Evening Roy, On 16/06/10 20:32, Roy Wood wrote: > Right, if you want to read what I am replying to you will have to go > back to Norman's eloquent reply to my ..... well you get the picture. Eloquent? I've never been called that before! ;-)
> I fear I was a touch spartan when I referred to free software. Indeed, that's what started me on rant number one! > I do use > Firefox and some of the add-ons for that and there is a wonderful free > application for Windows call 'Irfan View' which has the dual attribiutes > of combining the fastest graphics viewing program I have found (for > Windows) with a lot of useful functions and a great little front end for > the scanner. I'm currently in the process of trying to get approval to use this utility at work. Government work and geological processes move at roughly the same speed. Irfan View is an excellent utility. > I am typing this in Thunderbird (which I don't really like > but Turnpike, which dealt with these lists much better, will not run on > W7. Funnily enough, I never got to grips with Turnpike when I first started up with Demon. Thunderbird has been my email client of choice since it came out. I do admit to problem with version 3 and those damned "smart" folders (a bit like Word's Smart quotes in a way, neither of them are smart in the slightest!). Tony had similar troubles until I told him how to get back to normal folders. (Click the < or > arrows on the first tab until the caption says "all folders" - job done!) I'm not sure what you mean when you say that TBird doesn't handle these lists very well, mine is fine - I view the lists threaded and in descending date order. Works fine. I have not found how to turn on the speal chucker which is a pain > because I can't type fro toefef - there see what I mean ? I have a similar problem. But even after about 30 years in IT, I still look at the keys when I'm typing, not the screen. For spell chequeing, there's a button at the top of the "write" window that spell cheques the selection or the entire email. To spell as you type, edit->preferences (on Linux anyway - mayne tools->options on Windows) then Composition, spelling tab and tick the "enable spell checking as you type". > To be a tad serious, what I meant was that, as a generalisation, a > commercial program has to try to go that extra inch to look a bit > better, be a bit more usable and generally sell itself, True, but as someone who has done work on commercial software in the UK and for a company in the US, the vast majority of the changes come about through the marketing department and not from the users. Bug fixes yes, trendy new .net layouts and whatever the current paradigm is, that's what marketing want. And that's regardless of the effect it has on the product. > Free software is like that too sometimes, I slightly disagree this time! Most free software is done when it's done. The bells and whistles of, say Word's "ribbon" add little to the functionality of the application. Free word processors don't tend to go for the fancy look and feel, over and above what is necessary. In most cases! > but very often it stops when the author thinks > it should - not the user. The other aspects of commercial software are > that it gets more advertising because someone is trying to sell it and, > if it sells well it gets updated and improved because there is the > feedback loop of getting a bit of cash for what you do. True, but see above under Marketing. > In my view it > all ground to a halt when there were no more new commercial programs. If > there is no money coming back you can't afford to go to foriegn or far > away shows so no shows so.....another, less pleasant, feedback loop. Well, I only ever made enough money out of the QL to raise my tax levels by about £20 quid a year. That was at the height of "my" popularity. > When I said the QL was a business machine I meant that was how it was > marketed. Yes, that was a point I made as well, it never really had a real home or niche, like the Spectrum and ZX-81. > Sold with a suite of office oriented programs and more > expensive than the spectrums of the time it was aimed at the business > user more than the gamer. Exactly, and it was not really of much use business wise. > (I don't recall saying it was a 32 bit machine). You didn't, I did. I was ranting about the lack of a real home for the QL from day one, and mentioned that it was supposed to be 32 bit and wasn't. Marketing again! > There were games for it but nothing the retro gamers would > chop their left arm off to play again. True, not a sign of Jet Set Willy or Manic Miner. Scrabble was about the only game I played frequently. Until I got my Miracle Hard Drive - and then it refused to run! > My point was that, if you are going to try to introduce people to the QL > you will need something good- better than what we have now. Exactly. And we agree 100% on this fact. > Nothing we have on the QL will impress a > MAC or PC user and many of the QL programmers decamped and pitched their > tents in LINUX city so you won't get many from there either. Well, that's where my tent is pitched (you may have guessed) but I still do my QL stuff, not as frequently as when the Ql was my only computer, but it's still hauled out regularly. ><SNIP> Nothing > wrong with that except, when you open the door to a new vistor it is > like saying, 'Come in, have a fish paste sandwich, make yourself a chair > and sit down'. So true, so true. I beleive in an earlier email, I likened the QL commmunity to a bunch of happy old codgers fixing and running steam trains. (And I'm happy to include myself in the bunch of old codgers!) > BTW yes I hated the root account in LINUX when I tried it and I also > hated the way I had to tell it there was a hard drive and there was a > CD. Back in 2001 I had similar troubles getting one of those Zip drives to be recognised. Eventually, it worked. > I tried it again, post Q40, on an old PC that I had here and I hated > searching for drivers and being snottily told I could write them myself, > or adapt them myself. You see, that's (a) elitist bullshit (oops, I'm being eloquent again!) from the so called Linux Gurus. But unfortunately, you will get that everywhere people of like minds gather. The attitude of some people is "share and be happy to do so" while others decide that "I learned the hard way, you can eff off and do it too!". I get that with my work contacts and lists, other stuff I do, my fellow bee keepers are not like that, but I bet you could find a club where they are! And as for writing drivers, yeah, fine. If you understand the hardware, the way it works, and all the sh-t that goes with it. I have the books, I've read them all, I still don't. So anyone who tells you to write a driver simply needs there head extracting from their own backsides! I'm beginning to like being eloquent! ;-) > I gather it is better now but I wanted it to work > without my having to program it. Just like this machine did. I have > other things to do - like the thing that I built the machine for. Exactly! > consistently not work), I can plug any piece of hardware in , off the > shelf, and they work too. True, but not an HD DVD player with an HDMI output. Degrades it to DVD quality if so. DRM rules and regulations apparently. Is there an HD DVD player for Linux? I know not and at the moment as I don't have an HD drive, I care not. I can always write one I suppose! (Not!) > I am not trying to be negative just to show you what you are up against > and to get you to look out from the circle of users you have and see the > world from a no QL Users point of view. And I agree 100% again. I think we all recognise the fact that we are still running a steam train here, we may not like to admit it, but we are. But then again, what's wrong with steam trains? > Must get back behind taht > parapet. Still it has been a lively discussion. Well, I for one have certainly enjoyed it! Thanks. Cheers, Norman. _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
