You have to remember that most of the pro-Linux people on here really haven't used Windows at all. Sometimes they have some experience with Windows 95/98, but usually not even that. (Hell, look at how often they bring up Microsoft BOB and Clippy! That's 1995 and 1997, respectively.)
The truth is that anyone who follows the advice of Windows and their ISP can be secure with a minimum of effort. With Service Pack 2, where Windows enforces it and doesn't just suggest it, it's even easier. The Linux community is out-of-touch... they are rallying against a product they've never used. The fact is that Windows XP is actually a really good operating system... it's faster than Linux, it's stable, it's a hell of a lot easier to use, and it has a better security model than Linux.
And now the obligatory: "But of course this post opposed the Slashbot groupthink and will be modded down.";) (I think people say that because those posts always get modded up.)
Re:Linux made huge advances in user-friendliness
on
Linux Desktop Guide
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This is moderated as funny, but it's true. My background is as a Mac user, and on MacOS the process to boot off a removable disk has always been the same:
1) Insert bootable disk. 2) Open Control Panels. 3) Open Startup Disk. 4) Click on the name of the disk you want to boot from.
It's not just a matter of making the installer easy to use, or making the GUI easy to use, but making the *computer* easy to use. Apple has many negative points, but one of the things they've always done right is to treat the computer as a whole, and not just a sum of parts.
It's not a Linux distro that needs to be made easy-to-use, it's a Linux PC... Linspire is on the right track. Microsoft does it by having their OS installed by default.
Re:Linux made huge advances in user-friendliness
on
Linux Desktop Guide
·
· Score: 1, Funny
Yeah. Tell my grandma how to boot of DVD on a typical PC computer.
"Yes, first insert the disk, then reboot. While it's booting, hit F1, F2, Delete or possibly Space or F12 to enter the BIOS. Every single BIOS looks different, but you need to look for something called boot order. You use the arrow keys, usually, but some of them require you to hit control-s to change screens. (Hopefully, there's help on the screen somewhere.) Once you find the boot order screen, you need to change the order so that the DVD drive is first. Your DVD drive is named something like "Pioneer ATAPI bus 0" or something, and you can move it using page up and page down... or maybe up and down arrow... or maybe something else. Guess and check might work. Ok, now go to the exit page and make sure you select "Save and Exit", or maybe "Exit Saving Changes" or maybe something else, depending. Now it'll ask you to hit a key to boot from the DVD and you can hit that and start installing."
"Oh, no DVD drive? Cancel all that, let me find the CD version..."
Yes, but you should take care of that BEFORE you start promoting it all over the place, otherwise people are going to get a bad taste in their mouth. I had such a bad experience trying to use this program, it'll take a lot of convincing before I try it again.
One of the things I hate about the open-source community is their habit of releasing 0.0.0.0.0.1 software to the public as if it were finished. Do yourselves a favor, finish the program, THEN distribute it.
Ah, so now the tactic is to invent a set of rules that ensure that you'll NEVER get the type of legal music downloads you want, which frees you up to justify any type of copyright infringement you want.
Good work.
Point out to me where I used the word "change." Please. I want to know, because I read that like a dozen times, and I have no clue what you're replying to... whatever it is, it doesn't seem to resemble my post much at all.
Please, have you ever tried to USE iRate? The program is terrible.
The MacOS GUI (at least, I don't have Windows or Linux) is abysmally terrible. All windows open in the upper left, ignoring the OSes location for new windows. The window contains terribly ugly icons, but no tooltips. The help item in the menu bar does jack crap... of course a confusing GUI wouldn't have any help! It doesn't work together with iTunes at all. It's not smart enough to figure out it's running on OS X and change its default web browser accordingly. Toolbar buttons have unexpected behavior. (The 'Info' button doesn't give info on the selected track, as you'd expect, but on the currently playing track.)
The program downloads and downloads and downloads and keeps all the files FOREVER and if you try to delete any, it'll just download them again. (The only way to delete a file is to declare that it sucks, which impacts your rankings and makes no sense.) It has only the most basic player controls (next track, last track, pause), lacking fast-forward, rewind, and stop. There's no way to tell it to just download tracks that match your preferences. There's no way to go back and see what ratings you assigned to tracks, much less change them. Once you've rated a track, there's no way to change your mind and set it back to unrated.
Anyway, the concept is good, but this program just isn't there. Please, PLEASE, recruit someone to at least fix your GUI before you promote it all over the place, and at least fix the glaring problems with the rest of the program. (i.e. let me manage my playlist.)
Ah, so now the tactic is to invent a set of rules that ensure that you'll NEVER get the type of legal music downloads you want, which frees you up to justify any type of copyright infringement you want.
I use GMailStatus 0.8. Despite being a beta, I've only run into one problem and that was when Google changed the layout of the mail page and the widget broke. Ran the auto-update, and all is well again.
It puts the number of emails in your menu bar, plays a sound when you receive mail and (I think) redirects mailto: links to GMail.
Oh, and it's free.
I found a similar product for my Windows box at work, but I can't remember the name of it right now. I'm actually surprised that people are so surprised, these widgets are easy to find on sites like VersionTracker or just through Google.
I'm from Washington State. Our family was visiting London and we met another family at the hotel from Auckland, New Zealand. (I've been there, beautiful city.) Anyway, we chatted for a few minutes and then the dad asked my dad where we were from. For simplicity, he said, "Seattle, in the US." (We're nowhere near Seattle, but as the parent says nobody knows Washington State exists.) Instantly, the New Zealander replied, "oh, I have relatives in the states... do you know the Hilly family in Texas?" Even after explaining how far Texas is from Washington, and how large Texas is *on its own*, I don't think he ever fully understood.
On the other hand, Doom 3 is also coming out for XBox. So it's not like you *need* to own a PC to play it if you already own an XBox console.
In any case, it's a pretty weak game... it's not going to prop up anything. Marathon was twice as scary and it's ten years old. System Shock 2 and Half-Life did everything Doom 3 did but better.
I really do think it's more than just nostalgia that makes so many people prefer old games to the lastest cookie-cutter FPS/RTS/racing sim.
No, it's the nostalgia. Believe me.
The new Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is at least as good as the old one, and probably quite a bit better... it's certainly less forgiving if you fall and die (or are about to die but reverse time instead), and it's certainly easier to control than the previous game. And the graphics are equally good (given the limitations of the machines the original ran on.)
How many of those "so many people" you refer to are your age? How many are younger, in their teens? See how that works? If the only "so many people" you talk to are the same age as you, of course they're going to prefer the same types of games because they have the same type of nostalgia.
Isn't that basically what the parent of your post just said?
Why spend $300 + subscription for the basic time-shifting ability of the Tivo when you can just get a box that does the same thing from your cable/satellite provider for free? (or really cheap... my DVR from Dish Network cost $50 one-time.)
Yes yes yes, but regardless of how criminal law works and regardless of what movie you think it's a ripoff of, the point is that this is LUCAS' movie.
If Greedo shooting first didn't bother Lucas at all, then it's quite clear to me that Lucas doesn't think that particular character trait of Han's is important whatsoever. He wrote the script and directed the movie, remember? If *ANYONE* could declare that the movie is now screwed up, it would be him, and he hasn't.
Re:Han shoots first?
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Han shoots first? If he does, I'm not buying them, period.
So you're saying you like the reissues from 1997 better than the original theatrical release? Or are you just really bad at proofreading?
And, arguably, since Lucas directed and wrote the movie, and he obviously has no problems with Han shooting second, that kind of means that maybe that's *not* the whole point?
Easier and quicker to just set the system clock back after seeing the message. Set it back a year, and you got a full year to do the patching you need.;)
God I hate people who write these posts about this horrible annoying feature that bugs the hell out of them evey single day and don't bother to spend the 10 seconds it takes to find the checkbox and uncheck it. (I'm talking mostly to those "clippy" people!)
Control Panel -> Display -> Desktop -> Customize Desktop -> "Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard Every 60 Days"
Service Pack releases also contain all the point releases up to that point. If you click on the knowledge base article attached to those 13 bugs, you'll probably find that most, if not all, of them have *already* been in WindowsUpdate in the past.
Service Packs are designed so that if you have a plain-jane Windows XP install and you put on the Service Pack, you'll be at the same place a user who's been running Windows Update every week will be.
Slashdot Mirror
You have to remember that most of the pro-Linux people on here really haven't used Windows at all. Sometimes they have some experience with Windows 95/98, but usually not even that. (Hell, look at how often they bring up Microsoft BOB and Clippy! That's 1995 and 1997, respectively.)
;) (I think people say that because those posts always get modded up.)
The truth is that anyone who follows the advice of Windows and their ISP can be secure with a minimum of effort. With Service Pack 2, where Windows enforces it and doesn't just suggest it, it's even easier. The Linux community is out-of-touch... they are rallying against a product they've never used. The fact is that Windows XP is actually a really good operating system... it's faster than Linux, it's stable, it's a hell of a lot easier to use, and it has a better security model than Linux.
And now the obligatory: "But of course this post opposed the Slashbot groupthink and will be modded down."
This is moderated as funny, but it's true. My background is as a Mac user, and on MacOS the process to boot off a removable disk has always been the same:
1) Insert bootable disk.
2) Open Control Panels.
3) Open Startup Disk.
4) Click on the name of the disk you want to boot from.
It's not just a matter of making the installer easy to use, or making the GUI easy to use, but making the *computer* easy to use. Apple has many negative points, but one of the things they've always done right is to treat the computer as a whole, and not just a sum of parts.
It's not a Linux distro that needs to be made easy-to-use, it's a Linux PC... Linspire is on the right track. Microsoft does it by having their OS installed by default.
Yeah. Tell my grandma how to boot of DVD on a typical PC computer.
"Yes, first insert the disk, then reboot. While it's booting, hit F1, F2, Delete or possibly Space or F12 to enter the BIOS. Every single BIOS looks different, but you need to look for something called boot order. You use the arrow keys, usually, but some of them require you to hit control-s to change screens. (Hopefully, there's help on the screen somewhere.) Once you find the boot order screen, you need to change the order so that the DVD drive is first. Your DVD drive is named something like "Pioneer ATAPI bus 0" or something, and you can move it using page up and page down... or maybe up and down arrow... or maybe something else. Guess and check might work. Ok, now go to the exit page and make sure you select "Save and Exit", or maybe "Exit Saving Changes" or maybe something else, depending. Now it'll ask you to hit a key to boot from the DVD and you can hit that and start installing."
"Oh, no DVD drive? Cancel all that, let me find the CD version..."
Yes, but you should take care of that BEFORE you start promoting it all over the place, otherwise people are going to get a bad taste in their mouth. I had such a bad experience trying to use this program, it'll take a lot of convincing before I try it again.
One of the things I hate about the open-source community is their habit of releasing 0.0.0.0.0.1 software to the public as if it were finished. Do yourselves a favor, finish the program, THEN distribute it.
Ah, so now the tactic is to invent a set of rules that ensure that you'll NEVER get the type of legal music downloads you want, which frees you up to justify any type of copyright infringement you want.
Good work.
Point out to me where I used the word "change." Please. I want to know, because I read that like a dozen times, and I have no clue what you're replying to... whatever it is, it doesn't seem to resemble my post much at all.
Please, have you ever tried to USE iRate? The program is terrible.
The MacOS GUI (at least, I don't have Windows or Linux) is abysmally terrible. All windows open in the upper left, ignoring the OSes location for new windows. The window contains terribly ugly icons, but no tooltips. The help item in the menu bar does jack crap... of course a confusing GUI wouldn't have any help! It doesn't work together with iTunes at all. It's not smart enough to figure out it's running on OS X and change its default web browser accordingly. Toolbar buttons have unexpected behavior. (The 'Info' button doesn't give info on the selected track, as you'd expect, but on the currently playing track.)
The program downloads and downloads and downloads and keeps all the files FOREVER and if you try to delete any, it'll just download them again. (The only way to delete a file is to declare that it sucks, which impacts your rankings and makes no sense.) It has only the most basic player controls (next track, last track, pause), lacking fast-forward, rewind, and stop. There's no way to tell it to just download tracks that match your preferences. There's no way to go back and see what ratings you assigned to tracks, much less change them. Once you've rated a track, there's no way to change your mind and set it back to unrated.
Anyway, the concept is good, but this program just isn't there. Please, PLEASE, recruit someone to at least fix your GUI before you promote it all over the place, and at least fix the glaring problems with the rest of the program. (i.e. let me manage my playlist.)
Ah, so now the tactic is to invent a set of rules that ensure that you'll NEVER get the type of legal music downloads you want, which frees you up to justify any type of copyright infringement you want.
Good work.
I use GMailStatus 0.8. Despite being a beta, I've only run into one problem and that was when Google changed the layout of the mail page and the widget broke. Ran the auto-update, and all is well again.
It puts the number of emails in your menu bar, plays a sound when you receive mail and (I think) redirects mailto: links to GMail.
Oh, and it's free.
I found a similar product for my Windows box at work, but I can't remember the name of it right now. I'm actually surprised that people are so surprised, these widgets are easy to find on sites like VersionTracker or just through Google.
I'm from Washington State. Our family was visiting London and we met another family at the hotel from Auckland, New Zealand. (I've been there, beautiful city.) Anyway, we chatted for a few minutes and then the dad asked my dad where we were from. For simplicity, he said, "Seattle, in the US." (We're nowhere near Seattle, but as the parent says nobody knows Washington State exists.) Instantly, the New Zealander replied, "oh, I have relatives in the states... do you know the Hilly family in Texas?" Even after explaining how far Texas is from Washington, and how large Texas is *on its own*, I don't think he ever fully understood.
Hey, mine at least says it's evil right in the sig.
On the other hand, Doom 3 is also coming out for XBox. So it's not like you *need* to own a PC to play it if you already own an XBox console.
In any case, it's a pretty weak game... it's not going to prop up anything. Marathon was twice as scary and it's ten years old. System Shock 2 and Half-Life did everything Doom 3 did but better.
I really do think it's more than just nostalgia that makes so many people prefer old games to the lastest cookie-cutter FPS/RTS/racing sim.
No, it's the nostalgia. Believe me.
The new Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is at least as good as the old one, and probably quite a bit better... it's certainly less forgiving if you fall and die (or are about to die but reverse time instead), and it's certainly easier to control than the previous game. And the graphics are equally good (given the limitations of the machines the original ran on.)
How many of those "so many people" you refer to are your age? How many are younger, in their teens? See how that works? If the only "so many people" you talk to are the same age as you, of course they're going to prefer the same types of games because they have the same type of nostalgia.
Then why don't you use iTunes to burn an MP3 CD?
Go to Edit:Preferences, click CD Burning, click the "MP3 CD" checkbox.
You're an idiot.
Plus all the game consoles (except Sony) are using PowerPC chips in their next generation machines. (And I believe GameCubes have them now.)
There's a lot of PPC chips in production and in all kinds of devices. 68k, however... I'd bet 68k is mostly dead, if not altogether dead.
But but but... how am I going to know how many Amiga and BeOS users use Google!? I don't know if I can survive without knowing that...
Isn't that basically what the parent of your post just said?
Why spend $300 + subscription for the basic time-shifting ability of the Tivo when you can just get a box that does the same thing from your cable/satellite provider for free? (or really cheap... my DVR from Dish Network cost $50 one-time.)
Yes yes yes, but regardless of how criminal law works and regardless of what movie you think it's a ripoff of, the point is that this is LUCAS' movie.
If Greedo shooting first didn't bother Lucas at all, then it's quite clear to me that Lucas doesn't think that particular character trait of Han's is important whatsoever. He wrote the script and directed the movie, remember? If *ANYONE* could declare that the movie is now screwed up, it would be him, and he hasn't.
Han shoots first? If he does, I'm not buying them, period.
So you're saying you like the reissues from 1997 better than the original theatrical release? Or are you just really bad at proofreading?
And, arguably, since Lucas directed and wrote the movie, and he obviously has no problems with Han shooting second, that kind of means that maybe that's *not* the whole point?
In any case, calm down, it's just a movie.
Yakov put it in his book America on Six Rubles a Day.
3 5/ qid=1092779901/sr=ka-1/ref=pd_ka_1/002-7742149-336 8028
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/03947552
Even more funny, that post is moderated as "informative" right now.
So lobby to change it. Make your copyright infringement into a political movement instead of just some geek being a cheapskate.
Next time you want to download a song, write a letter to a US Congressperson first.
As Ghandi says:
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
ZoneAlarm sucks.
Get Sygate Personal Firewall.
http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm
It's just as free. It's more powerful. And it has a much, much better GUI.
Easier and quicker to just set the system clock back after seeing the message. Set it back a year, and you got a full year to do the patching you need. ;)
Stop whining and turn it off.
God I hate people who write these posts about this horrible annoying feature that bugs the hell out of them evey single day and don't bother to spend the 10 seconds it takes to find the checkbox and uncheck it. (I'm talking mostly to those "clippy" people!)
Control Panel -> Display -> Desktop -> Customize Desktop -> "Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard Every 60 Days"
Turn it off and stop yer whining.
Service Pack releases also contain all the point releases up to that point. If you click on the knowledge base article attached to those 13 bugs, you'll probably find that most, if not all, of them have *already* been in WindowsUpdate in the past.
Service Packs are designed so that if you have a plain-jane Windows XP install and you put on the Service Pack, you'll be at the same place a user who's been running Windows Update every week will be.