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Slashback Mozilla The Internet

Slashback: Rendering, Munich, Clones 301

Posted by timothy from the render-me-this dept.
Slashback tonight with a passel of updates, corrections and tangents related to recent Slashdot postings, including GNU/Linux vs. Windows in Munich, Bunnie Huang's book on Xbox hacking, Mozilla's 5-line crash-test, and (sigh) yet another SCO note, but at least it's one to smile at. Read on for the details.

How to impress users. chjones writes "The bug that crashes Mozilla with simple HTML has been fixed in the latest nightly build. This was previously mentioned in a Slashback in response to a similar bug in Internet Explorer. No nightly build of IE appears to be available."

Quiet but sterile, or silent and deadly? JerryKnight writes "With the wider availability of TouchStream keyboards, such as at ThinkGeek, I wonder if these great devices are used by anyone else besides me. Since the last story over a year ago, Fingerworks has made quite a few improvements, such as many firmware upgrades and the (currently still Beta) Gesture Editor. Does anyone else find the gesture/mouse benefits to outweigh the headache of learning zero-force typing?"

Would you like to play a game? bigattichouse writes "When I read the piece on using gaming to keep your brain moving, it reminded me of several articles on coders needing 'ramp-up' time to get into coding. I put together a small freeware game PortaLogica as a preliminary attempt to create a game that would help stimulate coding-related-thought. The game is played using schematic logic gates, and trying to get inputs to match outputs. I'd love to flesh it out a bit more (like writing a KDE or Gnome version)..."

Offically official. Alexander Schatten writes "Although Steve Ballmer interrupted his holiday to try to change the decision of the Munich politicians, after some weeks of discussion Munich decided today to change all 14.000 PCs, Notebooks to Linux. Servers as well as Clients!

One of the main reasons was to avoid a too close binding to specific vendors. A wise decision, one will confirm, especially as Munich is one of the biggest cities in Germany and might be an example for other cities. For more details see: SuSE or heise.de (both in German)"

Buy it while it's legal. An anonymous reader writes "Remember Bunnie Huang? He's the MIT student who first hacked the Xbox. He wrote a book that was supposed to be published by a well-known publisher, but the publisher chickened out, afraid of Microsoft's wrath. Bunnie isn't so scared, however. He's publishing the book himself. The book, "Hacking the Xbox," can be purchased from his website. I just saw Bunnie on TechTV, and he's offering a 20 percent discount to TechTV viewers (Scroll to bottom of article to see the coupon code)."

The famous Finnish art of the insult. scotch51 writes "I followed the links to the Raelians website on Friday after ./ reported Linus Torvalds comparing the amazing SCO lawsuit to the Raelians claims of amazing (bio)technological achievements. Today, wanting to show a friend the Raelians rather pretty twist on the Star of David for their own logo, I see that all pages I'd visited yesterday report blank. "Reveal codes" on every page I visited yesterday reveals only: html body /body /html. Guess that's one way to deal with being slashdotted, or were they perhaps hacked?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slashback: Rendering, Munich, Clones More

Slashback: Rendering, Munich, Clones

Comments Filter:

  • wget -r http://www.sco.com/ (FP) (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:01PM (#6062639)
    It's time for sco to feel the PAIN!

  • Not an admin ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by IanBevan ( 213109 ) * on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:02PM (#6062643) Homepage
    No nightly build of IE appears to be available

    Only the near-daily security updates.

  • Munich (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gortbusters.org ( 637314 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:04PM (#6062663) Homepage Journal
    No suprise they choose SuSE... SuSE just dominates the market place over there with Mandrake coming in second. Alas, RedHat is largely US based.

    • Re:Munich (Score:5, Funny)

      by captain_craptacular ( 580116 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:17PM (#6062765)
      Yeah, buying locally is a terrible idea. We would all be much better of if everyone mail-ordered everything from Taiwan. Money wants to be free and LOVES to travel!

    • Re:Munich (Score:2, Insightful)

      by daserver ( 524964 )
      When I visited Cebit this year in Germany the only linux distro that you would hear about was Suse, which makes sense since Suse is a german company.

    • Alas RedHat indeed. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @08:31PM (#6063347) Journal
      Alas, RedHat is largely US based.

      Alas, Redhat indeed.

      As far as I'm concerned RedHat is not ready for prime time - and WON'T be until:

      1) Their prepaid included-with-the-expensive-box support continues until your first install is up on the net or LAN (and preferably with a built-from-source kernel), rather than stopping when you first get a login screen.

      2) Their quickstart manual includes a clear description (accessable to neophytes - and keystroke-by-keystroke again) of both
      * how to install the system (Of particular interest as of 6.x: Tell 'em how to make sane choices for the size of the partitions.) and
      * how to obtain and install security upgrades.

      3) Their install documentation includes a step-by-step, keystroke-by-kestroke recipe for going:
      * from a blank computer and their CDROMs,
      * through an intermediate system installed from the CDROM image
      * To the SAME system but with the kernel built from the supplied sources.

      4) Their in-depth manual includes a section giving a COMPLETE list of the configuration files twiddled by each of the functions of each of the graphic-interface admin tools. (And don't tell me to read the source or look it up on the net. You're a packager. Package it already.)

      5) Their quickstart manual tells me how to adjust the screen parameters. (And DON'T tell me to go figure out X. Give a recipe.)

      C'mon, guys! Get a tech writer and assign him/her the task with 2), 3), 4), and 5) as the goals.

      (And while we're at it, the Gnome and/or KDE crews really ought to do a desktop tool, on the model of Apples', for tuning the screen, and RedHat should have it in the default menus.)
      • 1) Their prepaid included-with-the-expensive-box support continues until your first install is up on the net or LAN (and preferably with a built-from-source kernel), rather than stopping when you first get a login screen.

        wow, it goes that far now? Last time I bought it, it didn't include anything past a login prompt in init 3. You want X Windows? Best of luck, kiddo!

      • Re:Alas RedHat indeed. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @10:47PM (#6064558) Homepage Journal
        Just to be argumenative I'll say that the main problem with RedHat (and Linux) recently is the effort to dumb it down for the folks out there who can't do anything but run Minesweeper on their XP box.

        Linux should not be Windows or MacOS. If users want a dumbed down OS let them use Windows or MacOS. At most let them use a retarded distro like Lindows. Playing copycat you can never be the best. KDE and Gnome have both driven me away as a user as they have become more bloated and dumbed down.

        The same with support. Once the machine is booted to your desktop you have what you paid for. That support is more than what you'll get from Microsoft. If you want more then pay for it or learn to use the community support Linux offers. Linux is a community as much as software. You have to accept both to appreciate either.

        Installing is about as easy as to keep pressing 'next' so I don't really know what more you need help with. Again I find it easier than the Windows install or the last MacOS I installed (ver 9).

        Keystroke by keystroke guides suck because few computers are likely to be the same. People will need to learn to think a little bit if they want their computer to work well for them. This is especially true when it comes to compiling software.

        Your fourth demand is actually reasonable I think. Maybe don't give a full guide to all configuration files but a quick overview of what the files are would be a nice touch. The only obvious problem with this is that there is no way a newbie will comprehend even the descriptions of these files. It'd be confusing to them.

        In Linux you seldom need to adjust your screen parameters. Maybe they need to add a note about CTRL-ALT-+ so that users will know how to shift between the available settings easily. There is really no need to tweak X settings directly as a user.

        I would like to see RedHat include Ximian's Red Carpet in their default installs. I think it would make it easier for users to learn to add/remove/update packages. IMO Red Carpet is just better than any of RedHat's own tools for this job.

        If you really want a no brainer distro for newbies then try Knoppix. You don't need to install it, recompile anything, or configure anything. For the most part 'it just works'. It could always be better though. :)

        • Just to be argumenative I'll say that the main problem with RedHat (and Linux) recently is the effort to dumb it down for the folks out there who can't do anything but run Minesweeper on their XP box.

          Linux should not be Windows or MacOS. If users want a dumbed down OS let them use Windows or MacOS. At most let them use a retarded distro like Lindows.

          And as long as people continue to have this attitude, Linux will be nothing more than a niche system used by 5% of the total desktop PC market.

          • Re:Alas RedHat indeed. (Score:4, Insightful)

            by MikeFM ( 12491 ) on Thursday May 29, 2003 @12:17AM (#6065154) Homepage Journal
            Not at all. You can make something BETTER by not copying and not dumbing things down. I for one don't think people as a whole are stupid. UI design should be based on making things easier - not dumber. The difference being that intermediate to expert users should find the interface easy rather than newbies. People will spend much more time being an experienced user than a novice so it doesn't make sense to cater to the novice. Sure there is a fear of learning but that's something people will just have to get over if they want things to be better.

            A good example is that many enterprise apps when ported from DOS to Windows tried to be more novice friendly by making moving between fields a mouse action where before they were a TAB action. This requires the users hands to leave the keyboard, find the mouse, find the pointer, move the pointer to the next box, click that box, move back to the keyboard, and resume typing. It wasn't long before many of these programs began adding back in the ability to TAB to the next field. Yes, to newbies the mouse seemed easier.. but experienced workers hated the change and it could badly damage the businesses productivity.

            Stability and speed is also important. KDE/Gnome especially IMO are going the wrong way in these areas as they try to satisfy Windows users.

            Besides - the desktop is a dying concept. Embedded devices to a large degree will take the place as novice users interface of choice. Why figure out how to do something with a powerful (but possibly complex) interface when you can use a handheld gadget that has three buttons and can do what you need (and only what you need)? Obviously you'll still have desktops just as we still have command line interfaces.. but they'll shift from being a cashcow to being a geek tool.

            I predict a near future in which less complex devices, similar to (or the same as) game consoles are used by most people for tasks like web browsing, word processing, etc. The systems will likely run Linux or a similar OS but in a version that has been stripped of anything unneeded.. configured especially for the given hardware and tested for stability. I think they'll have a desktop but given the limited capabilities of the systems that the desktop will be very lightweight. Just to step further out on a limb I'll guess that Apple and Sony will be the two major competitors in this market.

          • Re:Alas RedHat indeed. (Score:3, Insightful)

            by fishbowl ( 7759 )
            "And as long as people continue to have this attitude, Linux will be nothing more than a niche system used by 5% of the total desktop PC market."

            A whole lot of people don't actually see that as a problem of any sort, and that seems to be difficult for others to grasp. Maybe Linus shouldn't have made that "world domination" joke so early on.
  • While I'm glad to see M$ go down and lose revenue just as much as anyone else, I really feel that we should be more focused on corporate adaptation of Linux in Germany, instead of trying to win the GNU/M$ battle through government intervention.

    • Re:Not quite a true victory in munich (Score:5, Insightful)

      by birdman666 ( 144812 ) <[moc.cam] [ta] [diercire]> on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:11PM (#6062717) Homepage
      Governments are basically corporations nowadays anyway, at least they're being run like them. And if the government can run on something other than Microsoft, other corporations may take notice and give it a shot.

    • Re:Not quite a true victory in munich (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:16PM (#6062754)
      To get corporations to adopt it, you need to make one of the biggest customers use it. If the government is using Linux with say OpenOffice and they will only deal with companies whose files they can read, well, the companies will either switch to OO or make sure that OO can read their documents.

    • Re:Not quite a true victory in munich (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jason Earl ( 1894 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:21PM (#6062798) Homepage Journal

      Actually government adoption of Free Software makes a lot of sense. After all, the German government gets to tax the consultants that set up and customize their Linux systems, while licensing fees end up in the U.S. For government entities building the local economy is an important consideration. You don't build the local economy by sending millions to Redmond Washington (unless, of course, you live in Redmond).

      Also, governments are really the only entity that can mandate document formats. It doesn't matter how big your company is, if the government wants their information in OpenOffice format you don't send them an MS Word document.

      Most importantly, however, is the fact that a lot of the really large computer installations (where Linux has a definite advantage) are government owned. For small businesses Linux steeper learning curve works against it. In large organizations the openness, flexibility, and scriptability of Linux make it very cost effective to administer.

      • > You don't build the local economy by sending millions to Redmond Washington

        Unfortunately, not all city governments in Germany think that way. The city of Frankfurt just signed a major contract with Microsoft, according to this [heise.de] news report from German c't magazine. Oh well, you win some, you lose some - but the decision made by the Munich authorities is a landmark case which gets much more publicity worldwide.

        • The good news is that Linux doesn't need to win all the battles. In fact, with Microsoft's overwhelming market share we don't hardly need to win any to gain ground.

          Microsoft, on the other hand, has to maintain revenue growth if they are going to keep their investors happy. They can't afford to lose any customers, and they either have to actually gain customers, or they have to charge existing customers less. When the economy recovers and it becomes clear that Microsoft is not going to recover along wit

    • Well since here in the US MS has been going after state and local governments left and right for liscensing violation, costing taxpayers money both in fines for any technical violations found (it's hard to keep 100% in compliance even if you are putting in the effort, MS liscensing is almost one hundred pages of legalese) and for the time it takes to perform the audit I think it makes sense to switch. Besides the US government is the largest customer of MS so any pressure they could put on MS might bring ab
    • Linux on the enterprise (and government) desktop has only just begun.It is therefore difficult to see the trend if you are unaware what the big conversion projects are doing. In this multi-billion contract with the German government IBM will not only be converting all their desktops to SUSE-Linux but they are also charged with developing all the applications necessary, porting many internal office applications based on M$ access, eXcel, VB, SQLserver to KDE/java/MySQL/DB2 (Maybe the German government has come to the KDE teams rescue with much needed cash injection just in time!). This is why many others are sitting on the fence, they say "Oh, great, it has started, let's get in line to be at the counter when the goods are becoming available".

      It took the PC about 15 years to take the entreprise.Things like that don't happen overnight. But there is always a point when the critical mass has been reached and from that point on the trend cannot be stopped anymore. Linux is well positioned to reach that critical mass within a few years if ibm/Suse/kde continue to follow their roadmaps as they have done so far.
    • I don't know about over there, but cities are corporations in Canada. Speaking to you from within the Corporation of the City of London.

  • OOK! (Score:4, Funny)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) * on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:07PM (#6062686) Journal
    Quit linking to bugzilla, you insensitive clod!

  • Anyone else remember this? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:07PM (#6062688)
    ... the Raelians rather pretty twist on the Star of David for their own logo ...

    IIRC, the Raelians' symbol used to be a Star of David with a Swastika inside. They changed it a few years ago to the swirly thing. Anyone else remember this?

    • Re:Anyone else remember this? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah I remember that, there's some info on it here [bebaptized.org].

      Incidentally, the swastika used to be (still is I guess) a symbol of strength and good luck. More info on that here [about.com].

      Offtopic I guess, but interesting.

    • Re:Anyone else remember this? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by catsidhe ( 454589 ) <catsidhe&gmail,com> on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @08:05PM (#6063115) Homepage
      I actually own a copy of Let's Welcome Our Fathers from Space, which has the original star-of-david/swastika logo on the front cover.

      There is a section in the introduction trying to justify this (IIRC, he claimed that both were solar symbols, and the swastika was just another symbol before Herr Hitler anyway, and everyone used it, and...) He is right in the technical sense, about the fylfot and its solar symbolism and ubiquity, but the German National Socialists have ruined it for everyone for quite a long time to come.

  • SCOM (Score:3, Funny)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:08PM (#6062693)
    I heard SCO is adding an "M" their name to make it SCOM. This will make it more closely resemble SCUM.

    • Re:SCOM (Score:4, Funny)

      by bakes ( 87194 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:21PM (#6062790) Journal
      I heard SCO is adding an "M" their name to make it SCOM. This will make it more closely resemble SCUM

      Conveniently, it also closely resembles "SCAM".
    • The SCUM are SCAMming us. They don't even own the trade secrets about which they are suing. They just want to SCIM a little money by selling their stock while it is high. Of course, maybe they didn't realize that corporate officers have certain honesty requirements under the law. I hope they enjoy their cushy jail cells with their soul mates from Enron.

  • Steve Jobs NOT a Raelian (Score:3, Funny)

    by JamMasterJGorilla ( 629611 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:10PM (#6062701) Homepage
    I was looking at the Raelians' website after the Linus story then, after leaving the site my Safari browser unexpectly quit.
    Could the Raelians have some secret plan to use a buffer overflow to exploit my computer to attack their critics?
    The i began to think, is the Steve Jobs religion just to incompatible with the Raelians? I mean, who needs two god like icons. Steve in his black atire could be the Anti-Raelian, afterall why would he let anyone clone Steve?
    • after leaving the site my Safari browser unexpectly quit.

      You're fresaking me out - My Konqueror crashed after pressing "Back" on the Raelian site. Konqueror and Safari share good portions of the rendering engine - KHTML, so this could make sense.

      Opps, nevermined, I just realised that I left my foil hat with the shiny-side out. I put the shiny-side inwards, and my brain waves are happy again.

  • I understand oh great one (Score:5, Funny)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:10PM (#6062706)
    must....render....munich....clones

  • the pain of input devices (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:16PM (#6062752) Journal
    Does anyone else find the gesture/mouse benefits to outweigh the headache of learning zero-force typing?

    no, I feel the pain for the over 300 dollars deficit in my wallet for such a keyboard.

    Seriously though - I would LOVE to try one, but affordability is definitely not one of its good traits. Anybody knows a place where you can rent one for a week? in japan, possibly?

    otoh, while not having had any touchstream experience, I can speak from the perspective of a dvorak user - which is the pain of having to resort back to qwerty anywhere else. Not so much a problem for me now, but if you work in IT and needs to troubleshoot people's computers - forget it. (I read stuff like "after you learn dvorak you can revert back to qwerty and be fluent in both" which I am finding out is total bullshit - as much as I like the dvorak layout - switching to qwerty on the fly is not easy)

    Not to mention in places such as BIOS and the such, you don't even have the OPTION to configure a dvorak keyboard...

    Similar things I predict for touchstream users - you will go to another computer and wave your hand jedi-like and nothing happens and it will cause a ton of frustration. Heck, just imagine going between work and home. Having big trouble affording one, No way in a billion years I can afford two... I will wait for neurological interfaces instead - well, if we are not already batteries / control modules inside the matrix already.

    • Not to mention in places such as BIOS and the such, you don't even have the OPTION to configure a dvorak keyboard...

      Why would BIOS even care? It's not like the signal for 'A' from a Dvorak keyboard should be different from another keyboard.

      • Because an awful lot of Dvorak users simply remap the keys on an existing qwerty keyboard. Hard to learn on, but if you master Dvorak on a Dvorak-labeled keyboard, your touch-typing skills should carry over to the point where you don't need the labels. At that point, you can just change the keymap in the OS of whatever other computer you find yourself working on and ignore the qwerty-centric labels on the keys. Working on BIOS, though, one's touch-typing Dvorak skills won't help you because there's no su

        • When I was learning Dvorak, I printed out a Dvorak keyboard layout [mwbrooks.com] and had it rest against my monitor and the function keys of my keyboard.

          That way, when I _really_ needed to know where a letter was, I would just look at the picture, rather than the keyboard. After a few hours, you stop looking at the paper -- and you don't have to worry about starting the bad habit of looking at the keys on your keyboard.

          You can still learn Dvorak on ergonomic keyboards / converted typewriters / etc without having to ma

      • Why would BIOS even care? It's not like the signal for 'A' from a Dvorak keyboard should be different from another keyboard.


        Most people use software translation so they don't have to buy a real Dvorak keyboard, myself included. It's just easier that way.
      • that's the problem. you can't buy dvorak keyboards anywhere reasonable - and certainly not with the same selection of split boards / tiny boards / wireless boards, etc, so the easiest way is to set the keymapping (this can be done in windows and linux alike - i have no idea about macs, however, though i assume no problems).

        this means that you may have to rearrange some keys on the keyboard, but once you start to touchtype you don't need to do even that (besides laptop keys are notoriously easy to break); T
      • I believe most Dvorak keyboards return the same signal for the same position as a qwerty keyboard, and leave it to the OS to offer a proper keymap. For the most part, only the caps on the keys are different. Therefore, the BIOS would have to have a dvorak keymap in it to work.
    • I used a dvorak layout for about a week, and was starting to get decent at it, and then tried to edit something in vi. Have you ever tried to move around using H, J, K and L in a dvorak layout?!

      It was either dvorak or vi, and vi won by a landslide.
      • i agree. that was the most difficult thing to get used to. I didn't have so much problem because i used the cursor keys (yes yes, not *true* geek, fine).

        but in other apps cut/paste etc would fudge one over too (for example ctrl-c / ctrl-v are mapped to ctrl-i and ctrl-. respectively).

        You can train yourself to get past it, but not the easiest.

        I have been convincing myself to re-learn qwerty by doing "float-typing" (don't know what's you'd call that), i.e. don't give a damn about the homerow, and the thumb
      • Learn Emacs. :-P

        I have the same trouble with my Maltron, on those rare cases I use vi. I'll flip it to QWERTY mode while I'm moving. Same goes for NetHack.

      • Have you ever tried to move around using H, J, K and L in a dvorak layout?!

        uh, isn't that what the cursor keys are for?

      • Probably the best thing to do is simply remap the vi commands to the Dvorak keys in their old QUERTY positions. You will have to remember the vi commands by position instead of letter, but if you've been using vi on QUERTY for any length of time that's how you do it now. That way the old "hjkl" commands will be on dvorak "dhtn" and you will be a happy Dvorak vi user.

        I'm sure I've seen vim scripts that do exactly this. Try searching for "dvorak vim".

    • The only use for something like this for me would be on a laptop or tablet or similar portable system. If they could superimpose such an input device over your tablet's screen then I could see using it. It'd be useful to me to be able to have a ghostly keyboard come into view when I made a certain gesture and thus let me type and the rest of the time to just have the screen work as a touch/pen surface and support simple gestures. Not having to hual around the keyboard or a clumsy portable mouse IMO would be
  • So, what, that means I just have to think about it and the letters appear?

  • Do not /. Bugzilla... (Score:5, Informative)

    by $$$$$exyGal ( 638164 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:26PM (#6062837) Homepage Journal
    Here's the Bugzilla text:
    ===

    User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4a) Gecko/20030401
    Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4a) Gecko/20030401

    Even though the given testcase might be an abusive use of CSS and as of that to
    be considered invalid html the browser crashes on loading this page.

    Reproducible: Always

    Steps to Reproduce:
    1. load the testcase

    Actual Results:
    crash

    Expected Results:
    rendered the page - at least somehow ;)

    <html>
    <body>
    <fieldset style="position:fixed;">
    <legend class="bblack14">Crash test</legend>
    hello world content
    </fieldset>
    </body>
    </html>

    ==
    The bug is fixed in the nightly build.
    • Yes, Bugzilla is sacred. /. the other sites all you want. ;)
    • Heh...

      Anyone else remember the comments about how shitty IE was for having a bug like this?

      Zealotry will come and bite ya in the ass. Hehehe...
    • Do not /. Bugzilla.

      Do not taunt Bugzilla.

      Do not use Bugzilla on concrete.

      Bugzilla may stick to certain types of skin.

      Caution: Bugzilla may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.

      Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children should avoid prolonged exposure to Bugzilla.

      Discontinue use of Bugzilla if any of the following occurs:

      * Itching

      * Vertigo

      * Dizziness

      * Tingling in extremities

      * Loss of balance or coordination

      * Slurred speech

      * Temporary blindness

      * Profuse Sweating

      or

      * Heart p

  • Does anyone know if it's also fixed in recent nightly builds of FireBird (The Browser Formerly Known As Phoenix)?
  • I just got my touchstream keyboard today. My typing is a little slower but it's still faster than most peoples typing. I have more mistakes but not that many more, ( and most of them are from the rearamgement of the keys from a normal keyboard, not from touch typing). I really like it already. The gestures are great and not having to move your hand to move your mouse is very nice. It's definately expensive, but it was my graduation to myself. Anyway, I think it's great. As the price for the technolog

  • Fingerworks LP ZeroForce Keyboard... (Score:3, Informative)

    by GNU_Suit ( 123400 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:50PM (#6063016)
    is incredible. I recently bought one (DVORAK no less) and it's made interacting with my computer a lot more productive.

    Also, I don't buy the story about difficulty in going between QWERTY and DVORAK as I do it each day between my home machines and the one I use at work. If there was a problem, it's not that expensive to buy two ($300... for good hardware, it's not a bad price!).

    If anyone who reports to me preferred a non-QWERTY keyboard, I'd be happy to purchase one for him/her to use. It's very much akin to someone who is left handed wanting lefty scissors.
    • My computer only cost $405 and it isn't bad (rather good actually). I have to continue to think that $300 just for a keyboard/mouse is overpriced. Dare I ask if wherever you work is hiring? If you can afford to buy lots of $300 keyboards I want to do what you do. :)

  • Mozilla bug fixed and apples and oranges (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:51PM (#6063024) Journal
    To compare the release of a fix for a Mozilla bug in a nightly build of the development trunk to the release of an Explorer patch is an apples and oranges comparison at the least. Post the story when the Mozilla bug fix has been run through a complete test cycle and appears in a stable release. Put another way, if Mozilla had a system designed to drive the fix out to every user including the secretaries and the grandmothers in the nursing home (maybe it has, I don't know), you might have a story if they drove their fix out before Microsoft drives theirs out. To know whether the comparison made today means anything, you'd have to know whether Microsoft has fixed this in their internal nightly builds.
    • To know whether the comparison made today means anything, you'd have to know whether Microsoft has fixed this in their internal nightly builds.

      No you wouldn't.

      As a matter of fact, you just showed yourself why the comparison means something. We all know the bug has been fixed in Mozilla. We can all get a version of Mozilla in which this bug has been fixed. We all know there will be "official" releases of browsers coming (Netscape et al) which will not have this bug.

      We don't have any clue as to the stat

    • Not so; the availability of the nightly build means that if someone really requires this functionality, then they can get it now (albeit at the cost of losing support). Try that for IE.

      While I don't bother using nightly builds of Mozilla, I have used nightly builds of other open-source products to get around bugs that would otherwise have been showstoppers. It's very useful when needed.

      Of course, why someone would need the crash bug fixed is an interesting question. But imagine if the next email virus inc

  • porta logica ? Logic games (Score:3, Interesting)

    by innocent_white_lamb ( 151825 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @07:57PM (#6063065)
    Want logic games?

    Try some of the games in Mame [mame.net] (also available for Linux/Unix [mame.net]) such as: Boxy Boy [www.mame.dk], Chicken Shift [www.mame.dk], Logic Pro [www.mame.dk], Logic Pro 2 [www.mame.dk], Phozon [www.mame.dk], Pushman [www.mame.dk], and Wise Guy [www.mame.dk].

    Some of these can are real real brain-busters.

  • That PortaLogica looks pretty cool to me. Wonder if it runs on my computer...

    Doesn't mention any system requirements at all. Maybe it runs on my old C64. They do mention the C64.

    That must be it.

  • Succomb To The Hype While It's Legal (Score:3, Interesting)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @08:12PM (#6063184) Journal

    Last time I heard, TechTV is owned in part by Paul Allen. Is it just possible that this whole brewhaha is nothing more than a charade designed to get us to say "X-box" all the time? Oh no... it's working. No thanks. I'll keep my $24.99-20%+shipping and spend it on beer or something.

  • Raelians slashdotted? (Score:3, Funny)

    by vladkrupin ( 44145 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @08:24PM (#6063280) Homepage
    No, they just moved the servers to the outer space and what you saw was a glitch during the transition.
  • The website is accessible once again. Time to /. BTW, anyone else feel that the only thing the Raelians are missing is the black clothes and the tennis shoes???

  • "Reveal codes" (Score:5, Funny)

    by matthewn ( 91381 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @08:44PM (#6063426)
    "Reveal codes" on every page I visited yesterday reveals only: html body /body /html.
    Reveal codes? What, we're surfing the web with WordPerfect here?

    • Re:"Reveal codes" (Score:2, Informative)

      by yerricde ( 125198 )

      Reveal codes? What, we're surfing the web with WordPerfect here?

      What's the real difference between the meanings of "reveal codes" and "view source" again? Perhaps "view source" and "reveal codes" translate to the same thing in some language other than English. Or perhaps you're right, that WordPerfect's latest office suite includes a customized web browser.

  • From the web page:

    You get a better score for more complex logic.

    That's just stupid, play the increedible machine if you want to make convoluted stupid ways of doing things...

    It also doesn't help with teaching logic or starting up your brain in the morning, after all the usual aim is to minimise either the cost (by using cheaper gates and as few as possible) or the delay (by using faster gates and as few in series as possible) plus you can always make something more complicated whereas there is a 'best' s

    • Figured I'd wait and see if anyone thought it worthwhile first. I'll put you down for a "not interested, thank you" ... hmm, I guess constructive criticism isn't common down under?

  • there is no such thing as "zero-force typing" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 73939133 ( 676561 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @09:21PM (#6063744)
    Zero force typing is a myth. When you type, whether on a flat surface or a keyboard, your fingers at some point need to change directions (move up/down, etc.). The forces to bring that about either come from your own muscles or from the keyboard.

    Normal keyboards are carefully designed to cushion the strike and let you recover energy to make your finger go up again after going down. That's what all those little springs, levers, and rubber pads are for in your keyboard. A flat surface has none of those.

    The difference is similar to jumping barefoot on concrete vs. jumping barefoot on a trampoline. Which would you rather do? Keyboards basically give you a carefully designed trampoline for each finger, and that's good.

    • Re:there is no such thing as "zero-force typing" (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Besides, what is the fun of being a fast typer if you dont have a keyboard producing a machine gun like sound???
    • That's interesting but I have an interest in these boards because of the occupation I'm currently in. Specifically, I'm a medical transcriptionist and my job is to listen to doctors speak and type it. With normal keyboards, the sound generated (I haven't found a silent one yet) necessitates turning up the volume more than I would generally need. That means that I have a harder time hearing any external sounds outside my headphones (like the phone ringing or someone knocking at the door) and that the volu
    • The TouchStream products work with a much better technology than springs, levers and rubber pads: gravity.



      Touchtyping with on one of those is possible and when you have mastered it (which doesn't take very long, provided you could touch type on an ordinary keyboard to begin with) you don't 'strike' the keys anymore, you simply lift the finger and let it fall back. Thus you regain all of the energy (except for the losses with your joints, of course ;)

  • Novell's legal Actions (Score:3)

    by linuxislandsucks ( 461335 ) on Wednesday May 28, 2003 @10:09PM (#6064252) Homepage Journal
    What are Novell's legal actions it refers to in its letter to SCO?

    It is obvious that they could revoke all licenses that were entered into with SCO Group which kill all SCO Gruop licensing plans and income! It also by pure design takes the least amount of time to implement.

    Is there any other legal optins Novell has besides the obvious ones such as this one above?
  • Just puts it back at what it cost to pre-order. The pre-order price was $20, and now it's $25, minus 20%...

    Not that great a discount, but a good second chance, I suppose.

  • Embrace and expand. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Phleg ( 523632 ) * <stephen@tCOUGARouset.org minus cat> on Thursday May 29, 2003 @12:32AM (#6065237)


    It's not a bug, it's a feature! The "crash" input type allows the user to crash the browser. It's very useful and another Microsoft (TM) innovation.

    Yeah, gotta love Micrsoft's technique of "embrace and expand". Pretty soon they'll implement

    <input type bsod>

    and

    <input type format_C>

  • Touchstream conclusions (Score:3, Informative)

    by JerryKnight ( 465510 ) on Thursday May 29, 2003 @11:24AM (#6068319) Journal
    Okay, from what I can gather, those who have one of these keyboards love it, but those who don't either are sceptical of the touch typing or wary of the price. This is what I expected when I submitted this.

    By zero force, they mean that no movement is required on the part of the key, you need only touch the area on the touchpad. The only necessary force is that of gravity on your finger, since the sensor can "see" your finger even when it barely touches the pad. It is actually quite easy to use after a while, and the biggest obstacle is keeping the hands from drifting while typing. Using it without some sort of padding to elevate the heals of my hands is both painful and annoying since my hands tend to drift quite a bit otherwise. Touch typing is very possible, if the hands are kept stationary. In fact, I am forced to touch type since I got the Qwerty keyboard and type in dvorak, which most dvorak users will agree is commonplace.

    Dvorak... This keyboard remaps its keys in the firmware. I don't use soft-dvorak because the extra keys (read about the programmers pad) would be un-mapped and wrong. I also very frequently revert back to Qwerty with only about 2-3 or sometimes 5 minutes of painful confusion, usually after not typing qwerty for a while. Actually, it is sometimes more painful reverting to mechanical keyboards, even those in dvorak, since my hands get so spoiled by the ZF typing.

    Also, using emacs is surprisingly easy with the included gestures. Ctrl-x? easy, thumb and middle finger dragged together. Ctrl-s? thumb and first three fingers dragged together. Et cetera. Those and similar gestures are actually intended for cut, save, etc, but each gesture is mapped to a keystroke, so it can be used anywhere that keystroke is appropriate. Also, using two fingers on the left hand, you move the cursor around. They include a touchstream.el script supposedly used for some extra shortcuts, but I have yet to try that out.

    Personally, and obviously, I find the gestures and the ease of typing (easy on the fingers I mean) to far outweigh the $340 price tag ($40 for the tent stand, now included with LP). I do not usually lay down that much money for a gadget, but I had to try it, and as it was frequently mentioned, these things are hard to find for demo. Let's fix this by taking a chance and investing in one (no I do not work for Fingerworks). I would be very willing to let anyone in my area (waco, TX) demo the keyboard. If you are convinced on the gestures, but not on the typing, buy the gesture pad for $150 last I checked.

    Great technology, and the price will drop when more people give it a chance.

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