If you use Gnome, you probably just have to open the volume control panel and enable the "headphone sensing" switch.
I set up an nc10 with Ubuntu Netbook Remix for a good friend and it's a great little machine, indeed. The battery life is amazing (with the new battery I got 6 hours of battery out of it while *constantly working on it* and having Wifi running)
The screen rotation feature in Gnome is fantastic. I set up a keyboard shortcut to switch the screen to portrait orientation. Since the coordinate system is not rotated for an external mouse, you can still use it as usual. In portrait mode you can comfortably read 12pt font on letter format full-page.
To make portrait mode really usable and part of everyday use of the netbook I recommend Samsung's UM10 mouse or similar. The UM10 has a nifty scroll wheel that works great, though the UM10's form-factor makes it pretty shitty as a mouse pointer. But the important thing is that it is tiny and uses USB, so that you can always have it attached and ready to use.
The page-up/down buttons need some fiddling to make them work in X, though, and I did not yet get around to that. There are tutorials for setting up multi-button mice on the web.
The same people have different roles depending on their actions. The moment I redistribute something I cease to be an "end user", unless you claim that this term has no meaning whatsoever.
The Linux kernel guys did this and look at the result
A kernel that can actually be debugged instead of having binary modules crapping all over the place! Subsystems that can actually be completely rewritten without supporting legacy APIs for binary drivers! TEH HORROR!
Um, you may want to read a bit about city planning and its history. Criticism of the Athens Charter for naive modernism is not only wide-spread, but has been generally accepted in the profession for decades.
As to your points:
Overdone density sucks, yes, but cities can and some do have modest density and short distances at the same time. (Not to forget that many people do actually like to live in cities; reasons to e leaft as an exercise for the reader. You might need to get out of the US and its deteriorating infrastructure and get to see cities elsewhere, though).
The streets are barely walkable because separation of work and living leads to suburbanization leads to cars leads to cities that are made for cars and not pedestrians. It's not like that everywhere (again, get out of the US).
Energy: it's not so much the cities that need energy and several times their area cultivated for fodd, it's people who do not produce their own food. A person working an office job needs the same food regardless of where she lives, and since she does not cultivate it herself, someone else has to some place else. It's laughable that someone arguing for separation of living and work areas and thus cars and thus endless commutes talks about energy.
Sewer systems. I don't know where you live, but the cities I lived in did have decent sewer systems and environmental concerns. Pollution is probably easier to control if people live in a reasonably bounded area instead of spread out of the whole country. It's no surprise that sewer systems were *invented* in cities and where in use long before the country population got around to let the next river take care of it.
Building materials, copper, iron: again, what are you arguing for. Are you arguing we are supposed to live in the countryside in wooden huts without electricity, connectivity, etc.?
it seems silly to argue that iTunes DRM is less restrictive because it does not prevent you from doing things you couldn't do anyway.
Oh but often it is better to not have a feature at all than to have it in a crippled or broken way. If the feature is not there many people won't even think of it, or accept its absence as "well, technology not there yet". If you include a cool (in principle) feature that does not work, you actively frustrate your users and disappoint prospective buyers.
The pmp manufacturers don't give a crap about drm but have to include it if they want to have a music downloading service because the record/movie companies demand it.
As recent iTunes and Amazon store news show they really don't, or are not in a position to. Microsoft failed at defining their customers: they collaborated with the content industry against the people who were supposed to buy the Zune. Apple got it right, whether that will be good or bad in the long run.
Say it: you want new *and* stable:) Compromises will have to be made and sometimes they will fit your expectations better than at other times. Other people will have similar but different experiences, depending on *their* expectations.
If you want the latest you use the unstable branch, and if you want stable/reliable you use the stable but older software.
Ubuntu is similar with the LTS and non-LTS releases, just that the non-LTSes are more stable (in the Debian distro sense) than actual Debian testing/unstable. The problem is just that this seems to be hard to communicate and way too many people run non-LTS when they really should be running LTS for their needs.
Obama was supposed to represent change yet the only change he represents is there is now a "D" next to the office affiliation.
Dude, the guy is in office, what, 3 days and has already started to do away with one of the biggest disgraces of the US. And you complain that he hasn't turned everything upside down yet? He's not my president, but sheesh, I wish someone like him would run for office where I live. I'm all too willing to be cynical, but hey, give the man a week, ok?
If patio heaters were used for patios, you might have a point. In reality, however, most northern cities are full of them atm, heating, well, the outside.
"living close to work" is what has been done for most of history, and was abandoned (mostly) for good reasons.
Actually it was abandoned mostly due to a naive belief in progress by decision makers in the early modern age, a belief that has since proved to be inappropriate. Athens Charter
I see. Well, it doesn't for me, you must be weird;) But then, what did "The menu uses two different words for program, ignoring all laws of consistency" mean? Because it doesn't (?)
I am a marketing droid. One of the things that has always been confusing to me is how I sign up. There seems to be lots of places where a developer can sign up, or even just start coding in spare time, submit a few changes etc. Perhaps I haven't looked lately, but I don't see any places that want my help.?
Slashdot Mirror
Except that there are what, at least 4 USB connector types, including 2 small ones. WTF is up with that, anyway?
There's cheaper labor available overseas that can do the same work for less
Obviously it isn't if they need to first ship it there.
Gnome 3.0, I would guess. There were some noises about that.
If you use Gnome, you probably just have to open the volume control panel and enable the "headphone sensing" switch.
I set up an nc10 with Ubuntu Netbook Remix for a good friend and it's a great little machine, indeed. The battery life is amazing (with the new battery I got 6 hours of battery out of it while *constantly working on it* and having Wifi running)
The screen rotation feature in Gnome is fantastic. I set up a keyboard shortcut to switch the screen to portrait orientation. Since the coordinate system is not rotated for an external mouse, you can still use it as usual. In portrait mode you can comfortably read 12pt font on letter format full-page.
To make portrait mode really usable and part of everyday use of the netbook I recommend Samsung's UM10 mouse or similar. The UM10 has a nifty scroll wheel that works great, though the UM10's form-factor makes it pretty shitty as a mouse pointer. But the important thing is that it is tiny and uses USB, so that you can always have it attached and ready to use.
The page-up/down buttons need some fiddling to make them work in X, though, and I did not yet get around to that. There are tutorials for setting up multi-button mice on the web.
The same people have different roles depending on their actions. The moment I redistribute something I cease to be an "end user", unless you claim that this term has no meaning whatsoever.
As the ACs have said.
What are the constraints that GPL bestows on the end user? Right, none at all.
And this is bad because...
Because it violates freedoms 0 to 3? The whole reason for GNU's existence?
The Linux kernel guys did this and look at the result
A kernel that can actually be debugged instead of having binary modules crapping all over the place! Subsystems that can actually be completely rewritten without supporting legacy APIs for binary drivers! TEH HORROR!
In your world a minimal distro includes X and KDE?
Um, you may want to read a bit about city planning and its history. Criticism of the Athens Charter for naive modernism is not only wide-spread, but has been generally accepted in the profession for decades.
As to your points:
Overdone density sucks, yes, but cities can and some do have modest density and short distances at the same time. (Not to forget that many people do actually like to live in cities; reasons to e leaft as an exercise for the reader. You might need to get out of the US and its deteriorating infrastructure and get to see cities elsewhere, though).
The streets are barely walkable because separation of work and living leads to suburbanization leads to cars leads to cities that are made for cars and not pedestrians. It's not like that everywhere (again, get out of the US).
Energy: it's not so much the cities that need energy and several times their area cultivated for fodd, it's people who do not produce their own food. A person working an office job needs the same food regardless of where she lives, and since she does not cultivate it herself, someone else has to some place else.
It's laughable that someone arguing for separation of living and work areas and thus cars and thus endless commutes talks about energy.
Sewer systems. I don't know where you live, but the cities I lived in did have decent sewer systems and environmental concerns. Pollution is probably easier to control if people live in a reasonably bounded area instead of spread out of the whole country. It's no surprise that sewer systems were *invented* in cities and where in use long before the country population got around to let the next river take care of it.
Building materials, copper, iron: again, what are you arguing for. Are you arguing we are supposed to live in the countryside in wooden huts without electricity, connectivity, etc.?
it seems silly to argue that iTunes DRM is less restrictive because it does not prevent you from doing things you couldn't do anyway.
Oh but often it is better to not have a feature at all than to have it in a crippled or broken way. If the feature is not there many people won't even think of it, or accept its absence as "well, technology not there yet". If you include a cool (in principle) feature that does not work, you actively frustrate your users and disappoint prospective buyers.
The pmp manufacturers don't give a crap about drm but have to include it if they want to have a music downloading service because the record/movie companies demand it.
As recent iTunes and Amazon store news show they really don't, or are not in a position to. Microsoft failed at defining their customers: they collaborated with the content industry against the people who were supposed to buy the Zune. Apple got it right, whether that will be good or bad in the long run.
Say it: you want new *and* stable :)
Compromises will have to be made and sometimes they will fit your expectations better than at other times. Other people will have similar but different experiences, depending on *their* expectations.
If you want the latest you use the unstable branch, and if you want stable/reliable you use the stable but older software.
Ubuntu is similar with the LTS and non-LTS releases, just that the non-LTSes are more stable (in the Debian distro sense) than actual Debian testing/unstable. The problem is just that this seems to be hard to communicate and way too many people run non-LTS when they really should be running LTS for their needs.
Obama was supposed to represent change yet the only change he represents is there is now a "D" next to the office affiliation.
Dude, the guy is in office, what, 3 days and has already started to do away with one of the biggest disgraces of the US. And you complain that he hasn't turned everything upside down yet? He's not my president, but sheesh, I wish someone like him would run for office where I live. I'm all too willing to be cynical, but hey, give the man a week, ok?
If patio heaters were used for patios, you might have a point. In reality, however, most northern cities are full of them atm, heating, well, the outside.
"living close to work" is what has been done for most of history, and was abandoned (mostly) for good reasons.
Actually it was abandoned mostly due to a naive belief in progress by decision makers in the early modern age, a belief that has since proved to be inappropriate. Athens Charter
No, I am talking about Ubuntu's Applications menu which has an entry "Add/Remove ..." which launches a very simple manager for installed applications.
I did, however, confuse its name with the crippled joke of a manager that you mentioned.
I see. Well, it doesn't for me, you must be weird ;)
But then, what did "The menu uses two different words for program, ignoring all laws of consistency" mean? Because it doesn't (?)
I'm still trying to figure out why that naming feels natural. The menu uses two different words for program, ignoring all laws of consistency.
I guess you meant "not natural"?
Anyway, the fault lies with me, not Ubuntu. I misquoted and it actually reads "Applications | Add/Remove ...".
Nope, he should use Applications -> Add/Remove Programs. Doesn't get much easier than that.
Same card here, has worked with the manager for ages (HP nc6400 FWIW)
Typing cryptic commands is very error-prone and disconcerting for users.
That's why you copy them and every guide tells you as much.
I am a marketing droid. One of the things that has always been confusing to me is how I sign up. There seems to be lots of places where a developer can sign up, or even just start coding in spare time, submit a few changes etc. Perhaps I haven't looked lately, but I don't see any places that want my help.?
Maybe you didn't :)
This was the first hit of a simple Google search for me.