Linux-Advocacy Digest #459, Volume #30 Mon, 27 Nov 00 00:13:02 EST
Contents:
Re: Whistler review. ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Whistler review. ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Whistler review. ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Whistler review. ("Bennetts family")
Re: C++ -- Our Industry... ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Whistler review.
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 23:35:09 -0500
Ayende Rahien wrote:
>
> I've finally gotten whistler (pro, 2296, beta 1), and I'm *liking* it.
> For those of you who doesn't know what this is, whistler is an the new OS
> (the one that will inherit both win2k & win ME) from Microsoft, destined to
> finally eliminated the 9x line.
>
> Here is my biased review.
> I'm going to limit myself to comments about the new GUI and features of the
> OS, as this a Beta1, it's not yet appropriate to talk about performace and
> stability yet.
>
> Starting with the install, you stick the cd in the drive, set the BIOS to
> boot from the CD, and you are done.
> Strangely enough, I have the system up and running without returning to the
> BIOS to change the settings, and it's still working.
>
> The installation itself is pretty similar to Windows 2000, blue screen in
> text mode, and afterward the familiar wizard style.
> The main difference is that it's now uses the "simpler start menu" as a
> background.
> Installation took little longer than an hour, most of the time to format a
> NTFS HD.
> After the text mode, which require some little knowledge in the computer's
> HD, the installer required very little input from the user, and did all the
> configuration on its on.
> The computer is win2k HCLed, btw.
>
> As a note:
> For some reason, it thinks that I've multiply monitors, likely because I've
> a TV-Out card. This doesn't seem to cause any problems whatsoever, so I
> don't think I would bother to fiddle with it in the near future.
>
> The new startup screen is cool, but I like the win2k one better, the win2k
> one provide some (limited, but real) information on how much progress the OS
> had in loading itself.
> Whistler's startup screen provide no such information, in that, it's very
> much like the win9x startup screens.
>
> The system finished loading, and you get a pretty wizard like interface
> which explained you how to use the computer (can't report much about this, I
> quited this part when it started explaining how to you the mouse.), ask you
> whatever you want to register at Microsoft.com, and help you setup a dial up
> account.
> Then you create users, You can create up to six users in this screen.
> I don't like this way very much, all the accounts you create this way are
> admins, with no passwords set on them, and you get *no* warning about this.
> The user interface itself, for that matter, isn't very good comparing to NT
> or 2000.
> You can enter a user's name, and a picture, if you like, but that is about
> it.
> Accounts are created without passwords by default, another thing I don't
> like.
> And when you login, all the accounts on the computer are presented to you,
> which is another mistake.
>
> I can see the reasons behind this, of course, as the whistler I'm using is
> supposed to go to home users, where you rarely need such security measures,
> and there are probably ways to fix those things, which I'm currently
> clueless about.
> The biggest problem I've with this (all accounts being displayed) can
> apperantly turned off quite easily (I've not tested it yet, though)
>
> Strangely enough, by default, the desktop don't display the "My Computer"
> and "My Documents" icon folders.
> With those icons being probably the most important in handling windows, I'm
> quite sure it's a bug.
> Another bug I found is in the control panel>mouse>pointer options, where the
> "Show location" option doesn't warp, so the "y." (at least I assume that it
> what it's supposed to be) cannot be seen.
>
> The icons problem was fixed by right clicking the desktop, active
> desktop>customise my desktop, btw.
> I also recommend to use the "Proffessional" image as background to the
> desktop, totally cool.
>
> The entire GUI is cool, for that matter.
> It feel like a game or a flash applet.
> The login screen, for example, is in pastel colors, and you've a list of
> users, with pictures near each name, and when your mouse is over a username,
> all the other usernames fade out.
> If you click a username, and it has no password, it moved to the center of
> the upper half of the screen, and it would tell you what it's doing (3 - 4
> seconds process) while it loads your settings.
> If it has a password, it opens (open like a drawer, really cool) a box that
> ask you to enter the password.
> On NT & 2000, you needed a *long* password to feel the password box, in
> whistler, it takes very few characters for the password box to be full on
> the black circles, so you've no indication whatever you are still typing.
> It makes sense, I assume, as it obscure password length to onlookers, and
> it's no worse than unix no showing what you type at all.
>
> I like the "simpler start menu", for now, at least.
> It would take some getting used to, I suppose. But I suspect it can also
> drive a person crazy, very easily. One thing that I already find annoying in
> this is that you can't logoff without using the mouse.
> And logging off is something that I think that I'll have to do quite often
> in Whistler, at least in the first period.
> You can revert back to the normal windows way, of course.
>
> Alt+Ctrl+Delete behave quite unlike what you expect.
> In 9x, it brings you a list of running application, which allows you
> (hopefully) to close them.
> In NT/2000, it brings a list of options, which I find more practical than
> the 9x one.
> In whistler, you get "Task Manager", which NT/2000 users should be familiar
> with.
> You can do everything you used to be abled to do with the NT ctrl+alt+del,
> except change your password, which must be done throught the user settings
> in the control panel.
>
> One of the coolest features in in Whistler is the ability to logoff and
> leave all your current applications working.
> User A log on, do some work, and has to go. He log off, and go away for some
> time. User B comes along, log on, do his stuff until he is done, and then he
> log off.
> User A return, he log on, all his applications are intact, for those of you
> who are familiar with NT/2000, it's similar to computer lock.
> Infact, in Whistler, Locking the computer is very similar to Switch user.
> One thing, though, if you play a cd and lock the computer, and log as
> another user, you still hear the cd. I've to test it for other sound
> programs, but I believe it's a CD related issue.
> You can also log off completely, thus releasing the resources that you took.
>
> Those of you who are familiar with linux, it's similar to Alt+F#, only in
> GUI.
> It's a little more cumbersome to move between users, because you has to
> logon to do so, but it's working.
> Unfortantely, there are no virutal desktops, such as there is in Gnome &
> KDe, which can be very useful.
> There is something which is called "Clean up notification area" which may
> provide similar ability. (The main reason for virtual desktop is to keep the
> taskbar or whatever you call it from cluttering, this should solve this,
> apperantly.)
>
> Whistler currently comes with IE & OE 5.6, which doesn't seem to offer any
> big improvement over IE 5.5, at least on the surface.
>
> To my joy, the wide languague support from 2000 remained on Whistler. (Which
> wasn't the case on ME, which really pissed me off)
> Trying to change different settings proved quite easy, although tooltips are
> too widely used, IMHO. But I can understand why they are neccesary, and they
> proved to be handy.
> Another problem is in the task bar, in normal winodws mode, the application
> on focus has its tab in the spacebar pressed, which make it easy to detect
> it.
> On Whistler (professional skin), the tabs on the applications are
> highlighted, which takes getting used to. In the meantime, I get a lot of
> windows minimized when I don't want them to because of this.
> It's also hard to tell where one application tab is ending, and where
> another begin.
> And the scroll bars aren't a great idea either, white on pale gray is nice
> if you bother to actually *look* at it, but who looks at a scroll bar
> anyway? You want something that is easy for the eye to see.
> I like the skinning idea, but at the moment, I only have two (pro &
> classic), anybody knows whatever there are more out there?
>
> The Explorer has been changed quite dramatically. Now you can call it
> pretty.
> And the help system has been given a face lift as well. The Win95 help got
> the "Interface Hall Of Shame" award, I think that whistler's help system is
> at least a runner up for "Interface Hall of Face" award.
> The entire GUI is very good, although I get a chuckle out of "Comments?" on
> top of everything.
> I wouldn't call Windows9x/NT pretty.
> Useful, yes, and the 2000 GUI is much nicer then those before it, but
> Whistler *is* pretty.
>
> From the overall easiness of working with the system, I've to say that MS
> took a long hard look at the iMac success, which was largely based on its
> look and "just plug it in" slogan.
> And decided that they can do it better.
>
> I would refrain from commenting whatever they actually succeeded in that,
> because it's still a beta, and because I don't have that much experiance on
> Macs.
> And practically none at all on an iMac or an iBook.
>
> However, in its current state, I have to say that Whistler is pretty awesome
> UI-wise. I'll have to study it much more to find out if it can serve as more
> than a toy.
> Right now, I would rather use the beta than any win9x, including win98se.
> It's based on NT kernel, which mean it *can't* be as bad as the 9x line.
> At the very least, it's going to be a cool workstation.
>
> For now, I think that there is a good chance that Whistler will be as good
> from win2k as win2k was from NT.
Wow....look at this car
It's great
It's fantastic.
They painted it at the factory!!!!
No, I don't know anything about whether the engine is any good,
or how it handles in turns....or even going in a straight line
down a highway at a mere 60 km/h (US 40 mph)...i only got to
drive it 5 feet forwards and back..
Yeah...I know there's no locks on the doors...and you can't
roll up the windows...and...you know...it doesn't have any
rear view mirrors...or seat belts...and that hand-crank in
place of the usual steering wheel is gonna take some getting
used to...and...yeah, it's kinda strange how they put the
radio upside down mounted on the floor...it's got a really
leaky fuel system...but...it's got a custom paint job...and
when I crack up on the highway, and die in a ball of fire...
well, it's gonna look really cool!
And...looking cool THAT's what's REALLY important...
Here's a hint, Ayende....GROW THE FUCK UP
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Whistler review.
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 23:37:34 -0500
kiwiunixman wrote:
>
> I too have had a look at Whistler, and I seems to be developing pretty
> good, however, I am not particulary worried about Whistler as I am
> getting a Ultra Sparc 5 400Mhz next year (around January). Hopefully
> Microsoft will keep to its promises, rather than make a half-ass effort
> so that they can get it out the door. Also, I am a little worried about
> what the hardware requirements will be as Windows 2000 Pro, IMHO is mega
> bloatware, in that, what Windows does vs. it's size can not be justified.
Worse than that...it's a security nightmare..but damn, it has
a two-tone paint job....in fact...they put 90% of the development
effort into the paint job.
Well, it will impress the lusers, no doubt.
Proof? Ayende's deliriously giddy opinion based on nothing
more than a change of colors and other minor, aesthetic details
with absolutely ZERO functional value.
> kiwiunixman
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Whistler review.
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 23:51:25 -0500
Glitch wrote:
>
> Tom Elam wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 27 Nov 2000 02:30:51 +0200, Tom Elam wrote this reply to "Ayende
> > Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >
> > >For now, I think that there is a good chance that Whistler will be as good
> > >from win2k as win2k was from NT.
> >
> > That would make it a pretty impressive piece of software.
> >
>
> yep, only 2 crashes per day instead of 5, and only 5 employees angry for
> their work being lost instead of 10 employees.
This frog shit beats the hell out of whale shit.
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Bennetts family" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Whistler review.
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 15:58:26 +1100
"Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8vsa9p$5e8t6$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I've finally gotten whistler (pro, 2296, beta 1), and I'm *liking* it.
> For those of you who doesn't know what this is, whistler is an the new OS
> (the one that will inherit both win2k & win ME) from Microsoft, destined
to
> finally eliminated the 9x line.
About bloody time.
> Here is my biased review.
> I'm going to limit myself to comments about the new GUI and features of
the
> OS, as this a Beta1, it's not yet appropriate to talk about performace and
> stability yet.
Fair enough.
> Starting with the install, you stick the cd in the drive, set the BIOS to
> boot from the CD, and you are done.
> Strangely enough, I have the system up and running without returning to
the
> BIOS to change the settings, and it's still working.
So's mine, running 98SE and Mandrake 7.0, funnily enough.
> The installation itself is pretty similar to Windows 2000, blue screen in
> text mode, and afterward the familiar wizard style.
> The main difference is that it's now uses the "simpler start menu" as a
> background.
> Installation took little longer than an hour, most of the time to format a
> NTFS HD.
> After the text mode, which require some little knowledge in the computer's
> HD, the installer required very little input from the user, and did all
the
> configuration on its on.
> The computer is win2k HCLed, btw.
Does it tell you what it is doing? Does it give you the option during the
install to put on 3rd party drivers for hardware from CD so you don't have
to endure 304 reboots post install? Naahh, didn't think so...
> The new startup screen is cool, but I like the win2k one better, the win2k
> one provide some (limited, but real) information on how much progress the
OS
> had in loading itself.
> Whistler's startup screen provide no such information, in that, it's very
> much like the win9x startup screens.
Try linux, it tells you every damn thing, which makes debugging easy, and
gives you real feedback on what parts of the startup are taking most time,
and what daemons are loading.
> Accounts are created without passwords by default, another thing I don't
> like.
> And when you login, all the accounts on the computer are presented to you,
> which is another mistake.
ROTFL!!! Ahh yes, at this stage, it is safe to say whistler != secure. Just
what we need for servers.
> Strangely enough, by default, the desktop don't display the "My Computer"
> and "My Documents" icon folders.
> With those icons being probably the most important in handling windows,
I'm
> quite sure it's a bug.
I believe it's a feature, to hide the stuff from lusers so they don't hurt
themselves.
> Another bug I found is in the control panel>mouse>pointer options, where
the
> "Show location" option doesn't warp, so the "y." (at least I assume that
it
> what it's supposed to be) cannot be seen.
Not warping is a good thing. Not wrapping, OTOH... ;-)
> The entire GUI is cool, for that matter.
> It feel like a game or a flash applet.
Just what we all need when we are trying to get *work* done.
> The login screen, for example, is in pastel colors, and you've a list of
> users, with pictures near each name, and when your mouse is over a
username,
> all the other usernames fade out.
> If you click a username, and it has no password, it moved to the center of
> the upper half of the screen, and it would tell you what it's doing (3 - 4
> seconds process) while it loads your settings.
> If it has a password, it opens (open like a drawer, really cool) a box
that
> ask you to enter the password.
Animations...ouch...slow...I just want to logon, dagnammit, not watch a damn
Flash animation.
> On NT & 2000, you needed a *long* password to feel the password box, in
> whistler, it takes very few characters for the password box to be full on
> the black circles, so you've no indication whatever you are still typing.
> It makes sense, I assume, as it obscure password length to onlookers, and
> it's no worse than unix no showing what you type at all.
Not showing anything ala Unix etc is a security measure, noone looking over
your shoulder or somehow getting onto a VT can suss the length of it. And
anyway, if you make a mistake, whatever sort of blobs are there, you need to
retype it from scratch anyway.
> I like the "simpler start menu", for now, at least.
> It would take some getting used to, I suppose. But I suspect it can also
> drive a person crazy, very easily. One thing that I already find annoying
in
> this is that you can't logoff without using the mouse.
Doesn't Win+L work any more?
...
> User A return, he log on, all his applications are intact, for those of
you
> who are familiar with NT/2000, it's similar to computer lock.
It's in *nix, too.
> You can also log off completely, thus releasing the resources that you
took.
I'd damn well hope so.
snip
> Whistler currently comes with IE & OE 5.6, which doesn't seem to offer any
> big improvement over IE 5.5, at least on the surface.
Look for IE6 to be in it. With a better print preview as it's highlight.
snip
> Whistler *is* pretty.
Good to see focus on the things that *matter* </tic>.
snip
> However, in its current state, I have to say that Whistler is pretty
awesome
> UI-wise. I'll have to study it much more to find out if it can serve as
more
> than a toy.
That's the test, isn't it.
> Right now, I would rather use the beta than any win9x, including win98se.
> It's based on NT kernel, which mean it *can't* be as bad as the 9x line.
> At the very least, it's going to be a cool workstation.
Requiring a P4 with all the animations. Now that's a hot processor.
> For now, I think that there is a good chance that Whistler will be as good
> from win2k as win2k was from NT.
Not what you'd call hard.
--Chris
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: C++ -- Our Industry...
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 00:05:04 -0500
mlw wrote:
>
> "Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
> >
> > kiwiunixman wrote:
> > >
> > > When I was learning programming, VB was a bitch to program with, I much
> > > rather use C as not only it is logical but also portable (can virtually
> > > use the same code on UNIX as you would on Windows). One example of
> > > logical is when you insert the result of a equation into a sentence, VB
> > > it is a bitch, in C, no probs, eg:
> > >
> > > cout << "The total number of chicken in the world is" << number << endl;
> >
> > That's C++, not C.
> >
> > C would be:
> >
> > printf("The total number of chickens in the world is %d\n", number);
> >
>
> This is just as much C++ as it is C. If there is no need to incur the
true. But the first example can't be done in C...and the 2nd
example is the ONLY way to do it in C.
> cost of the object structure, then don't. (We just had a whole long
> thread about this.)
>
> Personally I never use IO streams, they just seem like an over
> complication of something far easier.
yep
>
> --
> http://www.mohawksoft.com
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
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