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1226

General Software Discussion / 101 Lectures for Your Open Source Education -- Online College Tips

« Last post by zridling on July 30, 2009, 02:57 PM »

101 Lectures for Your Open Source Education

As a college student, open source philosophy has a lot to offer you. You can not only take advantage of the great resources open source has, but also become a part of a movement that shares more freedom of ideas. In these lectures, you’ll learn more about the open source philosophy and what it can be used for.

1227

Living Room / Re: Interesting Development on GOG.com

« Last post by zridling on July 30, 2009, 02:42 PM »

Good observations, wraith808. You figure this had to be expected. Game programming is so intense and takes so long to bring to market that you must have a clear profit to keep it going for the next title or the next version. License agreements are always on the table, available for renegotiation. Otherwise, you get the simple board and card games that come free with KDE and Gnome (Linux).

I see other industries trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube, such a newsprint and online video (Hulu.com). Everyone is trying everything they can to survive this economy.

1228

Living Room / Re: Anyone have an i7 chip yet? If so, tell me how you like it

« Last post by zridling on July 28, 2009, 10:25 PM »

Thanks, I will!

1229

Living Room / Anyone have an i7 chip yet? If so, tell me how you like it

« Last post by zridling on July 27, 2009, 10:06 PM »

Trying to scrape together a plan for saving a few hundred dollars for an i7 chip/&MB late in the year or next year. If you have one in your system, what has been your experience with it so far?

1230

General Software Discussion / Re: Is the party over for Microsoft?

« Last post by zridling on July 26, 2009, 06:49 PM »

Dvorak is indeed a self-confessed troll (watch in 2-3 articles and they'll be pro-MS). But when Josh writes:

How many more of these "Is this the end of microsoft" articles are we going to see? I swear, a new one pops up every week. I also expect to see another "Is this finally the year linux takes over the desktop market?" thread any day now.

he commits a non sequitor from the content of the linked article. Nowhere is Microsoft's death mentioned nor is Linux. It's everything else; -- that is, a lack of strategic direction -- that Microsoft has been doing that has hurt its bottom line. Dvorak is writing for 'MarketWatch,' which is a business/investment site. Clearly the "party" of [investor] profits from Microsoft has been long gone for a decade.

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General Software Discussion / Is the party over for Microsoft?

« Last post by zridling on July 26, 2009, 11:35 AM »

Although the demise of Microsoft has been written about often, John Dvorak makes the case that the Microsoft's decade of attention deficit disorder has been a mess for consumers and bad news for investors:

• Years ago in the pre-Internet era, AOL was the talk of the town, so Microsoft had to copy it with MSN. No money was made; no strategic advantage was gained.
  .
  
• Netscape was the rage for a while, so Microsoft threw together a browser and got in that business. The browser was given away for free. No money was made; the strategy got the company in trouble with government trustbusters.
  .
  
• During the early days of the Internet, new online publications appeared. Microsoft decided to become a publisher too, rolling out a slew of online properties including a computer magazine and a women's magazine. They were all folded.  
  .
  
• Computer books became popular; Microsoft began Microsoft Press. After an early splash and success, the company soon lost interest and the division now languishes.
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• Teddy Ruxpin became a hot toy. Microsoft rolled out a couple of robotic plush toys, including the creepy Barney the Dinosaur who sang "I love you and you love me." The company soon lost interest and dropped the whole thing.  
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• AOL-TV appeared, along with other device-centric TV-delivery mechanisms in the 1990s. Microsoft created a Microsoft-TV division as well as a device. It soon lost interest.  
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• Adobe Photoshop became a huge success, so Microsoft hired Alvy Ray Smith to develop photo-editing software. Smith quit when the company lost interest in the idea.
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• Yahoo and Google showed that a search engine could be a money maker, so Microsoft copied that idea; it now has Bing.  
  .
  
• Cloud applications are currently trendy, along with notions about software as a service. Microsoft decides to go into that business.
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• The Apple rolled out a MP3 player, the iPod. Microsoft came up with its own MP3 player, the Zune. The company also says it wants to stream music.
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• Now Microsoft wants to open retail stores, all of them next to or near an Apple store.

________________________________________________
Part of this is attributable to the sheer size of corporations these days; they have a finger in diverse industries, not the one they started with. For example, how would one define Google -- as a search engine, a media company, a software developer, or advertising medium? You might also say that Dvorak is playing the "Damn if you do, damned if you don't" game with Microsoft here. Yet, compared to Apple's focus on iPhone/iPod/iTablet, i.e., a gadget company, Microsoft is all over the map.

After the success of Win7, where does Microsoft go -- back to software, or to what should it turn its focus?

1232

Living Room / Re: Apollo conspiracy's doom

« Last post by zridling on July 21, 2009, 04:08 PM »

Didn't you guys watch Capricorn One? This is how all space travel ends -- in death!

Oh wait, there was that Tang benefit. God, I swilled so much of that powder that my kidneys were shot by the time I was 14. Damn you Tang! Damn you to hell!!

1233

Living Room / Re: The Apollo onboard computer

« Last post by zridling on July 21, 2009, 03:57 PM »

Like some have noted this week, I don't think we should go to Mars unless we can do something there, e.g., establish a colony, grow marijuana legally, build a Wal-Mart, or something. Otherwise, it's a one-shot moment and poof, we're back to 'been there, done that.'

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General Software Discussion / Re: Hannah Montana Linux -- about time!

« Last post by zridling on July 21, 2009, 02:37 AM »

Oh crap, this is funny. As long as it doesn't come with her underwear-model boyfriend somewhere in the system!

1235

General Software Discussion / Re: What Windows needs: fully streamlined application installation at setup

« Last post by zridling on July 16, 2009, 11:33 PM »

Fantastic! This has been a great help guys. I really appreciate it. 

1236

General Software Discussion / Re: Mozilla gives add-on developers a tip jar

« Last post by zridling on July 16, 2009, 04:09 PM »

Very good thing, indeed, and might strongly lure new developers to the cause.

1237

General Software Discussion / What Windows needs: fully streamlined application installation at setup

« Last post by zridling on July 16, 2009, 04:05 PM »

There are so many things wrong with this idea, I won't start there. But here's what I have in mind. Although I no longer use Windows, all my rowdy friends do, and I get asked to be their tech support and repair guy (imagine that). But a good deal of time is spent reloading and setting up Windows on a given system for that friend, relative, their friend/roommate, et al. Win7 doesn't take long to install, but downloading, installing, registering, and then tweaking even a half dozen Windows apps after installation is a huge time sink. With most Linux distros, 95%+ of the apps you want are either installed during setup automatically, or you're allowed to click on which additional ones you want installed from the DVD. Boom, DONE! After that, I only need to grab Komodo Edit from their site and I'm truly done in 20 minutes, 30 if I'm not paying attention.So,

Wouldn't it be great if Win7 allowed users to burn their own ISOs that included their favorite software?



SUSE Studio is already doing this for Linux and it's really cool. It has so far proved quite powerful, and apart from adding packages from the regular openSUSE repositories of the latest stable release version, you can add/remove your own [software] repositories. Moreover, you can customize the artwork and share this custom distribution with the world. This video shows how to use SUSE Studio to build a custom Linux distribution based on openSUSE. All this is setup in the cloud, where it can be shared and downloaded by anyone. But for proprietary Windows application software, merely having a XML file that contains each app's registration info would likely be necessary to save the installation time I'm looking for.

It would be great not merely to install Win7, but to create a custom installation that would also install almost anything short of 8.5Gb DVD -- DC apps, your favorite file manager, graphics apps, music player, latest codecs, favorite IDE or text editor, VM, and so on. I can only imagine the:

PROS:
-- User control, less bloat, and caters to different user audiences -- beginners, advanced, or a specific industry.
-- Allow for specialized configurations (image developers, audophiles, programmers, gaming, video editing, etc.)
-- Allow users to pre-select which services Windows will enable.

CONS:
-- Possible licensing issues for proprietary software.
-- Server space (who could host such a thing short of Microsoft itself?)
-- Microsoft would find numerous legal issues against it, I'm sure.

I'm sure there's a lot to be shot down here. But I'm guided by the KISS Principle due to my unbelievably endless laziness. Could this work, though, for Windows?

1238

Living Room / Re: Recent web sightings: A Guide To Linux Audio Comm Channels

« Last post by zridling on July 16, 2009, 03:22 PM »

Great find; the blog list alone is worth the click. Linux Journal is one of my all-time favorite publications.

1239

Living Room / Re: Is online access a right or a privilege?

« Last post by zridling on July 16, 2009, 03:18 PM »

Given what one can access (learn, do, apply, respond/complain, file, etc.) with online access, I think we should finally consider it a basic constitutional right. Such a right can be taken away by the government, e.g., prisoners lose their liberties, among them free, unmonitored communication is one, but I don't think "megacorp, inc." should be the one deciding who gets access and who does not. In the US, it can potentially be dicey since there are only 3-4(?) telecoms that control access to the networks.

It's 2009, not 1995. Future politicians need people like us to educate them on this issue. I figure the current ones are still wondering what email really is.

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General Software Discussion / Hannah Montana Linux -- about time!

« Last post by zridling on July 15, 2009, 04:13 PM »

Oh lord, well it's funny in a sad way, and true. As if you need any more excuses to avoid Linux, this one ain't it: Hannah Montana Linux distro. It should go great with my Hannah Montana home repair toolkit. I feel bad now.

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Living Room / Re: Is online access a right or a privilege?

« Last post by zridling on July 09, 2009, 09:11 PM »

The web is that layer of hypertext that lives on the Internet and provides advertising to so many who need it.

If they ban web access, fine - there's still Usenet.

Pedantic?  Yes, but in cases like this I think it's important to get the terminology right.

-4wd (July 09, 2009, 07:30 PM)

I was using them interchangeably. But if you have no connection, how would you access Usenet?

1242

Living Room / Is online access a right or a privilege?

« Last post by zridling on July 09, 2009, 12:56 PM »

If online access is viewed as a right,
then it should be free to all. However, this would imply government/national control (which it does already to a large extent!) of the web. If the government bans your access to the web, then you're effectively crippled in this century with regard to information, all other sources being either under government or corporate control and serving their interests.

If online access is viewed as a privilege,
then it should remain as is, and suffer the arbitrary cost imposed on users by often very large corporations. Any online liberty is controlled by the market, which is controlled by one pure motive: profit.



This is not merely an economic issue. I'm wondering if it's time to start thinking that, in a world where we are already carrying devices (phones, blackberries, netbooks, etc.) that allow us to be more efficient, informed, and safe through communication and interaction, should a government or corporation be able to deny someone this right/privilege? By the way, it was this French story that got me thinking about this.

1243

General Software Discussion / Re: Does a application like this excist?

« Last post by zridling on July 01, 2009, 05:53 PM »

WinAmp can do it with MP4 files. Assuming your collection consists of avi/wmv/rm/mp4, etc. files, why not?

_____________
PS: You misspelled 'exist' in your topic title.

1244

Living Room / Re: What's your favorite drink?

« Last post by zridling on June 19, 2009, 11:22 PM »

A loaf of white bread with a half gallon of chocolate milk chaser to start the day. Too many people ignore the 'refined sugar' group part of food pyramid.

1245

Living Room / Re: Zaine's avatar

« Last post by zridling on June 19, 2009, 11:03 PM »

Thanks! (I think.)   

1246

Living Room / Re: IE to be removed from Windows 7 in EU

« Last post by zridling on June 15, 2009, 11:12 PM »

[mouser]: How does one get on the internet to download an alternate browser if there is no browser installed with the OS?

Built-in FTP.

1247

General Software Discussion / Re: A Linux adventure: A Blog for linux newbees by a Linux Newbee...

« Last post by zridling on June 04, 2009, 01:39 AM »

I've been using Linux exclusively for 2.5 years and I still consider myself a noob. I know my way around and can work myself out of most problems, but I can't tell you how much fun it has been to be free from Microsoft. I don't hate Windows, but I came to tire of Microsoft's behavior over the years. Having the alternative has been nice and it has freed up some much-needed cash in a variety of ways.

Good luck, Chuck. When you have time, visit some of the helpful Linux links I've compiled on my blog at http://www.thegsblog.com/ They might help you as you start.

1248

Living Room / Re: Tell me what your software DOESN'T do... (a rant)

« Last post by zridling on May 16, 2009, 02:35 PM »

Text editors are a perfect example of a software category where you can spend days and weeks of your life downloading and trialling dozens of programs, searching for the one program that includes everything from your personal list of "essential" features.

-johnk (May 16, 2009, 01:07 PM)

Good point. DonationCoder.com kicked off with a stunning mega-review of text editors by mouser. The review was so successful and widely read around the web that it was expanded in a follow-up. I never knew that text editors could be so complex, but much like browsers, they do far more than you think, and much of it behind the scenes.

I could give you a dozen reasons for rejecting any given text editor off the top of my head -- no wordwrap; no wordcount; text lines up too close to the edge and is not adjustable; doesn't allow proportional fonts; its settings are too difficult to setup, and/or the program doesn't allow a way to save your customizations to an XML file during upgrades; lacks macro support; etc. None, any, or all of these may be important to you. But if you spend your entire day between an editor and a browser, the little things always bubble to the top of things that piss me off.

 

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Living Room / Re: The horror that is my kitchen upgrade project

« Last post by zridling on April 30, 2009, 01:28 PM »

Man, that is one sweet kitchen. Buy a wok, visit YouTube, and learn to cook some great Chinese/Asian food!

1250

Living Room / Re: Opera is 15

« Last post by zridling on April 30, 2009, 01:24 PM »

I love me some Opera! Looks and works the same on Linux as other platforms, plays very well in the cloud, and its customizability is unmatched. I can set any tab behavior to any keyboard shortcut, effectively creating an AutoHotkey script within the browser itself. I'm forced to find extensions and pray they don't break with every upgrade with others.