RockHorn - Slashdot User

Lack of Manpower May Kill VLC For Mac 398

Posted by timothy on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @05:53PM from the vlc-generally-rocks dept.

plasmacutter writes "The Video Lan dev team has recently come forward with a notice that the number of active developers for the project's MacOS X releases has dropped to zero, prompting a halt in the release schedule. There is now a disturbing possibility that support for Mac will be dropped as of 1.1.0. As the most versatile and user-friendly solution for bridging the video compatibility gap between OS X and windows, this will be a terrible loss for the Mac community. There is still hope, however, if the right volunteers come forward."

Comment Leap chair (Score 1) 2

by RockHorn on Wednesday March 26, 2008 @10:32AM (#22869064) Attached to: What type of chair do you use for programming?

I swear by my leap chair:
http://www.steelcase.com/na/leap_products.aspx?f=11852

I've heard it was designed for air traffic controllers, another group who sits all day.

Submission + - GUI Design Book Recommendations? 8

Submitted by jetpack on Monday December 31, 2007 @07:39PM

jetpack writes: I've always hated writing user interfaces, and graphical user interfaces in particular. However, I suspect that is largely because I have no clue how to write a *good* one. By this, I don't mean the technical aspects, like using the APIs and so on. I mean what are the issues in designing an interface that is clean, easy to understand and easy to use? What are things to be considered? What are things to be avoided? What are good over-all philosophies of UI design?

To this end, I'd like to pick up a book or two (or three) and get my learn on. I'd appreciate some book suggestions from the UI experts in the Slashdot crowd.

Submission + - Rodents of Unusual Size Found in New Guinea (bbc.co.uk) 3

Submitted by Morse Code Name on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @01:19PM

Morse Code Name writes: Apparently, researchers trekking through what's been dubbed the "Lost World" in New Guinea have discovered a "giant rodent five times the size of a common rat". With luck, detailed information on flame spurts and lightning sand will follow shortly.

Submission + - The mainframe's new best friend: OpenSolaris (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Monday December 03, 2007 @05:32PM

coondoggie writes: "There was a time not too long ago when IBM would have called out the National Guard to keep anyone other than IBM away from its mainframe technology. Not so much any more. The latest evidence: Last week Big Blue along with Sine Nomine Associates demonstrated Sun's Solaris operating system running on the Big Iron. Specifically OpenSolaris was running on the mainframe's z/VM subsystem which allows more than 1,000 virtual images on a single hypervisor. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22587"

Journal SPAM: Chinese sub pops up in middle of U.S. Navy exercise 20

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday November 12, 2007 @04:04AM

One Nato figure said the effect was "as big a shock as the Russians launching Sputnik." American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close to the vast U.S.S. Kitty Hawk. By the time it surfaced the 160ft Song Class diesel-electric attack submarine sailed within viable range fo

Submission + - Microsoft to leaves .net apps out in the cold

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29, 2007 @10:11PM

An anonymous reader writes: Many people have heard of Microsoft's new "Server Core", a stripped down 'lean and mean' install of the new Server 2008 platform. However, few seem to realize that with this edition of the operating system, Microsoft seems to be pulling the rug out from under everyone who uses the .NET Framework. There will be no .NET Framework or Runtime components available for Server Core! That's right, the great and grand .NET platform which Microsoft has touted so heavily for its flexibility, power and security is being left out. Whats better, is that this seems to be as a result of .NET's runtime reliance on Explorer and its inability to be modularized. All those people developing next-gen web services, servers and tools in .NET seem to have been left out in the cold.

http://blogs.technet.com/server_core/archive/2007/06/26/iis-in-server-core.aspx — > IIS included in Server Core — Managed Code and ASP.NET left out

Even Microsoft's own new tools, such as Powershell, won't work as a result. This seems like a confusing move, considering the weight MS has previously thrown behind .NET. It seems funny that Mono can bring .NET to unix, but Microsoft can't seem to bring .NET to windows.

Submission + - Dell pulls support for x64 Vista? (neowin.net) 5

Submitted by

leighklotz

on Thursday October 25, 2007 @12:21PM

leighklotz writes: "This message is getting forwarded about with some concern by those who have to validate software on multiple platforms...it looks like Windows is beginning to see the fragmentation that Linux is so often accused of.

A user named "Morpheus Phreak" wrote on neowin:

I do a fresh install of Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Edition. The install finishes and my system reboots with in-box drivers for almost all of my hardware. The first thing I do is go to the Dell Support site and download drivers, or do I? It seems that Dell has decided to stop supporting all 64-bit editions of Windows, thus nothing to download.

I make a post on their forums asking if anyone knows if it's temporary and I receive this response from a Dell employee:

"It cost us in time and money to validate drivers. We built PCs with specific operating systems in mind. That is all we will support."

I mention to the Dell employee that he must be mistaken as that would violate their Vista Logo contract with Microsoft. At this point the Dell employee replied tersely with the following:

"Be assured, our legal team is on top of this decision."

At this point I'm stumped and a bit angry. After all the OEM Logo requirements state, "OEMs using x64 implementations must have signed drivers available to end users if shipping a 32-bit version of Windows Vista on the system."

By removing their x64 driver support they have now violated their contract with Microsoft. Any x64-based systems they sell now with the logo are illegal. One can only help but wonder, why would Dell put themselves in this position?

I'll kindly step down from my Soapbox now, but I ask one question to all of you.

Where do we go from here?

"

Submission + - Announcing jMonkeyEngine version 1.0!

Submitted by Moondevil on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @05:05AM

Moondevil writes: After more than four years of hard work and many point releases, the developers behind the jMonkeyEngine are proud to announce the release of version 1.0 of their Java game engine. The jMonkeyEngine is a high performance game library providing all the tools needed to build quality 3D games and applications in Java. Used by professional game companies such as NCsoft, Three Rings, Jadestone and others as well as government and hobbyist developers, the jMonkeyEngine has raised the bar for quality Java-based 3D entertainment.

Learn more about the jMonkeyEngine and get involved today at its website.

I am transcribing the announcement made at their website.

Submission + - Java 6 and Leopard 3

Submitted by

nyri

on Sunday October 21, 2007 @10:49AM

nyri writes: "As a professional Java coder and consultant, I switched to OS X two years ago. I felt that my Java stuff works on it. After release on Java 6, I have felt otherwise: there is no OS X release. I assumed that Leopard would have Java 6 but I haven't seen a trace of it. I am seriously considering moving back to Windows (Linux, alas, is not an option for me in my corporate enviroment).
Has Apple, for some reason, decided that Java support does not pay off? Is this just a delay or has Apple decided to abandon Java support for good? Maybe you fellow slashdotters can give some answers to these questions.
All in all, other Java coders out there, how long are willing to put up with this kind of blatant ignorance of your needs? Or, do you have some nice technical solutions to this, which I am not-so-blissfully ignorant about?"

Submission + - Slashdot Reverses Facts about Radiohead 1

Submitted by Apro+im on Thursday October 18, 2007 @02:16PM

Apro+im writes: The popular news aggregation website, Slashdot today reported that the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows was pirated more than it was procured via legitimate means, setting off a flurry of speculation on their online discussion board as to the implications of this "fact". Strangely overlooked in much of the discussion, however, was the fact that the article they linked contained the exact opposite information, stating:

"The file was downloaded about 100,000 more times each day — adding up to more than 500,000 total illegal downloads. That's less than the 1.2 million legitimate online sales of the album reported by the British Web site Gigwise.com"

Questions about what this implies about Slashdot's editorial practices and readership remain unanswered.

Submission + - Why Users Ditch OS X for Windows (osweekly.com) 7

Submitted by

coward

on Thursday October 18, 2007 @02:12AM

coward writes: "OSWeekly.com says users ditch OS X for Windows. Why? It's too pricey, the article claims. "If one more person points me to a Mini and tells me this is going to replace a 2.00GHz PC with standalone video and a SATA drive, I'm going to scream. Despite Apple providing a superior OS for the casual consumer, it remains a price issue for most people. You take any unsuspecting cash conscious family and if you actually tell me that they are going to be willing to drop $1,099 versus $499 on a notebook for their child, you had better present one serious sales pitch. Even considering the long-term value, malware-free environment, those parents would be presenting their soon to be college aged kid, the fact is they are not informed enough to understand that the $499 notebook is an utter junk, thanks to poor hardware quality."

Submission + - BBC partners with Adobe to add iPlayer streaming (last100.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15, 2007 @07:15PM

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC's iPlayer will roll out a streaming option later this year, in a move that will finally make the UK-only TV catchup service available to Mac and Linux users, in addition to those using a Windows-based PC. Described as a "strategic partnership", by Erik Huggers, BBC future media and technology group controller, the new version of iPlayer will use Flash video technology from Adobe, and is said to compliment the existing Windows-only download version of the service, which utilizes Microsoft's Windows Media DRM software.

Submission + - OpenOffice.org 3.0 Wants to Compete with Outlook

Submitted by jason on Saturday October 13, 2007 @11:02PM

jason writes: At the OpenOffice.org 2007 conference about a month ago there was a presentation on what to expect in the next major milestone for their Microsoft Office competitor. "The presentation mentions bundling Thunderbird with their Office Suite, and refers to it as an 'Outlook replacement.' This is all assuming that Thunderbird recently losing two of it's main developers doesn't affect the decision, because I'm sure OpenOffice wants to ensure that Thunderbird will continue to progress before including it." This probably won't sway large corporations away from using Microsoft Office, but it could make it more intriguing for the smaller businesses that are looking to cut some costs.

Submission + - CSS Equivalent of Prototype? (thinkingserious.com)

Submitted by

thinkingserious

on Saturday October 13, 2007 @04:27AM

thinkingserious writes: "One of our programmers had the following comment in a recent Subversion commit: "Verified to display correctly with IE6, IE7, FF Ubuntu, FF, Galeon, Konqueror". Sigh... don't you hate when you have to do that? Frameworks like Prototype and Symfony has made development life much easier, but sadly CSS cross browser hell still brings the pain. So I ask, can some brave master-hacker create a Prototype/Symfony like framework for us poor CSS/HTML programmers?"

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