I'd rather they give the toy computers a different name.
Wait, are you saying "Ideapad" is the same name as "Thinkpad?" Either I vastly misunderstand how the English language works, or you do.
Kidding aside, Apple had an iBook and a PowerBook for years, and I don't think anybody was confused by the "similar" names. I don't think this is something Lenovo has to worry about, frankly. Competing with HP and Dell in this market segment is going to be more of a challenge than a possibly confusing name.
I love the wording. "Last ditch effort." WTF?! Silverlight was released in September, it hasn't even slightly had time to ramp up, isn't it a little early to declare the *first major project* using the technology as a "last ditch effort?"
Total flamebait summary. Good for Microsoft for eating their own dogfood. And remember, snarky Slashdot posters, that there's nothing in the open source world that even comes close to competing with Silverlight... try for a little humility.
It also says it's the first problem they've had in 14 years.
But honestly, from a neutral observer of channel 5 in a bowling alley, I didn't notice any problem with the fireworks and I can guarantee nobody else there did, either. They said it was 'out of sync with the music', well, we couldn't hear the music, and the big blast happened at exactly midnight.
It has two interfaces. One of these sucks. The other does not suck. The one that does not suck was the original, and the one I was referring to~
Wait, now you're saying a CLI-only interface to a *video player* does not suck? That makes no sense at all... sure it's impossible to fast-forward or pause, but the UI sure doesn't suck!
This concept could be expanded to other applications: how about a window manager that remembers where you tend to arrange your applications and starts putting them in the right place to begin with?
You mean kind of like the spatial interface Apple had in 1984? Yeah, that'd be a great idea!
The other poster is wrong, or talking about something else and you can't tell the difference.
You'll have to take that up with him. He referred to the change log of the software, so unless the change log is also wrong, I'm more inclined to take his word than yours, since you've offered no evidence.
You don't know anything about a lot of things. LiveCD isn't a bootable CD, nor is it a bootable CD with a graphical shell. Linux has had something "like it" since the early 1990's, whereas MacOS never really did.
So the tactic here is to change the definition of "LiveCD" until it only fits Linux? Tell me what the difference between the Ubuntu LiveCD and the Mac OS 8 CD I have on my shelf is. Both boot the computer. Both let you access HDs on the computer, and use them to "install" software. Both allow you to run installed programs on the computer's HD. Both let you run included programs on the CD. Both allow you to install the OS directly from that environment to the HD. What is the difference?
You've built a straw-man, and you're a jerk. A complete kneebiter.
I'm rubber, you're glue.
But despite my kneebiter completion, I realize that sending you a link to a website I know it incorrect and out-of-date would be a bad idea, because you'd get the impression from the link that the project related to the website is dead.
If you've selected some other definitions you're unwilling to share that make this so, then you have a tautology and cannot be wrong. People who do this are called weasels.
You'd think there'd be a more formal term for this!
Well, then, you sir are a weasel for changing the definition of "LiveCD" until the Mac OS Classic CDs no longer fit it. By your own definition.
This is one of the reasons I haven't embraced gaming platforms, and prefer to do my gaming on a computer. At least with a computer, there are LAN gaming options (although some game platforms may have LAN gaming capabilities, they don't seem to be as flexible or easy to set up, or even as well thought-out).
Xbox (and Xbox 360, natch) has a very well thought-out, flexible and easy-to-set-up LAN gaming capability. They call it "System Link." You don't even need crossover ethernet cables, all the ports are auto-sensing. If you want more than 2 boxes, you can use a simple $10 hub and everything works just fine.
Out of curiosity, how do you think Xbox players did Halo tournaments before Live existed?
This is coupled with the fact that there are many more computer games that have an offline campaign/career/single-player mode, and the newer games for PS3/XBox/etc that even bother to have a single-player offline mode usually do a very poor and limited job of it.
Wha...? I doubt the ratio on Xbox is any different than on PC. If anything, I think there are more PC games that are multiplayer-only, or have single-player as an afterthought. All of the Battlefield games, for example, and all of the Unreal Tournament games. And all the Quake games. And the Tribes games, except the third one... etc.
I don't have any experience of PS3, but for Xbox I think I can say you're simply wrong on this point. I can think of a few games on Xbox Live where the single-player was an afterthought: Counter-Strike for Xbox, Battlefield 2 for Xbox, uh, one fourth of the Orange Box, maybe more I can't think of.
Multi-player gaming is fun, but I want to be able to play a game I really like after the support for online play from the makers goes away, and also if some snafu with game servers as in this case happens. I know I'd be very very angry that the expensive gaming platform and multi-player service I either bought for myself for Christmas or for some poor kid was basically un-playable for days after the holidays are over.
I agree, and I hope Microsoft gets the problems with Live fixed as quickly as possible.
It's not people buying new Xboxes. After all, when Halo 2 and Halo 3 came out, Xbox Live had no trouble handling the additional load from people who don't normally play on Live. I think it's related to their last software update, or perhaps some shenanigans from some game title out there now.
That said, this isn't a total outage. I logged on to Live just yesterday, sent some Viva Pinata items to a friend (yes, make fun of me, I played Viva Pinata!) and everything worked fine. If I hadn't seen this article, I'd never know there was an issue. I do realize, though, that playing Viva Pinata and sending an item is a lot different than playing Halo 3.
Film is far higher resolution than even the highest HDTV format.
Actually, you might be surprised (for 35mm film at least; I don't think there's any question that 70mm films surpass HD format resolutions.) See this website for a detailed comparison between the two:
Note that they did that study with actual viewers in an actual theater; on paper, 35mm may be higher resolution, but the actual viewers couldn't tell the difference when both were projected onto the same screen, so practically there is no difference. And the viewers they chose were a "panel of experts."
Turning on subtitles while the movie's still playing, checking out all the extras without having to stop the movie from playing. Things like that... turning on all the extras without starting the movie over.
The vast majority of DVD players do that right now. The trick is to use the DVD Player's menu to access that content, not the graphical menu on the DVD itself. It's just a different button on the remote, and it'll switch subtitles on, change audio language, change to different "Titles" (i.e. special features) without interrupting the playback.
Does HD-DVD still have that cool-but-pointless camera angles feature, where you can view a scene from a different camera angle?
I agree. I'd much rather be "wasting" a few pixels to see the beautiful 70mm effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey in the correct format. Hell, the DVD's throwing 50% of the visual information of the 70mm film out anyway, what's the difference if it tosses out another 25% or so?
Or for a more geek-accessible example: That scene in Empire Strikes Back, where one of the Star Destroyers in Darth Vader's fleet gets hit by an asteroid while the captain is holo-conferencing with Vader, and the captain puts up his hands and screams before the hologram gets cut off? It's completely gone in the pan-n-scan version!
Google disagrees with you. Innovative means: being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before; "stylistically innovative works"; "innovative members of the artistic community"; "a mind so innovational, so original" which Microsoft doesn't do. They hold back development with licensing costs and monopolies; which is infact another definition of the term innovative (Suggesting new business opportunities that should be considered by the business in order to maximise profits) but not what most people consider to be the definition of the term.
They sure seem to have innovated that sound volume feature this thread is about.
No, but you can still download the version mentioned and try it for yourself. If you're genuinely interested in being wrong, you could've done this. If you're just trying to be obstructionist and obtuse then you're a waste of my time.
You're trying to convince me, that means you have to do the legwork. But don't bother in this case, because another poster has: PulseAudio didn't have the feature in question until after Vista betas were out.
Uh, I can't verify this but MacOS 7.5 as freely downloaded cannot be used in this fashion. I can get a reduced-feature interface that definitely provides a graphical shell- but you've been able to boot X off two floppies for longer than that and I didn't count it either. Real LiveCDs are fully functioning systems- you can save your data to a hard disk or a flash-drive, "install" programs, and use them generally as you like. It's most similar to NeXT's hard-drive swap system, but without actually having to require a hard-drive (or swapping it for that matter).
I have no clue what Apple puts up for download on their site. An actual Mac OS 7.5 CD would be able to boot a PPC Apple computer and use it just as if it was booted from the internal drive including: Saving your data to the HD, "install" programs (as much as Mac OS has a concept of installation at least), and use it generally as you like. I got an OS 8 CD sitting on my bookshelf which I used as a LiveCD only a few years ago, and hardware in my basement capable of running it.
I don't know anything about NeXT, I'm afraid. But Macintosh had the LiveCD concept down long before I ever heard of anything from Linux on the subject.
Actually it isn't. It's now part of BigBoard, which is most certainly not abandoned. It doesn't surprise me that you have no idea what you're talking about as you haven't provided any indication otherwise thus far, but you might want to actually do some research on the things you're talking about before you dismiss them so easily.
When you link to a site that's (apparently) out-of-date and broken and you know it, what kind of reaction did you expect? Der.
No, that just means that Microsoft could advance the state of the art. It isn't demonstration that they are.
Then explain the volume control this thread is about. It's not in OS X, it's *now* in Linux, but it was in Windows Vista first. If that's not a demonstration that they are advancing the state of the art, what would satisfy you?
Ack, I'd tried to repress that from my memory... Yeah, mplayer has a terrible GUI, but it's optional -- which is why I use the command line on every OS. You can either type, or drag & drop a video file onto the.exe, and it just plays, with no fuss. Further interaction is done purely by keyboard, and the keybindings are flexible enough to do pretty much anything~ And before going "ew, command line!", note that I've recommended the "drag & drop onto the.exe" approach to several generic windows users, and they've all thanked me for introducing them to such an awesome media player:P
So it has a terrible GUI, you admit it has a terrible GUI, and yet you listed it as an example of an innovative program because of it's great GUI just yesterday? *head explodes* Seriously, WTF?
Filesystem in User Space; it makes developing new filesystems ridiculously easy, leading to things like wikifs -- you can mount wikipedia as any other disk drive, then the wiki articles appear as text files which you can edit with any standard editor.
Ok, that's sounds a little bit slick, but it's also incredible geeky. Why not package it up into something that actual normal non-Slashdot reading humans can actually use and then make a mint? Assuming it works for things other than Wikipedia.
According to the change log, the feature was first released on 2006-07-08 (YYYY-MM-DD). Got any idea on when Microsoft released the first Vista RC?
Who cares if it was when Microsoft released the first Release Candidate? It was long after Microsoft announced that Vista would have the feature (posted in another comment in this thread), thus proving my point: the ONLY reasons that PulseAudio has that feature first are: 1) Because Microsoft was developing it 2) Because a tiny OS component like PulseAudio has a quicker release cycle than a huge OS like Vista.
Therefore, that's not a good example of innovation, that's just a good example of "keeping up with the neighbors." Which is what open source is good at.
Yes. How old was your G5 when you decided to replace it?
The main point was that both the Windows and Mac paths have some dead ends. It's not some crazy Apple conspiracy that you can't upgrade your G5; it happens with all technology.
Well, der. First of all, if that was your point, you could have just stated it instead of bringing up that Celeron nonsense. Secondly, *my* point was that while I used to care about OS quality enough to buy a $2100 machine over a $800 machine, I'm not willing to do the same overkill now. Since Apple doesn't sell a computer in my price range, I don't own an Apple computer. It's simple.
If you want to pay $2400 for a computer to play World of Warcraft worse than an equivalent $800 PC, that's your business. I've smartened up.
I guess we have different definitions of features then. I'd consider a method of organizing my files one feature, and a method of launching applications another. Both OS 9 and OS X have these. They use different methods of doing so, but both can do so.
I like my definition better than yours. "Spatial file organization" is a feature, whether you think it is or not. If you define a feature as the most basic element, then hardly anything has any features at all-- what would be the point of buying an Audi over a Kia? Both have the "feature" of an engine and tires.
Spatial file browsing is a feature that Mac OS version 9 had, but Mac OS version 10 does not have. The fact that missing features don't bother Mac users bothers me; imagine the outcry if Windows Vista 2 was missing a feature, *any feature* from the current Windows Vista. It would be on the news, there'd be inflammatory Slashdot articles, etc. Why don't Mac users care?
Tabbed folders vs. folders in the dock (or Stacks in 10.5) - correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like they do the same thing: let you quickly access commonly used files and folders. I'd consider the Quick Launch bar in the Windows task bar the same feature, just done differently. Again, which one is nicer depends on the user.
You're wrong, which is understandable because this feature has never been duplicated. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have posted that OS X doesn't have it, hmm?
The difference is that Tabbed Folders, when they pop up, *are* the folder in question... the other features you mention (Quick Launch, Dock icons) only allow you to launch files. With the Tabbed Folders feature, you could drag icons around, you could right-click to Get Info, you could do any file operation you could do in a normal folder, and when you're done the tab would just pop back down out of your way.
A typical usage scenario is that I have one Tabbed Folder with a bunch of documents and another with a bunch of applications. I can pop up the document one and double-click to launch a document, or pop up the applications one and double-click to launch an application. (Actually single-click, since I had that tab configured to display as "buttons", another feature which isn't available on OS X. FYI.) That's as far as your imagination has taken you.
Now let's say I want to open a document, a text file, in Word instead of in the default application for text files. I can grab the text file's icon from the document Tabbed Folder to begin a drag, the Tabbed Folder pops back down out of my way, then I can drag it over to the applications Tabbed Folder, which pops up in view, and drop the icon on the application icon of my choice. That's a far quicker way of doing than operation than opening both windows manually to point to the right place and doing the drag, or opening up Word first and using the Open menu item, then selecting text files from the little menu. And it's something both OS X and Windows Explorer have no equivalent to.
So yes, Tabbed Folders let you "quickly access files and folders". But you were defining "access" as "launch" and Tabbed Folders let you do any folder/file operation in them, then they'd pop neatly out of your way. I built an entire workfl
It's been a requested feature since OS X had it (before Vista was even announced).
I'm not asking "did someone request the feature before Vista announced it", that's completely aside the point. The question is, "did PulseAudio *implement* the feature before Vista announced it?" That I still don't have an answer to. (Although congratulations on your rather obvious attempt to dodge the question.)
A quick google says that PulseAudio used to be called Polypaudio, and at least as far back as 2004 it was a usable esound replacement. Vista announced it over a year later. Never mind the fact that pulseaudio has a large number of features that Vista only wishes it could implement. The RTP sinks and sources is fantastic for laptop users.
The first link has no information on when "polypaudio" added support for changing the volume of individual applications. So whether or not the PulseAudio developers supported it in response to Vista or not remains to be seen.
I have a laptop; what is an RTP sink and why would I find it useful? I Googled the term and I can't find any sites that explain what the hell it is or why I care, only sites that explain how to use it.
On the other hand, if people have been asking for this feature for years, and Microsoft gets around to it after someone else did it, then what does that mean for Microsoft?
I dunno? First you have to prove that people have been asking for this feature for years, then you have to prove that PulseAudio did it first. Right now, I got neither of those.
As far as I can tell, all there is is some screenshots and a complaint that Microsoft is using the same idea.
Chandler?
Looks like Microsoft Outlook or even a configured Lotus Notes to me. Except more cluttered. Maybe it does something hugely innovative I'm not seeing from the screenshots, I dunno, if so you'll have to be more specific.
Would the best version control system count?
Depends, how is it innovative? You can be the "best" of something while innovating nothing, look at something like the iPod if you need an example.
The Live CD?
Every Mac OS version that shipped on CD (until OS X, that is, versions 7.0-9.2 or so) could boot to a usable, fully functional, desktop from CD. Not innovative. (Note that Wikipedia is wrong on this count, per usual; Mac OS's CD boot wasn't solely a diagnostic tool, it was fully functional, if less-configurable.)
So far, the best one you got is Dashboard. Too bad the project is obviously abandoned.
Or do you really think Microsoft was advancing the state of the art when they stopped MSIE as long as they did?
No I don't. Funny thing is, I happen to realize that Microsoft is a huge corporation with 70,000+ employees and God-knows-how-many different product team. Saying that one team is doing something innovative says nothing about the rest of the company. (That's like saying that since Lotus Notes from IBM is bloated, therefore IBM's Infoprint printer software must also be bloated.)
Welcome to the year 2007: Microsoft isn't 3 guys in a garage anymore.
If you don't take human nature into account, you are bad at it. That's like developing this great economic system where everybody gets everything they need-- let's call it Communism! Of course, it has no compatibility whatsoever with the human race, but it sure looks good on paper, huh?
I'm sure he asked Discover Magazine.com what web server they used before he uploaded it, and then would have refused if he didn't like the answer. WTF? What relevance is the web server at all?
Slashdot Mirror
I'd rather they give the toy computers a different name.
Wait, are you saying "Ideapad" is the same name as "Thinkpad?" Either I vastly misunderstand how the English language works, or you do.
Kidding aside, Apple had an iBook and a PowerBook for years, and I don't think anybody was confused by the "similar" names. I don't think this is something Lenovo has to worry about, frankly. Competing with HP and Dell in this market segment is going to be more of a challenge than a possibly confusing name.
You mean, like the way MS uses Linux on servers, and how a lot of its staff use Firefox? ;)
Microsoft is 70,000 employees in God-knows-how-many product groups. Dig enough, and you'll find that Microsoft writes software that runs in Firefox: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=8eb2551a-49c1-45f9-b291-9b75241793a6
I wouldn't be surprised if they wrote software for Linux, either. Except I can't find any links from a quick Googling.
I love the wording. "Last ditch effort." WTF?! Silverlight was released in September, it hasn't even slightly had time to ramp up, isn't it a little early to declare the *first major project* using the technology as a "last ditch effort?"
Total flamebait summary. Good for Microsoft for eating their own dogfood. And remember, snarky Slashdot posters, that there's nothing in the open source world that even comes close to competing with Silverlight... try for a little humility.
So you changed your mind on having frequent sex?
Wow, one day in and you're really making the most of 2008.
Redmond is the home of Microsoft. Redmond's across the lake, north-east from Bellevue. But, uh, nice try? I guess?
It also says it's the first problem they've had in 14 years.
But honestly, from a neutral observer of channel 5 in a bowling alley, I didn't notice any problem with the fireworks and I can guarantee nobody else there did, either. They said it was 'out of sync with the music', well, we couldn't hear the music, and the big blast happened at exactly midnight.
It has two interfaces. One of these sucks. The other does not suck. The one that does not suck was the original, and the one I was referring to~
Wait, now you're saying a CLI-only interface to a *video player* does not suck? That makes no sense at all... sure it's impossible to fast-forward or pause, but the UI sure doesn't suck!
Well, at least you outgrew the stage where you called everyone a weasel all the time.
This concept could be expanded to other applications: how about a window manager that remembers where you tend to arrange your applications and starts putting them in the right place to begin with?
You mean kind of like the spatial interface Apple had in 1984? Yeah, that'd be a great idea!
No, I'm not trying to convince you.
Then why bother replying?
The other poster is wrong, or talking about something else and you can't tell the difference.
You'll have to take that up with him. He referred to the change log of the software, so unless the change log is also wrong, I'm more inclined to take his word than yours, since you've offered no evidence.
You don't know anything about a lot of things. LiveCD isn't a bootable CD, nor is it a bootable CD with a graphical shell. Linux has had something "like it" since the early 1990's, whereas MacOS never really did.
So the tactic here is to change the definition of "LiveCD" until it only fits Linux? Tell me what the difference between the Ubuntu LiveCD and the Mac OS 8 CD I have on my shelf is. Both boot the computer. Both let you access HDs on the computer, and use them to "install" software. Both allow you to run installed programs on the computer's HD. Both let you run included programs on the CD. Both allow you to install the OS directly from that environment to the HD. What is the difference?
You've built a straw-man, and you're a jerk. A complete kneebiter.
I'm rubber, you're glue.
But despite my kneebiter completion, I realize that sending you a link to a website I know it incorrect and out-of-date would be a bad idea, because you'd get the impression from the link that the project related to the website is dead.
If you've selected some other definitions you're unwilling to share that make this so, then you have a tautology and cannot be wrong. People who do this are called weasels.
You'd think there'd be a more formal term for this!
Well, then, you sir are a weasel for changing the definition of "LiveCD" until the Mac OS Classic CDs no longer fit it. By your own definition.
Cheers.
This is one of the reasons I haven't embraced gaming platforms, and prefer to do my gaming on a computer. At least with a computer, there are LAN gaming options (although some game platforms may have LAN gaming capabilities, they don't seem to be as flexible or easy to set up, or even as well thought-out).
Xbox (and Xbox 360, natch) has a very well thought-out, flexible and easy-to-set-up LAN gaming capability. They call it "System Link." You don't even need crossover ethernet cables, all the ports are auto-sensing. If you want more than 2 boxes, you can use a simple $10 hub and everything works just fine.
Out of curiosity, how do you think Xbox players did Halo tournaments before Live existed?
This is coupled with the fact that there are many more computer games that have an offline campaign/career/single-player mode, and the newer games for PS3/XBox/etc that even bother to have a single-player offline mode usually do a very poor and limited job of it.
Wha...? I doubt the ratio on Xbox is any different than on PC. If anything, I think there are more PC games that are multiplayer-only, or have single-player as an afterthought. All of the Battlefield games, for example, and all of the Unreal Tournament games. And all the Quake games. And the Tribes games, except the third one... etc.
I don't have any experience of PS3, but for Xbox I think I can say you're simply wrong on this point. I can think of a few games on Xbox Live where the single-player was an afterthought: Counter-Strike for Xbox, Battlefield 2 for Xbox, uh, one fourth of the Orange Box, maybe more I can't think of.
Multi-player gaming is fun, but I want to be able to play a game I really like after the support for online play from the makers goes away, and also if some snafu with game servers as in this case happens. I know I'd be very very angry that the expensive gaming platform and multi-player service I either bought for myself for Christmas or for some poor kid was basically un-playable for days after the holidays are over.
I agree, and I hope Microsoft gets the problems with Live fixed as quickly as possible.
It's not people buying new Xboxes. After all, when Halo 2 and Halo 3 came out, Xbox Live had no trouble handling the additional load from people who don't normally play on Live. I think it's related to their last software update, or perhaps some shenanigans from some game title out there now.
That said, this isn't a total outage. I logged on to Live just yesterday, sent some Viva Pinata items to a friend (yes, make fun of me, I played Viva Pinata!) and everything worked fine. If I hadn't seen this article, I'd never know there was an issue. I do realize, though, that playing Viva Pinata and sending an item is a lot different than playing Halo 3.
There's more than one definition of the phrase "quantum leap" you know. Just be happy they didn't use "paradigm shift."
Film is far higher resolution than even the highest HDTV format.
Actually, you might be surprised (for 35mm film at least; I don't think there's any question that 70mm films surpass HD format resolutions.) See this website for a detailed comparison between the two:
http://www.filmschoolonline.com/sample_lessons/sample_lesson_HD_vs_35mm.htm
Note that they did that study with actual viewers in an actual theater; on paper, 35mm may be higher resolution, but the actual viewers couldn't tell the difference when both were projected onto the same screen, so practically there is no difference. And the viewers they chose were a "panel of experts."
Turning on subtitles while the movie's still playing, checking out all the extras without having to stop the movie from playing. Things like that... turning on all the extras without starting the movie over.
The vast majority of DVD players do that right now. The trick is to use the DVD Player's menu to access that content, not the graphical menu on the DVD itself. It's just a different button on the remote, and it'll switch subtitles on, change audio language, change to different "Titles" (i.e. special features) without interrupting the playback.
Does HD-DVD still have that cool-but-pointless camera angles feature, where you can view a scene from a different camera angle?
I agree. I'd much rather be "wasting" a few pixels to see the beautiful 70mm effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey in the correct format. Hell, the DVD's throwing 50% of the visual information of the 70mm film out anyway, what's the difference if it tosses out another 25% or so?
Or for a more geek-accessible example: That scene in Empire Strikes Back, where one of the Star Destroyers in Darth Vader's fleet gets hit by an asteroid while the captain is holo-conferencing with Vader, and the captain puts up his hands and screams before the hologram gets cut off? It's completely gone in the pan-n-scan version!
Google disagrees with you. Innovative means: being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before; "stylistically innovative works"; "innovative members of the artistic community"; "a mind so innovational, so original" which Microsoft doesn't do. They hold back development with licensing costs and monopolies; which is infact another definition of the term innovative (Suggesting new business opportunities that should be considered by the business in order to maximise profits) but not what most people consider to be the definition of the term.
They sure seem to have innovated that sound volume feature this thread is about.
No, but you can still download the version mentioned and try it for yourself. If you're genuinely interested in being wrong, you could've done this. If you're just trying to be obstructionist and obtuse then you're a waste of my time.
You're trying to convince me, that means you have to do the legwork. But don't bother in this case, because another poster has: PulseAudio didn't have the feature in question until after Vista betas were out.
Uh, I can't verify this but MacOS 7.5 as freely downloaded cannot be used in this fashion. I can get a reduced-feature interface that definitely provides a graphical shell- but you've been able to boot X off two floppies for longer than that and I didn't count it either. Real LiveCDs are fully functioning systems- you can save your data to a hard disk or a flash-drive, "install" programs, and use them generally as you like. It's most similar to NeXT's hard-drive swap system, but without actually having to require a hard-drive (or swapping it for that matter).
I have no clue what Apple puts up for download on their site. An actual Mac OS 7.5 CD would be able to boot a PPC Apple computer and use it just as if it was booted from the internal drive including: Saving your data to the HD, "install" programs (as much as Mac OS has a concept of installation at least), and use it generally as you like. I got an OS 8 CD sitting on my bookshelf which I used as a LiveCD only a few years ago, and hardware in my basement capable of running it.
I don't know anything about NeXT, I'm afraid. But Macintosh had the LiveCD concept down long before I ever heard of anything from Linux on the subject.
Actually it isn't. It's now part of BigBoard, which is most certainly not abandoned. It doesn't surprise me that you have no idea what you're talking about as you haven't provided any indication otherwise thus far, but you might want to actually do some research on the things you're talking about before you dismiss them so easily.
When you link to a site that's (apparently) out-of-date and broken and you know it, what kind of reaction did you expect? Der.
No, that just means that Microsoft could advance the state of the art. It isn't demonstration that they are.
Then explain the volume control this thread is about. It's not in OS X, it's *now* in Linux, but it was in Windows Vista first. If that's not a demonstration that they are advancing the state of the art, what would satisfy you?
Ack, I'd tried to repress that from my memory... Yeah, mplayer has a terrible GUI, but it's optional -- which is why I use the command line on every OS. You can either type, or drag & drop a video file onto the .exe, and it just plays, with no fuss. Further interaction is done purely by keyboard, and the keybindings are flexible enough to do pretty much anything~ And before going "ew, command line!", note that I've recommended the "drag & drop onto the .exe" approach to several generic windows users, and they've all thanked me for introducing them to such an awesome media player :P
So it has a terrible GUI, you admit it has a terrible GUI, and yet you listed it as an example of an innovative program because of it's great GUI just yesterday? *head explodes* Seriously, WTF?
Filesystem in User Space; it makes developing new filesystems ridiculously easy, leading to things like wikifs -- you can mount wikipedia as any other disk drive, then the wiki articles appear as text files which you can edit with any standard editor.
Ok, that's sounds a little bit slick, but it's also incredible geeky. Why not package it up into something that actual normal non-Slashdot reading humans can actually use and then make a mint? Assuming it works for things other than Wikipedia.
According to the change log, the feature was first released on 2006-07-08 (YYYY-MM-DD). Got any idea on when Microsoft released the first Vista RC?
Who cares if it was when Microsoft released the first Release Candidate? It was long after Microsoft announced that Vista would have the feature (posted in another comment in this thread), thus proving my point: the ONLY reasons that PulseAudio has that feature first are:
1) Because Microsoft was developing it
2) Because a tiny OS component like PulseAudio has a quicker release cycle than a huge OS like Vista.
Therefore, that's not a good example of innovation, that's just a good example of "keeping up with the neighbors." Which is what open source is good at.
Yes. How old was your G5 when you decided to replace it?
The main point was that both the Windows and Mac paths have some dead ends. It's not some crazy Apple conspiracy that you can't upgrade your G5; it happens with all technology.
Well, der. First of all, if that was your point, you could have just stated it instead of bringing up that Celeron nonsense. Secondly, *my* point was that while I used to care about OS quality enough to buy a $2100 machine over a $800 machine, I'm not willing to do the same overkill now. Since Apple doesn't sell a computer in my price range, I don't own an Apple computer. It's simple.
If you want to pay $2400 for a computer to play World of Warcraft worse than an equivalent $800 PC, that's your business. I've smartened up.
I guess we have different definitions of features then. I'd consider a method of organizing my files one feature, and a method of launching applications another. Both OS 9 and OS X have these. They use different methods of doing so, but both can do so.
I like my definition better than yours. "Spatial file organization" is a feature, whether you think it is or not. If you define a feature as the most basic element, then hardly anything has any features at all-- what would be the point of buying an Audi over a Kia? Both have the "feature" of an engine and tires.
Spatial file browsing is a feature that Mac OS version 9 had, but Mac OS version 10 does not have. The fact that missing features don't bother Mac users bothers me; imagine the outcry if Windows Vista 2 was missing a feature, *any feature* from the current Windows Vista. It would be on the news, there'd be inflammatory Slashdot articles, etc. Why don't Mac users care?
Tabbed folders vs. folders in the dock (or Stacks in 10.5) - correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like they do the same thing: let you quickly access commonly used files and folders. I'd consider the Quick Launch bar in the Windows task bar the same feature, just done differently. Again, which one is nicer depends on the user.
You're wrong, which is understandable because this feature has never been duplicated. If it had been, I probably wouldn't have posted that OS X doesn't have it, hmm?
The difference is that Tabbed Folders, when they pop up, *are* the folder in question... the other features you mention (Quick Launch, Dock icons) only allow you to launch files. With the Tabbed Folders feature, you could drag icons around, you could right-click to Get Info, you could do any file operation you could do in a normal folder, and when you're done the tab would just pop back down out of your way.
A typical usage scenario is that I have one Tabbed Folder with a bunch of documents and another with a bunch of applications. I can pop up the document one and double-click to launch a document, or pop up the applications one and double-click to launch an application. (Actually single-click, since I had that tab configured to display as "buttons", another feature which isn't available on OS X. FYI.) That's as far as your imagination has taken you.
Now let's say I want to open a document, a text file, in Word instead of in the default application for text files. I can grab the text file's icon from the document Tabbed Folder to begin a drag, the Tabbed Folder pops back down out of my way, then I can drag it over to the applications Tabbed Folder, which pops up in view, and drop the icon on the application icon of my choice. That's a far quicker way of doing than operation than opening both windows manually to point to the right place and doing the drag, or opening up Word first and using the Open menu item, then selecting text files from the little menu. And it's something both OS X and Windows Explorer have no equivalent to.
So yes, Tabbed Folders let you "quickly access files and folders". But you were defining "access" as "launch" and Tabbed Folders let you do any folder/file operation in them, then they'd pop neatly out of your way. I built an entire workfl
It's been a requested feature since OS X had it (before Vista was even announced).
I'm not asking "did someone request the feature before Vista announced it", that's completely aside the point. The question is, "did PulseAudio *implement* the feature before Vista announced it?" That I still don't have an answer to. (Although congratulations on your rather obvious attempt to dodge the question.)
A quick google says that PulseAudio used to be called Polypaudio, and at least as far back as 2004 it was a usable esound replacement. Vista announced it over a year later. Never mind the fact that pulseaudio has a large number of features that Vista only wishes it could implement. The RTP sinks and sources is fantastic for laptop users.
The first link has no information on when "polypaudio" added support for changing the volume of individual applications. So whether or not the PulseAudio developers supported it in response to Vista or not remains to be seen.
I have a laptop; what is an RTP sink and why would I find it useful? I Googled the term and I can't find any sites that explain what the hell it is or why I care, only sites that explain how to use it.
On the other hand, if people have been asking for this feature for years, and Microsoft gets around to it after someone else did it, then what does that mean for Microsoft?
I dunno? First you have to prove that people have been asking for this feature for years, then you have to prove that PulseAudio did it first. Right now, I got neither of those.
How about the Dashboard?
Looks interesting, but also looks dead. Sure the screenshots look nice, but try clicking through to files to check the version number and all you get is http://cvs.gnome.org/bonsai/rview.cgi?cvsroot=/cvs/gnome&dir=dashboard/doc
As far as I can tell, all there is is some screenshots and a complaint that Microsoft is using the same idea.
Chandler?
Looks like Microsoft Outlook or even a configured Lotus Notes to me. Except more cluttered. Maybe it does something hugely innovative I'm not seeing from the screenshots, I dunno, if so you'll have to be more specific.
Would the best version control system count?
Depends, how is it innovative? You can be the "best" of something while innovating nothing, look at something like the iPod if you need an example.
The Live CD?
Every Mac OS version that shipped on CD (until OS X, that is, versions 7.0-9.2 or so) could boot to a usable, fully functional, desktop from CD. Not innovative. (Note that Wikipedia is wrong on this count, per usual; Mac OS's CD boot wasn't solely a diagnostic tool, it was fully functional, if less-configurable.)
So far, the best one you got is Dashboard. Too bad the project is obviously abandoned.
Or do you really think Microsoft was advancing the state of the art when they stopped MSIE as long as they did?
No I don't. Funny thing is, I happen to realize that Microsoft is a huge corporation with 70,000+ employees and God-knows-how-many different product team. Saying that one team is doing something innovative says nothing about the rest of the company. (That's like saying that since Lotus Notes from IBM is bloated, therefore IBM's Infoprint printer software must also be bloated.)
Welcome to the year 2007: Microsoft isn't 3 guys in a garage anymore.
If you don't take human nature into account, you are bad at it. That's like developing this great economic system where everybody gets everything they need-- let's call it Communism! Of course, it has no compatibility whatsoever with the human race, but it sure looks good on paper, huh?
I'm sure he asked Discover Magazine.com what web server they used before he uploaded it, and then would have refused if he didn't like the answer. WTF? What relevance is the web server at all?