Hmmm...my two year old Epson inkjet printer is not recognised by OS X at all. Neither is my HP scanner. Or my Logitech webcam. The latter are less than 12 months old.
Want me to carry on?:-)
And if I wanted to, I can't download Mac OS X drivers for any of the above from the manufacturers*.
Tim
* Although IOXperts provide a webcam driver - they rock:)
Sure, the stuff is annoying, you have to delete dozens of junks all the time and click on dozens of "remove me" links, but it's just a minor annoyance
Hmm...I always thought the point of those 'remove me' links was to confirm that the email address was indeed a live one, with a real human being at the end.
More to the point, a real human being who responds to spam email, which I also assumed would get your email address put straight onto the "easy mark" spam list.
Am I wrong? I can't imagine that any of these scumbags actually stop sending you spam simply because you ask them to.
Tim
Yet another new moderation type required...
on
Go Go Gadget Minisaw
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· Score: 2
Maybe, but not everyone has read LotR - and maybe, just maybe, they'd have liked to have watched the films without being told the plot in advance.
I did know about Gandalf, but I was still quite surprised that they revealed his return in the trailer.
For the dumbest trailer ever though, check the the US trailer for Goldeneye.
On the off-chance that you haven't seen the film, do not read any further.
The US trailer went something like this: "This time, 007 faces his greatest enemy - 006!"
Doh!
Tim
Re:Encryption and compression make a lot of sense.
on
PKWare Zips to Growth
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· Score: 2
I was about to point out that ZipMagic has done this for years, but on checking your site you seem to be talking about 2 slightly different things.
Using a ZIP/compressed file as a file system level folder via an OS extension has been around on the desktop for years - ZipMagic, for instance, and SparkFS on Acorn RISC OS is even older.
However, your app seems to do something else (compress an EXE and all its files into a single EXE that runs natively, for speed and obfuscation reasons), and it doesn't use the ZIP file format.
At least I hope it doesn't use the ZIP format, otherwise it's trivial to bypass the system to de-obfuscate it.
Why the heck do I have to move the mouse to one of the most obscure position, the lower left corner, just to start a program, which is easily the most used desktop operation of all?
Because the corners/edges of the screen are the easiest pixels to click on, with the exception of the pixel currently under the mouse. See Fitt's Law.
It's easier to click on the desktop if the mouse is already over the desktop. However, a lot of people work with apps using the full screen, so it's easier to use a start button.
Of course, this requires that your Start button actually extend to the corner of the screen. MS fumbled the ball on this originally, IIRC, by giving it a border (as they did with taskbar buttons), but they later fixed this (the border is still there visually, but now you can click on it). However, if you make the taskbar double height (as I normally do) then the Windows Start button inexplicably gets aligned with the top of the taskbar rather than the bottom, so slamming the the mouse to the bottom left and clicking has no effect.
I expect this positioning was considered to be more aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes Microsoft are very good at, as Sir Humphrey once said, "Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory".
So, why don't these development suites (visual studio, etc) come with such a book ?
Visual Studio does. In VC6, open the help viewer, go to the contents tab, open the Books section, and look at The Windows User Experience which seems to provide what you request.
Are you sure you mean that? If I drag a file from one folder to another folder on the same hard drive, then by default, XP moves it - it doesn't copy it.
This one's easy actually - a friend of mine independently came to the same conclusion as me on this one, which is that Microsoft deliberately chose "Program Files" as both a 'long filename' and a filename with a space in it precisely to speed the adoption of long filenames. They did it to bring into sharp relief any program that didn't support LFN properly. Remember, Windows 95 was the time when they introduced their "Designed for Windows" logo, which at the time was a pretty big deal, and as far as I can remember, pretty much mandated support for LFN.
The PROGRA~1 is ugly, but it only happens on old programs - I certainly now use it as an indicator of quality in a Windows app (it reflects how much the author respects the user experience).
Now, if you want a real gripe, I hate the way most apps just plain don't work if you install them somewhere other than Program Files. I also hate the way most apps have a slavish belief in whatever path information they stored in the registry, meaning you can't ever move an installed app. I try to make my own apps as location agnostic as possible (Mac users: feel free to gloat at this point, with considerable justification).
One interesting fact that came out of these statistical analyses of spam was from one that was featured a while back on slashdot - the guy was doing word analysis, and was looking for good spam indicators/correlations, and expected "sex" or "teens" to be a good match, but the best word was, surprisingly, "ff0000". This was because so much spam uses HTML mail with red text.
So if nothing else, it will force spammers to stop using red text - that has to be some kind of victory:-)
As another game developer, I'd like to second that. I'd mod it up if I had any mod points:)
Clueless comments in this story like "games fail because the programmers/artists/designers just don't care" just make me grind my teeth in frustration, especially when I usually come up against lots of other people in the industry who are the ones who really don't care.
Sure, it's sometimes the case, but it's pretty damn rare. Games developers are well known for working long hours. If they didn't care, I don't think they'd bother with that. If you think they get paid overtime, dream on.
You aren't honestly trying to attribute the quote in your sig to yourself, are you?
No, he's not. His signature is "Justen Stepka", nothing more.
To avoid making this mistake again, go to your slashdot Preferences:Comments page, and turn on signature dash (according to the page: Prefix everyone's signature with "--" to make it blazingly obvious where comment ends and sig begins).
The poster said it would be "one up from the bottom" because he was being charitable, and envisioning a scenario where, e.g. q.bottom = 10, and 10 is the worst rank you can have (presumably 1 or 0 being the best), which is different to the system mentioned in the story.
So (q.bottom - 1) is 9, which is one up from the bottom.
However, if as you stridently claim, the bottom rank is 1, then q.bottom-1 is 0, which is meaningless. It certainly isn't 2, unless you've overloaded the binary minus operator.
IOW, autism level may be a Real value instead of Boolean.
Anyone else find that an ironic turn of phrase, given the subject being discussed?
Maybe they should add another question to that test: "Do you find yourself trying to define the world in terms of the programming language you use?";-)
Bear in mind console games are often linked to the refresh/frame rate - although this seems to be changing, with various games having choppy/unpredictable frame rates in recent years. Witness the PC port of Wipeout - on a fast PC it was unplayable, because it was frame rate limited - sadly with a decent gfx card it was limited to about 150-200fps, so you hit the the bend before you saw it.
Similarly, if you have to run at a slower frame rate, and render more pixels (as with NTSC->PAL) you are going to hit problems if the game was coded to rely on certain characteristics of the frame rate.
I believe the total number of pixels you have to render per second with PAL vs NTSC is the same (or near enough, according to my calculator) - but of course, it doesn't always work out so neatly depending on the content of the scene you're rendering, how fast your hardware can clear the frame buffer, rendering set up times, etc. which is why some games are just letter-boxed - render the same frames, just do it slightly slower for PAL.
Also, I believe the PS2 gets quite upset if you don't render a frame at the refresh rate of the TV - you get nasty visual artifacts, which I think are to do with the interlacing.
As I understand it - I'm not an expert on console hardware, as someone is no doubt about to point out:-)
In oz, the mod chips aren't defined as an illegal device. They aren't legal either, but there is no law saying you cannot do it.
Is that not close to the definition of legal?
I mean, IANAL and everything, but there comes a point when I feel my limited knowledge of the law is applicable...and I reckon if an activity is not prohibited by law, then it's legal.
That removes Windows Messenger (nee MSN Messenger) though, doesn't it?
What's being discussed here is the 'Messenger' service on Windows NT/2000/XP, which has been around since the NT3.1 days, IIRC, and is a quite different thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm...my two year old Epson inkjet printer is not recognised by OS X at all. Neither is my HP scanner. Or my Logitech webcam. The latter are less than 12 months old.
:-)
:)
Want me to carry on?
And if I wanted to, I can't download Mac OS X drivers for any of the above from the manufacturers*.
Tim
* Although IOXperts provide a webcam driver - they rock
Hmm...I always thought the point of those 'remove me' links was to confirm that the email address was indeed a live one, with a real human being at the end.
More to the point, a real human being who responds to spam email, which I also assumed would get your email address put straight onto the "easy mark" spam list.
Am I wrong? I can't imagine that any of these scumbags actually stop sending you spam simply because you ask them to.
Tim
(-1, User Friendly comic)
I think you'll find that murder is the unlawful killing of a person.
Therefore, by definition, your points are irrelevant.
Theft has an altogether more interesting definition in this situation though - perhaps the word stealing is more appropriate.
Tim
Maybe, but not everyone has read LotR - and maybe, just maybe, they'd have liked to have watched the films without being told the plot in advance.
I did know about Gandalf, but I was still quite surprised that they revealed his return in the trailer.
For the dumbest trailer ever though, check the the US trailer for Goldeneye.
On the off-chance that you haven't seen the film, do not read any further.
The US trailer went something like this: "This time, 007 faces his greatest enemy - 006!"
Doh!
Tim
I was about to point out that ZipMagic has done this for years, but on checking your site you seem to be talking about 2 slightly different things.
Using a ZIP/compressed file as a file system level folder via an OS extension has been around on the desktop for years - ZipMagic, for instance, and SparkFS on Acorn RISC OS is even older.
However, your app seems to do something else (compress an EXE and all its files into a single EXE that runs natively, for speed and obfuscation reasons), and it doesn't use the ZIP file format.
At least I hope it doesn't use the ZIP format, otherwise it's trivial to bypass the system to de-obfuscate it.
Tim
Dude! You've got an HP Deskjet?! For real?
;-)
Talk about Uber-Geek! You are our new God!
Next you'll be telling us you've got, like, a $90 scanner as well! Oh, wait...
Tim
Why the heck do I have to move the mouse to one of the most obscure position, the lower left corner, just to start a program, which is easily the most used desktop operation of all?
Because the corners/edges of the screen are the easiest pixels to click on, with the exception of the pixel currently under the mouse. See Fitt's Law.
It's easier to click on the desktop if the mouse is already over the desktop. However, a lot of people work with apps using the full screen, so it's easier to use a start button.
Of course, this requires that your Start button actually extend to the corner of the screen. MS fumbled the ball on this originally, IIRC, by giving it a border (as they did with taskbar buttons), but they later fixed this (the border is still there visually, but now you can click on it). However, if you make the taskbar double height (as I normally do) then the Windows Start button inexplicably gets aligned with the top of the taskbar rather than the bottom, so slamming the the mouse to the bottom left and clicking has no effect.
I expect this positioning was considered to be more aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes Microsoft are very good at, as Sir Humphrey once said, "Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory".
Tim
Visual Studio does. In VC6, open the help viewer, go to the contents tab, open the Books section, and look at The Windows User Experience which seems to provide what you request.
Or you can find a more up to date version on the MSDN web site.
Tim
Are you sure you mean that? If I drag a file from one folder to another folder on the same hard drive, then by default, XP moves it - it doesn't copy it.
Tim
This one's easy actually - a friend of mine independently came to the same conclusion as me on this one, which is that Microsoft deliberately chose "Program Files" as both a 'long filename' and a filename with a space in it precisely to speed the adoption of long filenames. They did it to bring into sharp relief any program that didn't support LFN properly. Remember, Windows 95 was the time when they introduced their "Designed for Windows" logo, which at the time was a pretty big deal, and as far as I can remember, pretty much mandated support for LFN.
The PROGRA~1 is ugly, but it only happens on old programs - I certainly now use it as an indicator of quality in a Windows app (it reflects how much the author respects the user experience).
Now, if you want a real gripe, I hate the way most apps just plain don't work if you install them somewhere other than Program Files. I also hate the way most apps have a slavish belief in whatever path information they stored in the registry, meaning you can't ever move an installed app. I try to make my own apps as location agnostic as possible (Mac users: feel free to gloat at this point, with considerable justification).
Tim
It hasn't been proven but it's a scientific fact...
Sorry, I just wanted to see that assertion on its own, just to see how stupid it looked :-)
Tim
Ha, I was well aware of the alternative spellings - I just happened to choose one that wasn't your favourite :-)
Tim
One interesting fact that came out of these statistical analyses of spam was from one that was featured a while back on slashdot - the guy was doing word analysis, and was looking for good spam indicators/correlations, and expected "sex" or "teens" to be a good match, but the best word was, surprisingly, "ff0000". This was because so much spam uses HTML mail with red text.
:-)
So if nothing else, it will force spammers to stop using red text - that has to be some kind of victory
Tim
Actually, irony is generally considered to be "use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning".
Sarcasm is often defined as a form of irony (but not necessarily), intended to be cutting/offensive etc.
So while his comment may have been sarcasm, it was also irony.
And I'm not pedantic, I'm pernickety. :-)
Tim
As another game developer, I'd like to second that. I'd mod it up if I had any mod points :)
Clueless comments in this story like "games fail because the programmers/artists/designers just don't care" just make me grind my teeth in frustration, especially when I usually come up against lots of other people in the industry who are the ones who really don't care.
Sure, it's sometimes the case, but it's pretty damn rare. Games developers are well known for working long hours. If they didn't care, I don't think they'd bother with that. If you think they get paid overtime, dream on.
Tim
No, he's not. His signature is "Justen Stepka", nothing more.
To avoid making this mistake again, go to your slashdot Preferences:Comments page, and turn on signature dash (according to the page: Prefix everyone's signature with "--" to make it blazingly obvious where comment ends and sig begins).
HTH
Tim
To be fair, presumably in medieval times it didn't take long for someone in a coma to starve to death anyway..?
Tim
I'm betting the guy in question may have had some experience of how good the organisation's backup strategy was...
Tim
As they say in the trade: Whoops!
The poster said it would be "one up from the bottom" because he was being charitable, and envisioning a scenario where, e.g. q.bottom = 10, and 10 is the worst rank you can have (presumably 1 or 0 being the best), which is different to the system mentioned in the story.
So (q.bottom - 1) is 9, which is one up from the bottom.
However, if as you stridently claim, the bottom rank is 1, then q.bottom-1 is 0, which is meaningless. It certainly isn't 2, unless you've overloaded the binary minus operator.
"egotistical ivory-tower half-blind code monkey"?
Hmm...
Tim
Anyone else find that an ironic turn of phrase, given the subject being discussed?
Maybe they should add another question to that test: "Do you find yourself trying to define the world in terms of the programming language you use?" ;-)
Tim
Or possibly:
"This is everybody's fault but my own!"
-- Homer Simpson
Tim
Bear in mind console games are often linked to the refresh/frame rate - although this seems to be changing, with various games having choppy/unpredictable frame rates in recent years. Witness the PC port of Wipeout - on a fast PC it was unplayable, because it was frame rate limited - sadly with a decent gfx card it was limited to about 150-200fps, so you hit the the bend before you saw it.
:-)
Similarly, if you have to run at a slower frame rate, and render more pixels (as with NTSC->PAL) you are going to hit problems if the game was coded to rely on certain characteristics of the frame rate.
I believe the total number of pixels you have to render per second with PAL vs NTSC is the same (or near enough, according to my calculator) - but of course, it doesn't always work out so neatly depending on the content of the scene you're rendering, how fast your hardware can clear the frame buffer, rendering set up times, etc. which is why some games are just letter-boxed - render the same frames, just do it slightly slower for PAL.
Also, I believe the PS2 gets quite upset if you don't render a frame at the refresh rate of the TV - you get nasty visual artifacts, which I think are to do with the interlacing.
As I understand it - I'm not an expert on console hardware, as someone is no doubt about to point out
Tim
Is that not close to the definition of legal?
I mean, IANAL and everything, but there comes a point when I feel my limited knowledge of the law is applicable...and I reckon if an activity is not prohibited by law, then it's legal.
I could be wrong, of course.
Tim
That removes Windows Messenger (nee MSN Messenger) though, doesn't it?
What's being discussed here is the 'Messenger' service on Windows NT/2000/XP, which has been around since the NT3.1 days, IIRC, and is a quite different thing.
Tim