you want to start something?

Usage stats: 56.80% Mozilla/5.0

IE trails at 6.7%

Looks like we’re attracting the right crowd

Tags: Commentary by mj
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Had a nasty hard coded path problem in the RubyUniversal package I created. Most things will probably have worked for most people, but badly It’s fixed now – I blame the fact it was 3:30am when I posted it.

Also, I’ve removed RubyCocoa Universal as the RubyCocoa project has released its own binary. I think they might have been ashamed of mine, because of aforementioned broken link! Can I blame that one on the early morning hours also?

Tags: Commentary, infurious by mj
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Okay, the biggest issue I have with Microsoft at the moment is probably that their Windows Vista web site doesn’t work well in Safari. I mean – with their lack of adherence to standards in IE, not making something that renders okay in a “supported platform” is just downright obnoxious. But I digress.

Windows Vista contains a lot of new features which we’re meant to get all hot and bothered about.

Ease of Use
In essence, things are pretty much the same as in XP with regards to the Start Menu.

The scroller will make it just as much of a pain in the butt to use and I simply cannot understand why everything has to be based around their start menu paradigm. It’s like they run with it and just don’t know how to stop. They describe the XP menu as “slow performing, cascading, All Programs” view. That wasn’t part of the marketing message back in 2001! (much like “Intel is twice as fast” wasn’t a marketing message of the PowerMac G5 a couple of years ago).

Explorers
I’m a relatively proficient computer user but I find this shot of the “Document Explorer” to be a complete mess. It’s just all buttons and words and there’s no flow or context.

This looks like it was designed by an engineer who liked the way Windows 2000 did things and then he was asked to iterate a version which was “consumer friendly”. Maybe if you ROT13 that message it comes out as “add button clutter”?

Windows Aero
This entry tells you that unless you have a DirectX 9 graphics card, you ain’t going to be seeing the swooshy effects and transparency shown in these screenshots. Thankfully, it’s now a cheap upgrade for your hardware.

Do you notice how the “close” box is now the most prominent of the window management buttons. In XP, it was the colour, now it’s the colour, the shape and the size. They really want you to close down those windows. (Funnily enough I get a warm feeling when closing down Windows too). My little joke. Ahem.

Taskbar thumbnails
Looks like a slightly higher definition version of the Dock and while I like it, I wonder how it will scale. What happens when you have lots of icons in that taskbar?

I don’t think this will degrade half as nicely as some might hope!

Windows Flip and Windows Flip 3D
Sod Windows Flip. It’s the taskbar switcher now applied to open windows rather than open applications. Again that’s going to degrade poorly if you have 20 windows open. On the other hand, Flip 3D looks COOL.

I don’t honestly think it’s a patch on Exposé, but then there are lots of ways I can think of to improve on Exposé. This is a welcome development! It doesn’t suck! Or, maybe it does but til we use it, I’m going to say this is a bonus. Window management on Windows has always been a pain. Maybe now we’ll see some benefits.

I won’t say I’m not excited to see this and I also won’t declare that if they manage to get it running on Mac Intel hardware that I won’t probably have a spare hard disk with a copy of Vista on it.

Tags: Commentary by mj
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Guy Kawasaki has a funny blog entry which mentions one case of mistaken identity.

A few years ago, I had organised a user group meeting at a local PC superstore and we’d gotten about 20 people milling around discussing computers. The PC superstore staff were happy because we all seemed to have our own teeth and hold credit cards. The users were happy because they got to hang with geeks on a Saturday afternoon. After a couple of hours, one of the attendees turned to me and said:

“When is this MJ guy going to show up?”

I wouldn’t have minded but I’d been running the UG for three years at that point. Was I a shy and retiring type or did they think that I looked like my picture on the web forum (a rather harried-looking Daffy Duck). It was a bizarre experience anyway. I don’t look like anyone famous except maybe this guy. You don’t think so?

Tags: Commentary, infurious by mj
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Dumping an Og::Collection using to_yaml or YAML::dump results in a hard to track error: TypeError: can't dump anonymous class Class. This is because Collection has an instance variable which contains a literal Class. This patch fixes the problem, by storing the member_class as a String, and converting as necessary in the code.

--- new_collection.rb      2006-01-30 10:06:47.000000000 +1100
+++ collection.rb       2006-01-30 10:06:53.000000000 +1100
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
       remove_proc = nil, find_proc = nil,
       count_proc = nil, find_options = {})
     @owner = owner
-    @member_class = member_class.to_s
+    @member_class = member_class
     @insert_proc = insert_proc
     @remove_proc = remove_proc
     @find_proc = find_proc
@@ -217,8 +217,7 @@
   # Allows to perform a scoped query.

   def find(options = {})
-    klass = const_get(@member_class.to_sym)
-    klass.with_scope(options) do
+    @member_class.with_scope(options) do
       return @owner.send(@find_proc, @find_options)
     end
   end
@@ -238,8 +237,7 @@

   def method_missing(symbol, *args, &block)
     load_members
-    klass = const_get(@member_class.to_sym)
-    if klass.instance_methods.include? symbol.to_s
+    if @member_class.instance_methods.include? symbol.to_s
       @members.inject([]) { |a, x| a << x.send(symbol) }.flatten
     else
       @members.send(symbol, *args, &block)

Tags: Commentary, infurious by mj
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