To be honest, I've not found any real UI issues with my current phone: it's a BenQ-Siemens EL71 - they're a bit esoteric, but very, very solid, and nicely laid out. They're also rather cheap, too. I think the majority of the problem stems from companies such as all the big players (Barring, possibly, Nokia) deciding what would be a good UI, instead of actually trying to find out how people use a phone/addressbook/sms/video functions and so on and so forth.
My purchasing choice was based purely on price versus features: I wanted something that had bluetooth, and expandable memory: this has both (Conveniently uses Micro SD, too). The camera I wasn't so fussed about, and the software's not too hot, but I use Evolution Sync anyway for the address book, and my G5 picks up the bluetooth just fine for file transfers: if I'm looking to set out a new playlist (it plays mp3s, and surprisingly, aacs, too) then i just take out the memory card, and smack it in the front of my music machine and i transfer away.
My point is that by going to an alternate manufacturer, many of these problems can be solved: Siemens are still a known name within the world of the mobile phone, but BenQ are not: it is their design, with Siemens' telephony experience forming the backbone of it.
Nokia, however, have always made solid, easy-to-use phones, and they've addressed (sic) the address book issues very well, too.
that since this is from the appleinsider site, that maybe they are going to blow this a little out of proportion? of course it's not supported yet - vist'a not been officially released yet. they'll probably do a separate vista installer.
wake me up when you've got something newsworthy.
I think that citing the 'G' in 'GNU' is a bit of a vicious example: most people can't even define recursive, much less understand its application within a geeky in-joke.
Nonetheless, I agree with what you say: updates are a notoriously simple thing to execute: much of the really good work within Linux has gone into solid package management, so listening to people bitch about how 'difficult' it is (within Ubuntu, no less!), is bordering on the laughable.
Funnily enough, I was going to make a point of saying that people listing 'gksudo "update-manager -c"' was incorrect: I've just been proven wrong by the Ubuntu wiki, though. Now, I'm beginning to wonder what it is that the extra '-d' flag that I used (and quoted) does...
Ah well, since I had a flawless install, I'm guessing that it's no worse than saying 'delete install packages', or something. I'll try to find out.
I'm running Edgy on a laptop that's notoriously troublesome with Linux: the Inspiron 6000 - Ubuntu's been the only distro that I've had no problems with at all, and the update was no exception. I think my only complaint with it is the rancid colour choice on the default theme, and that bloody awful jingle on startup and shutdown, but these are all readily solvable.
If anything, I found the 'gksudo "update-manager -c -d" method worked fine for me: the only problem was the amount of time that it took, because it defaulted to about 150KB/s on my connection (oh noes!); of course, remembering the days of 14.4Kbaud modems made that slightly easier...
As to the laptop itself: my only issue is the fact that it was made very visibly obsolete within a year; no surprises there. That, plus the fact that Beryl's not particularly fast on it: no worries as far as I'm concerned: I don't use it, but I thought it was worthy of note...
"It's hard enough to get Internet Explorer or DirectX installed as it is."
Is that because it conflicts with your sense of right and wrong, or because the access to said applications is crap?
That would be "phallic" - to whit, indicative of the penis.
I haven't the slighest clue why (s)he's so tuned into it, though: the word 'pickle' is not overly representative of Freudian imagery.
Perversely enough, the countries that have been subject to Soviet rule for most of the 20th century are the ones that are looking most attractive to me at the moment. Obviously, they're not without their flaws: there's no question of it, but there are some benefits to it too: not least of which is the fact that unlike the UK, these countries admit that technicians are very useful people to have around.
It may seem like a small and silly thing to say, but it's quite a significant thing when you see the attitude firsthand.
I work in a British univeristy, and I get some serious flak a lot of the time from students, staff, senior managers, and sometimes even visitors, because I'm a technician. I've beena teacher prior to now, but I'm a technical boy through and through: there's no way that I'd give it up for anything.
However, since the 80s, there has been this awful attitude that only academic people in educational institutions are of any real use, and only money-driven people in the private sector are worth keeping around. I know that I'm not the only one that's noticed this: the 'yuppie' era is what caused this, and has left it in perpetuity since.
I was in Prague not so long ago, on a course in virtual environments and artificial life, and the attitude and approach to thier technical support staff was unbelievably different to what I'm used to. It was understood that these people require just as much respect as their managers did, and for the same reason: you go to them for *help* - you don't 'just get', you have to *ask*. This is a thing that many people in the UK seem to be forgetting these days, and this fact makes me sad.
As it happens, I fell in love with Prague a few years ago, on my first visit there. The country's not perfect - nowhere is, but I like it. However, the fact that there's a place in the world which has the same feel as a cross between London and Edinburgh, is much cleaner, and the people are generally (or at least seem to be) politer, is a real selling point for me.
Once I've taken my PhD, I'm going there.
that this was taken from a technologically-literate sample population. It's equally safe to say that this is not the norm in the real world, so these numbers are going to be vastly biased. If 46% of women (or men)did their own troubleshooting, there'd be far less call for people like us (the IT techs and sysadmins of the world). I don't really care about the gender bias: in my book, users are users, so it's not a thing that I really notice per se. I honestly reckon that when people were interviewed for this, they said 'Oh yes, of course I can sort out my computer', purely because it makes them look better, just as most people fill out personals adverts saying they're slim to average build, when they're actually 240lb lardballs.
People lie to paint themselves in a better light. Nothing to see here.
how does this affect our understanding of spatial dynamics? I only understand physics insofar as it affects 3D graphics (specifically, light and particle dynamics), so you'll have to forgive my relative ignorance. I just find myself wondering if it's going to be a minor amendment to the current theories, or a complete re-write. If it's the second option, I'll just sit and wait for the maths patches for my various 3D software tools, shall I?
Also, on a totally puerile note: you can tell that they're physicists, and not web designers, can't you? Their page http://physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/apollo.htm l looks like it was designed around the same era the rocket they're named from was launched...
do bands like 'HORSE The Band' count as nerdy enough to satisfy you folks? they're more surrealist 8-bit screamcore, but there's some nice references to early videogames in there: well after I started playing around with computers, certainly, but they're definitely throwbacks to the 80s. their media page is here: http://www.asssnake.com/horsetheband/media.html and most of their radio-borne songs are to be found on their myspace page (sorry folks). if you like weird hardcore, they're good to listen to. my personal favourites are 'cutsman' and 'bunnies'.
incidentally, thanks to all of those that pointed out MC Frontalot: very cool:D
Think about it thought: Apple had a standardised hardware catalogue to account for when it came to sorting out the new Operating System. Microsoft desn't have that advantage. If anything, because they've supported backwards-compatibility for so long, they've cut their own throats pretty efficiently. I'm not anti-Microsoft in the slightest, but I have to admit, I did shudder when I looked at Vista. It seems to be trying to be OS X with more bells and whistles, but less chance of serious uptake.
In honesty, I think that putting a guy that wrote his main piece of software totally from scratch in the driving seat of Microsoft is a good plan: hopefully, it means that the next version of Windows will be more elegantly written, and will not be so over-the-top on hardware compatibility, or requirements, for that matter.
We shall just have to wait and see. If it does work out, then I think that the anti-Microsoft bitching from/. will subside somewhat, which could be worth waiting to see:)
yeah, i can believe it. the only real reason that ubuntu had issues with the ricoh one was that ricoh decided to hold on to the specs for their reader for some time, and then release it a couple of months *after* breezy came out. buggered if i know why. there was a workaround, but it got pretty involved. i know that i couldn't be bothered with it.
there were also issues with 3d acceleration with the radeon m300 card, but ati acceleration problems are nothin new in my experience of linux.
Just out of curiosity, have they sorted out the Ricoh SD card reader issue that they were having with Dell Inspiron 6000s? There was also a problem with the hard disk/optical drive arrangement, too: one of them's PATA and the other is SATA - I don't remember the details of it, but it was a bit of a pig to deal with, last time I used Ubuntu on this laptop; it worked, but it was a bit on the sluggish side, and it required a lot of kernel patching/alteration.
Other than that, I am looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. The 3-year support is a good move, as well. Let's just hope that it doesn't mean that they grind down to debian's release cycle.
i've seen report after report about this joker on the BBC news for weeks now, and quite frankly, i'm sick of him. he started out saying that he's not a hacker, then he becomes a hacker, then he says he's found nothing conclusive, now he says that he's seen proof of 'free' energy systems. whatever. i call bullshit.
no - this runs on natural gas, according to the bbc report about it. they had a video report about the guys that made it.
and 60mph was their top speed quote, too. i thin the 100 one was a typo of 100k/ph
Slashdot Mirror
To be honest, I've not found any real UI issues with my current phone: it's a BenQ-Siemens EL71 - they're a bit esoteric, but very, very solid, and nicely laid out. They're also rather cheap, too. I think the majority of the problem stems from companies such as all the big players (Barring, possibly, Nokia) deciding what would be a good UI, instead of actually trying to find out how people use a phone/addressbook/sms/video functions and so on and so forth. My purchasing choice was based purely on price versus features: I wanted something that had bluetooth, and expandable memory: this has both (Conveniently uses Micro SD, too). The camera I wasn't so fussed about, and the software's not too hot, but I use Evolution Sync anyway for the address book, and my G5 picks up the bluetooth just fine for file transfers: if I'm looking to set out a new playlist (it plays mp3s, and surprisingly, aacs, too) then i just take out the memory card, and smack it in the front of my music machine and i transfer away. My point is that by going to an alternate manufacturer, many of these problems can be solved: Siemens are still a known name within the world of the mobile phone, but BenQ are not: it is their design, with Siemens' telephony experience forming the backbone of it.
Nokia, however, have always made solid, easy-to-use phones, and they've addressed (sic) the address book issues very well, too.
that since this is from the appleinsider site, that maybe they are going to blow this a little out of proportion? of course it's not supported yet - vist'a not been officially released yet. they'll probably do a separate vista installer.
wake me up when you've got something newsworthy.
And I honestly thought this was going to be some spoof article about ROT-26, or something.
I think that citing the 'G' in 'GNU' is a bit of a vicious example: most people can't even define recursive, much less understand its application within a geeky in-joke.
Nonetheless, I agree with what you say: updates are a notoriously simple thing to execute: much of the really good work within Linux has gone into solid package management, so listening to people bitch about how 'difficult' it is (within Ubuntu, no less!), is bordering on the laughable.
Funnily enough, I was going to make a point of saying that people listing 'gksudo "update-manager -c"' was incorrect: I've just been proven wrong by the Ubuntu wiki, though. Now, I'm beginning to wonder what it is that the extra '-d' flag that I used (and quoted) does...
Ah well, since I had a flawless install, I'm guessing that it's no worse than saying 'delete install packages', or something. I'll try to find out.
I'm running Edgy on a laptop that's notoriously troublesome with Linux: the Inspiron 6000 - Ubuntu's been the only distro that I've had no problems with at all, and the update was no exception. I think my only complaint with it is the rancid colour choice on the default theme, and that bloody awful jingle on startup and shutdown, but these are all readily solvable.
If anything, I found the 'gksudo "update-manager -c -d" method worked fine for me: the only problem was the amount of time that it took, because it defaulted to about 150KB/s on my connection (oh noes!); of course, remembering the days of 14.4Kbaud modems made that slightly easier...
As to the laptop itself: my only issue is the fact that it was made very visibly obsolete within a year; no surprises there. That, plus the fact that Beryl's not particularly fast on it: no worries as far as I'm concerned: I don't use it, but I thought it was worthy of note...
"It's hard enough to get Internet Explorer or DirectX installed as it is." Is that because it conflicts with your sense of right and wrong, or because the access to said applications is crap?
That would be "phallic" - to whit, indicative of the penis.
I haven't the slighest clue why (s)he's so tuned into it, though: the word 'pickle' is not overly representative of Freudian imagery.
Perversely enough, the countries that have been subject to Soviet rule for most of the 20th century are the ones that are looking most attractive to me at the moment. Obviously, they're not without their flaws: there's no question of it, but there are some benefits to it too: not least of which is the fact that unlike the UK, these countries admit that technicians are very useful people to have around.
It may seem like a small and silly thing to say, but it's quite a significant thing when you see the attitude firsthand.
I work in a British univeristy, and I get some serious flak a lot of the time from students, staff, senior managers, and sometimes even visitors, because I'm a technician. I've beena teacher prior to now, but I'm a technical boy through and through: there's no way that I'd give it up for anything.
However, since the 80s, there has been this awful attitude that only academic people in educational institutions are of any real use, and only money-driven people in the private sector are worth keeping around. I know that I'm not the only one that's noticed this: the 'yuppie' era is what caused this, and has left it in perpetuity since.
I was in Prague not so long ago, on a course in virtual environments and artificial life, and the attitude and approach to thier technical support staff was unbelievably different to what I'm used to. It was understood that these people require just as much respect as their managers did, and for the same reason: you go to them for *help* - you don't 'just get', you have to *ask*. This is a thing that many people in the UK seem to be forgetting these days, and this fact makes me sad.
As it happens, I fell in love with Prague a few years ago, on my first visit there. The country's not perfect - nowhere is, but I like it. However, the fact that there's a place in the world which has the same feel as a cross between London and Edinburgh, is much cleaner, and the people are generally (or at least seem to be) politer, is a real selling point for me.
Once I've taken my PhD, I'm going there.
That's actually pretty scary: that phrse scans perfectly if you replace 'you can sail the seven seas' with it, in the village people song.
i fear.
that this was taken from a technologically-literate sample population. It's equally safe to say that this is not the norm in the real world, so these numbers are going to be vastly biased. If 46% of women (or men)did their own troubleshooting, there'd be far less call for people like us (the IT techs and sysadmins of the world). I don't really care about the gender bias: in my book, users are users, so it's not a thing that I really notice per se. I honestly reckon that when people were interviewed for this, they said 'Oh yes, of course I can sort out my computer', purely because it makes them look better, just as most people fill out personals adverts saying they're slim to average build, when they're actually 240lb lardballs.
People lie to paint themselves in a better light. Nothing to see here.
what, like the BSOD is gonna become a RMOD (RedMistOfDeath)? Sorry - I couldn't quite resist...
what, like the BSOD is gonna become a RMOD (RedMistOfDeath)?
and, after finding it within their grasp, they soon notice it's smeared across their keyboard.
ick.
That's as may be, but your formatting is worse.
how does this affect our understanding of spatial dynamics? I only understand physics insofar as it affects 3D graphics (specifically, light and particle dynamics), so you'll have to forgive my relative ignorance. I just find myself wondering if it's going to be a minor amendment to the current theories, or a complete re-write. If it's the second option, I'll just sit and wait for the maths patches for my various 3D software tools, shall I? Also, on a totally puerile note: you can tell that they're physicists, and not web designers, can't you? Their page http://physics.ucsd.edu/~tmurphy/apollo/apollo.htm l looks like it was designed around the same era the rocket they're named from was launched...
do bands like 'HORSE The Band' count as nerdy enough to satisfy you folks? they're more surrealist 8-bit screamcore, but there's some nice references to early videogames in there: well after I started playing around with computers, certainly, but they're definitely throwbacks to the 80s. their media page is here: http://www.asssnake.com/horsetheband/media.html and most of their radio-borne songs are to be found on their myspace page (sorry folks). if you like weird hardcore, they're good to listen to. my personal favourites are 'cutsman' and 'bunnies'.
:D
incidentally, thanks to all of those that pointed out MC Frontalot: very cool
Think about it thought: Apple had a standardised hardware catalogue to account for when it came to sorting out the new Operating System. Microsoft desn't have that advantage. If anything, because they've supported backwards-compatibility for so long, they've cut their own throats pretty efficiently. I'm not anti-Microsoft in the slightest, but I have to admit, I did shudder when I looked at Vista. It seems to be trying to be OS X with more bells and whistles, but less chance of serious uptake. /. will subside somewhat, which could be worth waiting to see :)
In honesty, I think that putting a guy that wrote his main piece of software totally from scratch in the driving seat of Microsoft is a good plan: hopefully, it means that the next version of Windows will be more elegantly written, and will not be so over-the-top on hardware compatibility, or requirements, for that matter.
We shall just have to wait and see. If it does work out, then I think that the anti-Microsoft bitching from
yeah, i can believe it. the only real reason that ubuntu had issues with the ricoh one was that ricoh decided to hold on to the specs for their reader for some time, and then release it a couple of months *after* breezy came out. buggered if i know why. there was a workaround, but it got pretty involved. i know that i couldn't be bothered with it.
there were also issues with 3d acceleration with the radeon m300 card, but ati acceleration problems are nothin new in my experience of linux.
Just out of curiosity, have they sorted out the Ricoh SD card reader issue that they were having with Dell Inspiron 6000s? There was also a problem with the hard disk/optical drive arrangement, too: one of them's PATA and the other is SATA - I don't remember the details of it, but it was a bit of a pig to deal with, last time I used Ubuntu on this laptop; it worked, but it was a bit on the sluggish side, and it required a lot of kernel patching/alteration.
Other than that, I am looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. The 3-year support is a good move, as well. Let's just hope that it doesn't mean that they grind down to debian's release cycle.
1) Cryptography, and 2) Useful.
i've seen report after report about this joker on the BBC news for weeks now, and quite frankly, i'm sick of him. he started out saying that he's not a hacker, then he becomes a hacker, then he says he's found nothing conclusive, now he says that he's seen proof of 'free' energy systems. whatever. i call bullshit.
no - this runs on natural gas, according to the bbc report about it. they had a video report about the guys that made it. and 60mph was their top speed quote, too. i thin the 100 one was a typo of 100k/ph
that's as may be, but you're definitely amusing no-one.
no, i think you need to check your links first. i'm quite happy with my 8MBit connection, actually.
well, it might be, if that link actually worked.