The problem most people have with the commandline is that they have to remember the exact phrase. It's not like all commands below do the same thing, even if the intention is the same: $ make a new directory with the name "my files" $ make new dir 'my files' $ makedir my files $ add a directory to this with name 'my files' etc.
The problem with the commandline UI and a lot of GUI's is that they present the user TO MUCH CHOICE. To have a good GUI meant always have only 2-4 items to choose from, with comprehensive help and names. That's why most users like wizards, even if a more advanced user only get annoyed by them.
A nice commandline version of this might be something like this: type something starting with dir. ---- $ dir $ directory Do you want: (*) 1 Show the contents of the current directory ( ) 2 Add a directory ( ) 3 Delete a directory ( ) 4 Do something advanced with a directory like renaming it Press 'F1' to show help on 'directory'
You chose '2' add a directory, what name do you want for your directory: my files
New directory 'my files' created. $ ---- Oh and for the 'advanced users' there woud be the option to do $ dir new 'my files' or they would totally freak out problably;-)
Please note this would be very hard to do, because or internationalization (on a user basis, not installed OS basis) and other issues I can not curently think of.
But no, we still have a 16 bit BIOS because the manufacturers are afraid that some fool might want to run DOS on their 3GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM....
My dad just bought a brand new P4 2.4 HT/w 512 Mb and 80 Gb HD. He bought an MSI instead of an Asus motherboard just so he could still use both his 3.5" and 5.25" floppies. Asus only supported 1 floppy drive.
Then when he installed PC-DOS 2000 it freaked out on him. Didn't know what to do with the new 80 Gb HD. Oh and he had a problem assigning partitions, as the max size was 2 Gb. and the alphabet only has 26 letters...
I suggested he should install DOS 3.3 and see if that would fare any better.
I couldn't get Red Hat 5 to run on my box in 1999 because it had an SiS video card. SuSE 6.2 had a patched version of X Window System that worked for me.
Exactly the same for me, and the load of stuff on the CD's I only had a 14k4 back then... (I know there was 33k6 and maybe 56Flex, but I had to rely on people giving me their old stuff..)
You might want to check Pmail, it's what I've been using since 1994, it might not beat Thunderbird, or you might not like the UI, it needs a little getting used to. It's free (as in beer) no adds, so for me it beats Eudora.
The program I worked on at my last employer had exactly the same behaviour. We have never been able to figure out what caused it, but while it was running the memory usage in the task manager would slowly creep up. But after min/max it would be back at where it started. And this programs did run from months continualy. So we just minimized every week or so. I think it's something to do with GDI resources allocated windows handles or something like that.
IIRC On windows programs that support this, you can choose "paste" this will paste the formatted text (in win98 it's saved as RTF on the clipboard I think), or choose "paste special", where you can choose also to paste only as plain text. The same holds to some wextent for vector graphics which can be pasted as such or as bitmap. Spreadsheet fields, including formula's, or just the numerical outcome of those formula's.
Like this nice baby: http://www.ssv-embedded.de/ipc/trm816.htm We use it as an embedded linux system at my employer, and it's real nice but it's "only" a 486. Currently we use SDL for the graphics, but I just anted to point out a usefull linux 486.
I am not a native speaker, but I was under the impression that in english "some" was related to "several" "a few", more than to "most", "a lot". But then I could be mistaken, and indeed it does not mean "all". And I was under the impression that East-Timor is a member of the UN. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/ga1006 9.doc.htm
Leaving mainly Taiwan ROC, and I was arguing about it's uncertain status, as both in mainland China and on Taiwan a lot of (some?!?) people can be found who would argue that publications
from Taiwan should be archived under the China label. you could also talk about Tibet, Western Sahara, Palestina, Kurdistan, Kosovo, Scotland those have an even more uncertain status, let's not go there. (http://www.unpo.org/)
I think that actually you would find that about 99% of the World's population lives in a country that's a member of the UN. As an onther poster pointed out Switserland is joining, leaving Taiwan (0.3% of World) as the largest country not a member. And I as I understand historically the seat occupied by China in the UN is considered to be Tiawanese by most/some Tiawanese. (Taiwan is wat is left of pre-comunist China, they themselves and the rest of the world is still figuring out if they are a separate country or not, at least that what i've heard here in Holland)
I don't know about the visual basic stuff, but using Borland is no problem at all. Aside from using Kylix for Linux, or C++ Builder for Windows or Symbian, there are all kinds of components that can easily replace the standard Borland stuff, if it does not fit your database. I' ve seen quite large (100.000 lines) apps move from Access to Paradox to MySQL to MSSQL and vice-versa. It's not difficult to do. I esp. like the ZeosLib. (it's on sourceforge somewhere) (Open Source MSSQL, MySQL, PostGre, Oracle)
Actually Rainbow does still exist. My employers software also uses their technology. We have released final versions of our software when it because unsupported, that did not need a dongle.
Please note: 1) The Oil/coal was mainly created during the Carbon Age, so it's only about 80 million years. 2) Only Peat bogs turned into oil/coal, not all plant live, maybe 1% ? 3) The article states that currenlty about 22% of plant life is harvested and replaced each year, and we would need about 33% to have the equivalent carbon energy for a day's worth of consumption. Now ask yourself the question: How big would this number be without agriculture, say 10%. => 80,000,000/365/100/10 = 218 years, which is about the current estimate for coal+oil reserves, of which oil is only about 10%
Oh, and when we're talking big numbers, Global consuption: 27,481,215,000 barrels per year = 1,154,211,030,000 gallons/Year =>100,000,000,000,000 Tons of original plan life.
Untill you have sold enough of your product, then either you are going to need 2 30$ programmers and 4 25$ support staff, or 1 60$ programmer and 1 20$ support staff. Or your clients will go to your compettitor after they get tired of the bugs in your poduct.
Oh but please remember that a lot of C++ like this is not/not fully/correctly implemented in Visual Studio before VS.Net 2003, which according to C/C++ Users journal (iirc) finally has almost (97%) complete support for C++ (over 73% for VS.Net 2002). Check also "Comparing C/C++ Compilers" in the september number of Dr. Dobbs Journal oct. issue. Note that I am not saying that the actual cosde above will not compile. I have only used decent C++ compilers thusfar, like Borland C++ and gcc, which have done C++ correctly for as long as I use it (1998)
Nah it's more a generic way of index/pointer into your data stucture Compare the C code: {
int i;
char Name[100];
for (i = 0; i < 100; i++)
(
Name[i] += 1;
) } With the C++ code: {
std::vector<char, 100> Name;
std::vector<char, 100>::iterator i;
for (i = Name.begin(); i != Name.end(); i++)
{
*i += 1;
} } This is a stupid example, but replace char with "AwfullyComplexObject" and += 1 with *i.MakeThisObjectSimple(); And remember vector could be list, map, hashtable or any template abstract container you would like. One of it's functions is to have an index into an array/vector/list that knows how big the step to the next element is, where teh compiler solves differences in memory allignment accross processor architectures, etc.
I've been buying SuSE every year, just because I only have 56k. The first I bought was 6.2, because it used the SuSE display drivers, the only ones that supported my video card SiS 6326 at the time. (for the drivers they develop themselves, they tend to realease them in their own distro, and after that contribute the changes back to the OSS commnity, that way having both a competitive edge, and staying OSS.) I realy liked it when they started shipping with DVD. Now I can just select all goodies I like and it's on my system when I come back from lunch.
I've been thinking for some time now that it should not be very difficult to have linux use the windows modem drivers at least for hardware modems, because those are only files with AT commands and responses. I know them quite intimately, because of my current job, but don't know where to put the result of parsing the files. One should need something a little more sophisticated as wvdial.conf or something like that. Anybody knows if something like this is already happening?
1) Those that are to lazy to write good code 2) Those that are truly incompetent for the code complexity they
currently have to develop 3) Those that think they are in category 4 instead of category 1. 4) Those that would be in category 2 if given the proper coaching
I still have an old Quad density 720kb 5.25" drive in my Athlon 1.4 system, to read my old floppies. I still use it about 4 times a year. It's originally from an old ICL server from 1978. The BIOS thinks it's 3.5" but that's because the IBM PC never supported Quad density. It works with DD floppies, as it's magnetic coils use the same 300 gauss field not the 600 gauss of the HD 1.2 Mb floppies.
About the ICL: It was real cool for it's day. If my memory serves me: 8 RS232 terminal ports. 1 centronics printer port. Intel 8086 CP/M 86 with multitasking option 256k RAM Xebes 1210 MFM controller with 5 Mb Harddisk and the above floppydrive
Handshaking only takes long if you call a 2400 with a V.92 or something like that. Calling 2400 (V22b IIRC) with 2400 (or a V92 fixed at V22b (e.g. AT+MS=2,1)) is quite fast, but not much faster as a V92 calling V92.
just my 2 cents
P.S. anybody interested in about 300 2400 baud ISA modems? (Tornado)
Exacly like the Apple ]['s i've seen at my physics lab, at least 3 years ago they where still doing the trick. One of them had a color plotter, for which we could not get any new cartidges, so we fussed around with paint, and it seemed to do the trick. A friend of mine even added some code to the BASIC program it was running, to get an extra cool graph.
Re:I know how to win, with no changes to the mouse
on
The Oldest Mouse Contest
·
· Score: 2, Informative
having something orbiting the sun at near light speed will squish mouse A as the angular velocity will induce a centrifugal force high enough to. Maybe if you'd send it to some distant galaxy at near light speed, and then back again? You'll also have to keep de acceleration limited, like 2G otherwise your mouse will also get squished. Oh, and don't mind the near infinite energy needed to approach even 0.9 c.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem most people have with the commandline is that they have to remember the exact phrase. It's not like all commands below do the same thing, even if the intention is the same:
;-)
$ make a new directory with the name "my files"
$ make new dir 'my files'
$ makedir my files
$ add a directory to this with name 'my files'
etc.
The problem with the commandline UI and a lot of GUI's is that they present the user TO MUCH CHOICE. To have a good GUI meant always have only 2-4 items to choose from, with comprehensive help and names.
That's why most users like wizards, even if a more advanced user only get annoyed by them.
A nice commandline version of this might be something like this:
type something starting with dir.
----
$ dir
$ directory
Do you want:
(*) 1 Show the contents of the current directory
( ) 2 Add a directory
( ) 3 Delete a directory
( ) 4 Do something advanced with a directory like renaming it
Press 'F1' to show help on 'directory'
You chose '2' add a directory, what name do you want for your directory: my files
New directory 'my files' created.
$
----
Oh and for the 'advanced users' there woud be the option to do
$ dir new 'my files'
or they would totally freak out problably
Please note this would be very hard to do, because or internationalization (on a user basis, not installed OS basis) and other issues I can not curently think of.
But no, we still have a 16 bit BIOS because the manufacturers are afraid that some fool might want to run DOS on their 3GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM....
/w 512 Mb and 80 Gb HD. He bought an MSI instead of an Asus motherboard just so he could still use both his 3.5" and 5.25" floppies. Asus only supported 1 floppy drive.
;-)
My dad just bought a brand new P4 2.4 HT
Then when he installed PC-DOS 2000 it freaked out on him. Didn't know what to do with the new 80 Gb HD. Oh and he had a problem assigning partitions, as the max size was 2 Gb. and the alphabet only has 26 letters...
I suggested he should install DOS 3.3 and see if that would fare any better.
I couldn't get Red Hat 5 to run on my box in 1999 because it had an SiS video card. SuSE 6.2 had a patched version of X Window System that worked for me.
Exactly the same for me, and the load of stuff on the CD's I only had a 14k4 back then... (I know there was 33k6 and maybe 56Flex, but I had to rely on people giving me their old stuff..)
Same seems to be here in Europe, (at least the Netherlands) I used to see gateway adds, now I see Dell, Hpaq mainly.
You might want to check Pmail, it's what I've been using since 1994,
it might not beat Thunderbird, or you might not like the UI, it needs a little getting used to. It's free (as in beer) no adds, so for me it beats Eudora.
Adriaan.
The program I worked on at my last employer had exactly the same behaviour. We have never been able to figure out what caused it, but while it was running the memory usage in the task manager would slowly creep up. But after min/max it would be back at where it started.
And this programs did run from months continualy. So we just minimized every week or so.
I think it's something to do with GDI resources allocated windows handles or something like that.
Adriaan
IIRC
On windows programs that support this, you can choose "paste"
this will paste the formatted text (in win98 it's saved as RTF on the clipboard I think), or choose "paste special", where you can choose also to paste only as plain text.
The same holds to some wextent for vector graphics which can be pasted as such or as bitmap. Spreadsheet fields, including formula's, or just the numerical outcome of those formula's.
Adriaan.
If you're tall, maybe you could use your toes?
Like this nice baby:
We use it as an embedded linux system at my employer, and it's real nice
http://www.ssv-embedded.de/ipc/trm816.htm
but it's "only" a 486.
Currently we use SDL for the graphics, but I just anted to point out a usefull linux 486.
Adriaan
Stacker ?
I am not a native speaker, but I was under the impression that6 9.doc .htm
in english "some" was related to "several" "a few", more than to
"most", "a lot". But then I could be mistaken, and indeed it does not mean "all".
And I was under the impression that East-Timor is a member of the UN.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/ga100
Leaving mainly Taiwan ROC, and I was arguing about it's uncertain status, as both in mainland China
and on Taiwan a lot of (some?!?) people can be found who would argue that publications
from Taiwan should be archived under the China label.
you could also talk about Tibet, Western Sahara, Palestina, Kurdistan,
Kosovo, Scotland those have an even more uncertain status, let's not go there.
(http://www.unpo.org/)
Adriaan.
I think that actually you would find that about 99% of the World's population lives in a country that's a member of the UN. As an onther poster pointed out Switserland is joining, leaving Taiwan (0.3% of World) as the largest country not a member.
And I as I understand historically the seat occupied by China in the UN
is considered to be Tiawanese by most/some Tiawanese.
(Taiwan is wat is left of pre-comunist China, they themselves and the rest of the world is still figuring out if they are a separate country or not, at least that what i've heard here in Holland)
I don't know about the visual basic stuff, but using Borland is no problem at all.
Aside from using Kylix for Linux, or C++ Builder for Windows or Symbian,
there are all kinds of components that can easily replace the standard Borland stuff, if it does not fit your database.
I' ve seen quite large (100.000 lines) apps move from Access to Paradox to MySQL to MSSQL and vice-versa. It's not difficult to do.
I esp. like the ZeosLib. (it's on sourceforge somewhere)
(Open Source MSSQL, MySQL, PostGre, Oracle)
Actually Rainbow does still exist. My employers software also uses their technology. We have released final versions of our software when it because unsupported, that did not need a dongle.
http://www.rainbow.com/
Adriaan
Please note:
1) The Oil/coal was mainly created during the Carbon Age, so it's only about 80 million years.
2) Only Peat bogs turned into oil/coal, not all plant live, maybe 1% ?
3) The article states that currenlty about 22% of plant life is harvested and replaced each year, and we would need about 33% to have the equivalent carbon energy for a day's worth of consumption.
Now ask yourself the question: How big would this number be without agriculture, say 10%.
=> 80,000,000/365/100/10 = 218 years, which is about the current estimate for coal+oil reserves, of which oil is only about 10%
Oh, and when we're talking big numbers,
Global consuption: 27,481,215,000 barrels per year
= 1,154,211,030,000 gallons/Year
=>100,000,000,000,000 Tons of original plan life.
Adriaan.
Untill you have sold enough of your product, then either you are going to need 2 30$ programmers and 4 25$ support staff, or 1 60$ programmer and 1 20$ support staff.
Or your clients will go to your compettitor after they get tired of the bugs in your poduct.
Adriaan
Oh but please remember that a lot of C++ like this is not/not fully/correctly implemented in Visual Studio before VS.Net 2003, which according to C/C++ Users journal (iirc) finally has almost (97%) complete support for C++ (over 73% for VS.Net 2002). Check also "Comparing C/C++ Compilers" in the september number of Dr. Dobbs Journal oct. issue. Note that I am not saying that the actual cosde above will not compile.
I have only used decent C++ compilers thusfar, like Borland C++ and gcc, which have done C++ correctly for as long as I use it (1998)
Adriaan.
Nah it's more a generic way of index/pointer into your data stucture
Compare the C code:
{
int i;
char Name[100];
for (i = 0; i < 100; i++)
(
Name[i] += 1;
)
}
With the C++ code:
{
std::vector<char, 100> Name;
std::vector<char, 100>::iterator i;
for (i = Name.begin(); i != Name.end(); i++)
{
*i += 1;
}
}
This is a stupid example, but replace char with "AwfullyComplexObject" and += 1 with *i.MakeThisObjectSimple();
And remember vector could be list, map, hashtable or any template abstract container you would like.
One of it's functions is to have an index into an array/vector/list that knows how big the step to the next element is, where teh compiler solves differences in memory allignment accross processor architectures, etc.
Adriaan
> Great for situations without net access though.
Exactly
I've been buying SuSE every year, just because I only have 56k.
The first I bought was 6.2, because it used the SuSE display drivers,
the only ones that supported my video card SiS 6326 at the time.
(for the drivers they develop themselves, they tend to realease them in their own distro, and after that contribute the changes back to the OSS commnity, that way having both a competitive edge, and staying OSS.)
I realy liked it when they started shipping with DVD. Now I can just select all goodies I like and it's on my system when I come back from lunch.
Adriaan
I've been thinking for some time now that it should not be very difficult to have linux use the windows modem drivers at least for
hardware modems, because those are only files with AT commands and responses.
I know them quite intimately, because of my current job, but don't know where to put the result of parsing the files. One should need something a little more sophisticated as wvdial.conf or something like that.
Anybody knows if something like this is already happening?
Adriaan
1) Those that are to lazy to write good code
2) Those that are truly incompetent for the code complexity they
currently have to develop
3) Those that think they are in category 4 instead of category 1.
4) Those that would be in category 2 if given the proper coaching
FYI
I still have an old Quad density 720kb 5.25" drive in my Athlon 1.4 system, to read my old floppies. I still use it about 4 times a year.
It's originally from an old ICL server from 1978.
The BIOS thinks it's 3.5" but that's because the IBM PC never supported Quad density.
It works with DD floppies, as it's magnetic coils use the same 300 gauss field not the 600 gauss of the HD 1.2 Mb floppies.
About the ICL: It was real cool for it's day. If my memory serves me:
8 RS232 terminal ports.
1 centronics printer port.
Intel 8086
CP/M 86 with multitasking option
256k RAM
Xebes 1210 MFM controller with 5 Mb Harddisk
and the above floppydrive
Handshaking only takes long if you call a 2400 with a V.92 or something like that.
Calling 2400 (V22b IIRC) with 2400 (or a V92 fixed at V22b (e.g. AT+MS=2,1)) is quite fast, but not much faster as a V92 calling V92.
just my 2 cents
P.S. anybody interested in about 300 2400 baud ISA modems? (Tornado)
Exacly like the Apple ]['s i've seen at my physics lab, at least 3 years ago they where still doing the trick. One of them had a color plotter, for which we could not get any new cartidges, so we fussed around with paint, and it seemed to do the trick.
A friend of mine even added some code to the BASIC program it was running, to get an extra cool graph.
having something orbiting the sun at near light speed will squish
mouse A as the angular velocity will induce a centrifugal force
high enough to.
Maybe if you'd send it to some distant galaxy at near light speed, and then back again? You'll also have to keep de acceleration limited, like 2G otherwise your mouse will also get squished.
Oh, and don't mind the near infinite energy needed to approach even 0.9 c.