crossmr: Is the game finished? Employee: Yep, and with a little extra time and funding we can increase our return by releasing the game on the Mac platform. crossmr: Nah, it's fine. The return we get from just having it on Windows is big enough. Employee: Are you sure? We could make a significantly bigger return. Have you seen the new Macs? People are switching to them and using Boot Camp just to play their games. It would be much better if they wouldn't have to reboot just to play this game we just made. crossmr: Look, it sounds like a big risk, it's not worth the extra funding. Employee: Sir, maybe you're not getting it. The Mac market is projected to increase now that they're cheaper than ever, and they come with a great deal of decent hardware. It won't even need as much debugging because nearly all the new Macs will be built consistently, with identical hardware setups. You know that intuition they're constantly renowned for and all that fuss. I'm telling you people are wanting Macs. crossmr: It's not a risk I'm willing to take.
I think that's exactly what they're doing. Releasing decent PCs with decent hardware for decent prices. Macs used to be the Rolls Royce of all PCs (well, not exactly but you get what I mean). They have always had that reputation for being intuitive, nice-looking, but expensive piece of equipment, which is why there is such a small selection of software available.
Now though, that they are actually affordable while still maintaining the prior part of their reputation (i.e. being intuitive and nice-looking), more and more people will be attracted to them, and with such decent hardware inside, game developers will realise there is actually a market for them now. If I was a gaming company with a reputation for making good games, I would not hesitate to start porting them to MacOS. People want to play their favourite games on their favourite platform, and what better way to do that than by releasing your games on as many platforms as possible?
They have to do more than appeal to the masses. They need to appeal to game makers as well. Gaming is a big business and arguably what has pushed ahead a lot of computer innovation. People aren't ready to give up on computer gaming and until they are, Mac has nothing.
This is you if you owned a game development company:
crossmr: We're only going to develop this game for PC only. Lead Developer: We've already developed it. In fact, we developed it in a way that allows us to port it to other platforms quite easily. crossmr: That's unpossible! Did I ask you to do that? No! PC only! And who's he?
Guest appearance by Steve Ballmer: DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS...
Think of it like this; imagine the entire DVD is a zip file with a password on it, and the password is in a place that is only writeable through pressing the DVDs, not burning them (and by pressing, I mean manufacturing them, not pushing on it with your thumb). This would stop a straight DVD copy from working in a conventional DVD player. The content remains scrambled because there is no password with it. This cuts out the easiest copying solution, which existed in conventional audio CDs.
The second problem is, only authorised/liscensed software were given the technique to get the password. This would mean that they could still be played on a PC through special software that had proprietary code built-in, such as PowerDVD. Such software was probably only allowed to perform a certain number of tasks, such as playback and seeking. I would imagine that any program that wanted to use the technique for anything other than playback was denied the necessary proprietary code.
Now, if the password to the DVD was stored somewhere where everyone could see it, that would make the previous two implementations invalid and unnecessary, but we know them to be true, and because of this, you don't need sources, just evidence.
Spaces is just virtual desktops, yes, but Windows never had them either [from Microsoft] except for a half-assed "PowerToy."
Somewhere floating around Windows 2000 are undocumented API functions CreateDesktop, SwitchDesktop and DestroyDesktop (or perhaps it is DeleteDesktop). I fooled around with these but didn't get far, I could create another desktop, but I couldn't get applications to display on it. I also discovered the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen is on its own desktop. They probably tried to implement it fully, but as usual, ran out of time.
I wouldn't blame them for not implementing it quick enough. I'd hate to see how their window management works.
MP3's are just waiting for the west to get decent hardware. In Japan most people don't bother with iPods, most phones have 4GB+ MP3 Storage, and you get them for free/cheap.
In Japan they have the Matsushita conglomerate, which manufacture all sorts of appliances (most whiteware branded National there, I believe) from refrigeration, to rice cookers, to TVs, to VCRs and DVDs, to digital cameras and camcorders, to the Panasonic Q [Yeah, go the Q!], to cellular phones, to Technics DJ equipment, to laptops.
On top of that, they lead or solely develop (or at least participate in developing) heaps of the industry standards in consumer electronics, such as SD cards, DVD-RAM, HDMI, VHS. They are also a major (in the top 20) semiconductor manufacturer. Matsushita is Japan's largest electronic manufacturer.
This is just one conglomerate of many in Japan.
I am not aware of any Western conglomerate that covers such a wide range of markets.
So it is no wonder that Japan have that kind of hardware. The West can wait all they like for decent hardware, but when they've got it, Japan has already stepped forward again.
What I sometimes do is write the performance-critical parts of my program in a low-level language, usually C or C++, and bind it with Python, and have pyGTK or pyWidgets for the GUI. It gets messy handling two languages, but doing a GUI in a high-level language like Python hugely reduces GUI development time. It can also be a little boring, if not tedious, to mix C++ and Python too...
Have you ever developed a GUI for a Windows app in C++? They may well have just invented their own C++ standard... it's crazy. I developed GUI apps in VB before going to C++, before finally wiping Windows and using Linux, and even writing a GUI in wxWidgets is by far easier than Windows. wxWidgets can even take care of the main() entry point (or WinMain or what have you). In Windows, I think you required about 50 or so lines of code for a "hello world" (wxWindows isn't many lines less but it is much easier to read and follow). Horrible. Wouldn't touch it again with a 40-foot pole.
I haven't tried Qt primarily because Gnome's always been the default desktop on the distro I installed, but instantaneously I can conclude it's better than Win32 GUI programming.
DirectX is another issue... woah! I wouldn't go there again either. Once was too much. It's like taking the mangled C++ code you wrote for a Win32 GUI, mangling it further, making sure pointers are passed around like free pizza, and somehow have it spit out some form of 3D graphics and sound. To try and follow DirectX code was to me like being blind and walking through a maze, you'll eventually get there, but only after much, much effort. Maybe it's just me, but I cannot believe I ever wrote programs like I did and thought I was doing it "right".
Not trying to belittle Microsoft's programming standards or anything... cough..
It's a disclaimer isn't it? If you agree that you won't use LimeWire for illegal purposes then it is YOUR responsibility. LimeWire won't function without an OS, and most OS disclaimers say the same thing, that you can't use it for illegal purposes. Lots of different software enable you to do illegal things. You can burn illegal CDs with Nero. You can set up an illegal website with Apache. You can print illegal documents with Word. Hell, you can write illegal software (i.e. software which performs illegal tasks) with Visual Basic. All of these programs have their intended purposes, and LimeWire also has its place there. Just because it can be used illegally, you've agreed and told them that you won't, so they [the LimeWire vendors] give you a copy. Surely this contract has some sort of legal privelege one way or another.
There are a lot of things which contribute to piracy. The Internet is probably the biggest one. If LimeWire is shut down, the Internet will still exist, and the biggest problem is still there. It will delay it, sure, but it will not stop it.
I went on a trip to Aussie not long ago... I'd have to say it was rather hard to understand peeeple huuu toork liiiike theeeess. I guess it's just one of those things... potato / potaato... Feesh and cheeps / fush and chups...
Oh, and you didn't mention the Consumer Guarantees Act of 1993. The most rediculous piece of legislation if you're a retailer, but certainly one of the best if you're a consumer (like the name implies). Consumer rights are huge and also emphasized in New Zealand. I'll give you an example of one (since I work in retail). A customer brought back a vacuum cleaner that is 8 months out of warranty (it had 12 months). They said a vacuum should last longer than this before dying under normal use. This is true. Reasonably, a vacuum should last longer than two years... and according to the CGA the retailer must provide the remedy. Panasonic (the manufacturer) received a letter or a phone call from the customer and probably had their ear masticated off about their rights as a consumer. Panasonic passed a credit onto us and we refunded them the money. We didn't just refund them our cost, but also our profit, some 20 months after the purchase!!! This is just one case in many. Talk to any NZer who has worked in retail after 1993 and he/she will have a story for you, guaranteed.
Consumers deserve some sort of protection regarding purchases, but the CGA states a lot of information about "reasonable life" of products and parts of products, and this introduces a lot of gray area, and from there it only takes good persuasion skills. We all know that gray area in law is bad. Nobody can correctly state the "reasonable life" of say a washing machine. Everyone uses it differently... it's almost as if the manufacturer has no need to supply a warranty with the product as it is up to the consumer to decide how long the appliance should last. Trust me, customers which are oblivious about the CGA are much, much easier to deal with.
openGL needs to either massively improve or this will remain the situation for years to come.
I will have to disagree here. The ONLY two platforms that use DirectX are the PC and the XBOX, and the XBOX is just a PC anyway. OpenGL has existed long before DirectX (in fact, IrisGL even longer), and has been used on just about every other platform. I am not sure, but I think even the Sega Genesis used OpenGL. OpenGL doesn't need improvements itself, it needs toolkits that perform the tedious tasks that DirectX does, and these sorts of things exist.
I have programmed in both DirectX (well, Direct3D actually) and OpenGL, and by far OpenGL was easier to read and write. I needed a few tutorials to get the gist of OpenGL, but I was constantly referring to the Direct3D API reference for help. It may be the most promoted 3D API for the Windows and XBOX platform, but that doesn't make it the best. Like the saying goes, 1,000 people can believe an crappy idea is good, but the idea is still crappy. Kinda reminds me of Galileo... poor fellow.
But what if you're holding it at more than a metre (some of use are more than 7 years old you know) ?
I think there's a pontential in the adult market for these things. They break their toys too.
At least Panasonic have secured the high-end laptop market for the 0-7 year old age bracket. Once they've released the 2-metre model, the only other group of people left are the skydiving web surfers.
Have you heard of the Panasonic Toughbooks? Their top of the line model can be dropped onto concrete from over a metre and withstand the fall. It can also operate at sub-zero temperatures because it has a built-in hardware (particularly hard drive) heater. Its case is made from titanium, and of course being Panasonic, it has an SD card slot.
They are expensive though. The cheapest I've seen one in NZ is just over $4,000 (NZD).
With that sort laptop, I wouldn't care about giving it a thump.
No no no, it wouldn't happen like that at all! Should be:
Ballmer:*screams so loud like he did in '91 (screaming "Windows, windows, windows..." at a conference in Japan) and later requires surgical work on his voice box, and then throws a chair as a sign of approval.*
Not too many recent games work in WINE, however I recently bought a copy of Red Alert 2 for NZD$7.00 brand new, just as an impulse buy. I didn't actually expect it to work under WINE when I got home, but with one tiny hack (you need a NoCD crack) it works beautifully. I can play it very well on my Thinkpad T23 (P3 1.1GHz, 512MB RAM).
Of course, it's not a very modern game, and the graphics are nowhere near C&C Generals or anything, but if you're like me, you play games for the gameplay and addiction, not the graphics (possible typical Linux "gamer" quote there...).
I actually yell at the TV: "It's fucking nuclear. Noo-Clee-Ar. How fucking hard is that?"
It's just as bad as a-loo-minum. It's fucking aluminium, al-you-mini-yum. How fucking hard is that.
However, if the US want to change the spelling of sulphur to sulfur, and the pronunciation of aluminium to "a-loo-minum", then well, I suppose they can have nucular too.
Re:Comments from people who actually create Creati
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Beginning GIMP
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As did I and you're right. My point however is that the keybind itself is unweildy. It's simply ridiculous to require 3 keys to 'Select None', let alone 3 keys so close together. Why not use ESC (increasingly predominant in graphical suite UI's) or Ctrl-A (select all) Mod1-A (select none), for instance?
I'm using GIMP 2.2.6, and if you go into the File menu, select Preferences, go to Interface, you can configure keyboard shortcuts right there. Personally though, my fingers comfortably press Ctrl+Shift+A (little finger on Ctrl, ring finger on Shift and middle finger on A, and it even works well on Dvorak, since the A is in the same place.), though I can understand how uncomfortable it could be for some people.
Frankly the idea of moving from workspace to workspace to access individual images (at times I have 10 or 15 open) or to select new tools and change brushes, sounds dizzying and far too management intensive for daily use. I'd probably lose complete track of where everything is after a few hours of work.
On the contrary I'd find it too difficult to navigate my way through 15 images all in the same workspace (even with a window list). I guess my memory works different to yours, as I have no trouble remembering what desktops my images are on (or any of my programs running for that matter), even when I disappear for lunch for an hour or two and come back.
The point is to reduce the amount of key-presses to access functions and editable assets, not increase them. Even if you are correct, and spreading out a project over multiple desktops is the way to go, it's a very bad sign that GIMP relies on this to be useful whereas other graphic suites/applications do not. I've used and appreciated multiple workspaces for close to 8 years, and this does not seem like a good application for them. I think the fact still stands, having individual, user managed X windows for each component of an image editing application is madness. Part of a sensible desktop environment is having 'windows' and/or focusable elements grouped by task. GIMP goes in the other direction and as such demands alot from the user.
Other graphic suites/applications? You mean for Windows? Well that would explain why they aren't oriented around multiple workspaces. Besides, with a multimedia keyboard with lots of buttons, you can program Gnome to switch to specific workspaces with just one keyboard button, but you cannot program graphics suites this way because the images you work on differ each session. In fact, with Screen Actions for Gnome, you can have the mouse cursor wrap to the next workspace and even drag and drop over multiple workspaces. It feels just like having multiple monitors (to me)! Even with dual monitor setups you cannot look at both screens simultaneously.
I agree somewhat. Having lots of user-managed windows can get messy, but I would much rather have the ability to span my work across workspaces than to have it kaleidescoped all in one, especially with 10-15 images. Screen Actions and a multimedia keyboard with lots of buttons certainly make multiple workspaces more of an asset.
Re:Comments from people who actually create Creati
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Don't be an insensible clod, some poor saps still use an OS which hasn't got more then 1 workspace.
Trust me I'm posting from one (only because I have to here)and it's supposed to be "Professional" and for "eXPerienced" users...tsss:)
It's funny you mention that, actually. Windows 2000 and probably XP does in fact have support for multiple workspaces. I stumbled across an undocumented (what a surprise there) Windows API called CreateDesktop. I later discovered that the dialog you see on Windows 2000 when you press Ctrl+Alt+Del appears on it's own desktop, but only the system has access to change the desktop to that particular one. I suspect that is why it is usually quite responsive when you pull the three finger salute on Windows 2000.
I played around with it for a while but I had found that only certain Windows apps (like Task Manager) would respond and actually place themselves on the currently active desktop, while all other apps would simply launch on the default desktop. I thought about making a workspace switcher, but because of the way it works (and the way it was undocumented), you'd need to run a seperate explorer.exe process on each desktop, and somehow find a way to get new processes to place their windows on the active desktop.
But yes, you're right, I shouldn't be so insensitive. I can still remember those days of single-workspaceness. Of couse IE doesn't have tabs either, and having a few explorer windows, five or six IE windows, Microsoft Visual Studio, SQL-Server Enterprise Manager, Access, Outlook and Word open all at once... makes me wonder how I ever got on without multiple workspaces (and also how much proprietary crap I was running)!
Re:Comments from people who actually create Creati
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Beginning GIMP
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· Score: 2, Insightful
SHIFT-CTRL-A (note not the easier CTRL-SHIFT-A) to select nothing
Um, those are the same thing... It doesn't matter what order the "modifiers" are in, all that matters is that all the specified modifiers are pressed before pressing A. I know because I just tried it.
Is it really such a demoralizing design concession that GIMP adopts the 1 parent window, many-child-window model that nearly every graphical application (including 3D modelers) use? Providing a toggleable full screen option (tricky in X I know) and the ability to quickly define which of your child-windows are visible would boost productivity with the GIMP (for most) a great deal (currently GIMP is really only as productive as Photoshop with a dual-screen setup - a luxury not all have). It would also aid those that want to transition from Photoshop - and there are many, believe it or not.
Do you even use a desktop environment? Put GIMP on its own workspace and there you have it; all in one place. I have 8 workspaces and one monitor (at 1280x1024), and I can use GIMP just fine... Perhaps the MDI you want could be the worst thing to add to GIMP because every major desktop environment allows multiple workspaces. Working on multiple images? Span them across your workspaces, set the main dialogs to appear on all workspaces (and perhaps set them to always on top) and with the click of a mouse button, you're switching between your images. Done!
It's a nice idea, but I have never once seen XP already have or download a driver for a new piece of hardware I bought. Out of maybe 20 times I've tried, it always says it couldn't find a driver, even for fairly dull things like serial expander boards.
There are probably more drivers for consumer electronics with proprietary interfaces such as digital cameras, scanners perhaps, and maybe even ethernet cards. Serial expanders aren't normally in consumer/workstation PCs, but rather servers etc, so my guess is that those sorts of device drivers are found in server edition Windows instead.
Sorry, I'll just have to point out that I don't actually know what a serial expander is, but I'm assuming it's one of those things that has a fat 72 pin plug and a cable that splits it into 8 serial ports.
Technically I am not wrong. A mebibyte is 2 ^ 20 bytes, a megabyte is 10 ^ 6 bytes (but megabyte is also synonymous for mebibyte in most cases).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
As you can see IEC and the IEEE both use the mebibyte terminology. I'm starting to catch on simply because it feels like I've learned something new (and that's a real plus for me) even though it's not rocket science. I do understand why "kilobytes" / kibibytes are measured in multiples of 1024, but I also believe it is a good idea not to abuse the metric abbreviations as it will (and does, and just has) cause confusion.
HDMI cables can also take [I think] 8 channels of audio, as well as a high resolution digital video signal in a single cable. Component, requiring three cables, only takes video (although most component cables come joined together anyway).
It makes much more sense to have a single cable carrying digital data from a digital source to end up in a digital destination, leaving the analogue conversion (if there is any) at the final step, than to have three seperate cables which can only take a video signal.
My ideal setup would have a receiver with HDMI input, my DVD player (or whatever I end up with to play movies) connected to that via HDMI, and my monitor connected to my receiver using DVI (or HDMI). Two cables (of course excluding speaker wire) versus the 7 (2 x component plus digital audio) required otherwise.
Doesn't Nigeria mean "Land of the Black(s)"? If so, shouldn't we rename it accordingly, if the term 'nigger' is now politically incorrect?
The term 'redneck' is not racist either, because often people of the same ethnicity AND nationality are the ones using the term, this makes it stereotypical discrimination.
No wonder you're experiencing shut down problems! Never use the Shut Down... method.
The best way to shut down a Windows PC is to be working on something important and not save. This almost guarantees a poweroff within 5 minutes, or at least a very bad crash. If you're lucky it may even tell you that your work is an illegal operation (regardless of its legality).
I'm quite sure I won't be harmed by WGA if they decide to shut down all illegitimate copies of Windows, my Windows box already turns off and on more than my laptop with a low battery.
In all seriousness, couldn't you just set up a firewall to drop the packet instructing Windows to shut down? Furthermore, reverse engineer and set up a dummy WGA? I've never reversed engineered software so I don't know how difficult it is, but I know there are some talented programmers out there.
Slashdot Mirror
But where does Compiz/XGL fit into the equation?
This is you as a chief:
crossmr: Is the game finished?Employee: Yep, and with a little extra time and funding we can increase our return by releasing the game on the Mac platform.
crossmr: Nah, it's fine. The return we get from just having it on Windows is big enough.
Employee: Are you sure? We could make a significantly bigger return. Have you seen the new Macs? People are switching to them and using Boot Camp just to play their games. It would be much better if they wouldn't have to reboot just to play this game we just made.
crossmr: Look, it sounds like a big risk, it's not worth the extra funding.
Employee: Sir, maybe you're not getting it. The Mac market is projected to increase now that they're cheaper than ever, and they come with a great deal of decent hardware. It won't even need as much debugging because nearly all the new Macs will be built consistently, with identical hardware setups. You know that intuition they're constantly renowned for and all that fuss. I'm telling you people are wanting Macs.
crossmr: It's not a risk I'm willing to take.
I think that's exactly what they're doing. Releasing decent PCs with decent hardware for decent prices. Macs used to be the Rolls Royce of all PCs (well, not exactly but you get what I mean). They have always had that reputation for being intuitive, nice-looking, but expensive piece of equipment, which is why there is such a small selection of software available.
Now though, that they are actually affordable while still maintaining the prior part of their reputation (i.e. being intuitive and nice-looking), more and more people will be attracted to them, and with such decent hardware inside, game developers will realise there is actually a market for them now. If I was a gaming company with a reputation for making good games, I would not hesitate to start porting them to MacOS. People want to play their favourite games on their favourite platform, and what better way to do that than by releasing your games on as many platforms as possible?
This is you if you owned a game development company:
crossmr: We're only going to develop this game for PC only.Lead Developer: We've already developed it. In fact, we developed it in a way that allows us to port it to other platforms quite easily.
crossmr: That's unpossible! Did I ask you to do that? No! PC only! And who's he?
Guest appearance by Steve Ballmer: DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS...
Think of it like this; imagine the entire DVD is a zip file with a password on it, and the password is in a place that is only writeable through pressing the DVDs, not burning them (and by pressing, I mean manufacturing them, not pushing on it with your thumb). This would stop a straight DVD copy from working in a conventional DVD player. The content remains scrambled because there is no password with it. This cuts out the easiest copying solution, which existed in conventional audio CDs.
The second problem is, only authorised/liscensed software were given the technique to get the password. This would mean that they could still be played on a PC through special software that had proprietary code built-in, such as PowerDVD. Such software was probably only allowed to perform a certain number of tasks, such as playback and seeking. I would imagine that any program that wanted to use the technique for anything other than playback was denied the necessary proprietary code.
Now, if the password to the DVD was stored somewhere where everyone could see it, that would make the previous two implementations invalid and unnecessary, but we know them to be true, and because of this, you don't need sources, just evidence.
Somewhere floating around Windows 2000 are undocumented API functions CreateDesktop, SwitchDesktop and DestroyDesktop (or perhaps it is DeleteDesktop). I fooled around with these but didn't get far, I could create another desktop, but I couldn't get applications to display on it. I also discovered the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen is on its own desktop. They probably tried to implement it fully, but as usual, ran out of time.
I wouldn't blame them for not implementing it quick enough. I'd hate to see how their window management works.
In Japan they have the Matsushita conglomerate, which manufacture all sorts of appliances (most whiteware branded National there, I believe) from refrigeration, to rice cookers, to TVs, to VCRs and DVDs, to digital cameras and camcorders, to the Panasonic Q [Yeah, go the Q!], to cellular phones, to Technics DJ equipment, to laptops.
On top of that, they lead or solely develop (or at least participate in developing) heaps of the industry standards in consumer electronics, such as SD cards, DVD-RAM, HDMI, VHS. They are also a major (in the top 20) semiconductor manufacturer. Matsushita is Japan's largest electronic manufacturer.
This is just one conglomerate of many in Japan.
I am not aware of any Western conglomerate that covers such a wide range of markets.
So it is no wonder that Japan have that kind of hardware. The West can wait all they like for decent hardware, but when they've got it, Japan has already stepped forward again.
What I sometimes do is write the performance-critical parts of my program in a low-level language, usually C or C++, and bind it with Python, and have pyGTK or pyWidgets for the GUI. It gets messy handling two languages, but doing a GUI in a high-level language like Python hugely reduces GUI development time. It can also be a little boring, if not tedious, to mix C++ and Python too...
Have you ever developed a GUI for a Windows app in C++? They may well have just invented their own C++ standard... it's crazy. I developed GUI apps in VB before going to C++, before finally wiping Windows and using Linux, and even writing a GUI in wxWidgets is by far easier than Windows. wxWidgets can even take care of the main() entry point (or WinMain or what have you). In Windows, I think you required about 50 or so lines of code for a "hello world" (wxWindows isn't many lines less but it is much easier to read and follow). Horrible. Wouldn't touch it again with a 40-foot pole.
I haven't tried Qt primarily because Gnome's always been the default desktop on the distro I installed, but instantaneously I can conclude it's better than Win32 GUI programming.
DirectX is another issue... woah! I wouldn't go there again either. Once was too much. It's like taking the mangled C++ code you wrote for a Win32 GUI, mangling it further, making sure pointers are passed around like free pizza, and somehow have it spit out some form of 3D graphics and sound. To try and follow DirectX code was to me like being blind and walking through a maze, you'll eventually get there, but only after much, much effort. Maybe it's just me, but I cannot believe I ever wrote programs like I did and thought I was doing it "right".
Not trying to belittle Microsoft's programming standards or anything... cough..
It's a disclaimer isn't it? If you agree that you won't use LimeWire for illegal purposes then it is YOUR responsibility. LimeWire won't function without an OS, and most OS disclaimers say the same thing, that you can't use it for illegal purposes. Lots of different software enable you to do illegal things. You can burn illegal CDs with Nero. You can set up an illegal website with Apache. You can print illegal documents with Word. Hell, you can write illegal software (i.e. software which performs illegal tasks) with Visual Basic. All of these programs have their intended purposes, and LimeWire also has its place there. Just because it can be used illegally, you've agreed and told them that you won't, so they [the LimeWire vendors] give you a copy. Surely this contract has some sort of legal privelege one way or another.
There are a lot of things which contribute to piracy. The Internet is probably the biggest one. If LimeWire is shut down, the Internet will still exist, and the biggest problem is still there. It will delay it, sure, but it will not stop it.
I went on a trip to Aussie not long ago... I'd have to say it was rather hard to understand peeeple huuu toork liiiike theeeess. I guess it's just one of those things... potato / potaato... Feesh and cheeps / fush and chups...
Oh, and you didn't mention the Consumer Guarantees Act of 1993. The most rediculous piece of legislation if you're a retailer, but certainly one of the best if you're a consumer (like the name implies). Consumer rights are huge and also emphasized in New Zealand. I'll give you an example of one (since I work in retail). A customer brought back a vacuum cleaner that is 8 months out of warranty (it had 12 months). They said a vacuum should last longer than this before dying under normal use. This is true. Reasonably, a vacuum should last longer than two years... and according to the CGA the retailer must provide the remedy. Panasonic (the manufacturer) received a letter or a phone call from the customer and probably had their ear masticated off about their rights as a consumer. Panasonic passed a credit onto us and we refunded them the money. We didn't just refund them our cost, but also our profit, some 20 months after the purchase!!! This is just one case in many. Talk to any NZer who has worked in retail after 1993 and he/she will have a story for you, guaranteed.
Consumers deserve some sort of protection regarding purchases, but the CGA states a lot of information about "reasonable life" of products and parts of products, and this introduces a lot of gray area, and from there it only takes good persuasion skills. We all know that gray area in law is bad. Nobody can correctly state the "reasonable life" of say a washing machine. Everyone uses it differently... it's almost as if the manufacturer has no need to supply a warranty with the product as it is up to the consumer to decide how long the appliance should last. Trust me, customers which are oblivious about the CGA are much, much easier to deal with.
I will have to disagree here. The ONLY two platforms that use DirectX are the PC and the XBOX, and the XBOX is just a PC anyway. OpenGL has existed long before DirectX (in fact, IrisGL even longer), and has been used on just about every other platform. I am not sure, but I think even the Sega Genesis used OpenGL. OpenGL doesn't need improvements itself, it needs toolkits that perform the tedious tasks that DirectX does, and these sorts of things exist.
I have programmed in both DirectX (well, Direct3D actually) and OpenGL, and by far OpenGL was easier to read and write. I needed a few tutorials to get the gist of OpenGL, but I was constantly referring to the Direct3D API reference for help. It may be the most promoted 3D API for the Windows and XBOX platform, but that doesn't make it the best. Like the saying goes, 1,000 people can believe an crappy idea is good, but the idea is still crappy. Kinda reminds me of Galileo... poor fellow.
At least Panasonic have secured the high-end laptop market for the 0-7 year old age bracket. Once they've released the 2-metre model, the only other group of people left are the skydiving web surfers.
The story doesn't add up, but perhaps the hush-money he was given does...
Have you heard of the Panasonic Toughbooks? Their top of the line model can be dropped onto concrete from over a metre and withstand the fall. It can also operate at sub-zero temperatures because it has a built-in hardware (particularly hard drive) heater. Its case is made from titanium, and of course being Panasonic, it has an SD card slot.
They are expensive though. The cheapest I've seen one in NZ is just over $4,000 (NZD).
With that sort laptop, I wouldn't care about giving it a thump.
No no no, it wouldn't happen like that at all! Should be:
Ballmer: *screams so loud like he did in '91 (screaming "Windows, windows, windows..." at a conference in Japan) and later requires surgical work on his voice box, and then throws a chair as a sign of approval.*
Not too many recent games work in WINE, however I recently bought a copy of Red Alert 2 for NZD$7.00 brand new, just as an impulse buy. I didn't actually expect it to work under WINE when I got home, but with one tiny hack (you need a NoCD crack) it works beautifully. I can play it very well on my Thinkpad T23 (P3 1.1GHz, 512MB RAM).
Of course, it's not a very modern game, and the graphics are nowhere near C&C Generals or anything, but if you're like me, you play games for the gameplay and addiction, not the graphics (possible typical Linux "gamer" quote there...).
I actually yell at the TV: "It's fucking nuclear. Noo-Clee-Ar. How fucking hard is that?"
It's just as bad as a-loo-minum. It's fucking aluminium, al-you-mini-yum. How fucking hard is that.
However, if the US want to change the spelling of sulphur to sulfur, and the pronunciation of aluminium to "a-loo-minum", then well, I suppose they can have nucular too.
As did I and you're right. My point however is that the keybind itself is unweildy. It's simply ridiculous to require 3 keys to 'Select None', let alone 3 keys so close together. Why not use ESC (increasingly predominant in graphical suite UI's) or Ctrl-A (select all) Mod1-A (select none), for instance?
I'm using GIMP 2.2.6, and if you go into the File menu, select Preferences, go to Interface, you can configure keyboard shortcuts right there. Personally though, my fingers comfortably press Ctrl+Shift+A (little finger on Ctrl, ring finger on Shift and middle finger on A, and it even works well on Dvorak, since the A is in the same place.), though I can understand how uncomfortable it could be for some people.
Frankly the idea of moving from workspace to workspace to access individual images (at times I have 10 or 15 open) or to select new tools and change brushes, sounds dizzying and far too management intensive for daily use. I'd probably lose complete track of where everything is after a few hours of work.
On the contrary I'd find it too difficult to navigate my way through 15 images all in the same workspace (even with a window list). I guess my memory works different to yours, as I have no trouble remembering what desktops my images are on (or any of my programs running for that matter), even when I disappear for lunch for an hour or two and come back.
The point is to reduce the amount of key-presses to access functions and editable assets, not increase them. Even if you are correct, and spreading out a project over multiple desktops is the way to go, it's a very bad sign that GIMP relies on this to be useful whereas other graphic suites/applications do not. I've used and appreciated multiple workspaces for close to 8 years, and this does not seem like a good application for them. I think the fact still stands, having individual, user managed X windows for each component of an image editing application is madness. Part of a sensible desktop environment is having 'windows' and/or focusable elements grouped by task. GIMP goes in the other direction and as such demands alot from the user.
Other graphic suites/applications? You mean for Windows? Well that would explain why they aren't oriented around multiple workspaces. Besides, with a multimedia keyboard with lots of buttons, you can program Gnome to switch to specific workspaces with just one keyboard button, but you cannot program graphics suites this way because the images you work on differ each session. In fact, with Screen Actions for Gnome, you can have the mouse cursor wrap to the next workspace and even drag and drop over multiple workspaces. It feels just like having multiple monitors (to me)! Even with dual monitor setups you cannot look at both screens simultaneously.
I agree somewhat. Having lots of user-managed windows can get messy, but I would much rather have the ability to span my work across workspaces than to have it kaleidescoped all in one, especially with 10-15 images. Screen Actions and a multimedia keyboard with lots of buttons certainly make multiple workspaces more of an asset.
Don't be an insensible clod, some poor saps still use an OS which hasn't got more then 1 workspace. Trust me I'm posting from one (only because I have to here)and it's supposed to be "Professional" and for "eXPerienced" users...tsss :)
It's funny you mention that, actually. Windows 2000 and probably XP does in fact have support for multiple workspaces. I stumbled across an undocumented (what a surprise there) Windows API called CreateDesktop. I later discovered that the dialog you see on Windows 2000 when you press Ctrl+Alt+Del appears on it's own desktop, but only the system has access to change the desktop to that particular one. I suspect that is why it is usually quite responsive when you pull the three finger salute on Windows 2000.
I played around with it for a while but I had found that only certain Windows apps (like Task Manager) would respond and actually place themselves on the currently active desktop, while all other apps would simply launch on the default desktop. I thought about making a workspace switcher, but because of the way it works (and the way it was undocumented), you'd need to run a seperate explorer.exe process on each desktop, and somehow find a way to get new processes to place their windows on the active desktop.
But yes, you're right, I shouldn't be so insensitive. I can still remember those days of single-workspaceness. Of couse IE doesn't have tabs either, and having a few explorer windows, five or six IE windows, Microsoft Visual Studio, SQL-Server Enterprise Manager, Access, Outlook and Word open all at once... makes me wonder how I ever got on without multiple workspaces (and also how much proprietary crap I was running)!
SHIFT-CTRL-A (note not the easier CTRL-SHIFT-A) to select nothing
Um, those are the same thing... It doesn't matter what order the "modifiers" are in, all that matters is that all the specified modifiers are pressed before pressing A. I know because I just tried it.
Is it really such a demoralizing design concession that GIMP adopts the 1 parent window, many-child-window model that nearly every graphical application (including 3D modelers) use? Providing a toggleable full screen option (tricky in X I know) and the ability to quickly define which of your child-windows are visible would boost productivity with the GIMP (for most) a great deal (currently GIMP is really only as productive as Photoshop with a dual-screen setup - a luxury not all have). It would also aid those that want to transition from Photoshop - and there are many, believe it or not.
Do you even use a desktop environment? Put GIMP on its own workspace and there you have it; all in one place. I have 8 workspaces and one monitor (at 1280x1024), and I can use GIMP just fine... Perhaps the MDI you want could be the worst thing to add to GIMP because every major desktop environment allows multiple workspaces. Working on multiple images? Span them across your workspaces, set the main dialogs to appear on all workspaces (and perhaps set them to always on top) and with the click of a mouse button, you're switching between your images. Done!
It's a nice idea, but I have never once seen XP already have or download a driver for a new piece of hardware I bought. Out of maybe 20 times I've tried, it always says it couldn't find a driver, even for fairly dull things like serial expander boards.
There are probably more drivers for consumer electronics with proprietary interfaces such as digital cameras, scanners perhaps, and maybe even ethernet cards. Serial expanders aren't normally in consumer/workstation PCs, but rather servers etc, so my guess is that those sorts of device drivers are found in server edition Windows instead.
Sorry, I'll just have to point out that I don't actually know what a serial expander is, but I'm assuming it's one of those things that has a fat 72 pin plug and a cable that splits it into 8 serial ports.
Technically I am not wrong. A mebibyte is 2 ^ 20 bytes, a megabyte is 10 ^ 6 bytes (but megabyte is also synonymous for mebibyte in most cases).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix
As you can see IEC and the IEEE both use the mebibyte terminology. I'm starting to catch on simply because it feels like I've learned something new (and that's a real plus for me) even though it's not rocket science. I do understand why "kilobytes" / kibibytes are measured in multiples of 1024, but I also believe it is a good idea not to abuse the metric abbreviations as it will (and does, and just has) cause confusion.
HDMI cables can also take [I think] 8 channels of audio, as well as a high resolution digital video signal in a single cable. Component, requiring three cables, only takes video (although most component cables come joined together anyway).
It makes much more sense to have a single cable carrying digital data from a digital source to end up in a digital destination, leaving the analogue conversion (if there is any) at the final step, than to have three seperate cables which can only take a video signal.
My ideal setup would have a receiver with HDMI input, my DVD player (or whatever I end up with to play movies) connected to that via HDMI, and my monitor connected to my receiver using DVI (or HDMI). Two cables (of course excluding speaker wire) versus the 7 (2 x component plus digital audio) required otherwise.
Doesn't Nigeria mean "Land of the Black(s)"? If so, shouldn't we rename it accordingly, if the term 'nigger' is now politically incorrect? The term 'redneck' is not racist either, because often people of the same ethnicity AND nationality are the ones using the term, this makes it stereotypical discrimination.
No wonder you're experiencing shut down problems! Never use the Shut Down... method. The best way to shut down a Windows PC is to be working on something important and not save. This almost guarantees a poweroff within 5 minutes, or at least a very bad crash. If you're lucky it may even tell you that your work is an illegal operation (regardless of its legality). I'm quite sure I won't be harmed by WGA if they decide to shut down all illegitimate copies of Windows, my Windows box already turns off and on more than my laptop with a low battery. In all seriousness, couldn't you just set up a firewall to drop the packet instructing Windows to shut down? Furthermore, reverse engineer and set up a dummy WGA? I've never reversed engineered software so I don't know how difficult it is, but I know there are some talented programmers out there.