Too bad Spybot: Search and Destroy has one of the worst UIs I've seen in a Windows program in a LONG time. It frequently will do tasks without giving you any status report. It will often get dialog boxes stuck behind the main window where you can't see them to even know a dialog box is open. The custom controls are about the ugliest thing I've seen in software, and the entire program gives a "made by a junior high student in Visual Basic" vibe.
How about a little bit of professionalism in software development! I know it's freeware and you're not making money, but how about at least taking enough pride in your work to make it usable and not hideously ugly? I hate to say it, but I can't talk management into using Spybot: Search and Destroy as a standard because it looks so unprofessional.
Experian worked for me. In fact, it was easiest also... the questions it asked weren't so hard that I had to find bills to get account numbers, but they were hard enough that a stranger would have a very difficult time answering them. Experian didn't try to sell me any additional services or require that I set up an account. And it was the easiest service to find the "print the entire report at once" link.
Well, it's 200% better than Horizons which claimed to support RPers. Maybe I'll pick it up and give it a try. I still wish there were a way to level without having to do all the boring combat or crafting, like ES MUD has, but I guess you can't have everything.
So if you LIKE the show, why were you assisting people who were taking the show and distributing it without permission? That's stupid. "I like this, so I'm going to steal it so he won't make any money and won't produce any more of it." That reasoning doesn't make any sense at all.
If you respect the creators of the show, as being a fan of the showing implies, why don't you respect their RIGHTS when it comes to distributing the show?
One thing you hardly touched on... what about the roleplay aspect of the game? On the RP-enforced servers, do people actually RP or is it the exact same as the normal servers? Did you see any of the staff correcting names or talking to people about needless OOC communication?
The part all of these MMORPG games forget is the RP. I play a RP-based MUD called Eternal Struggle (www.esmud.com), which is great, but I think you could really do a lot more moving to a graphical environment... unfortunately, most MMORPG games (definately all the ones I've tried) just give lip-service to the RPers without providing them with any actual support.
There's no way to gain experience via RP, for instance. There's no enforcement of the naming policy. (Horizons: Empire of Istaria was bad for this one... on a RP-enforced server, seeing people named "CellPhonia" is very distracting.) There's no filter to implement languages your character does not understand. There's usually no facility for noteboards in the game, or sending letters back and forth. Channels such as "tell" are often considered IC channels, meaning that (apparently) every character in the game is a gifted psychic.
God I'd love it if some developer of a MMORPG implemented a THIRD of the RP-supporting features that ES MUD has.
Yes, but what you were doing was against the law. The cease and desist was perfectly within the right of MGM. You can't just break the law and say, "oh, well, it's ok I'm breaking the law because I own some DVDs they put out." It doesn't work that way. I could own a Dodge Stealth, but it's still a crime for me to steal a Dodge Neon from the dealership. And if I went before a judge and said, "oh, well, I paid a lot of money to Dodge a few years ago so I thought it would be ok," I'd be laughed out of court (and into the slammer.)
Yeah and it... oh wait, requires Internet Explorer. Whoops. Well, I can't be using it either at home (where Safari is my browser) or at work (where Firefox is installed now that it's finally 1.0). It's a decent idea, but it plain does not work for me.
Yeah, and the minimum wage yokel at the counter is certain to immediately put a huge "did not like STEAM!" stamp atop the returned game box and send it, next day super-priority shipping, directly to Gabe Newell!
What makes you think the clerk at the store you bought it has any way of contacting Valve about WHY it's being returned or, for that matter, even cares?
If the moderation system on Slashdot were actually good enough to stop dumbshit memes like this before they started... well, the site might not suck as much as it does.
Apple has made tons of silent machines in its history, take a look at... well, most iMac models (I don't know about the current one) and the eMac, as well as the G4 Cubes, if you don't mind a used computer.
You could, of course, just turn personalized menus off entirely. I think it was a terrible idea, but fortunately Microsoft provided an 'out' for people like me: It's easy to turn off, both in Windows and Office.
Moderators, let's work for a more focused discussion, please. Posts like this, one-liners which have nothing to do with the article in question, should not be moderated up, they should be moderated off-topic.
The first couple releases of MacOS X were bad, but they seemed to have this all figured out now. I can't remember the last time I had my focus stolen by an application in MacOS X...
AOL Instant Messenger in Windows, however, is a pain in the ass.
Well, the "correct" way to do it in MacOS has always been the Put Away command. You select the disk, then you select Put Away, then the disk ejects so you can put it away in its little disk-holder box.
The drag-to-the-trashcan thing is just a shortcut that somebody made and happened to become much more popular than the correct Put Away method.
Re-create the best special effects shot EVER MADE in the entire history of film! Yeah, you all know what I'm talking about... that part in Scanners where the guy's head explodes! ROCK!... or just do some Superman flying-type stuff. You couldn't do worse than the 50's TV show, where it looked like Reeves' fat gut was just lying on an camouflaged cart being pushed in front of a painted backdrop. (Wait, I think I've just told you how to do it!)
I think Manhunt was rated too softly. In the game, you play a serial killer and it is your goal to kill as many people as possible in as gruesome a way as possible. That should have gotten an "adults only" rating instead of a "mature" rating.
Then again, the same thing happens in Hollywood. I think The Passion of The Christ should have been rated NC-17, and I think that the first Scary Movie (the one where a person is killed by having a dildo stabbed through their skull) should have been rated higher than R.
That all said, the rating boards can't be perfect and mistakes are made. I agree that generally the ratings are pretty good. If anything, I think they were a little too tough on HALO 2.
A patched Windows 2000 Machine A patched Windows XP SP1 Machine A patched Windows XP Machine A patched Windows 98 Machine
While your point about Windows 2000 and Windows 98 are relevant, a machine that shipped with Windows XP or Windows XP SP1, when fully patched, *would* be running Windows XP SP2. Service Packs are patches.
Hm. My MacOS X box doesn't seem to have any problems with dependencies and I install anything I happen to come across on the web without any central management whatsoever.
So you're not happy with it. FINE! Don't buy it, but leave the rest of us, who have no problem with it, alone.
I bought the Radeon 9600XT which came with a free copy of HL2. I installed Steam, got HL2 over Steam, and now I've played it. As far as I'm concerned, I got exactly what was owed me, and I'm a happy customer.
The main reason Michael's comment is offensive is because of its tone. It's not "I think that activation is a bad idea," it's "activation is a bad idea, you idiot!" He needs to shut up with crap like that if he's going to play journalist.
Slashdot posters are cheap and hate ads. See all the promos for 'ad-block' Firefox extensions, and all the glofying of free software and MP3 sharing. Opera either costs money, or shows ads. Therefore, Slashdot posters don't like it.
Re: Platform issues. Try this in MacOS. Open a multiline text field and fill it full of text. Position the caret at the top of the field and hit the down arrow key. When you get to the bottom line, Windows will simply "beep" at you, but MacOS will move the caret to the far right of that line. (This may or may not be what was wrong with the Runtime Revolution fields; it's been a long time since I worked with it; but this is a mistake that is commonly made on cross-platform projects that don't use native widgets but just widgets that look like native widgets. Last I tried Firefox, it had the same problem.) I'm not saying that one behavior is better than the other, I'm just saying that Mac users expect the caret to go to the end of the text and PC users expect it to stay where it is.
Again, I should note that that is a very common error that many programs designed for Windows and Linux make while being ported to MacOS.
As for the default selections in Runtime Revolution not being correct... well... shouldn't they be fixed?
Slashdot Mirror
Too bad Spybot: Search and Destroy has one of the worst UIs I've seen in a Windows program in a LONG time. It frequently will do tasks without giving you any status report. It will often get dialog boxes stuck behind the main window where you can't see them to even know a dialog box is open. The custom controls are about the ugliest thing I've seen in software, and the entire program gives a "made by a junior high student in Visual Basic" vibe.
How about a little bit of professionalism in software development! I know it's freeware and you're not making money, but how about at least taking enough pride in your work to make it usable and not hideously ugly? I hate to say it, but I can't talk management into using Spybot: Search and Destroy as a standard because it looks so unprofessional.
Experian worked for me. In fact, it was easiest also... the questions it asked weren't so hard that I had to find bills to get account numbers, but they were hard enough that a stranger would have a very difficult time answering them. Experian didn't try to sell me any additional services or require that I set up an account. And it was the easiest service to find the "print the entire report at once" link.
Well, it's 200% better than Horizons which claimed to support RPers. Maybe I'll pick it up and give it a try. I still wish there were a way to level without having to do all the boring combat or crafting, like ES MUD has, but I guess you can't have everything.
So if you LIKE the show, why were you assisting people who were taking the show and distributing it without permission? That's stupid. "I like this, so I'm going to steal it so he won't make any money and won't produce any more of it." That reasoning doesn't make any sense at all.
If you respect the creators of the show, as being a fan of the showing implies, why don't you respect their RIGHTS when it comes to distributing the show?
One thing you hardly touched on... what about the roleplay aspect of the game? On the RP-enforced servers, do people actually RP or is it the exact same as the normal servers? Did you see any of the staff correcting names or talking to people about needless OOC communication?
The part all of these MMORPG games forget is the RP. I play a RP-based MUD called Eternal Struggle (www.esmud.com), which is great, but I think you could really do a lot more moving to a graphical environment... unfortunately, most MMORPG games (definately all the ones I've tried) just give lip-service to the RPers without providing them with any actual support.
There's no way to gain experience via RP, for instance. There's no enforcement of the naming policy. (Horizons: Empire of Istaria was bad for this one... on a RP-enforced server, seeing people named "CellPhonia" is very distracting.) There's no filter to implement languages your character does not understand. There's usually no facility for noteboards in the game, or sending letters back and forth. Channels such as "tell" are often considered IC channels, meaning that (apparently) every character in the game is a gifted psychic.
God I'd love it if some developer of a MMORPG implemented a THIRD of the RP-supporting features that ES MUD has.
Great review otherwise.
Yes, but what you were doing was against the law. The cease and desist was perfectly within the right of MGM. You can't just break the law and say, "oh, well, it's ok I'm breaking the law because I own some DVDs they put out." It doesn't work that way. I could own a Dodge Stealth, but it's still a crime for me to steal a Dodge Neon from the dealership. And if I went before a judge and said, "oh, well, I paid a lot of money to Dodge a few years ago so I thought it would be ok," I'd be laughed out of court (and into the slammer.)
Gruh. This crap just bugs me.
And yet... that doesn't give you the right to pirate the game. So it doesn't really respond to the original question, does it?
Yeah and it... oh wait, requires Internet Explorer. Whoops. Well, I can't be using it either at home (where Safari is my browser) or at work (where Firefox is installed now that it's finally 1.0). It's a decent idea, but it plain does not work for me.
Yeah, and the minimum wage yokel at the counter is certain to immediately put a huge "did not like STEAM!" stamp atop the returned game box and send it, next day super-priority shipping, directly to Gabe Newell!
What makes you think the clerk at the store you bought it has any way of contacting Valve about WHY it's being returned or, for that matter, even cares?
If the moderation system on Slashdot were actually good enough to stop dumbshit memes like this before they started... well, the site might not suck as much as it does.
Hm.
Apple has made tons of silent machines in its history, take a look at... well, most iMac models (I don't know about the current one) and the eMac, as well as the G4 Cubes, if you don't mind a used computer.
You could, of course, just turn personalized menus off entirely. I think it was a terrible idea, but fortunately Microsoft provided an 'out' for people like me: It's easy to turn off, both in Windows and Office.
And this relates to the interview... how?
Moderators, let's work for a more focused discussion, please. Posts like this, one-liners which have nothing to do with the article in question, should not be moderated up, they should be moderated off-topic.
The first couple releases of MacOS X were bad, but they seemed to have this all figured out now. I can't remember the last time I had my focus stolen by an application in MacOS X...
AOL Instant Messenger in Windows, however, is a pain in the ass.
Well, the "correct" way to do it in MacOS has always been the Put Away command. You select the disk, then you select Put Away, then the disk ejects so you can put it away in its little disk-holder box.
The drag-to-the-trashcan thing is just a shortcut that somebody made and happened to become much more popular than the correct Put Away method.
Does anyone have an English translation available?
Widely used, mission-essential, net-centric software will be managed and supported with disciplines similar to those used with weapon systems.
->
Memo has to be a minimum of 900 words, we only have 830.
Re-create the best special effects shot EVER MADE in the entire history of film! Yeah, you all know what I'm talking about... that part in Scanners where the guy's head explodes! ROCK! ... or just do some Superman flying-type stuff. You couldn't do worse than the 50's TV show, where it looked like Reeves' fat gut was just lying on an camouflaged cart being pushed in front of a painted backdrop. (Wait, I think I've just told you how to do it!)
No. It doesn't.
I think Manhunt was rated too softly. In the game, you play a serial killer and it is your goal to kill as many people as possible in as gruesome a way as possible. That should have gotten an "adults only" rating instead of a "mature" rating.
Then again, the same thing happens in Hollywood. I think The Passion of The Christ should have been rated NC-17, and I think that the first Scary Movie (the one where a person is killed by having a dildo stabbed through their skull) should have been rated higher than R.
That all said, the rating boards can't be perfect and mistakes are made. I agree that generally the ratings are pretty good. If anything, I think they were a little too tough on HALO 2.
A patched Windows 2000 Machine
A patched Windows XP SP1 Machine
A patched Windows XP Machine
A patched Windows 98 Machine
While your point about Windows 2000 and Windows 98 are relevant, a machine that shipped with Windows XP or Windows XP SP1, when fully patched, *would* be running Windows XP SP2. Service Packs are patches.
Windows is a bad example.
Use MacOS X. No central repository, no dependency hell.
Hm. My MacOS X box doesn't seem to have any problems with dependencies and I install anything I happen to come across on the web without any central management whatsoever.
Management problem, sheesh.
So you're not happy with it. FINE! Don't buy it, but leave the rest of us, who have no problem with it, alone.
I bought the Radeon 9600XT which came with a free copy of HL2. I installed Steam, got HL2 over Steam, and now I've played it. As far as I'm concerned, I got exactly what was owed me, and I'm a happy customer.
The main reason Michael's comment is offensive is because of its tone. It's not "I think that activation is a bad idea," it's "activation is a bad idea, you idiot!" He needs to shut up with crap like that if he's going to play journalist.
Slashdot posters are cheap and hate ads. See all the promos for 'ad-block' Firefox extensions, and all the glofying of free software and MP3 sharing. Opera either costs money, or shows ads. Therefore, Slashdot posters don't like it.
To quote myself from http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=130486&thresho ld=-1&commentsort=3&tid=156&mode=thread&pid=108920 62#10892832:
Re: Platform issues. Try this in MacOS. Open a multiline text field and fill it full of text. Position the caret at the top of the field and hit the down arrow key. When you get to the bottom line, Windows will simply "beep" at you, but MacOS will move the caret to the far right of that line. (This may or may not be what was wrong with the Runtime Revolution fields; it's been a long time since I worked with it; but this is a mistake that is commonly made on cross-platform projects that don't use native widgets but just widgets that look like native widgets. Last I tried Firefox, it had the same problem.) I'm not saying that one behavior is better than the other, I'm just saying that Mac users expect the caret to go to the end of the text and PC users expect it to stay where it is.
Again, I should note that that is a very common error that many programs designed for Windows and Linux make while being ported to MacOS.
As for the default selections in Runtime Revolution not being correct... well... shouldn't they be fixed?