Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 21st May 2012 20:03 UTC
For Microsoft, the traditional desktop is old news. It's on its way out, it's legacy, and the harder they claim the desktop has equal rights, the sillier it becomes. With companies, words are meaningless, it's actions that matter, and here Microsoft's actions tell the real story. The company has announced the product line-up for Visual Studio 11, and the free Express can no longer be used to create desktop applications. Message is clear.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/20/13 6:17 UTC, submitted by MOS6510
"In the first episode of Microsoft's new film series 'On the Whiteboard', Editor Pamela Woon chats with two-time Oscar winner Randy Thom about the (often underestimated) importance of sound in human-technology interactions. Thom, the lead sound designer at Skywalker Ranch who worked on films such as The Incredibles, Castaway and Forrest Gump, says that people rarely consider the significance of those signature sounds that come from their trusty devices, whether it be a cell phone, a computer or a tablet."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 23:02 UTC, submitted by M.Onty
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 22:28 UTC
"A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
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.More News »
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2009-08-18
When it comes to WinForms way of programming, it is very dated (very similar to Java Swing which is from the 90s).
There are better options now with .NET (such as XAML), we shouldn't be encouraging people to use older techniques when they are better ones.
The classic desktop isn't going away, just maybe WinForms.
It isn't, I been running Windows 8 now for quite a while and I disagree totally. Also Microsoft are still making improvements to the "classic" desktop such as
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/21/enhancing-windows-8-f...
Dual Taskbar etc. They wouldn't be introducing these things if it was getting "killed".
That wasn't what I was talking about. People are comparing the Express Edition (which is cut down a little to much IMO) to the full Visual Studio Suite.
It is for learning the principles of the framework and the languages. The applications you are likely to create are small and won't have a lot of functionality ... similar to those that maybe used with Metro interface.
If you use JS libraries and use sensible design patterns like MV-VM (knockout.js) for JS/Ajax/Markup generation and use a Server side MVC framework such as RoR, ASP.NET MVC it isn't that painful ... in fact it is fun.
It is painful if you try to custom create everything or hack it which is what most people inexperienced with Development may do.
It depends what you like doing. But nevertheless Microsoft are pushing these platforms quite hard now.
The point is that the Express version of the product is not aimed at these developers. Express is for new developers to learn the "recommended" technologies.
The sort of application you would be making with Express would be metro (if downloading the desktop version) or it would be a blog or something using the Web Express edition.
You cannot make significantly complex applications (without it being a very painful experience) with Express because some of the more advanced features such as intellitrace just aren't included.
I would have thought this is obvious intent. That is why I didn't care for the analysis because it wasn't considering what sort of application one would make (as I alluded to earlier in this comment).
Most people bitch about GNOME 2.x being an Mac OS knock off and you're comparing it to Windows. Just lol.
Well most people are wrong, including you. Gnome 2 can be easily re-jigged to make it work like Window XP/2000 (in fact Suse 9.2 actually shipped with this setup because business clients were used to using Windows 2000/XP).
The full argument is posted here
http://piestar.net/2010/05/01/ubuntu-10-04-lipstick-lynx/
MacOSX doesn't have a global Taskbar (showing open windows) like Windows, Gnome2 and XFCE (can have). The task bar is application centric, i.e. it shows the menu bar for the application.
Fundamentally I think Gnome2 is more like the classic Windows 95-XP interface.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/01/dock-and-wind...
Edited 2012-05-22 13:18 UTC