changed subject for experiement on threading orders
in [Laptops]
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From: Man at B&Q on 28 May 2010 08:20 On May 28, 12:49 am, BillW50 <Bill...(a)aol.kom> wrote: > On 5/27/2010 5:39 PM, John Rumm wrote: > > > > > On 27/05/2010 23:17, BillW50 wrote: > > >>>>> Each to his own I guess. > > >>>> OE seems so very efficient compared to other programs. As other > >>>> programs > >>>> seem to make the user go through so much work and it really > >>>> shouldn't be > >>>> that way. > > >>> Oddly I find OE hugely frustrating - it must be it just does not work > >>> the way I think! Probably tells you something about either it or me ;-) > > >> I can see and understand this. As There is the MS way of doing things > >> and then there is the everybody else way of doing things. They are two > >> completely different systems of doing things. And doing it the MS way > >> does take a bit of a learning curve. And it is much harder the more you > >> know of the other ways. In the long run though, I find it far more > >> productive. > > > I suspect its down to the way MS focus group test stuff and observe how > > users use things. As a result they often come at problems a different > > way or leave out subtle bits of functionality that some find confusing. > > It can make things easier to learn for novice users, but frequently also > > frustrates power users. The office "ribbon" being a good example. Users > > with no exposure to office style apps often find it easier to learn, but > > anyone used to another way of doing it (including previous users of MS > > office) find it difficult. > > > (kind of like the opposite of Adobe with say photoshop - they will often > > go about a common feature in a way that seems more complicated than the > > others, but also in a way that opens up a whole new layer of extra power > > and flexibility for those who invest the time and effort really getting > > to understand what they are doing). > > There is a lot of truth to what you say. And the MS way can cause > problems to the power users. But then again, there is usually > undocumented solutions to those problems. So that is really a tough call > I agree. > > But get this, I remember there was a survey about office suites. And I > don't remember the exact number, but it was like only 20% of the > features was known among business users. I would have guessed 80%, but > no. So I guess the masses don't really use most of the features of a > given application anyway. > > I think MS knows this too. And they've started dropping some of the 80%. Office 2007 no longer supports routing slips which were central to passing certain documents around our office. MBQ
From: BillW50 on 28 May 2010 09:03 On 5/27/2010 7:28 PM, John Rumm wrote: > On 28/05/2010 00:49, BillW50 wrote: >> On 5/27/2010 5:39 PM, John Rumm wrote: >>> On 27/05/2010 23:17, BillW50 wrote: >>> >>>>>>> Each to his own I guess. >>>>>> >>>>>> OE seems so very efficient compared to other programs. As other >>>>>> programs >>>>>> seem to make the user go through so much work and it really >>>>>> shouldn't be >>>>>> that way. >>>>> >>>>> Oddly I find OE hugely frustrating - it must be it just does not work >>>>> the way I think! Probably tells you something about either it or me >>>>> ;-) >>>> >>>> I can see and understand this. As There is the MS way of doing things >>>> and then there is the everybody else way of doing things. They are two >>>> completely different systems of doing things. And doing it the MS way >>>> does take a bit of a learning curve. And it is much harder the more you >>>> know of the other ways. In the long run though, I find it far more >>>> productive. >>> >>> I suspect its down to the way MS focus group test stuff and observe how >>> users use things. As a result they often come at problems a different >>> way or leave out subtle bits of functionality that some find confusing. >>> It can make things easier to learn for novice users, but frequently also >>> frustrates power users. The office "ribbon" being a good example. Users >>> with no exposure to office style apps often find it easier to learn, but >>> anyone used to another way of doing it (including previous users of MS >>> office) find it difficult. >>> >>> (kind of like the opposite of Adobe with say photoshop - they will often >>> go about a common feature in a way that seems more complicated than the >>> others, but also in a way that opens up a whole new layer of extra power >>> and flexibility for those who invest the time and effort really getting >>> to understand what they are doing). >> >> There is a lot of truth to what you say. And the MS way can cause >> problems to the power users. But then again, there is usually >> undocumented solutions to those problems. So that is really a tough call >> I agree. >> >> But get this, I remember there was a survey about office suites. And I >> don't remember the exact number, but it was like only 20% of the >> features was known among business users. I would have guessed 80%, but >> no. So I guess the masses don't really use most of the features of a >> given application anyway. > > Indeed! Computer/Technology journalist the late Guy Kewney had a saying > of computer software some years back along the lines of "People are in > the habit of demanding tomorrows technology today, when in reality most > of them would be incapable of using yesterdays technology next week" That is a great quote! lol >> I think MS knows this too. And I believe they use this to their >> advantage. So we end up with either the MS way and/or the other way. And >> since most people it seems don't use all or even most of the features of >> an application, the MS way is easier for most. > > It always makes me smile when Steve Ballmer attempts to downplay open > office with the accusation that it only has the feature set of Office > XP. Quietly sidestepping the issue that for a vast swathe of their user > base that was more than adequate! Which is also funny, since I like MS Office 2000 the best out of all of the Office versions. I probably would like MS Office 98 a lot too, but it crashed and burned a lot. Instead of fixing it, MS had you to get MS Office 2000 instead which is stable IMHO. I have two beefs with Open Office though. MS Word 2000 for example has four views: Normal Web Layout Print Layout Outline Open Office only has Web and Print views (OO calls them different of course). But I use the normal view the most and OO doesn't have it. The other beef I have about OO is the lack of change case. Upper and lower case is there, but sentence and title case is not. Later I learned that OO does have sentence case, but they buried it somewhere else. But title case which I use all of the time, OO doesn't have that at all. >>>> One really annoying thing about OE was quoting. Although there is >>>> OE-QuoteFix which has taken care of that one. And I won't personally >>>> use >>>> OE without it. >>>> >>>> http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/ >>> >>> Yup agreed, that makes a huge improvement. Not sure if it fixes the >>> phantom attachment problem though? >> >> Phantom attachment? Is that the same as that syntax error in the MIME >> attachment that had hidden it in OE? And when the user opened the email >> (or newsgroup post I suppose) OE didn't see or show it but it would >> automatically run it in the background? > > No, I was thinking of its incomplete decoding of mime headers that would > cause it to think that there was a broken attachment on a post when a > line began: > > begin something... > > it took the "begin" as a mime header. Oh okay. Well TB pops up a box every time I type attachment. As it thinks I want to add one into this post. So what other keywords can you type to cause other boxes to pop up? >> Well AFAIK this was fixed long ago. Even then AFAIK the following would >> foil this. One was to view messages in plain text. And secondly (now the >> default) was to treat attachments in the restricted zone instead of the >> Internet zone. And the restricted zone would warn you before OE does >> anything stupid. >> >> The other problem that I recall about OE was as attachment could claim >> it was something normally harmless like a txt file or something in the >> MIME header. And when you open it up, it could be totally different and >> could be really an exe file for example and Windows would execute it. > > That was actually a powerfully dumb default that it inherited from > windows (and I can't believe they have still not fixed it!), where a > double file extension such as picture.jpg.exe would be truncated for > display to "picture", and given the default .jpg handler's icon. However > when opened it would be treated as the .exe it really was. Well I don't know why Microsoft doesn't fix some stuff? Well I kind of do. As I had a beef with them say around '84 about some bug in their MS-DOS that would show up if you were a software developer. Well it turns out that MS knew about it and they were not going to fix it. And the reason was that other software developers already found what I found. And they coded their programs around the bug. And MS claimed if they fixed the bug, it would break thousands and thousands of programs already written. Well I can see their point. But at least some stuff really does need to be really fixed right. I dunno, maybe the CIA and FBI uses this as a backdoor to break into dumb criminals computers. I always save attachments anyway. And open them up with a hex editor to see what it really is anyway. Thus the whole problem is avoided. >> I believe this has been fixed too. But the work around is and is >> probably still a very good idea anyway is to save the attachment. And >> the name better end up as a txt type for example. If it isn't, something >> is wrong. ;-) > > The whole reliance on file extensions for identifying file content and > associated apps is very 1970's anyway! Well I started with computers in the 70's and I still kind of like it. So what do you think works better? Having a header included with all files that tells what kind of file it is? Works except when you want to view a directory of files and the mass storage device has to look up every single file in the list to find out what type of file it is. CBM-DOS used a different method. Somewhat like the extension idea, but rather stored the type just after the file name in the directory. And if the file type ever ended up being wrong, it was not as easy as changing the file extension. Another thing about file extensions that I like is that they are easy to change. For example, some drivers, games, programs, etc. install autorun stuff that you may not need or want. At least running all of the time. And for these, I add my own second extension. Say like Manager.exe to Manager.exe.disabled. Now it is dead in the water and can't start and it is out of the way. ;-) For DOS machines I did the same, except it was also used as a RecycleBin too. Instead of deleting files that I wasn't sure I would need again. I would change the extension to .DEL. Say a file called data.txt I renamed to data_txt.del. And when space started to run low, I would delete all or some DEL file types. ;-) -- Bill Thunderbird Portable 3.0 (20091130)
From: John Rumm on 28 May 2010 13:43 On 28/05/2010 14:03, BillW50 wrote: >> No, I was thinking of its incomplete decoding of mime headers that would >> cause it to think that there was a broken attachment on a post when a >> line began: >> >> begin something... >> >> it took the "begin" as a mime header. > > Oh okay. Well TB pops up a box every time I type attachment. As it > thinks I want to add one into this post. So what other keywords can you > type to cause other boxes to pop up? Don't know what the canonical list is, but "enclosed" triggers it as well. The attachment thing was new in TB3 IIRC - presumably in response to the number of times you end up getting a second email entitled "This time with attachment!". >> That was actually a powerfully dumb default that it inherited from >> windows (and I can't believe they have still not fixed it!), where a >> double file extension such as picture.jpg.exe would be truncated for >> display to "picture", and given the default .jpg handler's icon. However >> when opened it would be treated as the .exe it really was. > > Well I don't know why Microsoft doesn't fix some stuff? Well I kind of > do. As I had a beef with them say around '84 about some bug in their > MS-DOS that would show up if you were a software developer. > > Well it turns out that MS knew about it and they were not going to fix > it. And the reason was that other software developers already found what > I found. And they coded their programs around the bug. And MS claimed if > they fixed the bug, it would break thousands and thousands of programs > already written. Yup, I still have a copy of "undocumented DOS" sat on the shelf - full of all the little hacks that they would not dare change because all their software used them, but at the same time they would not make an official part of the API. > Well I can see their point. But at least some stuff really does need to > be really fixed right. I dunno, maybe the CIA and FBI uses this as a > backdoor to break into dumb criminals computers. Perhaps - I suspect they have better ways for the not so dumb criminals though! > I always save attachments anyway. And open them up with a hex editor to > see what it really is anyway. Thus the whole problem is avoided. >>> I believe this has been fixed too. But the work around is and is >>> probably still a very good idea anyway is to save the attachment. And >>> the name better end up as a txt type for example. If it isn't, something >>> is wrong. ;-) >> >> The whole reliance on file extensions for identifying file content and >> associated apps is very 1970's anyway! > > Well I started with computers in the 70's and I still kind of like it. > So what do you think works better? Having a header included with all > files that tells what kind of file it is? Works except when you want to > view a directory of files and the mass storage device has to look up > every single file in the list to find out what type of file it is. The two options that seemed to work reasonably were the system used on the Amiga where for files intended to be launched by clicking etc there was an additional .info file. This contained the icon, a link to the application needed to open it, and toolypes (parameters or environment variables effectively), plus a few other capabilities. The downside was an extra file to shift about but it gave good flexibility, freedom from things fighting over extension associations etc. You could also then look at a folder at several levels - say choosing to not see all the minor files without info files. The Mac approach was/is similar - but the extra information is encoded within a separate fork of the file (multiple forks being a concept supported but under used on NTFS as well interestingly) IIRC BEos also had quite a sophisticated system, but that relied on the clever relational file system it was based on (like the one MS were building for Vistam or not as it turned out!) > CBM-DOS used a different method. Somewhat like the extension idea, but > rather stored the type just after the file name in the directory. And if > the file type ever ended up being wrong, it was not as easy as changing > the file extension. If you go back to their intelligent GCR encoded floppies etc then there were only really 4 files types (prg, seq, usr, rel) - and that was more a statement of architecture than an indication of the app that would handle them. > Another thing about file extensions that I like is that they are easy to > change. For example, some drivers, games, programs, etc. install autorun > stuff that you may not need or want. At least running all of the time. > > And for these, I add my own second extension. Say like Manager.exe to > Manager.exe.disabled. Now it is dead in the water and can't start and it > is out of the way. ;-) Disabling autorun altogether works for me! ;-) > For DOS machines I did the same, except it was also used as a RecycleBin > too. Instead of deleting files that I wasn't sure I would need again. I > would change the extension to .DEL. Say a file called data.txt I renamed > to data_txt.del. And when space started to run low, I would delete all > or some DEL file types. ;-) VMS used to be quite nice to work with in that respect. Files had names, and versions. So every time you overwrote a file it was actually recorded as a new version. So main.c;1 would get edited, and you would then have main.c;2 etc. You can then go back to any previous version at any time by deleting the most recent or fully specifying the version in the file name etc. When you were happy to wipe the older versions you just did a "purge" command to erase all but the last (or specified number of) generations. -- Cheers, John. /=================================================================\ | Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------| | John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/
From: BillW50 on 28 May 2010 18:28 On 5/28/2010 7:01 AM, dennis(a)home wrote: > > > "BillW50" <BillW50(a)aol.kom> wrote in message > news:hto8hj$oq5$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... >> On 5/28/2010 1:58 AM, dennis(a)home wrote: > > 8< > >>> I don't know why people use OE at all. >> >> I do. ;-) >> >>> It hasn't been maintained for years and was replaced by windows live >>> mail. >> >> WLM hasn't been updated in years either. As it seems like the updates >> between OE6 and WLM stopped just months apart from one another. > > My WLM was updated late last year. Well I say this from what I have been reading in the Microsoft newsgroups since over a year ago. That Microsoft got out of the email and newsgroup business and they don't support either one anymore. They still offer WLM though if you want to download it. >>> WLM has the same looks but has most of the OE bugs fixed. >> >> Actually it has a new interface which is somewhat nice. Although they >> separated email from newsgroups. Now instead of glancing at one window >> if anything new came in, You have to toggle between email and >> newsgroups. Which is more work. > > Not here. > I have email and two news servers that all appear in the same pane on > the left. Really? I must have done something wrong. Can you get the RSS in the same window too? >> WLM also broke the account view. And you no longer can select more >> than one newsgroup (or folders in the case of email) and change all >> the sync settings all at one time. Now it is a real pain in the neck >> to do. > > I didn't know you could do that in OE. Oh yeah! That one really spoils you a lot. Take that one away and it really hurts. >> And the worst thing IMHO about OE and WLM is the poor quoting. At >> least there is OE-QuoteFix that takes care of OE. But there is yet a >> WLM-QuoteFix. > > I don't usually have a problem with quoting, well nothing that > OEQuoteFix fixed. OE-QuoteFix does a lot of nifty things. But one that I really like which it seems is undocumented. As say there is a quote that is just so badly messed up that OE-QuoteFix couldn't even fix. Well you can manually or copy and paste into a word processor or something. Strip all quotes after the first line. And strip off all return characters until the end of the paragraph. And it is okay, OE-QuoteFix will rebuild everything and make it right again when you send it out. No other newsgroup reader works as nice as OE-QuoteFix does. I am so surprised they just don't bother. >> The only real good thing I like about WLM is you can't run OE6 on >> Vista or Windows 7 machines. But WLM can. ;-) >> >>> It is a lot easier and nicer to use than TB and agent and others I have >>> tried and forgotten about as they were so poor. >> >> I agree there. I don't know why others make things so hard to do some >> of the most basic tasks. That just doesn't make any sense to me. > > They are written by programmers for themselves and other programmers. > They don't think about users much. Yes! Very good point! Gary Kildall was asked why doesn't he make CP/M easier to use? He replied back saying any half wit could learn CP/M. And he was right of course. But even half wits rather use MS-DOS because it was so much easier. -- Bill Thunderbird Portable 3.0 (20091130)
From: dennis on 28 May 2010 19:09
"BillW50" <BillW50(a)aol.kom> wrote in message news:htpg34$91k$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... > On 5/28/2010 7:01 AM, dennis(a)home wrote: >> >> >> "BillW50" <BillW50(a)aol.kom> wrote in message >> news:hto8hj$oq5$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... >>> On 5/28/2010 1:58 AM, dennis(a)home wrote: >> >> 8< >> >>>> I don't know why people use OE at all. >>> >>> I do. ;-) >>> >>>> It hasn't been maintained for years and was replaced by windows live >>>> mail. >>> >>> WLM hasn't been updated in years either. As it seems like the updates >>> between OE6 and WLM stopped just months apart from one another. >> >> My WLM was updated late last year. > > Well I say this from what I have been reading in the Microsoft newsgroups > since over a year ago. That Microsoft got out of the email and newsgroup > business and they don't support either one anymore. They still offer WLM > though if you want to download it. > >>>> WLM has the same looks but has most of the OE bugs fixed. >>> >>> Actually it has a new interface which is somewhat nice. Although they >>> separated email from newsgroups. Now instead of glancing at one window >>> if anything new came in, You have to toggle between email and >>> newsgroups. Which is more work. >> >> Not here. >> I have email and two news servers that all appear in the same pane on >> the left. > > Really? I must have done something wrong. Can you get the RSS in the same > window too? I don't know as I don't use it for RSS. I would imagine you can add them to the quick views pane if nothing else. |