people who don't know which slash is a forward slash and which one is the backslash
That's why (when I'm dealing with non-technical people) one of them is called "slash under the question mark" and the other one is called "NOT the slash that's under the question mark, the other one".
IIRC, Apple announced that they would be opening the bluetooth stack up for devs as part of the iOS 3.0 release. A couple of minutes of lazy googling didn't find a reference, so again, IIRC.
...problem is that many large companies
have internal systems that were written back when Microsoft pushed ActiveX as
the solution...
Actually, if these companies had written their internal system software as a
big ActiveX component, they wouldn't have this problem. ActiveX is (as far
as IE's concerned) simply a plugin architecture. Note that the Flash
plugin for IE (an ActiveX control) works the same in IE6-IE8.
The problem with ActiveX is that it's just not an appropriate plugin
technology for browsers. It has no inherent sandboxing capabilities;
there's no way to differentiate between a browser plugin and any other ActiveX
control; and Windows comes with several ActiveX controls that should never be
allowed to be used in a browser (FileSystemObject, anyone)? For what it
was designed for -- resuable components for desktop applications -- it's great,
but MS should have put a little more thought into what they were unleashing when
they decided to make ActiveX the plugin standard for IE. And no, I don't
count "signed" and "marked safe for scripting" features as thought.
No, the problem is that these business systems were all put together using
HTML/CSS content that was only ever written for, or tested with, IE.
Companies that needed these systems took their bizapps people and told 'em to
"make a web version". As is typical with internal apps, they were written
to meet the company's needs as quickly and cheaply as possible; which means
"works in our current environment", not "is ready for the future". Add in
years of ad-hoc tweaks, changes, subsystem additions, and you've got a crufty
piece of web tech that barely works in the originally spec'ed envrionment.
Asking for cross-browser/web standards output from a bunch of stuff written
by programmers who:
Are used to working with client-side/Winforms VB or C#.Net (or VB6) and SQL
Server/MS Access databases for their bizapps
Who may or may not be any good at their jobs
Who may not be the same people who originally wrote the code
Who were told to pick "fast and cheap" as the two out of three (fast,
cheap, good)
Imagine if your healthcare was run like Amtrak or the DMV. What a nightmare that would be.
Actually, I like my DMV. Right down the street, extended hours of
operation (including Saturdays), website for most things (and timely processing if you go through the mail), lots of friendly people, short wait times.
Compare this with my HMO. I can get in easily enough, but my doctors
are so swamped trying to cover as many patients (and trying to make as much
money) as possible that it's usually 30-40 minutes after the nurse checks my
vitals before I actually see the doctor. My healthcare benefits are
provided by my wife's employer, so my options are limited unless I want to spend
a boatload more money. Sure, it's technically private, but for me, my healthcare is essentially provided by a monopoly.
Maybe instead of trying to tear things down, you could stand up and ask for
the people in charge -- you know, the ones you elect -- to put *competent* folks
in public service, rather than people they owe a favor to. "Heckuva job
there, Brownie..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser) Mosaic was on Macs at the end of 1993.
NCSA Mosaic was not a commercial browser. It was freeware (actually, I believe it was released as public domain software) from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. NCSA is at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, commonly known as UIUC. Check 'em out at http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
What makes anyone think that the next release of an OS is going to be faster?
Because I've seen Microsoft do it before. The Windows 3.1 beta
was faster than 3.0, Win3.11/WfWG 3.11 faster still. Win95 OSR2 included
some perf tweaks, 98SE was faster than 98, and NT 3.51 was much faster than 3.1
while switching from Program Manager/File Manager to the Start menu and
Explorer.
It's possible. It used to be a bit more common in the old days.
Note that if we were to remove "discrimination" from marriage, we'd have to
allow polygamy.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of examples of exclusivity in our
laws; so, for an individual, we don't have to allow more than one marriage
to be valid at any one time. I'm not so sure about group marriages,
where the "marriage contract" is between 3 or more individuals; but it seems
as if [disallowing group marriages] might not be discriminatory.
Frankly, I don't have a problem with group marriage -- I mean, if the 3 or 4
or whatever of you think you can deal with it, why should the government
stop it?
And if "love" were relevant to marriage, then we'd be pretty
much required to approve of marriages between adults and children or children
and children
You forgot between adults and animals, or adults and inanimate objects.
This I definitely don't agree with. Children are a protected class of
citizen, and do not have full rights under our laws. Children cannot vote,
they cannot be drafted, they cannot enter into [some] legally binding
agreements. If your argument was valid, then we'd have to allow marriage
involving children today, assuming that they're heterosexual.
On balance, I can't see a good reason to allow gay marriage. On the other hand,
I can't see a good reason to forbid it, either. So I guess I have to come down
on the status quo ante side of the argument - leave it as is, and stop trying to
change society to no great purpose. Save the effort for something that matters,
because this isn't it.
50 years ago, marriage between whites and non-whites was considered "an
abomination against God" and not part of the "natural order of things".
Even when I was a kid (I'm 43), I can remember when a mixed couple out in public
caused people to stare.
The only reason to forbid gay marriage is because you don't like
homosexuality. Either because your church says it's evil, because you fear
you might be turned gay, because you're just "uncomfortable" with it, because
you're ignorant, or some other reason. IMHO, that's just too damn bad.
Your dislike of the lifestyle of others is absolutely no reason to abrogate
their rights and force the government to treat them as second class citizens.
*You* don't have to hang out with "teh gayz", and your church won't have to
marry them (after all, I can't get married in a Catholic church without being a
Catholic). That's different. We're talking about the government
here, and the government should not be permitted to discriminate against someone
based on their sexual orientation.
Leaving things "as is" is the same thing--when it comes to the law--as being
hardcore, rabidly anti-gay. Whether you like it or not, whether you know
it or not, unless you live in a cave as a hermit, you know gay people.
Outlawing gay marriage won't make them go away. Society is changing, and
does so all the time. If you truly believe in the Declaration of
Independence's "all men are created equal", you owe it to yourself to vote down
these ridiculous attempts to codify discrimination and hate into our laws.
It boggles the mind that the iPhone keeps being referred to as a "smartphone" when the average factory-unlocked Motorola is more flexible and open.
It's a misuse of the term "smartphone". Unfortunately, the term "phone whose feature set includes items other than using the dialing pad where those features don't totally suck to use" is a bit too long for the tech press.
And I used to have a RAZR. Using the dialing pad was fine, selecting a phone number from the address book was okay, everything else sucked. Keep your flexibility, I just want a phone that works. I'll accept the fact that it's closed - heck, I was happy with the 1.x software that didn't support 3rd party apps.
Well there may be a market for a universal controller, the problem is that they've been beaten to it. The best example would be the Logitech Harmony remotes. These things control, well, everything. You log on to the website and tell it what gear you have and how it's connected, it sends you the data to program your remote to control it (remotes hook up via USB). Gone are the days of digging through code books, you just tell it what you got, and it does the rest.
Do you have one? I do. Heres the thing. Its definitely better than digging though the code
books, but the interface *sucks*. The client application is just as crappy
as the web version (well, okay, its the same thing as the web version).
Everybody gets to put their own codes up. This means that my TV has 15
pages of commands listed. Some are duplicates, some dont apply (even
though Ive entered my specific model number), and none of them are in any
semblance of order. Its like this for all of my devices.
Logitech can build good hardware, they just (like most hardware companies),
cant build software worth a damn. Fortunately, something like a mouse
doesnt need much other than a driver. But the Harmony remotes *do*, and
believe me, theres plenty of opportunity for someone to swoop in with a better
solution.
The "search" portion of the Start Menu is still there
Right-click on the task bar, then select Properties. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog will be shown. Select the Start Menu tab, then choose "Classic Start menu". Choose OK to dismiss the dialog.
In fact, it's a theory of mine that with improvements in dynamic image-processing technology (more than just upscaling), the picture quality from existing DVDs could be *far* improved. What I have in mind would require some fairly powerful chips doing intelligent analysis over multiple frames
Already happening. You can get DVD players with HQV processing for under $1000.
might have had to tell you there's a hard disk inside the box, but once you know that, the rest is obvious
No, it's not - and that's why they got a patent. The patent isn't for "recording to a hard disk", it's a patent on a very specific method of writing data to the hard disk.
One of the founders of TiVo has a chapter in Founders At Work. He discusses the problems of getting TiVo functionality into low-end commodity hardware in the late '90s. If you read that, you'll get a better understanding of why they received a patent for it.
I'll also point out that Echostar/Dish believes that their new DVRs don't infringe on TiVo's patents - something which wouldn't be possible if the patent was just for "recording video to a hard disk."
Its a bullshit patent. Ive been doing that crap with VCRs years before
TiVo
No, you havent. There has never been a VCR that allows you to rewind
and watch from the beginning at the same time recording continues. Tapes
cant, and dont, work that way. Instant replay in sports involved (I
dont know the specifics) multiple machines and some coordinated efforts by the
broadcast team.
All a DVR does is access stored files from different processes. My computer
does this all the time
TiVos patents include a very specific method for processing and laying
down the data so that you can get DVR functionality with a low-powered processor
and a slow hard drive. And do it without pausing or stuttering or losing
audio sync. When you throw a dual core processor, a gigabyte of RAM, and a
7200 rpm SATA drive at the problem, there are a lot of ways to do this without
infringing on TiVos patents.
My computer does this all the time. It is doing it right now
I doubt it. Your machine may be pulling files off the hard drive, but
to compare that to what a TiVo does is disingenuous at best.
Just remount the devices to an NTFS folder and delete the drive letter mapping
Is that going to work for the primary partition, too? And why do I have to do it -- why isn't it a default? App compat (as you 'softies call it) issues?
So instead of having 6 drive letters for the Removable Disk you'd rather it just say Removable Disk 6 times, and when you put in your SD card instead of remembering its X: you just guess which one it is?
No, I'd rather be able to label them.
What I'd really like is for them not to show up unless there's a card inserted. And not have a random drive letter associated with them (but I repeat myself).
[huge post touting Vista's folder move/copy improvements]
We get it. Vista's got some nice features for managing the process of tossing files around. You guys (you're obviously connected with MS) did a great job on that. Nice work on the parental controls, too.
Unfortunately, the actual tossing of the files is slower than crap. Low transfer speeds, random pauses, and a ludicrous amount of time needed to delete files.
And since it's 2007, can we think about getting rid of the ol' DOS drive letters? I mean that stupid media reader's showing six different letters, and they're all named Removable Disk [drive letter]. Between that, and the USB key I've got plugged in as a ReadyBoost device (there's another clever thing), plus external drives, DVD drive, disk partition, the Computer view in Explorer is a twisty maze of letters, all alike. Thanks though for getting HP to toss in a driver for my printer that only does the basics, because I really don't need yet another six drive letters. Hopefully there weren't any useful features left out.
So requiring a web user to use FireFox is like a shoe store saying "In order to try on our shoes, you need to wear this free pair of clean socks"?
Somehow, I'm not seeing the problem there.
No, requring a web user to use Firefox is like a shoe saying "in order to even look through the window at our shoes, you need to stop strolling, go sit on that bench over there, take your old shoes and socks off, then put these nice new free socks on. Then you may come into our store and see if there's anything you like."
Sure you can do it, and you get a nice new pair of clean socks, but is it worth the hassle? Frankly, unless I know that the store has exactly what I'm looking for, I'm probably just gonna keep on walking.
Slashdot Mirror
n/t, just like the good old days.
Not true, at least for existing customers. I bought the 8GB version the day after it came out and signed nothing.
I lost.
Zoomies!
That's why (when I'm dealing with non-technical people) one of them is called "slash under the question mark" and the other one is called "NOT the slash that's under the question mark, the other one".
Well, not anymore, apparently.
IIRC, Apple announced that they would be opening the bluetooth stack up for devs as part of the iOS 3.0 release. A couple of minutes of lazy googling didn't find a reference, so again, IIRC.
Actually, if these companies had written their internal system software as a big ActiveX component, they wouldn't have this problem. ActiveX is (as far as IE's concerned) simply a plugin architecture. Note that the Flash plugin for IE (an ActiveX control) works the same in IE6-IE8.
The problem with ActiveX is that it's just not an appropriate plugin technology for browsers. It has no inherent sandboxing capabilities; there's no way to differentiate between a browser plugin and any other ActiveX control; and Windows comes with several ActiveX controls that should never be allowed to be used in a browser (FileSystemObject, anyone)? For what it was designed for -- resuable components for desktop applications -- it's great, but MS should have put a little more thought into what they were unleashing when they decided to make ActiveX the plugin standard for IE. And no, I don't count "signed" and "marked safe for scripting" features as thought.
No, the problem is that these business systems were all put together using HTML/CSS content that was only ever written for, or tested with, IE. Companies that needed these systems took their bizapps people and told 'em to "make a web version". As is typical with internal apps, they were written to meet the company's needs as quickly and cheaply as possible; which means "works in our current environment", not "is ready for the future". Add in years of ad-hoc tweaks, changes, subsystem additions, and you've got a crufty piece of web tech that barely works in the originally spec'ed envrionment.
Asking for cross-browser/web standards output from a bunch of stuff written by programmers who:
is optimistic, at best.
You were supposed to have noticed this part:
And then remembered that the preferred language of the NeXT boxen is Objective-C.
Actually, I like my DMV. Right down the street, extended hours of operation (including Saturdays), website for most things (and timely processing if you go through the mail), lots of friendly people, short wait times.
Compare this with my HMO. I can get in easily enough, but my doctors are so swamped trying to cover as many patients (and trying to make as much money) as possible that it's usually 30-40 minutes after the nurse checks my vitals before I actually see the doctor. My healthcare benefits are provided by my wife's employer, so my options are limited unless I want to spend a boatload more money. Sure, it's technically private, but for me, my healthcare is essentially provided by a monopoly.
Maybe instead of trying to tear things down, you could stand up and ask for the people in charge -- you know, the ones you elect -- to put *competent* folks in public service, rather than people they owe a favor to. "Heckuva job there, Brownie..."
NCSA Mosaic was not a commercial browser. It was freeware (actually, I believe it was released as public domain software) from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. NCSA is at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, commonly known as UIUC. Check 'em out at http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
Because I've seen Microsoft do it before. The Windows 3.1 beta was faster than 3.0, Win3.11/WfWG 3.11 faster still. Win95 OSR2 included some perf tweaks, 98SE was faster than 98, and NT 3.51 was much faster than 3.1 while switching from Program Manager/File Manager to the Start menu and Explorer.
It's possible. It used to be a bit more common in the old days.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of examples of exclusivity in our laws; so, for an individual, we don't have to allow more than one marriage to be valid at any one time. I'm not so sure about group marriages, where the "marriage contract" is between 3 or more individuals; but it seems as if [disallowing group marriages] might not be discriminatory. Frankly, I don't have a problem with group marriage -- I mean, if the 3 or 4 or whatever of you think you can deal with it, why should the government stop it?
You forgot between adults and animals, or adults and inanimate objects.
This I definitely don't agree with. Children are a protected class of citizen, and do not have full rights under our laws. Children cannot vote, they cannot be drafted, they cannot enter into [some] legally binding agreements. If your argument was valid, then we'd have to allow marriage involving children today, assuming that they're heterosexual.
50 years ago, marriage between whites and non-whites was considered "an abomination against God" and not part of the "natural order of things". Even when I was a kid (I'm 43), I can remember when a mixed couple out in public caused people to stare.
The only reason to forbid gay marriage is because you don't like homosexuality. Either because your church says it's evil, because you fear you might be turned gay, because you're just "uncomfortable" with it, because you're ignorant, or some other reason. IMHO, that's just too damn bad. Your dislike of the lifestyle of others is absolutely no reason to abrogate their rights and force the government to treat them as second class citizens. *You* don't have to hang out with "teh gayz", and your church won't have to marry them (after all, I can't get married in a Catholic church without being a Catholic). That's different. We're talking about the government here, and the government should not be permitted to discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation.
Leaving things "as is" is the same thing--when it comes to the law--as being hardcore, rabidly anti-gay. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, unless you live in a cave as a hermit, you know gay people. Outlawing gay marriage won't make them go away. Society is changing, and does so all the time. If you truly believe in the Declaration of Independence's "all men are created equal", you owe it to yourself to vote down these ridiculous attempts to codify discrimination and hate into our laws.
It's a misuse of the term "smartphone". Unfortunately, the term "phone whose feature set includes items other than using the dialing pad where those features don't totally suck to use" is a bit too long for the tech press.
And I used to have a RAZR. Using the dialing pad was fine, selecting a phone number from the address book was okay, everything else sucked. Keep your flexibility, I just want a phone that works. I'll accept the fact that it's closed - heck, I was happy with the 1.x software that didn't support 3rd party apps.
Do you have one? I do. Heres the thing. Its definitely better than digging though the code books, but the interface *sucks*. The client application is just as crappy as the web version (well, okay, its the same thing as the web version).
Everybody gets to put their own codes up. This means that my TV has 15 pages of commands listed. Some are duplicates, some dont apply (even though Ive entered my specific model number), and none of them are in any semblance of order. Its like this for all of my devices.
Logitech can build good hardware, they just (like most hardware companies), cant build software worth a damn. Fortunately, something like a mouse doesnt need much other than a driver. But the Harmony remotes *do*, and believe me, theres plenty of opportunity for someone to swoop in with a better solution.
I still think TFA is full of shit.
Criminey! So many apostrophe abuses in a single sentence. For the record: Plural nouns do not get the apostrophe, possessives do. So this should be:
See? It's simple!
And a bit of a personal rant: it *is* possible to 'overuse' 'so-called' 'scare quotes,' so you 'want' to be 'careful' about this.
Right-click on the task bar, then select Properties. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog will be shown. Select the Start Menu tab, then choose "Classic Start menu". Choose OK to dismiss the dialog.
Already happening. You can get DVD players with HQV processing for under $1000.
might have had to tell you there's a hard disk inside the box, but once you know that, the rest is obvious
No, it's not - and that's why they got a patent. The patent isn't for "recording to a hard disk", it's a patent on a very specific method of writing data to the hard disk.
One of the founders of TiVo has a chapter in Founders At Work. He discusses the problems of getting TiVo functionality into low-end commodity hardware in the late '90s. If you read that, you'll get a better understanding of why they received a patent for it.
I'll also point out that Echostar/Dish believes that their new DVRs don't infringe on TiVo's patents - something which wouldn't be possible if the patent was just for "recording video to a hard disk."
Its a bullshit patent. Ive been doing that crap with VCRs years before TiVo
No, you havent. There has never been a VCR that allows you to rewind and watch from the beginning at the same time recording continues. Tapes cant, and dont, work that way. Instant replay in sports involved (I dont know the specifics) multiple machines and some coordinated efforts by the broadcast team.
All a DVR does is access stored files from different processes. My computer does this all the time
TiVos patents include a very specific method for processing and laying down the data so that you can get DVR functionality with a low-powered processor and a slow hard drive. And do it without pausing or stuttering or losing audio sync. When you throw a dual core processor, a gigabyte of RAM, and a 7200 rpm SATA drive at the problem, there are a lot of ways to do this without infringing on TiVos patents.
My computer does this all the time. It is doing it right now
I doubt it. Your machine may be pulling files off the hard drive, but to compare that to what a TiVo does is disingenuous at best.
Is that going to work for the primary partition, too? And why do I have to do it -- why isn't it a default? App compat (as you 'softies call it) issues?
No, I'd rather be able to label them.
What I'd really like is for them not to show up unless there's a card inserted. And not have a random drive letter associated with them (but I repeat myself).
Sorry, unless you've got access to the source, I don't know of any way to do this.
We get it. Vista's got some nice features for managing the process of tossing files around. You guys (you're obviously connected with MS) did a great job on that. Nice work on the parental controls, too.
Unfortunately, the actual tossing of the files is slower than crap. Low transfer speeds, random pauses, and a ludicrous amount of time needed to delete files.
And since it's 2007, can we think about getting rid of the ol' DOS drive letters? I mean that stupid media reader's showing six different letters, and they're all named Removable Disk [drive letter]. Between that, and the USB key I've got plugged in as a ReadyBoost device (there's another clever thing), plus external drives, DVD drive, disk partition, the Computer view in Explorer is a twisty maze of letters, all alike. Thanks though for getting HP to toss in a driver for my printer that only does the basics, because I really don't need yet another six drive letters. Hopefully there weren't any useful features left out.
No, requring a web user to use Firefox is like a shoe saying "in order to even look through the window at our shoes, you need to stop strolling, go sit on that bench over there, take your old shoes and socks off, then put these nice new free socks on. Then you may come into our store and see if there's anything you like."
Sure you can do it, and you get a nice new pair of clean socks, but is it worth the hassle? Frankly, unless I know that the store has exactly what I'm looking for, I'm probably just gonna keep on walking.