topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Wednesday November 12, 2025, 12:51 pm
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Recent Posts

Pages: prev1 ... 36 37 38 39 40 [41] 42 43 44 45 46 ... 76next
1001
Some may feel like editing the contents in this page. Requires MindMeister or OpenID accounts.

http://www.mindmeister.com/32128559
1002
Living Room / Should Illegal Downloaders Be Cut Off From the Internet?
« Last post by Paul Keith on December 02, 2009, 03:59 PM »
http://debatewise.or...f-from-the-internet?

Snippets:

it is an inappropriately harsh punishment for a badly thought out law. some instances of filesharing aren't stealing anyway - for instance, people making their own work freely available for download. and things like translation patches for Japanese games are still legally fuzzy.

why is going to court to be tried for a crime an 'inconvenience'? it is possible that you didn't commit the offence - you could have been hacked - and it is possible that your offence wasn't harsh enough to warrant disconnection - if you only downloaded one torrent file - so legally you should have a trial.

The Government uses claims and research supported by and affiliated with the music and film industries, to support her claim of damages done. These organisations have an interest in over-reporting and exaggerating the numbers, precisely to prompt legislation like the Government is putting forward at this very moment.

The Opposition holds, in contrast, that (a) the decline in sales of the media industry can be attributed to many other factors than illegal file sharing, (b) the music industry's definition of damages done is faulty, and (c) that even if the claims have some base in reality, something we believe to be not the case, increased enforcement would not have any effect on the damages to the film industry.

(a) To assume that the coincident rise of file sharing and decline of the media industry has a causal link is wrong. Several other important developments have a direct link to the argument made by the Government. The habits of media consumers have changed. They use their 'own', bought, media (such as bought CDs and DVDs) less frequently, and have shifted more to on-demand services like TV-channels.

Another development is the wide availability of professional grade production equipment on contemporary home computers, which enables a greater range of people to produce and manufacture their own media. This increases competition and draws revenue from large, traditional media companies to smaller, unaffiliated ones whose revenues are not reported in the figures the Government cites.

(b) The damages done by file sharing, as reported by the music industry, are wholly inaccurate. These figures are a combination of missed growth targets, extrapolated estimates, and pure fiction, made to influence public opinion. What really are these damages? Let us analyse them in more detail.

For one to do €10 damage to Sony Music by file sharing, they would need to (1) make up their mind to procure some music (say, a single of "Oops, I did it again" worth €5). (2) have been willing to pay the in-store price of "Oops, I did it again". (3) then instead download it illegally. Why the double damages? Taken as a whole, a file sharing network downloads and uploads exactly as much. So, for every person downloading "Oops, I did it again" illegally, on average, they facilitate one other person in downloading "Oops, I did it again" illegally.

(Note that it has yet to be seen that someone's Up/Down ratio has been used in a court case to determine the fine/punishment. The fines are mostly set by Sony Music et al. themselves.)

These three requirements are often not present when calculating the damages done for a purported criminal engaged in file sharing. For example, (1) is not present when someone sees a file offered for download they have never heard of, then, on a whim, decide to download it. (2) is most often violated - the vast majority of file sharers would not pay €50 for a video game or € 10 for a DVD they now get for free.

All of these arguments invalidate the claims the music industry has to any damages, or at least invalidates the amounts and methods reported in current court cases. This means that the Government's argument of solving a great economical evil by their plan does not hold.

(c) Increased enforcement will never put the illegal file sharing networks out of operation, which is what is necessary to generate more revenue for the music industry IF their claims are true (which (b) argues is not the case). These networks are global, the music industry is not (e.g. servers hosted in rogue states), and the technologically adept file sharers will find new, undetectable methods of sharing.

Many legal services are available which allow you to download video and audio for free. Most TV channels have an online on-demand service. There are similar services available for music, including Nokia’s Come with Music service, which allows owners of specific Nokia phones to download unlimited music, free of charge. Persistent file-sharers are halting the development and growth of these legal services.

The services are much more limited and less convenient, where it is possible to obtain almost anything off filesharing and bit torrent sites, mostly without any fuss other than waiting for it to download. Many people also prefer downloading something from a community of users than rely directly on a corporation.

ISPs are angry that they are being asked to police users and foot the cost of this enforcement. A spokeswoman for Virgin Media said that was a, “heavy-handed, punitive regime that will simply alienate customers.


http://news.bbc.co.u...chnology/8219652.stm

File-sharers Buy Media Too

http://revolutionmag...end-movies-probably/

P.S. Yeah, these are old points but I just recently chanced upon the site and thought some may be interested in rereading these points in light of the Mininova incident.
1003
Living Room / Re: Posture in sitting/standing ideas, tips & tricks
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 30, 2009, 01:40 PM »
Thanks tomos. The string bit helped alot.

I'll check the forums when I have the guts to join a new community. Been having bad experiences with posting in forums lately.
1004
Living Room / Re: Posture in sitting/standing ideas, tips & tricks
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 29, 2009, 09:01 PM »
I just watched the Google Video and I fail to understand the neck posture. How is it supposed to work?

I get that I need to gently pull my hair back and up but then I feel stuck. I don't really know how to move my neck.

For example, when I have to tilt and move my neck, I'm not really sure whether I should continue feel like a tucked in giraffe/ostrich or it's alright to move it like normal.
1005
Just another GOE draft from my notes. This one is purely a list and I never tied all the references together to create an article --- although the entries underneath each item was spontaneously type written for this topic.

Also: Fake meaning sounds like visualization-lite but it's different. Visualizations take effort and habit-formations and even the lite-techniques take repetition. Fake meanings on the other hand don't require work. In fact, you're already applying it in your life already. It's all about whether you want to or not. Sometimes authors throw in some additional questions as fluff or fake depth but that's something I won't include even if it does make the whole thing sound better. This thread is just here as a framework to say "Yes, it exists. Yes, you're doing it. Yes, you're not helpless to tweak it." and "here's some examples."

Be the Hero
Book: http://www.amazon.co...lenges/dp/160509000X

Not a fan of the book's theme but it is what it is: A cleverly marketed, pocket sized, "written like fiction" book that probably comes off more useful than any of my comments in this thread.

I'm not shilling the book but it is what it is: The book is written as a motivational guide that also benefits your productivity.

This thread here is more about jump starting the discussion on the productivity concept + some examples without any real intent to produce a specific productivity guide.

Daily Astrology Readings
This was when I was using IGoogle and could read an entire section of Daily Horoscopes easily.

Casual people who put faith on generic readings already know this but I just modified this with productivity in mind. (i.e. I let the readings determine my day.)

It's also the Britney Spears of this concept. Tons of people do it already but they don't really think about it and don't really get the chance to optimize it for their lives.

24-hour Significance
Copy paste

I follow a somewhat similar pattern in which each week day has a different significance.

Mon. is the day I focus my all totally on what I perceive as things to progress my life.

Tues. is the day I focus all my energies on Book Reading and other catching up on self-help topics.

Wednesday is the day I focus on improving my way of communicating with others. This can involve observing movies and reading non-fiction to writing stories and all that.

Thursday is what I consider catch-up day in which I focus all my energies on things I need to catch-up on.

Friday is what I dub a Sabbath version of a day in which I totally focus my entire day on resting including stopping most PC work by letting it scan for viruses and defragmenting and other low-key stuff.

Saturday is Review Day in which I do all my backups and catch-up on anything I want to reread, re-do or work on.

Sunday is what I called Riskless day in which given two choices, I choose the one where I just hang out. Say playing a game when i'm bored rather than learning anything or sleeping instead of trying to finish a videogame.

None of this is connected with any schedule I make and they're more like mindsets on how to approach the week but still I find it's ability to make me productive not as "accelerative" as I'd want to be. Maybe you could give some more hints on the troubles you encountered with your approach? That seems to be an underrated detail with articles of this theme.

Apparently the method I listed here is called the Auto-Pilot schedule

My apologies for those who think I was copying a method without telling the name. I didn't know this method had a name already before I wrote it here.

1st action after waking up
Source: Cory Doctorow (forgot the direct source, it was a video with him and the xkcd artist about productivity)

Another common theme in fitness but underrated in productivity guides. The fogginess of waking up can often put you in the zone in whichever action you first start with.

I was tempted to make a list called "Morning Habits lite" but dropped it because it doesn't really work that way. After the 1st action, it's all on you and your productivity efficiency.

Btw, this works everytime you wake up. It doesn't matter if it's night time or day time. At least, from my short experience with this.

Use Tarot Card Significance as Priority Decider
Sounds like a rehash of the above Daily Astrology trick but this one's more of an alternative to answering questions/brainstorming/someday/maybe/life mindmap ------> (You've encountered this if you read enough productivity guides)

I actually have a TreeForm doc of some of these questions but I haven't made time to learn the website yet and don't know how to make the file public so here's the Facade.com example of what I mean by tarot cards.

(P.S. I don't have any real experience with tarot card readers and so all my test of this has been with using Facade.com's free Q&A generator.)

Should I create the GOE give fake meaning to my life thread?

The point is to just self-interpret the results and then apply it to your actions.

I forgot the word but the reason the answers aren't important is because they work like this.

Yeah, same as Daily Horoscopes but the difference is that you get more of the professional 1-on-1 "answer to your question/task" effect as opposed to a generic daily recommendation.

It's mostly for people who set priorities but don't really get much out of those priorities and constantly set them inefficiently. Of course, there are probably better "hard" models to reference to but this is a good showcase of how you can put "fake" meaning in any segment of your productivity system.

Take advantage of archaic time model
More of a reminder that clock time doesn't exist and you can cheat it any way you want despite the numbers written on your digital watch: (It definitely helps if you minimize hard schedules for necessary tasks and drop things like scheduled TV shows)

From:Technopoloy pg. 13-15

This is what Marshall Macluhan meant by his famous aphorism the "medium is the message". This is what Marx meant when he said, "Technology discloses man's mode when dealing with nature." and creates the "condition of intercourse" by which we relate to each other. It is what Wittgenstein meant when, in referring to fundamental technology, he said that language is not merely a vehicle of thought but also the driver. And it is what Thamus wished the inventor Theuth to see. This is, in short, an ancient and persistent piece of wisdom, perhaps most simply expressed in the old adage that, to a man, with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Without being too literal, we may extend the truism: To a man with a pencil, everything looks like a list. To a man with a camera, everything looks like an image. To a man with a computer, everything looks like data. And to a man with a grade sheet, everything looks like a number.

But such prejudices are not always apparent at the start of technology's journey, which is why no one can safely transpire to be a winner in technological change. Who would have imagined, for example, whose interests and what world-view would be ultimately advanced by the invention of the mechanical clock? The clock had it's origins in the Benedictine monasteries of the twelfth and thirteenth century. The impetus behind the the invention was to provide a more or less precise regularity to the routines of monasteries, which required among other things, seven periods of devotion during the course of the day. The bells of the monastery were to be rung to signal the canonical hours; the mechanical clock was the technology that could provide precision to these rituals of devotion. And indeed it did. But what the monks did not foresee was that the clock is a means of not merely of keeping track of the hours but also of synchronizing and controlling the actions of men. And thus, by the middle of the fourteenth century, the clock had moved outside of the walls of the monastery, and brought a new and precise regularity to the life of the workman and the merchant.

"The mechanical clock" as Lewis Mumford wrote, "made possible the idea of regular production, regular working hours and a standardized product." In short, without the clock, capitalism would have been quite impossible. The paradox, the surprise, and the wonder are that the clock was invented by men who wanted to devote themselves more rigorously to God; it ended as the technology of greatest use to men who wished to devote themselves to the accumulation of money. In the eternal struggle between God and Mammon, the clock quite unpredictably favored the latter.

Use simulation games to stress-test your productivity system for the masses:
Just an idea I never really got to test.


1006
N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Program Idea Suggestion Thread
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 26, 2009, 06:12 PM »
P.S. Probably a good time to make a 4th request:

Cross-OS off-line proofreader:

Features:
*Spell and grammar checker off/not included - hate seeing that red line underneath the texts
*Possible sync with PopUp Wisdom books - have a list of words to avoid/to use/to replace in PopUp Wisdom, don't really like separate imports
*Separate input/edit mode - this could support auto-pop-up menu ala the recent Diigo instead of constant right clicks
*MDI + Session - Ehh... it's not alternative from turning a basic text editor into a wiki. Mostly to compare drafts.

Reference: http://en.support.wo...ss.com/proofreading/

Grammar and Style Options

The proofreader applies many of its grammar rules by default. These extra options find patterns of poor writing style:

  • Bias language may offend or alienate different groups of readers.
  • Clichés are overused phrases with little reader impact.
  • Complex phrases are words or phrases with simpler every-day alternatives.
  • Diacritical marks are accents and marks attached to letters in some nouns and words borrowed from other languages. This option helps restore these marks in your writing.
  • A double negative is one negative phrase followed by another. The negatives cancel each other out, making the meaning hard to understand.
  • A hidden verb is a verb made into a noun. These often need extra verbs to make sense.
  • Jargon phrases are foreign words and phrases that only make sense to certain people.
  • Passive voice obscures or omits the sentence subject. Frequent use of passive voice makes your writing hard to understand.
  • Phrases to avoid are wishy-washy or indecisive phrases.
  • Redundant phrases can be shortened by removing an unneeded word.

Ignored Phrases

You may add a phrase to the ignore list by typing it into the text field and clicking Add. Click  to remove a phrase from the ignore list. A phrase is one or more words and the ignore list is case-sensitive.

1007
PopUp Wisdom / Delete Quote option in Pop-Up
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 26, 2009, 12:02 PM »
This could make it easier to prune the books. (Especially the default ones)

1008
N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Program Idea Suggestion Thread
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 26, 2009, 11:58 AM »
@kwacky1

Which sections did you not understand?
1009
General Software Discussion / Re: Text editor with filtering of lines
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 26, 2009, 04:46 AM »
Is there a Cross-OS alternative to this feature?
1010
N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Program Idea Suggestion Thread
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 25, 2009, 05:15 PM »
What we really need is for FireFox to allow us to have totally separate FireFox windows so we could be logged into a different set of Yahoo, Google, Twitter or other accounts in each window. The reason we need this is that some of us log into client accounts at Google or Yahoo and when we do we lose our log-in status at sites like Delicious, Flickr and MyBlogLog and what we have automated stops running and our Avatars don't show up for the activity that is related to our primary persona.

Cookie Swap

With or without separate windows, we still need a faster way to get logged in as a particular persona across multiple sites. Perhaps there could be an app that we could configure with the sites for each persona that checks status or logs the current accounts out and then logs the selected persona in. Although it would be great to be able to work in different personas simultaneously, switching between them quickly would be the next best solution.

Last Pass

Request:

1. Improved Ren'Py-specific WYSIWYM code editor.

2. Experimental Reverse To-Do list (added entries are checked, un-checking = rename entries then re-insert priority + position; preferably multi-level and possessing Tree-List's features)

3. Procrastinator Checker (don't really know what it's called but you know that jail cell wall numbering system where the first 4 numbers are "I" signs and the 5th number is a \ over those 4 signs? Something like that except when you mark the 5th number, the entry gets deleted. Set up how many numbers passed before deleting the entry. Optional: typing p1 right after the entry = automatic 20-50 numbers before deletion. typing p2 = 15, p3 = 10, p4 = 5. Similar to RTFM new syntax way of adding entries)

1011
Short answer, no.

Closest I know is through a Google Reader sync'd FeedDemon but I have bad experiences with that.

If you're purely concerned with text, highlight + ctrl+shift+c if I'm not mistaken copies the snippet into your Opera Notes which you can sync with Opera link.

Any idea of how to integrate such online services in a way that a copy of the note is available in offline mode as well? May be a cool Dropbox integration of some sort? I don't know..

Install the Scrapbook+ Firefox extension and put the folder in your DropBox folder. Alternatively you can just use Spider Oak so you don't have to move it to the DropBox folder.

Less intuitive:

Copy your url into Print What You Like, edit, save as PDF, location: DropBox folder.

Plus side: It's much newb friendlier to combine pages.
1012
Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Minimized Apps Render As Desktop Icons
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 23, 2009, 10:57 AM »
Outside of Chrome apps and Prism, it's a cool idea but I have to wonder whether this is worth doing.

Why would the desktop be ergonomically better than say a systray icon or a drawer panel or a dock?

Edit:

There's something like this in KDE but I haven't tried it and I'm not really a programmer:

http://www.gnome-loo...enlet?content=102890
1013
On Completing Lists

SPIEGEL: Why do we waste so much time trying to complete things that can't be realistically completed?

Eco: We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That's why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It's a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don't want to die.

Source: http://www.spiegel.d...,1518,659577,00.html

: The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart's librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists -- the shopping list, the will, the menu -- that are also cultural achievements in their own right.

The Creation of a Flawed Yearning Mindset

The list doesn't destroy culture; it creates it. Wherever you look in cultural history, you will find lists. In fact, there is a dizzying array: lists of saints, armies and medicinal plants, or of treasures and book titles. Think of the nature collections of the 16th century. My novels, by the way, are full of lists.

SPIEGEL: But why does Homer list all of those warriors and their ships if he knows that he can never name them all?

Eco: Homer's work hits again and again on the topos of the inexpressible. People will always do that. We have always been fascinated by infinite space, by the endless stars and by galaxies upon galaxies. How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn't have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see. Lovers are in the same position. They experience a deficiency of language, a lack of words to express their feelings. But do lovers ever stop trying to do so? They create lists: Your eyes are so beautiful, and so is your mouth, and your collarbone … One could go into great detail.

"I like lists for the same reason other people like football or pedophilia. People have their preferences."

The different perspectives of your To-Do Lists

SPIEGEL: Still, you are famous for being able to explain your passions …

Eco: … but not by talking about myself. Look, ever since the days of Aristotle, we have been trying to define things based on their essence. The definition of man? An animal that acts in a deliberate way. Now, it took naturalists 80 years to come up with a definition of a platypus. They found it endlessly difficult to describe the essence of this animal. It lives underwater and on land; it lays eggs, and yet it's a mammal. So what did that definition look like? It was a list, a list of characteristics.

SPIEGEL: A definition would certainly be possible with a more conventional animal.

Eco: Perhaps, but would that make the animal interesting? Think of a tiger, which science describes as a predator. How would a mother describe a tiger to her child? Probably by using a list of characteristics: The tiger is big, a cat, yellow, striped and strong. Only a chemist would refer to water as H2O. But I say that it's liquid and transparent, that we drink it and that we can wash ourselves with it. Now you can finally see what I'm talking about. The list is the mark of a highly advanced, cultivated society because a list allows us to question the essential definitions. The essential definition is primitive compared with the list.

Trickery: Lists Can Feel Liberating

SPIEGEL: It would seem that you are saying that we should stop defining things and that progress would, instead, mean only counting and listing things.

Eco: It can be liberating. The Baroque era was an age of lists. Suddenly, all the scholastic definitions that had been made in the previous era were no longer valid. People tried to see the world from a different perspective. Galileo described new details about the moon. And, in art, established definitions were literally destroyed, and the range of subjects was tremendously expanded. For instance, I see the paintings of the Dutch Baroque as lists: the still lifes with all those fruits and the images of opulent cabinets of curiosities. Lists can be anarchistic.

The Need to Educate Our Lists

SPIEGEL: Are you saying that teachers should instruct students on the difference between good and bad? If so, how should they do that?

Eco: Education should return to the way it was in the workshops of the Renaissance. There, the masters may not necessarily have been able to explain to their students why a painting was good in theoretical terms, but they did so in more practical ways. Look, this is what your finger can look like, and this is what it has to look like. Look, this is a good mixing of colors. The same approach should be used in school when dealing with the Internet. The teacher should say: "Choose any old subject, whether it be German history or the life of ants. Search 25 different Web pages and, by comparing them, try to figure out which one has good information." If 10 pages describe the same thing, it can be a sign that the information printed there is correct. But it can also be a sign that some sites merely copied the others' mistakes.

Related but may be too off-topic to connect to app's "To-Do List of Doom" thread.
1014
Just a longer modified version of app's old magic mop post from before she wrote her post

In my opinion, the foundation of all productivity systems is input and not output. (Not most, all) In fact, you could implement most productivity systems on a buggy software that can randomly wipe out your notes and still be more successful at implementing all these productivity systems than someone who has these systems in a stable, advanced all-in-one software but are constantly stoic about inputting anything into it.


Incomplete Rationalizations:

Inputs can often get things out of your head while something that stores, can only attract you to holding it and cherish what’s already in it so if you’re implementing an inefficient productivity system than inputting things gives you the interest to address those concerns while output only really tests how productive you already are/how much you are just mentally holding back.

PC problems and am currently deleting old GOE drafts so I'm pasting some of the ones I didn't submit. So far this is the only one.

Warnings:

1) The Overvaluers

The marketers, the rabid fanbase (often the “can afford to test lots of stuff” fanbase) and the regular blog advertisers who just like to pump anything as positively and absolutely a must read/must buy "highly sought after" item.

2) The Undervaluers

The poor/stingier people who needs no productivity system and has often learned to just continue pushing things through.

The "self-discipline is all you need” preachers and the people who’ve been burned by one item and have now attributed most items as lies built by consumers who were tricked by marketers.

3) The Gray Area-ers

The people who often mix this with their productivity blogs and systems but often end up sending a message that makes the item either undervalued or overvalued.

The “hindsight” guys who often mention the benefits in passing after the item has long been a staple of their lives and the “mediator” fans who often try to defend any whiff of an item’s flaw.

In the end, it really doesn’t work as an advise to be frugal but more of a reminder for how to make critical snap judgements on what expensive items to forget without feeling guilty about opportunities lost. (If it's top quality, you're eventually going to hear about it again anyway.)

Much less "salt doll" short quote:

Consider the portability of your entries.

(i.e. Cross-OS, Cross-application, Speed of import/export, Ease of import/export, Mobility etc... stuff that might seem obvious but blows up in your face because you got wrapped up in the schema of a software/notes set/system instead of getting organized.

Problems could even be as simple as just not "stress testing" your system and just sinking your teeth into it and trying to integrate it by turning it into a habit and just feeling comfortable about it until you no longer want to leave until something drastic happens.)

Other related quotes:

Finished is not checked off. Checking off is not finished. Finished is being able to build a ship to go to an island where you're unfinished.

Don’t look back on your logs, write logs that you would want to look back on.

You "can" afford to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

Seems to me that "Inspire" is stronger than "Require" to get us going. We are inspired to produce something that will change the world. We are inspired to reach a desired outcome. It provides the catalyst to keep us moving forward.

I hope you realize that "What" happens to you is not what life is all about. What You "Do in "Reaction to what happens to you is what life is all about.

"This Too Shall Pass" ...or in the case of this topic: "The Pen too shall dry, the Paper too shall rot. The PC shall become more expensive. And so too Must your Productivity System Die." ~or something like that.
1015
Nice. That sounds easy but if you can only convert that into video... "All will be well" :p
1016
Thanks. As with the case with many of these videos, they're more of a showcase than a tutorial.

Sorry, if I wasn't clear.

I was hoping for more of a clear guide on how to use the manager.
1017
General Software Discussion / Re: Worst Win7 reviews (ongoing)
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 13, 2009, 10:18 PM »
Nevermind. I didn't realize it was a gnome applet and I already had it installed.
1018
General Software Discussion / Re: Worst Win7 reviews (ongoing)
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 13, 2009, 03:40 PM »
@jgpaiva

Darn. I was hoping it didn't require adding repositories. I haven't learned that yet.

I followed the steps in Mint 7 to get Software Sources installed.

Added the deb and deb src and copy pasted the public key block into a text file and renamed it into .gpg imported and reloaded it and didn't discover dockbarx in Synaptic so I went and type apt-get install dockbarX but when I go to usr/bin/ all I see is a dockbarX.py and executing it does nothing.

1019
Thanks for the link housetier. By chance do you know of any videos on it? That sounds cool but scary.

I could barely figure out vimperator for Firefox and I googled it and there's mention of a key called mod4.

My biggest worry with keyboard shortcuts is that the default settings might be off and it can be hard to find recommendations for custom key settings.
1020
General Software Discussion / Clever Windows Video (Windows Management Concept)
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 12, 2009, 07:10 PM »
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=lsZvwyxJ9vk

Old but I rarely check gnome-look and just saw this in the popular section.
1021
General Software Discussion / Re: Worst Win7 reviews (ongoing)
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 11, 2009, 08:38 PM »
Thanks jgpaiva.

How stable is it and can you provide a much newb-friendlier way to install it from source than the one on the site?

I can't seem to find the .deb for jaunty.

1022
General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 10, 2009, 11:34 PM »
But is it really lock-in? All data on the Mac (save maybe older songs and videos that are DRM'd) can be easily exported. Apple file data formats are pretty open. Most files can be opened on software on other operating systems.

The key is why would you want to because the experience that Apple offers is so much better. Leaving Windows for a Mac was a breath of Fresh Air. The prospect of leaving my mac for something else is nothing but stressful. In fact, I'll leave my Mac when you pry it from my cold dead hands.

I played around with Windows 7 recently and the feeling I got was that it was still windows with the inherent safety issues, viruses, etc. I've not had to worry about a virus in the nearly 5 years since I switched to Mac OS X. No anti-virus subscriptions to pay. No bloatware to clean off the system, it just works.

http://holykaw.allto...-locks-and-loads-you
1023
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: How to Rock Your Intellectual Game
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 10, 2009, 04:59 PM »
Ahh thanks.
1024
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: How to Rock Your Intellectual Game
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 10, 2009, 03:55 PM »
Hi n8ngrimm. Sorry if this comes off as condescending but I'm sincerely confused.

Where is the game?
1025
General Software Discussion / Re: 10 things to do after installing Linux
« Last post by Paul Keith on November 10, 2009, 01:28 PM »
Okay, I misunderstood the point you were trying to make. Yes, things are great if your distro has the software you want in their repository. If not, I've seen enough stories, even recently, of having to install dependencies and dependencies for those dependencies that the process is nothing a newbie is going to want to deal with.

Linux is getting better, but it still hasn't reached the ease of next-next-next-finish install wizards on Windows. I'm really looking forward to that day but we just aren't there yet in spite of wishful thinking to the contrary.

This is true but it's so far from:

And this is what is keeping Linux from ever becoming a threat to Microsoft. Nobody wants to find out they can't run Program A just because they already installed Program B. On Windows you can run any program alongside any other & 99% of the time there will be no conflicts.

...nowadays.

The newbie distroes literally have lots of software pre-installed (not just located in the repository) that if everything works and there are no hardware limitations/bugs/etc.

You can literally have a Linux that auto-sets up your printer, your internet, your Office Suite, your movie player/codecs, etc.

For the desktop user, the situation today is less about having Program A co-exist with Program B.

The situation today (even barring games) is to have Program A exist and work just as well.

Don't get me wrong. Dependency hell exists in the same veins that Windows is still insecure but as far as desktop users are concerned, the situation is very rare and repositories are not as barren as you seem to have the impression of.

In terms of next-next-finish, just look at your modern day Live CD and tell me that's harder to understand and install than Windows.

Even repositories' GUI are becoming newbie friendlier bit by bit. In mintinstall, you both have a featured application selection and each item has a screenshot and ratings to accompany it.

The problem is literally more and more leaning towards developers supporting programs on it than it is to get programs installed on it correctly.

Just look at DropBox page for how to install DropBox on Linux:

http://www.dropbox.com/downloading

Do you really think these kinds of things are alien for desktop users to figure out?

The ball is on developers to support Linux to convince people to switch to Linux if they really want them to.

It's less and less about dependency hell because with the way most newbie friendly distroes are set up, they literally need to tweak Linux less than Windows and that means they rarely need to encounter these problems unless something goes wrong.

But when something goes wrong. Again, the fault there isn't the Linux model but the lack of support for Linux. It would be the same thing on Windows if you break something and all you have are chatrooms and forums to ask advise for.

Pages: prev1 ... 36 37 38 39 40 [41] 42 43 44 45 46 ... 76next