Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
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Wow! This baby rocks! :lol:
Pure Computer Experience according to Mercutio. :-p
- Thread starter Prof.Wizard
- Start date
Wow! This baby rocks! :lol:
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Wow PeeWee. Too bad I can't enjoy your scintillating wit.
There is an image there I'm not seeing, right?
Here's a thought for you: I've been doing this stuff for long enough to know good ideas from bad ones. I'm perfectly willing to use older technology if it's superior to new. I'm not willing to compromise security or usability just to use some stupid trinket.
If you believe for some reason that there's no justification for my preferences, perhaps you'd be better off taking a moment to ask about them, rather than staring at whatever shiny object has captured your limited attention span.
There is an image there I'm not seeing, right?
Here's a thought for you: I've been doing this stuff for long enough to know good ideas from bad ones. I'm perfectly willing to use older technology if it's superior to new. I'm not willing to compromise security or usability just to use some stupid trinket.
If you believe for some reason that there's no justification for my preferences, perhaps you'd be better off taking a moment to ask about them, rather than staring at whatever shiny object has captured your limited attention span.
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
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Don't shoot the pianist! :mrgrn:
I didn't want to be sarcastic either, just kidding... afterall... hik... it's the SF pub here... hik... isn't it? Let me have a break with... hik... a couple of whiskies. Then blame the Bartender.
Jokes apart, no hidden image here. It's just the abacus, the first human endeavour of serious computing. I wasn't challenging your knowledge of what's-better-in-the-IT-industry-from-what's-not, OK? Afterall, you and HellDiver were the ones that persuaded me to try Delphi instead of Visual Basic, remember?!
However, I do believe that you hamper seriously some of your multimedia (turning your back to Flash 6, for example) capabilities. I'm not in position to suggest YOU things, but why don't you turn one of your many systems to a rogue-WinXP multimedia babe? Just for the heck of it man!
I didn't want to be sarcastic either, just kidding... afterall... hik... it's the SF pub here... hik... isn't it? Let me have a break with... hik... a couple of whiskies. Then blame the Bartender.
Jokes apart, no hidden image here. It's just the abacus, the first human endeavour of serious computing. I wasn't challenging your knowledge of what's-better-in-the-IT-industry-from-what's-not, OK? Afterall, you and HellDiver were the ones that persuaded me to try Delphi instead of Visual Basic, remember?!
However, I do believe that you hamper seriously some of your multimedia (turning your back to Flash 6, for example) capabilities. I'm not in position to suggest YOU things, but why don't you turn one of your many systems to a rogue-WinXP multimedia babe? Just for the heck of it man!
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
You did that Merc? Congrats. Now could you do the same with him but with Linux (or at least Win2K) and convince him that WinXP is evil? Too hard huh? That's what I thought too.Prof.Wizard said:
Even I, a man with limited Linux knowledge and working mostly on Winblows, wouldn't agree to install WinXP on one of my test boxes. It's a matter of principles. If all the articles about how WinXP invades your privacy, treaten your security and turns your user's right to a bad joke cannot convince you that you shouldn't use it, no one else will. You will probably be the first one to download WinXP SP1 when Microsoft will release it too, won't you?Prof.Wizard said:
Every dollar penny you give to Bill is a way to agree on giving up your rights and a step more towards being a slave of MS empire.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Go back and read why I ditched XP after a week. I think it's on the 2nd page of the computers forum by now.
Lessee... Oh, yeah! I couldn't access better than 3/4 of a TERABYTE of disk space from my XP box, 'cause it was on samba shares.
And on down the list, the wonderful, happy blue screens followed by periods of rebooting I got every time I tried to make my DVD software play back a movie using the digital out on my sound card. Whoops. Admittedly, it doesn't work in 2000, either, but at least I don't have to watch my machine reboot to find out (I get a polite error that says "no digital output in Windows 2000").
You realize I'm the guy who doesn't do G@H or whatever the new thing is because my machines are usually pegged with some kind of video capture or encoding job, right? Isn't that "multimedia" enough?
So what does XP add? I mean besides the fruity little thumbnails when I browse directories of pictures or videos (which I turn off anyway, since I use "detail view" everywhere).
Now that I've debunked that...
Flash is a bad idea. It actively needs to be stopped. Flash is first and foremost non-textual content. It can't be indexed in a search engine. It can't be read by blind people. It requires special, proprietary software to even look at it. And that's not even getting to the general characterization of flash most often made, the "waste of my friggin' bandwidth" factor.
Company-sponsored server-based messaging is bad for a lot of reasons. For one thing, you're locked into using their software and their network. And their terms of service, which means who-knows-what. Look at our ads. Let us monitor traffic. Require updates to break compatibility. Most of all, anything related to the internet that is proprietary smacks of evil. The structure of the internet is based on RFCs - standard, documented technologies and techniques that allow intercommunication regardless of the underlying software. That doesn't sound much like the IM networks, does it?
Not that the same thing applies to almost every streaming audio system I'm aware of as well (Yes, MP3 is a proprietary, if well-documented format).
Open-standards computing is one of the reasons that PCs became a widespread technology, you know. I'm sure Gary or Tannin could fill you in with more detail than I, but words like "proprietary" and "IBM" still cause shudders in a great many people working in IT.
IE, OE and Outlook share a common flaw: Microsoft didn't make them properly. Securely, that is. IE has another sin, namely its inability to provide accurate feedback. Its bookmark system is kind of retarded, too (lots of wasted space in individual file-per-bookmark, isn't there?). Outlook and OE are both dreadfully insecure and cryptic. At least the Exchange inbox is something that is somewhat standardized (I know of at least a couple of commercial packages that clone it), but local file formats still suck. What was wrong with the .mbox format everything else uses, again?
Of course the fact that a great deal of effort is made to make the source of data (.PST, .SCD, Exchange server data, .PAB) utterly transparent the user and mystifyingly complex to support-types is another failure, IMO.
I can go on, of course, but you get the idea. A lot of the software you're advocating has real down side that you either haven't considered or aren't aware of.
Lessee... Oh, yeah! I couldn't access better than 3/4 of a TERABYTE of disk space from my XP box, 'cause it was on samba shares.
And on down the list, the wonderful, happy blue screens followed by periods of rebooting I got every time I tried to make my DVD software play back a movie using the digital out on my sound card. Whoops. Admittedly, it doesn't work in 2000, either, but at least I don't have to watch my machine reboot to find out (I get a polite error that says "no digital output in Windows 2000").
You realize I'm the guy who doesn't do G@H or whatever the new thing is because my machines are usually pegged with some kind of video capture or encoding job, right? Isn't that "multimedia" enough?
So what does XP add? I mean besides the fruity little thumbnails when I browse directories of pictures or videos (which I turn off anyway, since I use "detail view" everywhere).
Now that I've debunked that...
Flash is a bad idea. It actively needs to be stopped. Flash is first and foremost non-textual content. It can't be indexed in a search engine. It can't be read by blind people. It requires special, proprietary software to even look at it. And that's not even getting to the general characterization of flash most often made, the "waste of my friggin' bandwidth" factor.
Company-sponsored server-based messaging is bad for a lot of reasons. For one thing, you're locked into using their software and their network. And their terms of service, which means who-knows-what. Look at our ads. Let us monitor traffic. Require updates to break compatibility. Most of all, anything related to the internet that is proprietary smacks of evil. The structure of the internet is based on RFCs - standard, documented technologies and techniques that allow intercommunication regardless of the underlying software. That doesn't sound much like the IM networks, does it?
Not that the same thing applies to almost every streaming audio system I'm aware of as well (Yes, MP3 is a proprietary, if well-documented format).
Open-standards computing is one of the reasons that PCs became a widespread technology, you know. I'm sure Gary or Tannin could fill you in with more detail than I, but words like "proprietary" and "IBM" still cause shudders in a great many people working in IT.
IE, OE and Outlook share a common flaw: Microsoft didn't make them properly. Securely, that is. IE has another sin, namely its inability to provide accurate feedback. Its bookmark system is kind of retarded, too (lots of wasted space in individual file-per-bookmark, isn't there?). Outlook and OE are both dreadfully insecure and cryptic. At least the Exchange inbox is something that is somewhat standardized (I know of at least a couple of commercial packages that clone it), but local file formats still suck. What was wrong with the .mbox format everything else uses, again?
Of course the fact that a great deal of effort is made to make the source of data (.PST, .SCD, Exchange server data, .PAB) utterly transparent the user and mystifyingly complex to support-types is another failure, IMO.
I can go on, of course, but you get the idea. A lot of the software you're advocating has real down side that you either haven't considered or aren't aware of.
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,460
Maybe. But Mandrake 8.1 gave me more configuration headaches than anything else. I know, it was because I didn't know how to configure it... but what the hell, I don't how to drive a tank either...Mercutio said:
Everything is for a certain job. I'm a home user, above all. I like to have brain-dead installations, easy configurations, out-of-the-box multimedia capabilities, and (even if proprietary!) server-based communications.
You know that this discussion has been done zillion of times, but till the day X that you'll have persuaded all software houses to port their progies (including games - just for the record) to Linux as well, I'll be wearing Windows on my systems...
Everything else is too much of a hassle for a busy calendar.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Methinks if you bought better hardware, it wouldn't be an issue. Nor am I the person trying to tell you to use Linux, only less crappy versions of Windows (NT3.5.1 was good, so is 2000. The rest suck eggs).
At any rate, I haven't had a Linux box NOT auto-detect and install all the hardware in the machine I'm working with in a long time. Even complicated stuff like multiple-NIC, multiple SCSI card, SMP configs (OK, I have to specify a multi-processor kernel. Which is as simple as two extra mouse clicks. Ouch).
Saying you're a "home user" is an excuse. There are fine minds here to pick when you have a problem, and need I remind you, home users don't split hairs about performance difference between Barracuda IVs and drives that don't suck. Either consider yourself on the morning train to Clue-ville, or get on AOL and smile beatifically as the pretty colors and broken software suck away your soul, like all the rest of the lusers.
At any rate, I haven't had a Linux box NOT auto-detect and install all the hardware in the machine I'm working with in a long time. Even complicated stuff like multiple-NIC, multiple SCSI card, SMP configs (OK, I have to specify a multi-processor kernel. Which is as simple as two extra mouse clicks. Ouch).
Saying you're a "home user" is an excuse. There are fine minds here to pick when you have a problem, and need I remind you, home users don't split hairs about performance difference between Barracuda IVs and drives that don't suck. Either consider yourself on the morning train to Clue-ville, or get on AOL and smile beatifically as the pretty colors and broken software suck away your soul, like all the rest of the lusers.
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
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Better hardware? BETTER HARDWARE?! :xMercutio said:
I doubt if anything in this box of mine isn't branded: ASUS, Creative, RealTek, Microsoft, EPSON... what else do you want me to do? Stick a "Prada" logo on the case?
Now... wait a minute... maybe it's YOU that you're using ancient hardware. Remember back in October? The Audigy wasn't supported by Linux kernels out-of-the-box. Yeah, blame Creative but the final result was the same. I had a mute box. Linux installs OK if you have 1-year-old equipment and of certain brands.
Being a Home User is NOT an excUSE... it's a USE. I stressed that cause I don't need to maintain an elaborous database, a web server, or run enterprise software. I just wanna be able to talk online with my buddies (energy and handruin included) and be able to see the latest multimedia content in my browser. That's a home user.
Don't insult my intelligence by talking to me about AOL and pretty colors. I don't choose the GUI from the console because the first goes with my carpet, but because I can work faster and with higher productivity when I have a visual reference.
Last but not least, Barracuda IV. For me it was good choise. Decent fast and Q-U-I-E-T... that's why I bought it in the first place.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Don't worry, he doesn't have to.Prof.Wizard said:
(easy cheap shot, couldn't resist)
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Isn't there any kind of mIRC on Linux? Anyway.
There's a need IMO for an open-source, unbloated and secure piece of software to replace all the current IM programs. Chatzilla maybe (I never tried it)?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
The standard console client is called ircii. The X-ish one I've used in the past is called bitchX (no, I have no idea where that name comes from).
PeeWee: Better hardware in this case means a less-generic NIC (I use Tulip and Intel-based NICs in my boxes), a video card with actual OSS drivers (Matrox, 3dfx, S3, even ATI - although it takes them forever to get around to releasing them. Nvidia makes a precompiled module available for their stuff. A Microsoft NDA apparently keeps them from actually releasing code. Yet another reason to be suspicious.) Sound is best with an older Creative card (pre-Live, basically, unless you're willing to pay $15 for a better driver. Creative's lack of driver talent has carried over to Linux as well) or one of the nicer generics (ESS1869).
All the microsoft hardware I'm aware of is pretty crappy.
You're basically blaming "linux" for what a couple of companies did or didn't do. Lots of people think nvidia/ATI/Creative make crappy drivers, but it doesn't keep them from using Windows, does it?
Multimedia content? Like movies and sounds and pictures? All that stuff works fine. I can even encode and watch .AVI files on my Linux machines. But if you're missing Flash, or whatever other godforsaken proprietary plugin you think you need, trust me, you aren't missing anything.
PeeWee: Better hardware in this case means a less-generic NIC (I use Tulip and Intel-based NICs in my boxes), a video card with actual OSS drivers (Matrox, 3dfx, S3, even ATI - although it takes them forever to get around to releasing them. Nvidia makes a precompiled module available for their stuff. A Microsoft NDA apparently keeps them from actually releasing code. Yet another reason to be suspicious.) Sound is best with an older Creative card (pre-Live, basically, unless you're willing to pay $15 for a better driver. Creative's lack of driver talent has carried over to Linux as well) or one of the nicer generics (ESS1869).
All the microsoft hardware I'm aware of is pretty crappy.
You're basically blaming "linux" for what a couple of companies did or didn't do. Lots of people think nvidia/ATI/Creative make crappy drivers, but it doesn't keep them from using Windows, does it?
Multimedia content? Like movies and sounds and pictures? All that stuff works fine. I can even encode and watch .AVI files on my Linux machines. But if you're missing Flash, or whatever other godforsaken proprietary plugin you think you need, trust me, you aren't missing anything.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
OSS = Open Source Software in this context?
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Correct.
As I understand thing, nvidia's closed driver module is actually a pretty nice piece of software, but I'm highly suspicious of why anyone would need a 256MB GF5 under linux, anyway.
As I understand thing, nvidia's closed driver module is actually a pretty nice piece of software, but I'm highly suspicious of why anyone would need a 256MB GF5 under linux, anyway.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
Mercutio said:
Actually, if you feel inspired to, do just that. I was enjoying that common theme being tied together so neatly and summaried effectively.
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
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http://www.riddleme.com/html/cow.html
Very funny... originally posted at SR's bar...
PS. It's Flash... :lol:
Very funny... originally posted at SR's bar...
PS. It's Flash... :lol:
DrunkenBastard
Storage is cool
All you M$ warezMongers out there, beware SP1 for XP turd, it will refuse to run on your not so unique cd key.
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,460
:frowner:
It will be hacked too...
It will be hacked too...
