__/ [ The Ghost In The Machine ] on Monday 06 March 2006 19:00 \__
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote
> on Sun, 05 Mar 2006 11:09:14 +0000
> <duegvu$2g8t$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> http://www.illusionfxp.com/5/3/0/8/starter/
>>
>> Self-explanatory
>
> Erm...the wallpapers are nice enough (Tiger, Taj, and mountain) but
> where's the rest of it?
This afternoon, soon after I had linked to it from the blog (
http://schestowitz.com/Weblog/archives/2006/03/06/monoculture-survival/ ), I
realised that the shots disappeared. The owner took them off, for whatever
reason (probably bandwidth).
> A bit of digging later did cough up
>
> http://www.prntscrn.net/img.php?img=2007-Starter-Edition_1.jpg
>
> which shows off that nice "oooh, only 3 at a time!" mentality, and
>
> http://www.prntscrn.net/img.php?img=2007-Starter-Edition_3.jpg
>
> which makes one wonder what Windows is checking for.
> (To be fair, Linux runs DLLs as programs routinely as well,
> if far less obviously; 'ldd' requires this to function
> properly AIUI. However, that's only for a very specific
> purpose, as opposed to Microsoft's DLL-as-a-service (DCOM)
> mentality, from what little I understand of the latter.)
>
> http://www.prntscrn.net/img.php?img=2007-Starter-Edition_6.jpg
>
> shows some gadget addons -- why a recycle bin counts as a gadget is a
> bit weird-looking.
I guess the artwork justifies its presence as its own entity. Definitely not
a /gadget/ that would suit anyone's rear pocket, right next to a clock.
> http://www.prntscrn.net/img.php?img=2007-Starter-Edition_8.jpg
>
> "Stan, welcome to your computer". (But it's still our baby?)
I thought they had given up on the "_My_ computer", "_My_ Network Places"
entirely...
> http://www.prntscrn.net/img.php?img=2007-Starter-Edition_11.jpg
>
> "Sign in to your Digital Locker". Erm, how do you know
> it's Stan's Digital Locker? Maybe it's Fred's Digital
> Locker down the hall...??
>
> http://www.prntscrn.net/img.php?img=2007-Starter-Edition_14.jpg
>
> "Copy details to Clipboard"? Ye gods, the idiocy.
> Mind you, part of this is historical, and I'd have to
> find it now, but a long long time ago, during the age
> of Athena widgets (the Ugliest But Most Useful Widgets
> Known To Mankind(tm)), it was strongly suggested that
> one be able to copy text from a button widget, making
> this sort of "clickielink" unnecessary. Of course,
> nowadays anything underlined is probably understood to be
> a hypertext something or other, but a button would have
> made more sense here from a GUI linguistics standpoint.
> (If one can call GUI design linguistics, but there *is*
> a de facto communication going on.)
Well, a nice Easter Egg in Windows is the fact that you can CTRL+C prompts
and error messages. There are many opportunities and reasons for the use of
this 'feature' (as opposed to bug).
> http://www.prntscrn.net/img.php?img=2007-Starter-Edition_15.jpg
>
> "You're ready to start". Come again? The chopped-off
> Start button at the lower right is a nice touch.
Blame the screenhooter. The rest of the windows is cropped too (see top-right
corner)
> http://www.prntscrn.net/img.php?img=2007-Starter-Edition_16.jpg
>
> "You cannot use Starter with this computer because the
> AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+ component
> is not supported". And you only figured this out *now*,
> you silly OS?
Not so fast, Johnny boy! First, the user puts the crippled Start Edition on
the hard drive. The user will then proceed to on-line payment, which
warrants an upgrade, maybe even redemption. Then, if still unlucky, the
next-door neighboor may voluntarily 'fix' all the troubles. (S)he may have a
MSCE.
> http://www.prntscrn.net/img.php?img=2007-Starter-Edition_17.jpg
>
> "There are no more endpoints available from the endpoint mapper."
>
> Nice. Is there documentation on what an endpoint is that
> the user can understand? (If they're using SOAP, it's a
> somewhat understandable message. If they're not...well...)
>
> No doubt Linux has its quirks, but even Marilyn Monroe had that blemish.
To be perfectly honest with you, the last time I installed SuSE and Ubuntu
there were no quirks. Linux is striding more quickly than I could ever
imagine. The last time I attempted an XP installation, much of the hardware
was not detected and we had to chase drivers. Many drivers are still missing
and, to make matters worse, the screen resolution still stands at 800x600. A
virus penetrated the machine before we had the change to patch up and
protect.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Disk quota exceeded; sig discontinued"
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
7:00pm up 5 days 14:38, 9 users, load average: 0.50, 0.52, 0.53
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