, they just used Daemon Tools to have it on 30 systems or so).
The major reason, I'm guessing, that my school has apps like Adobe Photoshop (as opposed to Gimp) and M$ Office (as opposed to KOffice or OpenOffice), is because that's what's most likely to be seen in a real commercial setting, especially Photoshop compared to Gimp because of support (is it better than Gimp? I have no idea). Microsoft is pushing all schools to use M$ software ("alliance") and my school has all HP's and Microsoft is still pushing HP to stop selling "untaxed" PCs (ones without Windows) and ones with Linux. The other school I attended used Visual Studio
And it's absolutely true at the moment, unfortunately. Almost everywhere you go, Windows is being used (even at the airport and bank!) instead of Linux or anything else. And at my school you can see that teachers use Microsoft Outlook to read email, they write documents in Microsoft Word, and Windows apps are used for everything else. What's protecting the school from viruses? Symantec AV! My own dentist is using Windows XP with his high resolution tooth x-ray photo software. Since his computers are all Dells I would assume he only knows how to click around WIndows and install software and use that x-ray software. My dad uses AutoCAD and Autodesk continually does not make a port to Linux. Hopefully Alias Wavefront is seriously making an example with their Linux version of Maya. From a behind the scenes video (Monsters Inc DVD extra), I could tell it was Maya running on Linux easily.
Lastly, how many games per year come out that support OpenGL and/or Linux? You may say names like Half-Life 2, Half-Life 1, Unreal Tournament 2003 (Linux version is available). But that's the only ones I can think of. The rest are, of course, DirectX.
Haha so true. I've done so many things with computers for girls and always, I think, any straight guy will get this feeling like they'll get to do things somehow because of it. It never happens. It's like a salesman at a store who sells an item to a girl he finds attractive for a lower price, breaking the rules.
Believe me, I would. And you're completely right about this. However, at the moment, it seems every school is still teaching MS VS AT LEAST as well as the A+ certification courses, and the M$ tests. I'd like to be ahead when I attend college in a Computer Science major (just like I already study Chinese, Japanese & Korean on my own and want to be ahead in those classes as well).
I have already ran Ubuntu, Knoppix, and Slackware before. They are great OS's and I still have a lot to learn in them.
That's what I was thinking! My school is too stupid to do that. Some fat lady is the admin and the only smart thing she knows is to do is disable access to the registry and the Run command (even the Windows + R).
True. Everyone at my school would rather play WoW then learn something. I have never been a so called "extreme gamer" and have always been interested in learning something instead (or keeping my files tidy). I was learning more about the innards of Windows 98 way back in 99 instead of playing games available for it. And of course "innards of Windows 98" sounds really lame but that's all I had at the time and I didn't even have Internet till like Sept 1999 and that was AOhell.
B) Allow specialized "tracks" of education.. Where a child is placed into one of several specialized school systems.. focusing on math/science, or arts, or fine-arts, or eventual business, or janitorial level work, etc. That would be like vocational schools which are almost always available at least in MA. Even I went to one for a short time to discover that having normal school and vocational switch off is just not my sorta thing. I would've preferred to have been in that Computer Programming class for like 2 hours at the most per day, NOT 8 hours everyday every other week. It was just so unbelievably cumbersome.
Completely true. One lab does teach HTML but they also use FrontPage to help (can't say I didn't myself when I started learning at like age 11 (what age are you in 4th grade?)). If I were going to teach someone nowadays, I would teach them straight through without any help from software other than the browser (and I would recommend Firefox for testing) and something like Notepad (Textpad, Notepad++, etc). I'd recommend Notepad++.
:/) and I began to just play and play till I learned, because my previous computer had Windows 3.1 and 98 was different in a lot of ways. I used what I learned from school since they had 98 and then tested things out. Best way to learn and no one but me seems to understand this. After making my first HTML pages in FrontPage I saw a View Source option in the program and began to understand HTML easily. Unfortunately, I expected other languages to be as easy and was soon dumbfounded. I picked up a book on C one day and got my hands on a copy of Visual C++ 6.0 (still used by many today). Did the same for C++ and Java. I have a lot more reading to do and I am working on a few apps. Just the other day I needed an app that could modify an INI file based on what I input, which would be easier than opening the INI file in Notepad just before every time I opened the app. It's a handy app but only useful to me. Did that in C++ in about 5 minutes. After getting that Compaq I learned about the innards of a system from one of my dad's friends, and started building my own PCs.
In my school the computers are very very very locked down. If you right-click the desktop and go to Properties, there are absolutely no options. The screen is all fucked up to be blanked out of options. So we can't have roaming profiles (which baffles me, I cannot stand that shitty blue taskbar and crap like that). Also, by using network booting, they force Windows XP to load on some really really really old computers, which baffles me as well. Why is this bad? Because kids can't tell the difference! One girl was working on a video project (in shitty WMM) on an old computer. She then wanted to finish it off and get it encoded and when she hit encode the computer just froze entirely. She said she didn't save at all either (her fault). I had to tell her that she had to do it again and that if she saved it would be okay but then I had to tell her that these computers she was on are not made for video encoding and if they didn't freeze on encoding they would take a year to encode anything at all. She was then all confused because I used the word "encoding" and pissed off.
My only hope for not using that piece of shit IE at my school is putting in my flash drive (USB 1.0 on the old computers that have USB so I never try) and running Firefox off of it (which works okay). I can also run several other apps. Otherwise, I wish my school would use OpenOffice also instead of buying a million licenses for M$ software (Office) (Right now I have to keep OO and M$ format on my flash drive). Whenever there's a legally freeware alternative to anything, it's like they completely ignore it. Firefox would be great on the systems, along with the teachers using Thunderbird instead of Outlook, etc.
As far as programming, schools get a huge discount when they join some kind of thing with M$ and then they get Visual Studio and the license also allows students to take it home and install (I pirate mine for now). My school has not done this and I don't think they plan to. Since I'm taking the online course in AP Computer Science next year, I have yet to figure out how one would do programming without a compiler installed.
Staying on topic, I guess I am a kid (17 about to turn 18, started doing shit at 11). I have experience in HTML, C, C++, and Java. I have not mastered any yet, but still working on it. At age 11, my parents got me a decent computer (although it was a Compaq
Pretty much everyone else at my school has no clue (there are a few that do). They have no idea how computers work and they recently learne
Since I convert most every DVD I get to XviD, I wouldn't mind downloading $1.50 or so for the DVD-9 quality MPEG2 I was takling about. All non-DRM. Otherwise, forget it.