It amazes me how many times this exact scenario occurs:
Someone spends "hours" trying to figure out how to do X with (Word/Excel/Powerpoint/other)
They call me over to help them, and I've never even heard of X before.
I fumble around through the likely menu items, and find the command within 5 minutes.
Said person is completely amazed that I knew how to do X, and thanks me profusely for showing them.
I often wonder whether it's because people have no curiosity for exploring options, whether they're scared of the computer and thus don't explore options for fear of it exploding, whether they simply have no capacity for learning things other than by rote memorization (click here, then here, then here, and pray), or whether I've just been using computers for so long that I'm used to all the idiosyncrasies.
Funny, my own 17" AlBook has survived both a 4 foot drop onto carpet and a 3 foot drop onto pavement (both times without any protection whatsoever) with the only lasting damage being scratches on the case from the drop onto concrete and a minor bend across the bottom from the carpet drop (it's been functioning 7 months with that bend, and it's only noticeable if you look at it head on with the screen closed.) I guess it really depends on how it hits the ground, though. Overall, I've found it to be surprisingly sturdy, taking all the abuse I give it, though it seems so thin and fragile.
Another take on webcomics from spam: http://www.apophenia-prime.com/. This one tries to tell a story without words, with each page depicting a line from a spam email. Readers are encouraged to send in their dialogue, and good interpretations are posted. Just an interesting contrast to Spamusement's take of getting a joke out of the absurd lines in spam.
Same thing where I live, although the co-op services quite a few areas across two states. I pay for a residential 1.5 Mbps / 256 Kbps cable connection, and consistently get the rated download speed. In fact, I've gotten up to a 2 Mbps download sometimes, and consistently get 360 Kbps upload. All thanks to a small local ISP (the big national ones don't even cover my area anyways, so it's my only option.)
How true. I heard that some time ago, a Mac user inadvertently created a new strain of some word virus by opening an old infected file in Word 2004 and resaving it as a newer file, giving the virus a new signature that av products weren't looking for.
VC-1 is actually one of the suggested projects for the Summer of Code, though it's kind of unlikely to be implemented by a student since it's such a huge task.
I'm no storyteller, but I thought that I'd just share my own experience with programming through school.
Although I learned BASIC in elementary school (on an Apple IIc, which was 3 years older than I was), I never really tinkered with programming computers that much. Then, in 4th grade, I purchased a Casio CFX-9850G. That was perhaps the best purchase in my life. I learned how to program its unique dialect of BASIC, and spent many school hours ignoring the teacher and just programming (my school system barely did anything for talented kids, and I've heard that they've scaled back what little they did do down even further). I programmed some simple mathematical functions, some fun-with-graphics stuff, and even a mini-rpg. When I lost it in 7th grade, I replaced it with a TI-89 and spent even more time learning that calculator's more powerful language.
So, I must say that although I did program as a kid, I programed graphing calculators. Computers are way too complex nowadays to enjoy programming like hackers used to. For example, for someone to use the programs that he/she programs on a computer, they'd probably need to learn complex GUI programming to match what else they do on the computer. But a graphing calculator is still command-line at heart, so it's much less harder to program something that you'll use repeatedly.
I agree - I absolutely hate reading white/grey text on black. Thankfully, I discovered a well-hidden keyboard shortcut in OS X that inverts the screen, which makes reading such text much easier for me: Control-Option-Command-8. Hit it again, and the screen inverts to normal.
And you can also quickly increase your screen's contrast with Control-Option-Command-. to increase it, and Control-Option-Command-, to decrease it (it's normally the lowest setting you can hit with those keys).
If you read the specs that the press release gives, it says "DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately)", so I'd guess that the store simply hasn't updated everything yet.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jan/10macbook pro.html
Actually, Jobs wasn't even at Apple when the 1984 commercial ran, and although I can't find a date for when the Think Different campaign started, I'm pretty sure it was before NeXT was bought out.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, on the sixth page, it is mentioned that xt5 found a way to do this hack with the stock firmware.g e=6
Link for the lazy: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=124294&pa
That's exactly what they did, but they needed to remove the HD and mount it on a Mac to get at it to copy Perian to the AppleTV.
It amazes me how many times this exact scenario occurs:
Someone spends "hours" trying to figure out how to do X with (Word/Excel/Powerpoint/other)
They call me over to help them, and I've never even heard of X before.
I fumble around through the likely menu items, and find the command within 5 minutes.
Said person is completely amazed that I knew how to do X, and thanks me profusely for showing them.
I often wonder whether it's because people have no curiosity for exploring options, whether they're scared of the computer and thus don't explore options for fear of it exploding, whether they simply have no capacity for learning things other than by rote memorization (click here, then here, then here, and pray), or whether I've just been using computers for so long that I'm used to all the idiosyncrasies.
Funny, my own 17" AlBook has survived both a 4 foot drop onto carpet and a 3 foot drop onto pavement (both times without any protection whatsoever) with the only lasting damage being scratches on the case from the drop onto concrete and a minor bend across the bottom from the carpet drop (it's been functioning 7 months with that bend, and it's only noticeable if you look at it head on with the screen closed.) I guess it really depends on how it hits the ground, though. Overall, I've found it to be surprisingly sturdy, taking all the abuse I give it, though it seems so thin and fragile.
Another take on webcomics from spam: http://www.apophenia-prime.com/. This one tries to tell a story without words, with each page depicting a line from a spam email. Readers are encouraged to send in their dialogue, and good interpretations are posted. Just an interesting contrast to Spamusement's take of getting a joke out of the absurd lines in spam.
Same thing where I live, although the co-op services quite a few areas across two states. I pay for a residential 1.5 Mbps / 256 Kbps cable connection, and consistently get the rated download speed. In fact, I've gotten up to a 2 Mbps download sometimes, and consistently get 360 Kbps upload. All thanks to a small local ISP (the big national ones don't even cover my area anyways, so it's my only option.)
How true. I heard that some time ago, a Mac user inadvertently created a new strain of some word virus by opening an old infected file in Word 2004 and resaving it as a newer file, giving the virus a new signature that av products weren't looking for.
VC-1 is actually one of the suggested projects for the Summer of Code, though it's kind of unlikely to be implemented by a student since it's such a huge task.
Although I learned BASIC in elementary school (on an Apple IIc, which was 3 years older than I was), I never really tinkered with programming computers that much. Then, in 4th grade, I purchased a Casio CFX-9850G. That was perhaps the best purchase in my life. I learned how to program its unique dialect of BASIC, and spent many school hours ignoring the teacher and just programming (my school system barely did anything for talented kids, and I've heard that they've scaled back what little they did do down even further). I programmed some simple mathematical functions, some fun-with-graphics stuff, and even a mini-rpg. When I lost it in 7th grade, I replaced it with a TI-89 and spent even more time learning that calculator's more powerful language.
So, I must say that although I did program as a kid, I programed graphing calculators. Computers are way too complex nowadays to enjoy programming like hackers used to. For example, for someone to use the programs that he/she programs on a computer, they'd probably need to learn complex GUI programming to match what else they do on the computer. But a graphing calculator is still command-line at heart, so it's much less harder to program something that you'll use repeatedly.
And using what you've programmed feels great.
I agree - I absolutely hate reading white/grey text on black. Thankfully, I discovered a well-hidden keyboard shortcut in OS X that inverts the screen, which makes reading such text much easier for me: Control-Option-Command-8. Hit it again, and the screen inverts to normal. And you can also quickly increase your screen's contrast with Control-Option-Command-. to increase it, and Control-Option-Command-, to decrease it (it's normally the lowest setting you can hit with those keys).
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. Would you mind putting your statement in context?
If you read the specs that the press release gives, it says "DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately)", so I'd guess that the store simply hasn't updated everything yet. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/jan/10macbook pro.html
Actually, Jobs wasn't even at Apple when the 1984 commercial ran, and although I can't find a date for when the Think Different campaign started, I'm pretty sure it was before NeXT was bought out.