User Conversations
posted by fretinator on Wed 12th Aug 2009 17:50
As many of you have undoubtedly heard, this storey was put out by Information Week (and others) http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterpriseapps/showArt...
So. Microsoft cannot sell Word in the U.S., starting 60 days from now! Obviously this will be over-turned, but it shows how broken the U.S. Patent system is. In addition, though, it shows just how broken the U.S. legal system is. Eastern Texas obviously should have no jurisdiction in this case. Well, the Patent Trolls pick out some small software company (even if it is no longer in existence) in eastern Texas to add to the suit so they can get the case heard there. What nonsense!
Help, my country is going nuts! Somebody helps us. Maybe St. Obama can save the day!
posted by fretinator on Sun 7th Jun 2009 15:20
Federer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by fretinator on Mon 20th Oct 2008 21:29
1. GPL vs. BSD 2. The newest theme for the newest Fedora (and how it rocks or blows)
3. The revolutionary new Macbooks - now with 50% more ram
4. The newest hi-powered, automated, geaky, tweaky camera attachments.
5. An analysis of Steve Job's latest bowel movement
6. Cool features in AIX
7. Ubuntu 7.10.00000000000000000001 beta 47
8. Which OS is REALLY the most secure
9. Vista sucks/rocks/causes cancer/loves me
10. How we can "tweak" the moderation system to make that last user happy
posted by fretinator on Thu 10th Jul 2008 19:02
Now that Best Buy sells Ubuntu Linux in their stores, I decided to buy a copy to support this move. What an adventure! I purchased it online, but good luck finding it unless you have a direct link or use the search box. I checked to see if it was in-stock at my local Best Buy, which it was, so I chose in-store pick-up.
Big mistake!
I purchased it and waited for the confirmation email. It should take 45 minutes, but it took 2 hours - just to tell me they didn't have it in stock! I figured they just didn't know what they were doing, so I drove to Best Buy anyway.
It was sitting on the shelves (3 copies)!
However, it wasn't under OS's, it was just on the shelf in a random location. That's probably why they couldn't find it. I had also looked under OS's. I took it to the pick-up counter to explain the situation - they were very dismissive. To top it all, they didn't remove the protection, and the alarms went off as I left. All this just to help out Ubuntu.
Oh w
posted by fretinator on Thu 26th Jun 2008 21:42
With the recent announcement of ICAAN's approval of virtually unlimited top-level domains, here are the top five new domains I would like to see: 1. no.shit
2. dot.dot
3. dev.null (Imagine the mail you would get!)
4. google.con (imagine the traffic!)
5. because.icaan
What's yours?
posted by fretinator on Mon 23rd Jun 2008 18:26
I noticed ads started showing up for me today, so I'm thinking my paid membership may have expired, but I don't see anywhere to renew it. Am I missing it?
posted by fretinator on Wed 21st May 2008 16:58
I do! Top 5 Web 2.0 Inventions
------------------------------
5. The Javascript denial-of-service attack (see AJAX)
4. New verbs (Blog it, twitter, or just plain IM or get off the pot)
3. Contrary to popular opinion, people REALLY want to see pictures of your pets
2. With thousads of lines of code, dual-processors and 2GB of ram, your web app can now mimic the behavior of a 1990 desktop application.
1. Web 2.0
posted by fretinator on Tue 22nd Jan 2008 19:07
No, it's not about pre-historic ancestors. I just miss two links that used to be on the V3 home page: http://osgalaxy.com - for OSGalaxy. I love all the OS Dudes and their comments.
http://osnews.com/staff - while I can select individual blog comments from the OSNews Staff blogs, I like going to the page that has all of them at once. It makes a quick scan possible.
I have bookmarks for both of the above, but I like the link.
posted by fretinator on Thu 17th Jan 2008 19:08
Please don't shoot me, I'm just curious. I noticed that small ads are now showing up on the home page. Previously, no ads would show for paying members. Again, please don't shoot me, I'm not trying to be critical, etc. [edited for spelling]
posted by fretinator on Mon 7th May 2007 19:29
I haven't been able to vote + or - on comments under the V4 client for several days. Occasionally it works, but 95% of the times it doesn't. I have to switch to the old client to vote, so I generally don't (too big of a hassle). I am using XP SP2 with a fully-patched IE6. I don't know if you are still taking bug reports on V4, but I thought I would submit it anyway. Let me know if there is a better way.
posted by fretinator on Mon 30th Apr 2007 21:39
I wonder if the guy is still available?
posted by fretinator on Thu 19th Apr 2007 15:13
I am feeling very Feisty, and have decided to upgrade my Dapper Drake laptop to Feisty. I assume I will have to upgrade to Edgy Eft first. Any ideas/suggestion/words of wisdom (besides backing stuff first, which I will already by doing)?
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/15/12 23:42 UTC
"Last week, I promised you an outline of the webOS governance model. Today, we're publishing that model and announcing the leaders of the Project Management Committees. As you will see below, we've based the model on the Apache Way." Open governance, something Android decidedly lacks. Too bad nobody (with money and factories) seems to give a toss about webOS. The world's an unfair place.
1
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/15/12 23:40 UTC
"We learned on January 31 that Barnes & Noble had suffered a major setback in a patent-infringement lawsuit filed against the company by Microsoft. That day, an administrative law judge at the International Trade Commission had tossed out the company's key defense, that Microsoft was engaging in 'patent misuse' as part of a larger scheme to 'kill Android'. Today the full opinion has been made public." Microsoft's protection racket might be legal, but that doesn't make it moral. It's based on software patents, and is thus, by definition, morally reprehensible and sleazy.
Linked by David Adams on 02/14/12 17:25 UTC, submitted by Anonymous
It looks like a new "locally integrated menu" will make it into Unity, starting with version 5.6.0. There's basically no information about the new locally integrated menubar, except for two bug reports which link to some custom Unity, Compiz, Metacity and Light Themes branches so to see "LIM" in action, I've compiled all these branches and here's the result. The "locally integrated menubar" can be displayed on the panel (for maximized windows) as well as in the window decoration (unmaximized windows). But it's not displayed on both in the same time.
Linked by David Adams on 02/14/12 17:24 UTC
Today Samsung AV product lead Chris Moseley had comments about Apple's rumored entrance into the television marketplace that sound eerily similar to that which Palm CEO Ed Colligan's said a few years back about how Apple's ability to simply walk into this market and figure it out like they had managed to do after years of research.
Linked by snydeq on 02/14/12 17:23 UTC
What your interface communicates to users can be just as important as what your software does, writes Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister in discussing the latest edition of the 'Microsoft Manual of Style,' a style guide aimed at designers and developers who create Microsoft software, as well as those who write about it. 'The gist of much of Microsoft's advice is that a user's relationship with computer software is a unique one, and it's important to craft the language of software UIs accordingly,' McAllister writes. 'Occasionally, Microsoft's recommendations verge on the absurd. For example, you might not think it necessary to admonish developers to "not use slang that may be considered profane or derogatory, such as 'pimp' or 'bitch,'" but apparently it is.'
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/14/12 1:07 UTC
"It's tough being a journalist, especially if you're covering technology and living in Silicon Valley, because it seems as if everyone around you is getting fabulously rich while you're stuck in a job that will never, ever make you wealthy. What's worse is that all these people who are getting rich don't seem to be any brighter than you are and in fact many of them don't seem very bright at all. So of course you get jealous. And then you start thinking maybe you could find a way to cash in on this gold rush. But how do you make gobs of money when your only marketable skill involves writing blog posts?" Absolutely brilliant down to the last letter. Coincidentally, I hold no shares, interests, or anything, in any company whatsoever. I'm a freelance translator by day. Not that anyone cares, but hey, full disclosure and all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/13/12 23:51 UTC
"A hybrid solution that takes the best parts of iOS's one-by-one acceptance and Android's expressed and obvious intents seems like a proper model here. In fact, Apple has many of the pieces in place elsewhere." This is a big issue. Nor Android's model (just list a bunch of confusing permissions), nor Apple's model (individual modal dialogs for each permission) is particularly workable - I doubt regular users check them on Android before installing an application, and in the case of iOS, Apple didn't think it was necessary to secure the address book, so every application has access to it without alerting users. Justin Williams proposes a hybrid solution.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/13/12 23:44 UTC
"Although current discussion of the Linux desktop tends to focus on the disharmony around Unity and the GNOME shell, the true revolution on the desktop is taking place out of sight of users. The Wayland display server is expected to reach version 1.0 later this year, and is seen by many as the long term replacement for the X Window System, with real potential to improve and transform the performance of the desktop for Linux users."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/13/12 23:40 UTC
Mozilla has announced plans to integrate its Firefox web browser with Metro for Windows 8 - including Gecko. "Windows 8 contains two application environments, 'Classic' and 'Metro'. Classic is very similar to the Windows 7 environment at this time, it requires a simple evolution of the current Firefox Windows product. Metro is an entirely new environment and requires a new Firefox front end and system integration points. The feature goal here is a new Gecko based browser built for and integrated with the Metro environment. Firefox on Metro, like all other Metro apps will be full screen, focused on touch interactions, and connected to the rest of the Metro environment through Windows 8 contracts." I haven't checked - does Microsoft allow different rendering engines?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/12/12 23:23 UTC
"One of the things that the GNOME design crew have been focusing on recently is creating a new approach to application design for GNOME 3. We want GNOME applications to be thoroughly modern, and we want them to be attractive and a delight to use. That means that we have to do application design differently to how we've done it in the past."More News »
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