I don't understand why they called Eve's launch bad. It would have been a catastrophe if it had been as big as some of the fantasy ones listed, because of the way they run everything on one server. Can you imagine them trying to do 50k simultaneous users back before they had RamSans, with their 2003 budget? No way.

But they have steadily grown and improved, just as intended; running a profitable independent game company for over 5 years is no small feat.

Here's a response from an American in China with some good considerations on where to draw the line: http://odwks.com/2009/03/mandarin-chinese-programmer-communites/

Except that even the windows steps start with something familiar, My Computer. Maybe even My Documents. Or if you want to get extremely advanced, open Windows Explorer.

Wow, what a missed opportunity for the direction I thought your post was going to go. Linux geeks, have a look at this guide for the filesystem layout of Debian. I dare you to come up with a sensible explanation for why this is a good, user-friendly, intuitive idea. Let's not even get into the further mucking of the issue that comes from software written for different distros expecting directories to be used for different things, or to be located in different places.

Compare to Windows: You have 'My Documents', which contains - surprise! - your documents. It also has subfolders for your pictures, downloads, videos, etc., all named in a sane and consistent fashion that makes it immediately obvious what the folder is for. Then you have 'Windows', which contains all the scary OS related stuff that 99% of users, even very advanced users, will never have to muck around with. Bar the very odd exception (how many Windows users actually manually edit their hosts file? Less than 1% by a longshot, I'm willing to bet), the stuff in there is for the computer's benefit only. Lastly, you have 'Program Files', where all your programs are installed and conveniently sorted so that all the files for a given application that you will ever need to modify are located inside its folder or in a folder that you can reach easily via a shortcut in its folder.

I understand that for legacy and arguably security reasons, *nix filesystems are quite different from Windows, but surely something could be done to make it at least sort-of sane?

but you don't need to read a book to figure out which way to lean when you are making a left turn.

You might be surprised how many people wreck their bikes because they're afraid if they lean with it on a turn, it will fall over or they'll scrape their elbows off or whatever (sitting up straight or leaning to the outside of the turn is a really great way to lay down your motorcycle.)
I see what you were getting at, but you probably could have picked a better analogy. ;)

Why did they hit on Zip and Jaz, but leave off Rev drives?

Yeah, as others have said, this is just a list of currently popular games or the most well-known representatives of currently popular franchises. Influence has nothing to do with it. Oblivion could never have hoped to be as big as it was without all the buzz generated by people who played Morrowind.

I don't see how FF XII can even be on the list; it hasn't even been around long enough to be an influence to anything else, and since it is such a derivative of MMO's without adding much (anything?) new to RPG's in general, I don't think it's likely it will be seen as influential in the future.

I don't see any RTS's on there. How the hell could they miss Starcraft, or even Warcraft III, which had such an incredible editor it spawned a few unrelated genres of it's own? I don't see any construction simulators. SimCity 2000? [Insert Industry Here] Tycoon? I don't see any adventure games. Even if you accept that adventure games aren't terribly big sellers, you can't deny that Myst and Riven were incredible in terms of atmosphere and engaging plot, and one can only imagine the sort of effect that the earliest text adventure games had on budding game developers back in the stone ages of the industry.

I tried Vanguard for a few months shortly after it came out. It seemed like it could be really fun, lots of potential there, but it crashed more than any game I've ever played. More than Morrowind, even. And there was no protection so that your character wouldn't get slaughtered if your game crashed, so it was frustrating. Also, I think I picked the worst race possible - it was the ones that look like cat people (so I could be a necro). They were 'kill on sight' to the people in all the major cities of their own home continent, and also that home continent was horribly, horribly unfinished.

But...if they've made it this far, they must be doing something right. I may have to give it another shot.

Any /.'ers play that could say if things have improved?

Hacks

'edit' (DOS) - I probably use that the most for basic text editing, since I usually have a command prompt up anyways.

Enh, fair enough, but since the sort of stuff people normally need help with is, in part, what I actually do at work, I'd rather just tell them no than risk being caught out in a lie down the road.

Or you could just do what I do:

Acquaintance: Oh, you do computers? Can you fix my Windows?
Me: No, I don't work on computers outside of my job.

Nearly everyone who is an acquaintance has gone through that conversation with me at some point in time or another, and it's never been a problem. Most people just shrug and say, "Oh, well can you recommend somebody who does?" I think most computer professionals are afraid of how people will respond to them being blunt about that sort of thing, but the reality is that most people (in my experience, at least*) are perfectly accepting and understanding about it.

*I suppose, though, that it might be worth noting that although I'm typically the shy / quiet / not terribly social type, I am tall, in good shape, and have a deep voice, so when I do make myself stand up straight, look people in the eye, and be assertive and direct, they tend to respond how I'd like them to. YMMV if you're closer to the stereotypical 'geek', especially if you can't learn to make yourself use body language properly.

And by the way, the method I mentioned in the other post (ctrl-alt-del, t) is how I've done it since NT 4.0 as well, hehe, so it's deep ingrained muscle memory.

ctrl-alt-del, t
I might be able to get used to ctrl-shift-esc (never knew about that), but since I use ctrl-alt-del all the time anyways (log on / lock / log off / shutdown), it's the fastest-by-muscle-memory way to do it, for me. *shrug*

I've just recently been getting a group of 2008 x64 servers up and running, and for the most part, I actually like them. And no, you don't have to deal with the UAC popups etc. the way it is in Vista for every damned little thing.

My favorite usability change in Vista is probably the way that start menu folders are automatically and by default sorted alphabetically, instead of just appended to the end as they're added.