Posts by Mage

Re: We should distinguish between server and desktop

It's only because of a few applications (and QT?) that 32 bit old machines are now a problem.

Re: had one today

They are very USA culturally biased and abusive.

Re: The best

MX Linux seems to offer 32 bit.

I like Mate desktop, just updated 1 laptop to 21.2 Seems fine.

I installed MX 64 bit on an older laptop this week. Certainly faster boot. Then added Mate desktop. Had to put my Linux server in /etc/hosts to connect to samba shares

Re: No Connect

Adding <ipaddress> <servername> to /etc/hosts makes the remote samba shares work.

I've seen this occasionally on Mint too, but never found which network thing was missing/broken.

The MX Linux seems to boot about twice as fast and seems faster to use. No problem adding my themes from my Mint + Mate install as well as fonts and .Xcompose

Re: Edge snapping

I hate it.

Re: Sooo....

There were laprops that had modular media bays, interchangeable graphics, plug-in optical drive, socketed RAM, CPU (upgradeable), HDD on connector without opening case, plug-in battery packs, different screens etc, 20 years ago. They had docks, some even could take a PCI card. The modem and WiFi cards could be swapped too.

Re: If you have money to through at patents...

Patents in USA since Edison have been about big companies keeping out smaller companies.

Novelty isn't needed.

Prior art isn't search.

Is it trivial for someone versed in the Art is ignored.

It's about having the money to create and deploy fake IP as a weapon. Not about protection for an entrepreneur or start up.

Re: It beggers belief...

Actually save source. Edit source in a real image editor, save a copy. Embed the new copy in other program such as wordporcessor, indesign, PDF editor, slideshow etc.

Madness to process images in a toy app, PDF editor or wordprocessor or powerpoint etc.

Re: … ignored… class hierarchies, which is core to OOP.

They aren't.

I did learn about OOP before learning C++ in 1987. I find it frightening that that was 37 years ago and I learned about OOP over 40 years ago.

You can do OOP in Modula-2, but C++ has a nice syntax for classes. Also Modula-2 has co-routines, mutexes which allows well designed messaging and parallel processing, opaque modules with import & export, typed procedure variables, both stronger types than Pascal (no assign of same anonymous types) and "magic" types (with functions to return size of type or an array to make safe device drivers). Buffer overruns are still a big security issue. Biggest flaw in C++ was/is C compatibility.

Also macro are very evil disasters waiting to happen and templates dangerous and evil.

I've given up programming now, but we seem to be going backwards on GUI design / styles /flexibility and not progressing in programming or applications. See Chrome, Firefox, Thunderbird, LO 7.x vs 6.x (undocked toolbars more broken), Android (mess with external storage, printing, copy/paste, larger screens, poorer GUI).

Re: Round corners!?!

I agree, the article is inaccurate.

My memory of what I saw (portrait CRT, full GUI) in the Xerox shop opposite Belfast City Hall in 1974-1976 (I was working near there then) approx doesn't mesh with Star (link shows landscape CRT and Star was 1981) or this article. It had to be an Alto

Apple Lisa development started in 1978 and it was released in 1983.

So the claim that Lisa was started before Apple guys saw a working Xerox GUI seems dubious.

There were two versions of the Alto, the Parc model and a production version. The Register article omits the production Alto?

However what I saw in Belfast wasn't for sale. They only sold big copiers. But it was a public demo. It can't have been a Star and must have been an Alto.

I didn't see a portrait CRT on a computer again till late 1990s.

Re: Is it Legal ?

Just because MS wrote something a so called licence doesn't make it a legal contract. In fact a licence you only see at install time after purchase is probably illegal in many countries. Also in most countries a contract can't remove legal rights.

This action may break Computer Misuse laws in many countries.