While I do agree that the lack of a dedicated server feature is somewhat annoying, having the game manufacturer responsible for maintaining the online portion of the game I believe is a bad idea.
It might be the way it's done on PCs where there is no possible central authority, but on consoles there really should be some kind of coordination.
Take EA as the big example of developer run servers. A lot of their "old" online games no longer work online even on the xbox because they demanded to run their own servers. Other games, such as those on the original xbox not by them, still work.
You don't need the hardware virtualization to run VMware at all. It just improves the experience if you have it.
You do need hardware virtualization for the XP mode Microsoft is including.
VMware runs just fine on machines without hardware virtualization (such as an Athlon 64 3400+, which doesn't even have the capability to run 64-bit guests). I doubt that Microsoft would have put pressure on them at all as it would do nothing to actually limit their competition (virtualbox also runs fine on my netbook) and it obviously hurts their problem of trying to support old software.
Spoofing the user agent isn't exactly the desired method as the user agent is important for statistics and other things. I don't think it should ever be necessary to spoof it if everyone is acting nicely (server and client).
I've never heard of a Google IMAP client but you can deselect folders in your email client (I use Opera and do have the All Mail group disabled).
And they also have added IMAP controls:
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-advanced-imap-controls.html
"You can choose which labels to sync in IMAP -- useful if you find your mail client choking on a big [Gmail]/All Mail folder."
Opera searches the full text of the page as well as all those (well there aren't tags in opera but the description of the page in the bookmarks is searched as well). I can start typing in the text of a slashdot article I've visited a while back and it will display in the dropdown from the address bar. Huh, that's odd. I tried it again and it worked this time.
I do like the feature of searching a page quite a bit and I'm disappointed Firefox doesn't have it. However I prefer NoScript over the feature.
Everyone always says you should always have AdBlock and NoScript and a few other extensions in Firefox, but I've never really seen what the point is to NoScript. I've never had problems with Javascript in pages.
Can someone explain why blocking javascript with that extension vs an option for disabling it completely (like in Opera) is better or even needed?
Ideally though each browser should copy cool features and compete on standards compliance results until the web works well for everyone. Full text searching of your history would be a nice addition to the awesome bar. Imagine trying to remember parts of a comment someone made on an article and being able to go back to the article it was posted on without having to remember what the article was about, and finding the rest of that comment again (offtopic comments can sometimes be intelligent after all).
Opera searches the full text of the page as well as all those (well there aren't tags in opera but the description of the page in the bookmarks is searched as well). I can start typing in the text of a slashdot article I've visited a while back and it will display in the dropdown from the address bar. I can also assign certain bookmarks keywords such as slashdot being/. typed into the address bar.
I do admit that the learning feature that the awesome bar supposedly has (never used it enough to see) seems like it might be nice if it knows that a site you visited once doesn't have the same importance to you as one you've selected from the awesomebar 100 times. I've grown to like learning things like that once you get them trained (such as Launchy). I don't know if Opera does this (again, never used that feature enough to see).
Opera's interface is every bit as customisable if not more so. False. I challenge you to put a "back" button next to the Help menu on the menu bar, then. You can do it in IE. You can do it in Firefox. Opera forces that space after Help to be waste. Here it is:Screenshot:P
There's a back button, forward button and an addressbar next to help. Not technically what you said but close enough that it shouldn't matter. Probably technically cheating aswell as it's not the 'real' menu bar.
You're right that you can't put stuff in the menu bar in Opera though, and you should be able to. It is a waste of screen space. In order to make that screenshot (without manipulation), I used the custom buttons page on http://operawiki.info/CustomButtons to add each of those menu items to the "Main Bar" (after clearing it), then I added the back button and decided to go a step further and add the address bar and forward. I had already used the toggle menu bar custom button to hide the actual "Menu Bar" (I normally don't have a menu bar even, the panel is enough).
If you look closely I have the entire main menu as a button in the tab bar (labeled "Menu" with a black arrow next to it). If I click that I'll get a menu with all the main menu bar items in it. Over on the right I have a view button which will display the "view bar" where I've hidden the menu toggle button.
I could have combined everything on the menu into the tab bar instead but it wouldn't have looked like the main menu colorwise. I could have everything in one bar like the great-grandparent has in their firefox screenshot. Less than their screenshot even if I put everything in the tab bar instead of a seperate one.
Also there is a panel toggle on the left of the screen. I typically don't use the main menu except for the File-> Import/Export menu options so hiding the entire thing makes sense since all bookmarks, history, widgets, mail and newsfeeds are available in the side panel and most settings are accessible via keyboard the shortcuts F12+none, ctrl, shift.
If you really want to get bitchy about wasted space you could put all the menu options, the addressbar and everything normally in a toolbar into a custom panel and get rid of every bar (even the tab bar if you want) and just have the panel toggle at the edge of the screen. Hide it when you don't need it. You can't get much less wasted space unless you changed the theme for your desktop to use less space for the window decorations (I think that would be going a little far). The entire window would be space for the page except for the small scrollbar on one side and the panel toggle on the other (not necessary with keyboard shortcuts).
Turns out it's gotten easier than when I last looked through all the menus a few months ago. Apparently you can just right click in a page now and "Edit Site Preferences..."
You can toggle the menu bar with a button from that site in Opera to get rid of it if you really want to. I currently have the button in the view toolbar (hidden by default) that Opera has, with a non-toggle menu button on the far left of the tab bar (where the panel toggle would be by default) acting as the main menu. I rarely ever use the menu anyways; the panel has all the mail client and bookmarks access I need.
The fact that you have to download a third-party add-on to even resemble the original functionality shows how little respect the Mozilla Corporation has for its users.
Firefox without extensions is ridiculously barebones. I'm glad I'm an Opera user.
Speaking of stuff that's not in stock Firefox, one of the things about Opera I almost can't do without is Tools->Quick Preferences->Edit Site Preferences. So bloody useful. Oh, and the Cookie Manager in the regular preferences dialog is pretty awesome too.
You can open the Quick Preferences with F12. That way it's just Quick Preferences->Edit Site Preferences That way you don't have to navigate through so many menus.
I rarely ever use the menu as the panel or various shortcuts provide the same function (Ctrl-F12 for Preferences, Shift-F12 for Appearance, etc).
Nice thing is that I can completely eliminate the menubar from the application, saving even more space vs Firefox. All I have currently is the tab bar and the URL bar.
The comparison with Microsoft making browsers other than IE6 on XP slower isn't valid. Apple isn't making the other browsers slower. It's making it's own browser faster by using some undocumented features. If it deliberately slowed down other browsers access to needed APIs or files or such then it would be slowing down the competition and it would be unfair. One of the major benefits of developing both the applications and the desktop environment is that you can customize both sides of any interactions needed and speed things up considerably and integrate things more easily.
It seems like the whole point to publishing APIs is to have them be a stable way to interface with the system for all those who need to. If it isn't published then it might not be as stable or implemented for as long-term as a program developer should want for compatibility reasons.
IANAL but I would say the problem is that downloading the files is not illegal, only the downloading them without permission of the copyright holder and thus violating their rights. Because they represent the copyright holder then they most likely have permission and can download them from your computer to prove you shared them.
I'm not sure if Xbox Live's traffic is encrypted but it does use some standard ports to connect to others. 3074 and 88 need to be forwarded for full connectivity. If it is encrypted then it could seriously degrade the service and Microsoft would not like complaints about their service that are not their fault.
Slashdot Mirror
While I do agree that the lack of a dedicated server feature is somewhat annoying, having the game manufacturer responsible for maintaining the online portion of the game I believe is a bad idea.
It might be the way it's done on PCs where there is no possible central authority, but on consoles there really should be some kind of coordination.
Take EA as the big example of developer run servers. A lot of their "old" online games no longer work online even on the xbox because they demanded to run their own servers. Other games, such as those on the original xbox not by them, still work.
You don't need the hardware virtualization to run VMware at all. It just improves the experience if you have it.
You do need hardware virtualization for the XP mode Microsoft is including.
VMware runs just fine on machines without hardware virtualization (such as an Athlon 64 3400+, which doesn't even have the capability to run 64-bit guests). I doubt that Microsoft would have put pressure on them at all as it would do nothing to actually limit their competition (virtualbox also runs fine on my netbook) and it obviously hurts their problem of trying to support old software.
Spoofing the user agent isn't exactly the desired method as the user agent is important for statistics and other things. I don't think it should ever be necessary to spoof it if everyone is acting nicely (server and client).
It already had ads in the streamed videos, which Boxee did display.
I've never heard of a Google IMAP client but you can deselect folders in your email client (I use Opera and do have the All Mail group disabled). And they also have added IMAP controls: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-advanced-imap-controls.html "You can choose which labels to sync in IMAP -- useful if you find your mail client choking on a big [Gmail]/All Mail folder."
I do like the feature of searching a page quite a bit and I'm disappointed Firefox doesn't have it. However I prefer NoScript over the feature.
Everyone always says you should always have AdBlock and NoScript and a few other extensions in Firefox, but I've never really seen what the point is to NoScript. I've never had problems with Javascript in pages.Can someone explain why blocking javascript with that extension vs an option for disabling it completely (like in Opera) is better or even needed?
Ideally though each browser should copy cool features and compete on standards compliance results until the web works well for everyone. Full text searching of your history would be a nice addition to the awesome bar. Imagine trying to remember parts of a comment someone made on an article and being able to go back to the article it was posted on without having to remember what the article was about, and finding the rest of that comment again (offtopic comments can sometimes be intelligent after all).
Doesn't the Awesome bar just search the "URLs, page titles, and tags in your bookmarks and history"
/. typed into the address bar.
Opera searches the full text of the page as well as all those (well there aren't tags in opera but the description of the page in the bookmarks is searched as well). I can start typing in the text of a slashdot article I've visited a while back and it will display in the dropdown from the address bar. I can also assign certain bookmarks keywords such as slashdot being
I do admit that the learning feature that the awesome bar supposedly has (never used it enough to see) seems like it might be nice if it knows that a site you visited once doesn't have the same importance to you as one you've selected from the awesomebar 100 times. I've grown to like learning things like that once you get them trained (such as Launchy). I don't know if Opera does this (again, never used that feature enough to see).
There's a back button, forward button and an addressbar next to help. Not technically what you said but close enough that it shouldn't matter. Probably technically cheating aswell as it's not the 'real' menu bar.
You're right that you can't put stuff in the menu bar in Opera though, and you should be able to. It is a waste of screen space. In order to make that screenshot (without manipulation), I used the custom buttons page on http://operawiki.info/CustomButtons to add each of those menu items to the "Main Bar" (after clearing it), then I added the back button and decided to go a step further and add the address bar and forward. I had already used the toggle menu bar custom button to hide the actual "Menu Bar" (I normally don't have a menu bar even, the panel is enough).
If you look closely I have the entire main menu as a button in the tab bar (labeled "Menu" with a black arrow next to it). If I click that I'll get a menu with all the main menu bar items in it. Over on the right I have a view button which will display the "view bar" where I've hidden the menu toggle button.
I could have combined everything on the menu into the tab bar instead but it wouldn't have looked like the main menu colorwise. I could have everything in one bar like the great-grandparent has in their firefox screenshot. Less than their screenshot even if I put everything in the tab bar instead of a seperate one.
Also there is a panel toggle on the left of the screen. I typically don't use the main menu except for the File-> Import/Export menu options so hiding the entire thing makes sense since all bookmarks, history, widgets, mail and newsfeeds are available in the side panel and most settings are accessible via keyboard the shortcuts F12+none, ctrl, shift.
If you really want to get bitchy about wasted space you could put all the menu options, the addressbar and everything normally in a toolbar into a custom panel and get rid of every bar (even the tab bar if you want) and just have the panel toggle at the edge of the screen. Hide it when you don't need it. You can't get much less wasted space unless you changed the theme for your desktop to use less space for the window decorations (I think that would be going a little far). The entire window would be space for the page except for the small scrollbar on one side and the panel toggle on the other (not necessary with keyboard shortcuts).
Turns out it's gotten easier than when I last looked through all the menus a few months ago.
Apparently you can just right click in a page now and "Edit Site Preferences..."
Sorry for my longer method then.
http://operawiki.info/CustomButtons#menu
You can toggle the menu bar with a button from that site in Opera to get rid of it if you really want to. I currently have the button in the view toolbar (hidden by default) that Opera has, with a non-toggle menu button on the far left of the tab bar (where the panel toggle would be by default) acting as the main menu. I rarely ever use the menu anyways; the panel has all the mail client and bookmarks access I need.
The fact that you have to download a third-party add-on to even resemble the original functionality shows how little respect the Mozilla Corporation has for its users.
Firefox without extensions is ridiculously barebones. I'm glad I'm an Opera user.
Speaking of stuff that's not in stock Firefox, one of the things about Opera I almost can't do without is Tools->Quick Preferences->Edit Site Preferences. So bloody useful. Oh, and the Cookie Manager in the regular preferences dialog is pretty awesome too.
You can open the Quick Preferences with F12.That way it's just Quick Preferences->Edit Site Preferences
That way you don't have to navigate through so many menus.
I rarely ever use the menu as the panel or various shortcuts provide the same function (Ctrl-F12 for Preferences, Shift-F12 for Appearance, etc).
Nice thing is that I can completely eliminate the menubar from the application, saving even more space vs Firefox. All I have currently is the tab bar and the URL bar.
For Opera:
Press F12 and deselect "Enable GIF/SVG animation"
or go to Tools - Quick preferences F12 - Enable GIF/SVG animation
The comparison with Microsoft making browsers other than IE6 on XP slower isn't valid. Apple isn't making the other browsers slower. It's making it's own browser faster by using some undocumented features. If it deliberately slowed down other browsers access to needed APIs or files or such then it would be slowing down the competition and it would be unfair. One of the major benefits of developing both the applications and the desktop environment is that you can customize both sides of any interactions needed and speed things up considerably and integrate things more easily. It seems like the whole point to publishing APIs is to have them be a stable way to interface with the system for all those who need to. If it isn't published then it might not be as stable or implemented for as long-term as a program developer should want for compatibility reasons.
Why does your browser need to know where they are stored if they can insert them directly into the document you are viewing?
Opera does have a spell check in it. You right click on the text box and select "Check spelling". http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/opera/spell check/index.dml
IANAL but I would say the problem is that downloading the files is not illegal, only the downloading them without permission of the copyright holder and thus violating their rights. Because they represent the copyright holder then they most likely have permission and can download them from your computer to prove you shared them.
I'm not sure if Xbox Live's traffic is encrypted but it does use some standard ports to connect to others. 3074 and 88 need to be forwarded for full connectivity. If it is encrypted then it could seriously degrade the service and Microsoft would not like complaints about their service that are not their fault.