Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 18th Jul 2007 22:40 UTC, submitted by zaboing
During his opening speech at the GNOME Developers conference GUADEC Jono Bacon, community manager for the Ubuntu distribution, called for a common vision inside the project, an area in which the project as a whole is currently lacking. Only a few hours later Red Hat developers Havoc Pennington and Bryan Clark presented their own proposal for a reinvention of the Open Source desktop: The GNOME Online Desktop. My take: As I have been saying for a long time, GNOME needs a vision (and leaders) for the future. I'm glad that people are finally stepping up.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 11:39 UTC
"The key takeaway we've reached (after two less than 24 hours playing with the iOS 7 Beta release) is this - every App must consider even basic updates to its UI to survive in a post-iOS 6 world." Great. Telling developers to update their entire application - user interface and behaviour alike - to target a look and behaviour that isn't final yet. Seems like potential for a lot of wasted work here.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 11:32 UTC
"Overall the app is really basic, and designed for on the go editing. Microsoft says it's not planning to create an iPad version, noting that tablet users can utilize the Office Web Apps instead. We'd like to see some additional options for editing, including more clear options for text formatting and the ability to insert and change images, but it's a solid attempt for something you're only really going to use for editing in emergencies." A resounding meh can be heard from all over the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 19:39 UTC
"Today, most people are using modern browsers that support the majority of the latest web technologies. Better yet, the usage of legacy browsers is declining significantly and newer browsers stay up to date automatically, which means the leading edge has become mainstream. Given these factors we've decided to retire Chrome Frame, and will cease support and updates for the product in January 2014." Eh.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:45 UTC
The Next Web: "First of all, many of the new icons were primarily designed by members of Apple's marketing and communications department, not the app design teams. From what we've heard, SVP of Design Jony Ive (also now Apple's head of Human Interaction) brought the print and web marketing design team in to set the look and color palette of the stock app icons. They then handed those off to the app design teams who did their own work on the 'interiors', with those palettes as a guide. We've also been hearing that there wasn't a whole lot of communication between the various teams behind say, Mail and Safari. And that there were multiple teams inside each group that were competing with various designs, leading to what some see as inconsistencies in icon design. Those may well be hammered out in days ahead." What. Reminds me of how Microsoft does (used to do?) things.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 11:43 UTC
"The German Parliament, the Bundestag, has introduced a joint motion against software patents. The resolution urges the German government to take steps to limit the granting of patents on computer programs. In the resolution, the Parliament says that patents on software restrict developers from exercising their copyright privileges, including the right to distribute their programs as Free Software. They promote the creation of monopolies in the software market, and hurt innovation and job creation." After New Zealand, we now have one of the most powerful economies in the world moving to ban software patents for all the reasons smart people have been outlining for years. also: "The government should also push to ensure that software is covered by copyright alone, and that patent offices (including the European Patent Office) stop granting patents on software." Germany is not a country the EU can ignore. Very good news, this.More News »
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2005-11-02
* Standardize on Ubuntu or whatever. Pick one.
This will not and should not happen. I know the gut feeling tells you one distribution is a good idea, but it would not be healthy for the market or good for the users (same thing, really) and it is not happening. Ever.
* Unify KDE and Gnome
That's also a bad idea. Windows and OS X don't even have one unified widget set and development API. OS X is closer than any, but still... I know what you wanbt. You want look-and-feel to be the same between the apps. You want seetings (e.g. default font browser, etc.) to be the same. You're going to get it, slowly, but you are not going to get the two projects to merge and youa re not going to get one of them to die off.
* Drag and drop application installation and deletion and bundle support to the same level OS X has
You can get this today, if you use a distribution which works this way. You'll find that in many scenarios, and for certain types of people, this is really bad behavior. Making it something done by a 'desktop-oriented' distribution and not by e.g. a workstation-oriented distribution or a server-oriented distribution makes good sense. Even if you could get most distributions over to using this installation/package management model it would not be a good idea and would (among other things) simply cause more distributions to spring up and serve the people who don't like app bundles.
* The complete and utter end to any end user ever having to touch X config files - or any other unix text config file
For X this is coming Real Soon(tm). For the other htings, it depends on what you're doing. You will probably have to hand-edit config files for most server-type programs (daemons: postfix, apache, slapd) for the forseeable future. The fix for this is debatable.
* A complete overhaul of font rendering so that it is out of the box on par with OS X
OS X fonts suck as much as Linux fonts, in my opinion. Making fonts render in a more OSX-style will just spin wheels, not improve things.
* A complete overhaul of UI widget alignment in applications.
You can't make people do things like that. You can suggest it and beg for it but you cannot enforce it. While it would be nice if all apps acted the same way in this regard where doing so made sense the reality is that it is not necessary and will not happen any time soon.
* A complete set of open source apps of the calibur of Apple's iApps.
Mostly done. Equivalent functionality mostly exists in one app or another. Getting a unified look and feel for all of them is a pipe dream (herding cats...). The reality is that polish takes time and dedication, which is easier if you're paid full-time and not so easy if you're writing the app in your spare time. Each application's usability will need to be incrementally patched to correctness. I expect *you* to do this, since you seem to think you know what changes are needed.
Be notified of system software updates. Be notified of application software updates
You've got it, if the distribition wants to bother.
Rip, sync with your iPod, and play music
I think this is a laughable feature. Playing music? Check, got that one years ago. Sync with an ipod? Syncing with portable music players is not a killer desktop feature. And, anyway, it mostly depends on a good music playing app, of which we have several some of which already sync with the ipod.
Import, organize, tag, show photos from digital cameras
If your camera is supported this is essentially done. Again, the distribution would need to make sure the existant software is tied together to make it work out of the box.
Single click to download apps, drag them anywhere, have all app resources packed in a bundle type structures, and all dragging to the trash
Not a good idea. See above.
Making consumer grade software is grueling and time consuming and very unglamorous.
Agreed, but making stuff work like OS X is not a good goal.