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New user? Wednesday, December 13, 2000
MISS, or kiss it goodbye
A couple nights ago I installed Mandrake Linux 7.0 inside VMWare 2.0. I rely on the apps I use in Windows too much to be able to properly use Linux "on its own", but I still want to be able to run and learn new Linux-based technologies, so VMWare is a great solution for me. The performance is just excellent.
Yesterday I picked up a copy of Mandrake Linux 7.2, because I wanted to be running the "latest and greatest". I heard XFree86 4 was so much better, and 7.2 had the latest KDE/GNOME versions. Unfortunately, the X server wouldn't run after I installed it in VMWare (I assume it would have worked outside of VMWare). So, I deleted that virtual disk and here I am, writing this in Netscape 4.7x in a not-up-to-date version of Linux.
Looking through the "K" menu, there is just SO much stuff I don't need. It's either an obscure utility like a chemical formula calculator, or fifteen different text editors and paging programs.
What Linux needs is for someone to take all these hundreds of unprofessional (sorry), non-polished utilities, and put some focus and polish on them. In the end, the "utilities" menu should look something like the Accessories menu in Windows. They should have understandable names, not weird names like Kmp3te, klyx, and vigmeup.
I sure hope that's what the Eazel people are aiming for. If they're just doing a fancy file browser, they're way off target. Thank goodness the Netscape icon is on the desktop because it would have taken forever to find in the massive selection of icons in the massive K menu.
Okay, so I did a custom install and said install everything. But did I really need that much?
I got the feeling from the Mandrake 7.2 installer that they went for more simplicity. I wish I could have seen what 7.2's K menu looked like.
Mark Hurst, on goodexperience.com: It's Time to Simplify the PC
I can't help but notice how much more focus and polish there is to the app selection in the Mac OS X Public Beta. The cynic will tell you that's because that's actually all the OS X software they had at the time ;-). Either way, I don't care.
Mac OS X is beautiful, it is simple, and I can't wait until my dad gets to install it on his PowerBook G3. He hasn't even seen it, and I really haven't talked about it with him, but he already told me he wants to install it. He's probably seen pictures of it somewhere.
I know my dad will be more productive with the Dock than with the Apple menu and dozens of icons on his desktop. I won't, but that's a 3rd-party opportunity, right? :-)
Yobs
I haven't seen "yob" defined anywhere, a term I've seen many times on the BBC News site lately. I'm sure it means "youth mob".
My cousin is returning from England soon, where he's been working as a part-time teacher. I've heard from his family that he regards the English youth as "arrogant", and just plain horrible all around. He said Canadian schoolkids look like angels in comparison. Now, that's just heresy, but based on all the "yob" talk at the BBC lately, it sounds pretty credible. I certainly trust his opinion, and he's not the kind of person to exaggerate.
In BBC's "talking point" area, one fellow, "Robert", had a great comment. It really hit home.
"We all too easily recognise those yobs at the bottom end of society but seem to not notice those at the top end of society. Those who set examples like: do, say or create anything as long as it makes a lot of money with little or no regard to the examples set or consequences to others in society especially our children. Yobs must have learned their behaviour from somewhere?"
Ouch. The truth hurts.
Tuesday, December 12, 2000
Monday, December 11, 2000
VMWare and DirectX
I was very disappointed when I found out (after the fact) that VMWare doesn't support DirectX. Sheesh, VirtualPC supports DirectX (AFAIK), and it doesn't have the luxury of having a native processor handy!
I was hoping to be able to install some games that I used to play when I had a Win95 box around... the virtualized Win95 environment would be more than fast enough for this old games.
:(
And you thought Flordia was fucked up
CNN: Coin flip and lottery settles Michigan election tie
What's fucked up about this isn't that a coin flip and lottery picked the winner... it's that the township supervisor election was tied at 600 votes each, but there are only 1038 registered voters in the town!
The article doesn't even mention that discrepency. Oh brother.
X-Men on DVD
CANOE Review: X-MEN on DVD -- "As movies based on comic books go, "X-Men" is one of the best. But that's a bit like saying as hockey teams from the southern U.S. go, the Atlanta Thrashers are the best."
LOL!
Google Toolbar rocks
The new Google Toolbar for IE5+/Win totally rocks. I sure hope they make a Mac version. A Mozilla version should be relatively straightforward to do for someone who's really adept at XBL/XUL/JS.
CyberProfessor 2.0 (seriously)
CNN: Professor to wire computer chip into his nervous system -- "If the experiment is successful, Warwick's wife Irena will also receive a silicon chip implant to explore how movement, thought and emotion can be transmitted from one person to another. Questions abound as to how this will affect the couple."
There is a poll on that page that asks "Would you be willing to implant a chip in your body?". As of this moment it's 51% yes, 49% no.
Sources: A-Rod, Texas agree to $252M deal
Sources: A-Rod, Texas agree to $252M deal
You have to be kidding. Is one person on a baseball diamond (a huge field) so good that he's worth that much? Are his arms 30 meters long? Does his glove have a massive gravitational force? Who will be able to afford to go to a Texas Rangers game?
Maybe having the name "Rangers" means the team has to absurdley over-spend on player salaries, just like the New York Rangers of the NHL.
