Back before the web and (as a result) everyone having to be compatible with both Unix and Windows (both of which have primitive typesetting compared to MacOS), I'd gotten myself into the habit of using Macintosh 'curly quotes.' Option-[] if I recall correctly. Of course, the problem is that I then:
1) Got a job working with Windows machines, and only God knows how to type curly quotes on Windows without using Word. (I'm pretty sure you hold down one of the alt keys and type in a memorized 4-digit code on the keypad... no I'm not shitting you, it's THAT DIFFICULT!)
2) Started doing some web design, and found that browsers displayed the curly quotes as some other wacky characters. And yes, I know that HTML has curly quote character codes, something like , but typing 6 characters for a damned curly quote is almost as bad as the Windows way of doing it. Plus it makes your text an indecipherable mess.
In short, I lost my habit of typing correct quotes and now I don't even clearly remember how to do it in MacOS. Shame, really, but you Linux and Windows people really need to get on the ball! Why is it so godamned hard to type a curly quote?
That's a point, but on the other hand, Run As... can also be used to run something under an account with *fewer* priviledges than the one you're logged in as. So in that way, it's actually more powerful than SUDO. (Presuming, of course, that you know the passwords you need access to.)
For instance, if I'm logged in as admin, and I download a program that's possibly spyware, I can Run As... it as a normal user account to assure it won't completely hose up my computer.
America's Army is a great example. After playing that off and on for a few years, I could probably be dropped into the middle of a military action and stand a pretty decent chance of staying alive. Assuming, of course, that I didn't just wet myself, huddle in the fetal position, and cry for my mother. (There's a pretty big difference, still, between games and reality.) But, in any case, America's Army teaches a lot.
So do flight simulators, BTW. At least, not the 'arcade' Crimson Skies type. After virtually landing a P-51 about 500 times, I could probably do a half-decent job of landing one for real. And I'd be less likely to wet myself and cry to boot.
Typically MMOGs have "stress tests" and not betas. Or if they have a beta, it's closed and only available to a few people.
The point of a stress test is to jam tons of people onto the servers to see if the crash under load. In fact, I was really amused to see comments like, "hey, why is this game so laggy?" during the Dungeons and Dragons Online stress test. I always replied, "it's a stress test, that's the POINT." The servers are overloaded, of course it'll be laggy.
They WILL be a game industry monopoly in short order if things continue how they are, though. All on the basis of one sports league signing an exclusive contract with them.
I'd actually recommend RealBasic instead of VB for a few different reasons:
1) RB is cross-platform. (It can compile for Windows, OS X and Linux all from a single project.)
2) RB applications are all bundled together with their libraries. That means you don't need a runtime like VB's, you can just copy the.exe file and you're installed.
Except for one problem: Word has more features than the current ODF supports.
Let's take your example and think of it another way.
You have the three good word processors that all do task X very well. Now you're going to do task Y, so you pick up SuperMegaPlus with Auto-Y feature. The problem is that the Auto-Y feature requires saving some data that the ODF format doesn't support, so while SuperMegaPlus can read ODF files, the files it saves are not quiet compatible. But feature Y is so important to you, you have to trade some compatibility.
That's closer to what the actual situation is. Now it's a non-issue if the MA government doesn't use those features that Word supports and ODF doesn't, but if MA *does* use those features, you're gonna end up in a world of trouble.
SUSE says "WinTV PVR 250." My card says "WinTV PVR 250" on top of it. What the hell do you want?
I like all the Linux zealots here trying to make SUSE's fucked up hardware compatibility list into *my* fault somehow. Look, SUSE says it works. It doesn't work. Period.
My policy on games with a third-person viewpoint is this:
If I'm going to be staring at a character's ass the entire time I'm playing the game, I'm going to make sure it's at least a female ass.
That applies to WOW, Dungeon Lords, Knights of the Old Republic, etc.
It's no kind of weird sick transsexual thing for me and I'm sure most other players. I just don't want to sit there and stare at a guy's ass for hours on end.
I agree, Hauppauge's software is terrible. But their drivers work without any problem, and SageTV works without any problem, and that's the combination I need.
In Linux, both the ivtv drivers suck ass *and* the TV viewer apps suck ass. I never even got to the point where I could start installing a PVR app, because I never got a reasonable image out of the thing.
I had the card before I decided to use it to make a PVR. SUSE Linux claims that the card works. Look, I can be careful all I want, but if the Linux distro *lies* about what hardware works, how do I fight against that?
1) Two hours is about right for setting up a PVR. That's how long it took to set up my parent's Dish Network PVR, more or less.
2) The computer didn't freeze, and it wasn't a hardware error. (The hardware works flawlessly in Windows.) It was the TV viewer application that froze.
3) Hauppauge cards don't work on OS X. But at least OS X doesn't *claim* that they do, unlike SUSE.
Hm. Let's see... installing my Hauppauge card and Sage TV took approximately two hours on Windows, and that includes all the time I spent setting preferences. Oh, and it all worked on the first try.
I spent over 16 hours *attempting* to install IVTV (the "official" Linux drivers for the Hauppauge capture cards) before giving up.
During this period of time, I had help from two Linux experts. The best output I ever got from the cat was a postage-stamp-size mpeg2 movie with no sound and no way to change the channel. (Needless to say, the GUI TV viewer apps didn't work at all, and didn't give any clues as to why they wouldn't work.) That was on Ubuntu.
Then I looked at other Linux distributions, and noticed that SUSE claims to support Hauppauge hardware out of the box. So I spend the hours downloaded 5 freakin' CDs worth of CRAP so I do a single task (not counted in the 16 hours) and install SUSE with default settings to my PC. During the install, it gives me an encouraging message, reading something like: "We've detected a video capture card in your computer, so you should install these TV viewer applications." I hit yes, install. Get a working, booting system, open the TV viewer app and... nothing! No error message, it just froze.
Now, given, this was on Linux. But I can't imagine how it could be any easier on BSD.
What websites? I've been using Macs for a decade and I've never come across any.
(There are some media players on websites that claim to not support Mac... and most of these work just fine if you can peel away the Javascript or Flash outside layer and get to the actual media file. All the big-name formats play just fine on OS X, assuming you've installed the right player for them.)
The new video subsystem is also going to allow you to zoom in on different applications at different levels-- no more squinting to read that 8-point text on your 1440x1280 15" laptop monitor!
Still, during the current conflict the US has been found to have been paying newspapers to print positive stories about the war to influence public opinion
Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. How about a source for that claim, huh?
And if you've ever played Chronicles of Riddick (the Xbox game), Spiderman 2, or King Kong, you'd realize this rule used to hold true but no longer necessarily does. Chronicles of Riddick the game was about 20 times BETTER than the movie, actually, because it wasn't full of that intensely strange costume design.
And I use it how? I have a text document right here. Right-click... nothing about keychain. Get Info, nothing about keychain. There's a "locked" button, and there's the Unix permissions, but there's no keychain section.
Now there is a keychain program that stores passwords, but I've never heard of being able to DRM files with it. And I've been using MacOS since System 6.0.8.
Justice League Headquarters. Duh! He's saying that Superman and Wonder Women can bring people back from the dead long enough to get their signature on the new GPL version.
Slashdot Mirror
Back before the web and (as a result) everyone having to be compatible with both Unix and Windows (both of which have primitive typesetting compared to MacOS), I'd gotten myself into the habit of using Macintosh 'curly quotes.' Option-[] if I recall correctly. Of course, the problem is that I then:
1) Got a job working with Windows machines, and only God knows how to type curly quotes on Windows without using Word. (I'm pretty sure you hold down one of the alt keys and type in a memorized 4-digit code on the keypad... no I'm not shitting you, it's THAT DIFFICULT!)
2) Started doing some web design, and found that browsers displayed the curly quotes as some other wacky characters. And yes, I know that HTML has curly quote character codes, something like , but typing 6 characters for a damned curly quote is almost as bad as the Windows way of doing it. Plus it makes your text an indecipherable mess.
In short, I lost my habit of typing correct quotes and now I don't even clearly remember how to do it in MacOS. Shame, really, but you Linux and Windows people really need to get on the ball! Why is it so godamned hard to type a curly quote?
That "whooshing" sound? That's the joke flying RIGHT OVER YOUR HEAD.
Thanks for playing, though.
That's a point, but on the other hand, Run As... can also be used to run something under an account with *fewer* priviledges than the one you're logged in as. So in that way, it's actually more powerful than SUDO. (Presuming, of course, that you know the passwords you need access to.)
For instance, if I'm logged in as admin, and I download a program that's possibly spyware, I can Run As... it as a normal user account to assure it won't completely hose up my computer.
America's Army is a great example. After playing that off and on for a few years, I could probably be dropped into the middle of a military action and stand a pretty decent chance of staying alive. Assuming, of course, that I didn't just wet myself, huddle in the fetal position, and cry for my mother. (There's a pretty big difference, still, between games and reality.) But, in any case, America's Army teaches a lot.
So do flight simulators, BTW. At least, not the 'arcade' Crimson Skies type. After virtually landing a P-51 about 500 times, I could probably do a half-decent job of landing one for real. And I'd be less likely to wet myself and cry to boot.
Typically MMOGs have "stress tests" and not betas. Or if they have a beta, it's closed and only available to a few people.
The point of a stress test is to jam tons of people onto the servers to see if the crash under load. In fact, I was really amused to see comments like, "hey, why is this game so laggy?" during the Dungeons and Dragons Online stress test. I always replied, "it's a stress test, that's the POINT." The servers are overloaded, of course it'll be laggy.
I hate Slashdot.
They WILL be a game industry monopoly in short order if things continue how they are, though. All on the basis of one sports league signing an exclusive contract with them.
I'd actually recommend RealBasic instead of VB for a few different reasons:
.exe file and you're installed.
1) RB is cross-platform. (It can compile for Windows, OS X and Linux all from a single project.)
2) RB applications are all bundled together with their libraries. That means you don't need a runtime like VB's, you can just copy the
3) I find RB a little bit easier to use.
http://www.realbasic.com/
Except for one problem: Word has more features than the current ODF supports.
Let's take your example and think of it another way.
You have the three good word processors that all do task X very well. Now you're going to do task Y, so you pick up SuperMegaPlus with Auto-Y feature. The problem is that the Auto-Y feature requires saving some data that the ODF format doesn't support, so while SuperMegaPlus can read ODF files, the files it saves are not quiet compatible. But feature Y is so important to you, you have to trade some compatibility.
That's closer to what the actual situation is. Now it's a non-issue if the MA government doesn't use those features that Word supports and ODF doesn't, but if MA *does* use those features, you're gonna end up in a world of trouble.
SUSE says "WinTV PVR 250." My card says "WinTV PVR 250" on top of it. What the hell do you want?
I like all the Linux zealots here trying to make SUSE's fucked up hardware compatibility list into *my* fault somehow. Look, SUSE says it works. It doesn't work. Period.
So... what was it like to be the second man to walk on the sun?
My policy on games with a third-person viewpoint is this:
If I'm going to be staring at a character's ass the entire time I'm playing the game, I'm going to make sure it's at least a female ass.
That applies to WOW, Dungeon Lords, Knights of the Old Republic, etc.
It's no kind of weird sick transsexual thing for me and I'm sure most other players. I just don't want to sit there and stare at a guy's ass for hours on end.
I agree, Hauppauge's software is terrible. But their drivers work without any problem, and SageTV works without any problem, and that's the combination I need.
In Linux, both the ivtv drivers suck ass *and* the TV viewer apps suck ass. I never even got to the point where I could start installing a PVR app, because I never got a reasonable image out of the thing.
I had the card before I decided to use it to make a PVR. SUSE Linux claims that the card works. Look, I can be careful all I want, but if the Linux distro *lies* about what hardware works, how do I fight against that?
1) Two hours is about right for setting up a PVR. That's how long it took to set up my parent's Dish Network PVR, more or less.
2) The computer didn't freeze, and it wasn't a hardware error. (The hardware works flawlessly in Windows.) It was the TV viewer application that froze.
3) Hauppauge cards don't work on OS X. But at least OS X doesn't *claim* that they do, unlike SUSE.
Great, so you're a superhero. So it works for some people. And not for others.
However, Sage TV on Windows works for everybody.
Try that, and see how many applications break. Either they have text overrunning dialog boxes, or the button captions don't fit in the buttons.
Seriously. That's a great solution, IN THEORY, but in reality it stinks.
Hm. Let's see... installing my Hauppauge card and Sage TV took approximately two hours on Windows, and that includes all the time I spent setting preferences. Oh, and it all worked on the first try.
I spent over 16 hours *attempting* to install IVTV (the "official" Linux drivers for the Hauppauge capture cards) before giving up.
During this period of time, I had help from two Linux experts. The best output I ever got from the cat was a postage-stamp-size mpeg2 movie with no sound and no way to change the channel. (Needless to say, the GUI TV viewer apps didn't work at all, and didn't give any clues as to why they wouldn't work.) That was on Ubuntu.
Then I looked at other Linux distributions, and noticed that SUSE claims to support Hauppauge hardware out of the box. So I spend the hours downloaded 5 freakin' CDs worth of CRAP so I do a single task (not counted in the 16 hours) and install SUSE with default settings to my PC. During the install, it gives me an encouraging message, reading something like: "We've detected a video capture card in your computer, so you should install these TV viewer applications." I hit yes, install. Get a working, booting system, open the TV viewer app and... nothing! No error message, it just froze.
Now, given, this was on Linux. But I can't imagine how it could be any easier on BSD.
What websites? I've been using Macs for a decade and I've never come across any.
(There are some media players on websites that claim to not support Mac... and most of these work just fine if you can peel away the Javascript or Flash outside layer and get to the actual media file. All the big-name formats play just fine on OS X, assuming you've installed the right player for them.)
The new video subsystem is also going to allow you to zoom in on different applications at different levels-- no more squinting to read that 8-point text on your 1440x1280 15" laptop monitor!
And it only takes 4 days to get your video capture card working, that is, if you can manage it at all!
No thanks. I'll trade a little bit of security for a computer I can actually *use to do things with.*
Still, during the current conflict the US has been found to have been paying newspapers to print positive stories about the war to influence public opinion
Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. How about a source for that claim, huh?
And if you've ever played Chronicles of Riddick (the Xbox game), Spiderman 2, or King Kong, you'd realize this rule used to hold true but no longer necessarily does. Chronicles of Riddick the game was about 20 times BETTER than the movie, actually, because it wasn't full of that intensely strange costume design.
And I use it how? I have a text document right here. Right-click... nothing about keychain. Get Info, nothing about keychain. There's a "locked" button, and there's the Unix permissions, but there's no keychain section.
Now there is a keychain program that stores passwords, but I've never heard of being able to DRM files with it. And I've been using MacOS since System 6.0.8.
Justice League Headquarters. Duh! He's saying that Superman and Wonder Women can bring people back from the dead long enough to get their signature on the new GPL version.