muncadunc - Slashdot User

Comment Let Windows 8 Die (Score 3, Interesting) 210

by muncadunc on Sunday December 23, 2012 @07:26PM (#42377929) Attached to: VLC For Windows 8 Reaches $65,000 Funding Goal On Kickstarter

I would be much happier if nobody ported their software, and Windows 8 was allowed to completely fail.

Then Microsoft would be forced to fix the UI and bring back the start menu.

Submission + - The Microsoft Office 2013 UI: A visual nightmare (tech-stew.com)

Submitted by techfun89 on Wednesday December 12, 2012 @12:46AM

techfun89 writes: There are major shortcomings with Office 2013 UI redesign. Some have stated that the white background and its overall lack of contrast and brightness has “caused their eyes to bleed.” There are some users who claim they have had eye problems after several weeks of using Outlook and Word for several hours per day. The new color scheme is quite bad overall and you have limited options in trying to change it. Outlook by default a low contrast white scheme which can be hard on the eyes and hard to tell what is what. That is, there is no clear distinction between functional areas like user controls and system controls. Not only this but white space optimization throughout the UI, particularly in Outlook and Lync is horrendous.

The preview area in Outlook becomes almost useless due to the huge consumption of space by elements in the header such as the photo, subject and title.

Typing in Outlook and even more so in Excel, often leaves your cursor in a lagged or streaky appearance, akin to that of typing on terminals of the 1990s.

Submission + - Netflix releases ISP speeds for North America (netflix.com)

Submitted by Carnth on Tuesday December 11, 2012 @02:17PM

Carnth writes: Netflix will start releasing monthly ISP speed reports. Google Fiber ranks at the top. Hopefully this will give consumers a better overall picture on how their ISP performs compared to others.

Comment Re:Closing the barn door after the horse is gone (Score 3, Interesting) 197

by muncadunc on Thursday November 22, 2012 @03:25PM (#42067855) Attached to: GNOME 3 To Support a "Classic" Mode, of Sorts

I agree, it is too little, too late.

GNOME 3 has been compared with OSX, but it didn't copy the functional aspects that made OSX good- it only copied the cosmetic aspects, which made the desktop broken. It's got something that looks like a menu bar on the top, but it doesn't actually function as a menu bar- it just takes up space. It's got something that looks like a dock, but it can only be brought up through a full-screen launcher. It doesn't even have a persistent taskbar of any kind: You have to perform an extra action just to see a window list.

There are many ideas in OSX that could be used, ideas that are really good- but cosmetics isn't at the top of the list.
Global menu bar? Maybe. Some people like it, some don't. It's nice as an option. Unity really screwed up by making the global menu take up space but stay hidden until it's moused over. That's blatantly anti-usability.
Only one "System Settings" or "Control Panel", with all settings living in logically organized applets. This is something the Mac does really, really well. All "sharing" settings live in one "sharing" applet, for example. Linux still has problems with functionality being duplicated, or split up into different control panel applets because various under-the-hood things are taken care of by different software. The user doesn't care whether window effects and menu fonts are taken care of by different software- they just want settings to be easily found.
One, universal "system tray" with icons that convey information quickly. OSX does this well, Windows has played catchup but its systray icons aren't quite as readable- Just think of the volume icon, for example. GNOME has tried to do this, but they're all plugins and they aren't compatible with the systray applets that have been in use up to now, hence the hidden floating systray in the lower right for legacy applets. How was this let out the door? It's almost as broken as Windows 8.
The various software that makes up the desktop should have self-explanatory names. The file manager should be called "File Manager". The text editor should be called "Text Editor". People are rightfully confused when they see "Caja".

Of course, this is small potatoes compared to the awfulness they've foisted off with Windows 8. As Microsoft abandons the desktop and users look for a proper OS, I'm holding out honest hope for a Linux desktop with some real usability and polish. Just... for everything to feel like it was developed as a whole.

Comment The Automobile (Score 1) 572

by muncadunc on Monday October 22, 2012 @01:16AM (#41726015) Attached to: What tech would you un-invent?

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned cars yet. Not just their effect on energy waste and the environment, but also their effect on urban planning. People in many areas now have to have cars because everything is designed around them, and things are no longer pedestrian-accessible. When people can't afford to run cars anymore, the suburbs are going to turn into a wasteland.

Journal Journal: Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon 7

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday February 11, 2012 @09:44PM

Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America's uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th nuclear weapon. "Our intelligence estimates indicate that, if it is allowed to progress with its aggressive nuclear program, the United States may soon possess its 8,500th atomic weapon capable of reaching Iran," said Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Sa

Submission + - BBC Discovers Doctor Who (radiotimes.com)

Submitted by

jd

on Monday December 12, 2011 @12:23AM

jd writes: "Well, two long-lost episodes (Galaxy Four part 3 and Underwater Menace part 2). The Radio Times is unimpressed, the BBC is ecstatic, and the "Missing, Presumed Wiped" conference at which they were exhibited are enthralled."

Submission + - Publicly available Russian election results show e (samarcandanalytics.com)

Submitted by

gotfork

on Sunday December 11, 2011 @05:05PM

gotfork writes: "As some Russians protest the results of the recent election, several commentators (Russian, English) have started looking at the results which are posted to the election commission web site and there's very strong evidence of fraud. Voter turnout correlates strongly with percent voting for the ruling party, United Russia, and there are a lot of polling stations with nearly 100% turnout and 100% voting for United Russia in some unusual places. The raw data is posted so you can do your own analysis."

Submission + - Romney and Gingrich Clash on Lunar Mining Colonies (yahoo.com)

Submitted by

MarkWhittington

on Sunday December 11, 2011 @03:07PM

MarkWhittington writes: "During a Republican presidential debate in Des Moines Iowa, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich sparred over an issue that rarely comes up in political debates — lunar mining colonies. Romney said, "We could start with his idea to have a lunar colony that would mine minerals from the moon. I'm not in favor of spending that kind of money to do that." The line brought laughter from the audience."

Submission + - 8 Best Free ASCII Linux Games (linuxlinks.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11, 2011 @12:47PM

An anonymous reader writes: The idiom 'don't judge a book by its cover' can be extended to 'don't judge a computer game by its graphics'. Whilst the games featured in this article have extremely basic graphics, they have many redeeming qualities beyond evoking fond memories of the early days of computer gaming.

Text-based games are often forgotted and neglected in the Linux press. However, there are some real ASCII gems out there waiting to be explored which are immensely addictive and great fun to play.

The purpose of this article is to identify our favourite ASCII based games. There are no fancy graphics here, just great gameplay coupled with the urge of always having just one more play.

Submission + - Is the Earth Special?

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Saturday December 10, 2011 @03:46AM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Planetary scientists say there are aspects to our planet and its evolution that are remarkably strange. In the first place there is earth's strong magnetic field. No one is exactly sure how it works, but has something to do with the turbulent motion that occurs in the Earth's liquid outer core and without it, we would be bombarded by harmful radiation from the Sun. Next there's plate tectonics. We live on a planet that is constantly recycling its crust limiting the amount of carbon dioxide escaping into the atmosphere — a natural way of controlling the greenhouse effect. Then there's Jupiter-sized outer planets protecting the earth from frequent large impacts. But the strangest thing of all is our big Moon. "As the Earth rotates, it wobbles on its axis like a child's spinning top," says Prof Monica Grady. "What the Moon does is dampen down that wobble and that helps to prevent extreme climate fluctuations" — which would be detrimental to life." The moon's tides have also made long swaths of earth's coastline into areas of that are regularly shifted between dry and wet providing a proving ground for early sea life to test the land for its suitability as a habitat. The "Rare Earth Hypothesis is one solution to the Fermi Paradox (PDF) because, if Earth is uniquely special as an abode of life, ETI will necessarily be rare or even non-existent. And in the absence of verifiable alien contact, scientific opinion will forever remain split as to whether the Universe teems with life or we are alone in the inky blackness."

Submission + - 'Vocal Fry' Creeping Into U.S. Speech (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit on Friday December 09, 2011 @03:39PM

sciencehabit writes: A curious vocal pattern has crept into the speech of young adult women who speak American English: low, creaky vibrations, also called vocal fry. Pop singers, such as Britney Spears, slip vocal fry into their music as a way to reach low notes and add style. Now, a new study of young women in New York state shows that the same guttural vibration—once considered a speech disorder—has become a language fad.

Submission + - Why Android Upgrades Take So Long

Submitted by adeelarshad82 on Thursday December 08, 2011 @04:43PM

adeelarshad82 writes: Google released the Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" code base to the general public and the manufacturers. Though it maybe a while before it's actually rolled out to the phones. In an attempt to explain why it takes so long, Motorola and Sony Ericsson shed some light on the process involved. Motorola described the long testing process involved where as Sony explained the issue with the time consuming certification process.

Submission + - 'Merging Tsunami' Amplified Destruction in Japan

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Tuesday December 06, 2011 @09:26PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The magnitude-9.0 Tohoku-Oki temblor, the fifth-most powerful quake ever recorded, triggered a tsunami that doubled in intensity over rugged ocean ridges, amplifying its destructive power at landfall, as seen in data from NASA and European radar satellites that captured at least two wave fronts that day that merged to form a single, double-high wave far out at sea. This wave was capable of traveling long distances without losing power. Ocean ridges and undersea mountain chains pushed the waves together along certain directions from the tsunami's origin. "It was a one-in-10-million chance that we were able to observe this double wave with satellites," says study team member Y. Tony Song. "Researchers have suspected for decades that such 'merging tsunamis' might have been responsible for the 1960 Chilean tsunami that killed about 200 people in Japan and Hawaii, but nobody had definitively observed a merging tsunami until now," The study suggests scientists may be able to create maps that take into account all undersea topography, even sub-sea ridges and mountains far from shore to help scientists improve tsunami forecasts. "We can use what we learned to make better forecasts of tsunami danger in specific coastal regions anywhere in the world, depending on the location and the mechanism of an undersea quake," says team member C.K. Shum."

Submission + - You can't run from the cop car of the future (msn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 04, 2011 @08:04PM

An anonymous reader writes: Police cars of the very near future will be scary smart. Equipped with eight cameras, voice commands, incredibly intelligent software, and LTE radios, perps won't get away with anything.

Motorola Solutions isn't working on building the latest and greatest Droid — that's Motorola Mobility. These guys have their fingers more in corporate and governmental pots. Engineers have done hundreds of ride-alongs, surveys, and simulations, and have applied all of their wireless knowledge into designing a police car that is so advanced it's actually very unsettling.

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