Posts by MDevonB 9 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Feb 2012
"We're aware that we also have many readers in the physics-based professions, but we needn't worry about them as they obviously won't care what anyone thinks of them or be able to see why they should."
I'd be offended by that if your opinion was in any way important to me, and I wasn't laughing so hard.
With Linux, it's comparatively simple. Take the source code for your preferred file system driver. When it gets an IO request have it check the application against allowed folders. If the request isn't in those folders, give a prompt. If permission is denied, give a file not found. With Windows and OSX it's probably a little more complicated, but you can probably make a filter driver which filters the IO requests.
Which will make a nice secure file-system, and leave everything else (read: enough) insecure. Might give this a shot at some point actually. Seems like a nice first step into driver programming and secured databases.
Another one here. Most keyboard friendly WM I've used. Windows 7 and 8 both being relatively close, but falling somewhat short. Don't feel like I have to use the mouse for every little thing until I get down to an application level. The UI shuts up, gets out of the way, and doesn't look like it was from the 90's either.
On top of that, it also lets me keep the same basic workflow between my Windows and Linux installs.
While I have no idea which is better, Windows does provide built-in speech recognition and a speech recognition API. It's far from perfect, but so long as you get the position of the mouse grid memorized, it works just fine. Doesn't seem to have ever been updated from XP though, but it still works a lot better than Hey You! Pikachu ever did. [In regards to the claim that Dragon is the "only game in town."]
I'm curious what prices you're comparing against what. A new iPad starts around £400, and while a new phone through a carrier is only £100 or so, a new phone without a carrier is more in the £450 range. For a slate, which loses only the cell and 3G/4G radio, but has a screen something like 4 times areal size, to cost about the same suggests either the phones are immensely overpriced (They'll definitely be a bit over-priced, sales volumes and such.) or that slate margin's are terribly small. (The OS being the primary differentiator, the actual HW is slowly becoming a commodity, like the PC space, makes me think that is slowly becoming the case.)
- Comparing iPad cost to O2 subsidized iPhone cost, to unlocked Galaxy S3 cost.
- I'm a murrican. These numbers are fictional to me.
- I'm also not someone whose job has anything to do with money.
- Holy crap, if someone brought their own phone onto a plan and pays the same amount someone with a subsidized phone does for service, it's insane how much they're getting effed over.
I'm inclined to think all of you weren't paying enough attention. Even looking for it, it takes a while to catch my focus. Nowadays it's on the first screen of installation below "Express Install" and "Custom Install" where I usually click one of the two without thinking anything. I remember it being on a separate page a year or so ago, but still placed in a way I never really caught it until I was just about to click. I wouldn't say it's at malware level, but it's still a tad bit disingenuous.
As far as CAD on Linux goes, a perfectly viable AutoCAD clone is DraftSight by DAssault Systems (Solidworks, CATIA). It's a bit crummy compared to AutoCAD on Windows, but thats more UI response speed than lack of features.
As for tablets, Autodesk has a few viewer programs available for iOS and Android. Not exactly sure if they're write-capable, but definitely very useful. Especially for quick on-site markup and viewing where it's easier to take that out than a full laptop setup. Though they really could use some work in the ease of use department.
A desktop without a keyboard isn't much worse than a tablet these days, since most modern OS have mouse support. I've gone a while on my desktop without touching the keyboard and relying on either voice recognition, handwriting recognition, or the virtual keyboard.
I still use my laptop as well, and the keyboard on that has been ruined for about half a year now.
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