There are a number of nice ebook reader homebrew apps on the DS that I've tried, with nice antialiasing and such but the main problem is that the DS's screens are too small to hold a large quantity of text, so you keep having to flip the pages over and over again. Also the DS doesn't really have the advantage of an e-ink screen. But one neat feature is that many ebook apps have you hold the DS sideways like a book. I'm not sure if there is one, but it would be cool if one of them had you close and open the DS to simulate a page turn. DS closing is detected via software so it wouldn't be too hard to implement.
Not having that much experience with Macs, how is the Applications folder any better than the Start Menu? I'm genuinely curious, because from what I've seen of it it's just a folder where programs are thrown. I assume you can organize it yourself manually with subdirectories, but then you can (and I do) organize your Start Menu manually too. The Dock, I suppose is analogous to the quicklaunch bar but with a larger emphasis on flashy effects, and it's a bigger by default. Actually I guess since it also shows which programs are running (in a rather annoying way in my opinion) it's similar to a hybrid quicklaunch/taskbar, but displayed differently.
Well, in your example you start typing SQL and then you get that entry hopefully. Launchy also does this, perhaps more reliably. I use Launchy more since I'm used to it, but the start menu is actually only one key whereas launchy is by default two, which makes it somewhat faster to get to. Oh and since you're asking, I think having shortcuts to readmes, websites, and uninstallers actually is useful since I don't always want to go into add/remove programs (btw typical Vista pointless changes: now it's called Programs and Features iirc which makes somewhat less sense) and I know what I want. I suppose the main issue is knowing what you want or not, and I would think that on slashdot where more people than average advocate CLI as the most efficient form of UI (I agree with that somewhat, at least for most tasks) people would be more likely to know what they want but in terms of the average user, it may or may not help them. Search does mitigate the problem somewhat.
As I replied to the other post, I was being unclear in what I meant. It's more responsive, due to the aggressive prefetching, than XP was, but benchmark numbers, particularly in games, are slightly lower due to the overhead incurred by the new systems, I'm guessing mainly Aero, some from the DRM, and indexing/prefetching, although theoretically prefetched stuff should get out of the way when you need the RAM.
Ok, well if you're going to include the help system as analogous to the start menu, searching for scanner in Vista's help also brings up instructions on how to scan a picture.
Well, I should have clarified. Vista is much more responsive than XP, it's just that hard numbers in terms of FPS in games are slower but you wouldn't notice that unless you actively turn on FPS display. You would however notice the increased responsiveness.
That's why in Vista you just start typing the name of the program into the search bar and get results instantly. That still leaves the problem of what to do when you don't know what you're looking for, but that's a separate issue altogether and perhaps leans more towards PEBKAC, although having apps categorized by function would make things slightly easier. But just curious, how do other OSes make that any better? The Linux distros I've tried have had their default apps organized, but what happens when you add more? Does everything fit into place correctly, or do you have to rearrange stuff. And OS X? I haven't really actively used a Mac since 2003-4ish, although I've seen some newer macs but I don't see how those help you find an app by function at all.
Well, to be completely fair PC world being a generally mainstream PC mag they don't test very many fast laptops. I'm certain they haven't benched anything with the new 8800GTX mobile, which would smoke anything Apple puts in their MBPs by far. Their benchmark suite last I checked was more geared toward productivity/business type apps, and in games there is going to be no contest.
Indeed, I've been using the 64 bit version of Home Premium for 2 months (should be the most incompatible version) but it works great and the aggressive prefetching works wonders. As long as you have 2GB of RAM, a decent DX9 graphics card and a decent processor (dual core probably helps) Vista is much faster than xp in daily use. Benchmarks show otherwise, but that 5-10% difference isn't something you are going to notice.
Hooray for automated translation.
"From the machines that brought you Engrish, here's ressourcenhungriger!"
In all honesty though, I'm pretty sure that it's just a German word or something that has no English equivalent, or at least one that the translator didn't have in its lists.
Wow, way to be an asshole. Considering that no one else here has even tried running it, or at least hasn't posted anything about it I thought that my offer to test it was worth something. At least it's worth more than some anonymous idiot complaining about how I haven't contributed anything.
Anyway, tried running it but it's kind of boring, basically triangles fly toward your box depending on the strength of the wifi signal from each access point, and you click on them repeatedly to destroy them.
I've got a homebrew cart for my DS, I'll try it out as soon as I finish watching the ending of Zelda Phantom Hourlgass. I'll report back with a mini-review soon. Saw this yesterday on the dcemu forums, but haven't had a chance to try it out.
Well you can but shouldn't the included mouse not be an utter pain in the ass to use and have that kind of functionality built in? Granted, OS X isn't built around having two mouse buttons like Windows is but that Puck thing is quite literally a pain to use. While there are many things I don't like about Apple, I will admit they have a better design sense than most but what the hell where they thinking when they made that mouse? It's almost like they were trying to piss people off.
Just wondering, can you just use a double ended cable to hook your output to your line in? I don't have that kind of cable so I haven't tried it but it seems like a fully analog method should work.
Good point about the iTunes music store, but I don't know whether not knowing what the underlying tech is has anything to do with how world-changing something is. How many people who use the internet know what TCP/IP is? Does that make it any less important?
Actually, I guess I was in a slight rage about the OP's blatant fanboyism and felt like I had to come up with something to mock the last part of his statement. While I still think calling the iPod a "phenomenon" is a bit much, I will admit that it has changed society dramatically. Heck, everywhere I go I see those signature white earbuds. Also, I have to admit that Steve Jobs' deals with the music industry to get all songs for $.99 is pretty impressive, as well as his recent DRM free songs thing.
Napster? Limewire? People downloaded music before iPods came out, and iPods just made it convenient for them to carry around their downloaded music. Granted, the iPod brought MP3 players to the mainstream, but I'm pretty sure a lot of non-geeks used P2P networks like Napster even though they don't know what P2P is.
Really? Most reviews have said that it's pretty solid and the swearing just shows your immaturity.
with no style
Excuse me? Have you seen the Zune originals? Free custom engraved backs that look amazing, I think that's more stylish than having the same pearly white and shiny black for several generations.
from a company with a horrid reputation
Well, maybe amongst Microsoft bashers and Apple fanboys but right now the Xbox 360 and Live are getting Microsoft a whole new market that really likes their products.
that is up against the biggest phenomenon in the music industry since CDs?
(emphasis mine)
What, do you have a portable RDF generator or something? I'd argue that P2P networks are what brought MP3s and digital music to the mainstream, and Apple has nothing to do with that.
I'm pretty sure it does generate an HTML backup of the bookmarks though, so you might still be able to do the trick, pointless as it may be. However, I think with all the new data in the Places system (it remembers your most used bookmarks over a period of time among other things) it wouldn't be too hard to make a home page that shows several of your most recently viewed bookmarks, perhaps similar to Opera 9's spiffy home page thing. Although that one gives you a live preview of the sites you add to it, which I suppose could be done also via an extension.
Well, the thing is it's a competition so I doubt that people would like to release their code for everyone else to profit off of. Also, I'd bet that some of the teams code specifically for the hardware they have, and it may or may not work on another platform. Our school competes in the underwater contest (only high school to compete heh) and right now our code is highly specific to our machine and our platform. With different pieces of hardware none of our code would work, although to be honest our code kind of fails at life so it doesn't do much anyway. If we hadn't procrastinated so much... but yeah, if it was noncompetitive and the teams used similar hardware then you might see some open source projects, but the way it is now I doubt it. Of course, some teams would do it out of the goodness of their hearts but even so the hardware problems might make it useful as a reference implementation at best. I do know that U of Florida has opensourced their JAUS implementation, but that is a specific protocol for Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) which isn't all that helpful in an unmanned competition.
But that's based on the DLDI driver patch if I understand how it works correctly. Commercial ROMs have no way of detecting a homebrew cart, or else we wouldn't have all these hackers on MP:H and stuff.
Well, puzzle quest achieved the same effect for me, but I guess it's the same general type of game. Also, puzzle quest is pure refined gaming crack. It's like a puzzle, except it's an RPG so now you're grinding and puzzling at the same time. Then there's the fact that it's always with me since it's a DS game, and I can pause easily at any time simply by closing the DS, and it's a formula for guaranteed instant addiction. And yeah, every time I closed my eyes (when I was still playing it anyway) I would see tons of hypothetical puzzles with lots of huge combos and things like that. Luckily my game save got corrupted right at the end so I was too frustrated to start a new game.
Slashdot Mirror
There are a number of nice ebook reader homebrew apps on the DS that I've tried, with nice antialiasing and such but the main problem is that the DS's screens are too small to hold a large quantity of text, so you keep having to flip the pages over and over again. Also the DS doesn't really have the advantage of an e-ink screen. But one neat feature is that many ebook apps have you hold the DS sideways like a book. I'm not sure if there is one, but it would be cool if one of them had you close and open the DS to simulate a page turn. DS closing is detected via software so it wouldn't be too hard to implement.
Not having that much experience with Macs, how is the Applications folder any better than the Start Menu? I'm genuinely curious, because from what I've seen of it it's just a folder where programs are thrown. I assume you can organize it yourself manually with subdirectories, but then you can (and I do) organize your Start Menu manually too. The Dock, I suppose is analogous to the quicklaunch bar but with a larger emphasis on flashy effects, and it's a bigger by default. Actually I guess since it also shows which programs are running (in a rather annoying way in my opinion) it's similar to a hybrid quicklaunch/taskbar, but displayed differently.
Well, in your example you start typing SQL and then you get that entry hopefully. Launchy also does this, perhaps more reliably. I use Launchy more since I'm used to it, but the start menu is actually only one key whereas launchy is by default two, which makes it somewhat faster to get to. Oh and since you're asking, I think having shortcuts to readmes, websites, and uninstallers actually is useful since I don't always want to go into add/remove programs (btw typical Vista pointless changes: now it's called Programs and Features iirc which makes somewhat less sense) and I know what I want. I suppose the main issue is knowing what you want or not, and I would think that on slashdot where more people than average advocate CLI as the most efficient form of UI (I agree with that somewhat, at least for most tasks) people would be more likely to know what they want but in terms of the average user, it may or may not help them. Search does mitigate the problem somewhat.
As I replied to the other post, I was being unclear in what I meant. It's more responsive, due to the aggressive prefetching, than XP was, but benchmark numbers, particularly in games, are slightly lower due to the overhead incurred by the new systems, I'm guessing mainly Aero, some from the DRM, and indexing/prefetching, although theoretically prefetched stuff should get out of the way when you need the RAM.
Ok, well if you're going to include the help system as analogous to the start menu, searching for scanner in Vista's help also brings up instructions on how to scan a picture.
Well, I should have clarified. Vista is much more responsive than XP, it's just that hard numbers in terms of FPS in games are slower but you wouldn't notice that unless you actively turn on FPS display. You would however notice the increased responsiveness.
That's why in Vista you just start typing the name of the program into the search bar and get results instantly. That still leaves the problem of what to do when you don't know what you're looking for, but that's a separate issue altogether and perhaps leans more towards PEBKAC, although having apps categorized by function would make things slightly easier. But just curious, how do other OSes make that any better? The Linux distros I've tried have had their default apps organized, but what happens when you add more? Does everything fit into place correctly, or do you have to rearrange stuff. And OS X? I haven't really actively used a Mac since 2003-4ish, although I've seen some newer macs but I don't see how those help you find an app by function at all.
Well, to be completely fair PC world being a generally mainstream PC mag they don't test very many fast laptops. I'm certain they haven't benched anything with the new 8800GTX mobile, which would smoke anything Apple puts in their MBPs by far. Their benchmark suite last I checked was more geared toward productivity/business type apps, and in games there is going to be no contest.
Indeed, I've been using the 64 bit version of Home Premium for 2 months (should be the most incompatible version) but it works great and the aggressive prefetching works wonders. As long as you have 2GB of RAM, a decent DX9 graphics card and a decent processor (dual core probably helps) Vista is much faster than xp in daily use. Benchmarks show otherwise, but that 5-10% difference isn't something you are going to notice.
Hooray for automated translation.
"From the machines that brought you Engrish, here's ressourcenhungriger!"
In all honesty though, I'm pretty sure that it's just a German word or something that has no English equivalent, or at least one that the translator didn't have in its lists.
Wow, way to be an asshole. Considering that no one else here has even tried running it, or at least hasn't posted anything about it I thought that my offer to test it was worth something. At least it's worth more than some anonymous idiot complaining about how I haven't contributed anything. Anyway, tried running it but it's kind of boring, basically triangles fly toward your box depending on the strength of the wifi signal from each access point, and you click on them repeatedly to destroy them.
You don't use anyone's connection, it just uses the signal strength to sort of position the enemies in a certain location.
I've got a homebrew cart for my DS, I'll try it out as soon as I finish watching the ending of Zelda Phantom Hourlgass. I'll report back with a mini-review soon. Saw this yesterday on the dcemu forums, but haven't had a chance to try it out.
Oh, happens to me too. I didn't know how to fix it, thanks. Where are these keys located? is it in the part where all the file associations are?
Well you can but shouldn't the included mouse not be an utter pain in the ass to use and have that kind of functionality built in? Granted, OS X isn't built around having two mouse buttons like Windows is but that Puck thing is quite literally a pain to use. While there are many things I don't like about Apple, I will admit they have a better design sense than most but what the hell where they thinking when they made that mouse? It's almost like they were trying to piss people off.
Yeah, except it looks like a piece of crap too, so I'm not sure what they were trying for there.
Just wondering, can you just use a double ended cable to hook your output to your line in? I don't have that kind of cable so I haven't tried it but it seems like a fully analog method should work.
Good point about the iTunes music store, but I don't know whether not knowing what the underlying tech is has anything to do with how world-changing something is. How many people who use the internet know what TCP/IP is? Does that make it any less important?
Actually, I guess I was in a slight rage about the OP's blatant fanboyism and felt like I had to come up with something to mock the last part of his statement. While I still think calling the iPod a "phenomenon" is a bit much, I will admit that it has changed society dramatically. Heck, everywhere I go I see those signature white earbuds. Also, I have to admit that Steve Jobs' deals with the music industry to get all songs for $.99 is pretty impressive, as well as his recent DRM free songs thing.
Napster? Limewire? People downloaded music before iPods came out, and iPods just made it convenient for them to carry around their downloaded music. Granted, the iPod brought MP3 players to the mainstream, but I'm pretty sure a lot of non-geeks used P2P networks like Napster even though they don't know what P2P is.
I'm pretty sure it does generate an HTML backup of the bookmarks though, so you might still be able to do the trick, pointless as it may be. However, I think with all the new data in the Places system (it remembers your most used bookmarks over a period of time among other things) it wouldn't be too hard to make a home page that shows several of your most recently viewed bookmarks, perhaps similar to Opera 9's spiffy home page thing. Although that one gives you a live preview of the sites you add to it, which I suppose could be done also via an extension.
Well, the thing is it's a competition so I doubt that people would like to release their code for everyone else to profit off of. Also, I'd bet that some of the teams code specifically for the hardware they have, and it may or may not work on another platform. Our school competes in the underwater contest (only high school to compete heh) and right now our code is highly specific to our machine and our platform. With different pieces of hardware none of our code would work, although to be honest our code kind of fails at life so it doesn't do much anyway. If we hadn't procrastinated so much... but yeah, if it was noncompetitive and the teams used similar hardware then you might see some open source projects, but the way it is now I doubt it. Of course, some teams would do it out of the goodness of their hearts but even so the hardware problems might make it useful as a reference implementation at best. I do know that U of Florida has opensourced their JAUS implementation, but that is a specific protocol for Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) which isn't all that helpful in an unmanned competition.
But that's based on the DLDI driver patch if I understand how it works correctly. Commercial ROMs have no way of detecting a homebrew cart, or else we wouldn't have all these hackers on MP:H and stuff.
Well, puzzle quest achieved the same effect for me, but I guess it's the same general type of game. Also, puzzle quest is pure refined gaming crack. It's like a puzzle, except it's an RPG so now you're grinding and puzzling at the same time. Then there's the fact that it's always with me since it's a DS game, and I can pause easily at any time simply by closing the DS, and it's a formula for guaranteed instant addiction. And yeah, every time I closed my eyes (when I was still playing it anyway) I would see tons of hypothetical puzzles with lots of huge combos and things like that. Luckily my game save got corrupted right at the end so I was too frustrated to start a new game.