Roll on Haiku finally getting an ISO of their OS ready. Then real work on getting an Ubunutu equivalent of Haiku can start. Haiku has been non-ISO for too long, but recent developments (native GCC/G++ 4.0) mean that may end soon.

Ditto for ReactOS.

Then issues like this can go away (I hope).

For the record: I make my living writing software for MS operating systems. MSDN is awesome and makes OSDN look pathetic. But this type of thing by Microsoft only works against them, so I wish for a solution that sidesteps that mentality, hence Haiku and ReactOS.

Software patents should be abolished - compete on the quality of implementation.

Its pretty clear from the job posting on Linked In that this guy has to know about Netbooks and mobile devices. That is explicit. Also further down in the posting it mentions not only x86 but also ARM - which is definitely mobile territory and many think will soon be Netbook territory. I'll only get a Netbook when its got an ARM in it. And of course it'll have Ubuntu on it when that happens - no Windows for ARM at the moment.

OK, what about this for an idea? We already know about "Singularity" - the byte code OS from Microsoft - they could port that to a Netbook very quickly - just port the runtime to ARM and the rest works (ok, slight simplification, but a lot easier than porting Windows 7 to ARM).

OK, that was a wild idea, but you never know.

Anyway, my 2 penneth, they are targetting Netbooks.

With Windows 2000 and XP, search worked, especially once you turned off the smiling dog and configured XP search to work like 2000 search (i.e. it does what you want it to, not what it thinks you want it to).

With Vista, they made search awful. Firstly they simplified it so that for anything that a developer would want to do you had to do a search you knew would fail and then in the resulting dialog (because there is no other way to get that dialog, well not that I've found) you got to interact with possibly one of the worst ever designed search dialogs going. No way a non-techie could use it. Almost as if the Visual Studio 7 search dialog team had been let lose on Vista!

Now we get to Windows 7, and the search experience is worse! You still have to do the stupid search that you know will fail, but when it does fail there is no sensible way to do a better search. There is an abomination called Custom Search that isn't, there is no way to search the whole filesystem, including hidden files and non-indexed locations (if there is, please tell me!). Its awful.

I can see I'm going to have to write my own search dialog for use with Windows 7. Yes, its that bad.

The explorer file navigation pane is still missing the "up" button that was present in all versions of Windows prior to Vista. Yes I know I can click on the appropriate point on the dynamic thingy above but in my usage the new "user friendly" way introduced with Vista is slower to use and requires more accuracy in mouse usage than simply clicking the up button a few times.

On the plus side, I haven't tripped over any god-awful "you can't do that" admin dialogs like in Vista (where the best thing you can do is turn that feature off).

I just don't understand how every time they try to make Windows friendlier to novices they make it harder to use for everyone. And in the process Ubuntu just looks better and better, not withstanding the fact it is getting better and better. Seems like MS are trying to damage themselves. Just hope the Ubuntu guys see these changes in Vista/Windows 7 and don't go there with their UI.

I love the eye candy, but its worth nothing if the useful features are broken. Who wants a sports car fitted with a 1 litre 2 stroke engine?

Stephen

The problem is, as I've been flamed for before, Linux is still nowhere near the point where a non-techie will consider adopting it.

I disagree, its more than ready.

My father is 70 and self-taught in terms of computers. He has a non-tech background, he worked for Customs and Excise, finding drug smugglers, identifying fraudulent tax and gambling schemes and implementing the dreaded VAT. Definitely not technical. Occasionally I get a call from him to ask "how do I do this?", or "what does this mean?", not much. He has used Windows all the time and refused to upgrade to Vista. He wants it to use Office, use the Web (Firefox), email (Thunderbird), write notes on historical research and do some image processing with his digital photos.

Then about a month ago out of the blue I found out that he had installed Ubuntu 8.10 on his PC. He was really happy with it. Everything worked, it even resized his partitions nicely and kept his Windows stuff as well.

As I write this he is setting up a refurbished Dell multimedia system with XP and Ubuntu with no help from me (other than to tell him to choose NTFS rather than FAT32 when installing XP).

Also, things *do* work with the latest Ubuntu. Its so much better than say a year ago. I recently setup two machines with Ubuntu and everything setup without me touching one config file, even the dual monitor ATI card. Just as easy (and faster) than setting up XP on the same hardware.

If a 70 year old non-techie can do that, anyone can. Linux has arrived, its called Ubuntu :-)

Stephen

Frequently the people at the top have no idea of the screws instigated in their name by the people lower down.

It seems in the US, from what I read on this topic, Lexus === old folks, but in the UK its a premium brand for all ages. Knowing this will happen has guaranteed I will never consider Lexus as a serious choice in the future (back to considering German only cars).

Thats seriously bad marketing.

I've lived with RSI since 1993 - you get used to recognising things that do not help ergonomically. This looks like one of those things.

One of the major problems with RSI is that prolonged activation of muscle groups leads to fatigue. The term for this is static loading.

This is why click and release mouse behaviour (to activate menus, then click again to choose) is better for your health than the alternative method (click and hold, release to choose) because the alternative forces you to hold the mouse button down until you make your choice.

This keyboard idea is doing the same thing.

I suspect healthy people may like this keyboard and those suffering from RSI will dislike it greatly.

Info on RSI and remedial exercises: http://www.objmedia.demon.co.uk/rsi/rsi_srk.html

Stephen

Peadophilia is, statistically speaking, less of a threat to your children than lightning.

Odds of being struck by lightning in the US. Do various searches on the internet. Values between 244,000:1 and 576,000:1.

Assuming a US population of 250 million, with the lower number, that means there should be about 1000 victims of paedophilia in the US per year.

With the higher number, about 500 per year.

Doesn't matter which you pick, you are wrong. Its still true if you have a US population of 350 million.