On 2007-09-26 23:29:42 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-09-26 13:45:32 +0100, (Steve Firth) said:


Nope that's merely psychological quirk, you think it is slower, it's
actually faster, and when using Windows and other GUIs with menus tied
to window bars it takes longer to find the menu than it does if the menu
is fixed.


.. not forgetting the dock.


On windows what I want is in icons on the screen, and n a mac its in
the dock. No difference really.

The point of the dock is not to need to have icons cluttering the screen.



If I need something else in either case I have to use a finder type tool.

No..the mouse movement up to the extreme screen top s a pain, as is
finding a subwindow buried behind other windows.

Not needed. Dashboard and Expose.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:55:57 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

SMB to a Linux server, or servers. TCP conns need to be 'kept alive'

NFS is probably better, but I loathe it.
Depends what you are doing. I've never had an issue so I presume that
any connections re-establish on their own which seems reasonable.

Actually, NFS is stateless and connectionless. That's one of the reasons
locking is so hard, and why caching is also problematical.
and why it survives a network outage or a machine going down.

And why it screws up royally if a machine editing a file leaves a lock on
it and goes down..


Its worse than that.. there isn't really any 100% safe mechanism to create
the lock file and be absolutely certain that your process created the lock.
The usual one was to use the PID of the process so there was a smaller
chance of two processes with the same PID creating the lock at the same
time.
Programmers obviously hadn't met Murphy. ;-)

I did meet Murphy BTW as I was designing a Unix system for a telephone
exchange that had upto 16 diskless Unix SBCs booting at the same time from
the same server with all the clients using NFS. Needless to say all the
application processes had the same PID so that locking mechanism didn't last
very long even though it did take some programmers a long time to accept
that just because it works on a random collection of Sun workstations
doesn't mean its going to work everywhere. Relying on user randomization
like most NFS applications appeared to do at the time doesn't work when
there aren't any users.

A question for you Unix/Linux code writers out there.. do applications still
use the same mechanism for locks on NFS or has someone created a
significantly better mechanism?

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
Nope that's merely psychological quirk, you think it is slower, it's
actually faster, and when using Windows and other GUIs with menus
tied to window bars it takes longer to find the menu than it does if
the menu is fixed.

Yup, I always found that with my Amiga.... (being able to make multiple
selections from a menu using the alternate mouse button was handy as
well ;-)

Same as RISC OS. Each time I use my windose box - as I have to for some
things - the operating system frustrates.
One that really does annoy is clicking on a file you want to view and up
comes the choice of which prog you want to use. Except that many won't
even load that type of file...

--
*The older you get, the better you realize you were.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
Nope that's merely psychological quirk, you think it is slower, it's
actually faster, and when using Windows and other GUIs with menus
tied to window bars it takes longer to find the menu than it does if
the menu is fixed.

Yup, I always found that with my Amiga.... (being able to make multiple
selections from a menu using the alternate mouse button was handy as
well ;-)

Same as RISC OS. Each time I use my windose box - as I have to for some
things - the operating system frustrates.
One that really does annoy is clicking on a file you want to view and up
comes the choice of which prog you want to use. Except that many won't
even load that type of file...

So you tell it and then it remembers.
How does RISC OS know how to open a .doc file or any other file that has a
new extension or type?
Any OS can only open the application if something has told it which
application to use.. this is usually the application but they don't all
associate with file types when you install them, if so the OS has no choice
but to either ask or just assume you are stupid and ignore you. Windows
asks, what does RISC OS do?

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-09-26 23:29:42 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-09-26 13:45:32 +0100, (Steve Firth) said:


Nope that's merely psychological quirk, you think it is slower, it's
actually faster, and when using Windows and other GUIs with menus tied
to window bars it takes longer to find the menu than it does if the
menu
is fixed.


.. not forgetting the dock.


On windows what I want is in icons on the screen, and n a mac its in
the dock. No difference really.

The point of the dock is not to need to have icons cluttering the screen.


Huh? The dock IS icons cluttering the screen. They just happen to be at
the bottom, thats all.

Or up the right, depending..


If I need something else in either case I have to use a finder type tool.

No..the mouse movement up to the extreme screen top s a pain, as is
finding a subwindow buried behind other windows.

Not needed. Dashboard and Expose.

I turned off dashboard. It was chewing 30% of the CPU and was a complete
PITA.

Pete C wrote:

On Sep 26, 3:40 pm, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Pete C wrote:
On Sep 26, 1:45 pm, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Mac owners are 'in the fold' as in sheep fold. Baaaa!!!

The ones following the flock are those who buy M$.

M$ is the Big Bad Wolf!

Nope, it's just mass-market crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy.

Macs are overpriced trendy crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy...

Wrong on every point, care to try again?

Steve Firth wrote:
Pete C wrote:

On Sep 26, 3:40 pm, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Pete C wrote:
On Sep 26, 1:45 pm, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Mac owners are 'in the fold' as in sheep fold. Baaaa!!!
The ones following the flock are those who buy M$.
M$ is the Big Bad Wolf!
Nope, it's just mass-market crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy.
Macs are overpriced trendy crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy...

Wrong on every point, care to try again?

Daa dee dah. Back and forth we go.
I think it's pretty clear that these days a Mac is probably better for
beginners, or those not seeking a new hobby, or women.

On Sep 26, 9:29 pm, "dennis@home"
wrote:
"Pete C" wrote in message
..
Nope, it's just mass-market crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy.

Macs are overpriced trendy crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy...

There is nothing wrong with a Mac if it does what the user wants.
The same goes for any machine and OS combination.
Its personal choice.
What is wrong is people saying any one system is crap just because they
don't like it without any regard as to what is suitable for the other users.
One size does not fit all.

You're right Dennis, I shouldn't call Macs crap.

I do think they're better for those who don't do regular backups,
which is a backhanded compliment.

Looks like Steve is a Mac user

cheers,
Pete.

Stuart Noble wrote:

I think it's pretty clear that these days a Mac is probably better for
beginners, or those not seeking a new hobby, or women.

Whereas in fact most of the people fitting those descriptions buy
Windows preinstalled on a computer.

I can see that you think that pointless mudslinging is achieving
something, but I suspect you don't realise that what it is achieving is
the opposite of what you intend. That's is, you're coming across as
someone who knows little but has a sackload of silly prejudices.

Pete C wrote:

I do think they're better for those who don't do regular backups,

How do you work that out? Any system needs regular backups, Macs are
little different to any other computer in that respect. A journaled
filing system helps, but only an idiot would neglect to back up their
system.

starest at prcoress dialog - currently estimating 30 minutes left for
the backup in progress

which is a backhanded compliment.

Looks like Steve is a Mac user

I am indeed a Mac user, and a Vax, Linux, Solaris, Irix, Windows, QNX
and several other operating systems user. I'm sure that you had a point
other than (another) feeble ad hominem, which you could have expressed
more clearly if you had tried a little harder.

Pete C wrote:
On Sep 26, 9:29 pm, "dennis@home"
wrote:
"Pete C" wrote in message
.
Nope, it's just mass-market crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy.
Macs are overpriced trendy crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy...
There is nothing wrong with a Mac if it does what the user wants.
The same goes for any machine and OS combination.
Its personal choice.
What is wrong is people saying any one system is crap just because they
don't like it without any regard as to what is suitable for the other users.
One size does not fit all.

You're right Dennis, I shouldn't call Macs crap.


They are pretty good, BUT nowhere near as good as Mac adverstising says,
or mac purchasers think, they are.

For home use, probably as good as it gets. Which isn't saying much..

For work, if they happen to run what you need, pricey, but solid. If
they don't, totally useless, as I discovered.

OK.

The reason for my 'in the fold' comment is that while Macs are
BRILLIANT with Apple peripherals, peoples experience with non Apple
stuff has been variable.

Though I accept that you and others have no problems doing so.

So for some buying non-Apple stuff for a Mac is straying 'outside the
fold'

cheers,
Pete.

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
Pete C wrote:

I do think they're better for those who don't do regular backups,

How do you work that out? Any system needs regular backups, Macs are
little different to any other computer in that respect. A journaled
filing system helps, but only an idiot would neglect to back up their
system.

Actually a journaled file system is no help at all in this case.
Niether are disk mirrors which is another common error.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

For work, if they happen to run what you need, pricey, but solid. If they
don't, totally useless, as I discovered.

That is true for all computers.. if they don't run the apps you want/need
they may as well be put in the scrap.

On 2007-09-27 13:27:52 +0100, Stuart Noble
said:

Steve Firth wrote:
Pete C wrote:

On Sep 26, 3:40 pm, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Pete C wrote:
On Sep 26, 1:45 pm, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Mac owners are 'in the fold' as in sheep fold. Baaaa!!!
The ones following the flock are those who buy M$.
M$ is the Big Bad Wolf!
Nope, it's just mass-market crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy.
Macs are overpriced trendy crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy...

Wrong on every point, care to try again?

Daa dee dah. Back and forth we go.
I think it's pretty clear that these days a Mac is probably better for
beginners, or those not seeking a new hobby, or women.

I would hardly describe myself as a beginner in computing or
networking. However, in terms of a solid, commercially supported
environment that can be relied upon to work, OS/X is good.

As far as the hardware platform is concerned, a PC and a Mac use the
same components in many aspects such as the hard drives, so no issue
there.

In other respects, it's an advantage to have a defined hardware
platform. For example, if I need a power supply for a Mac notebook, I
can walk into almost any Apple dealer in any city in the world and find
one on the shelf. I am back running in less than half a day. If I
need one for a specific Dell notebook, I would be screwed.

On 2007-09-27 11:43:52 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-09-26 23:29:42 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-09-26 13:45:32 +0100, (Steve Firth) said:


Nope that's merely psychological quirk, you think it is slower, it's
actually faster, and when using Windows and other GUIs with menus tied
to window bars it takes longer to find the menu than it does if the menu
is fixed.


.. not forgetting the dock.


On windows what I want is in icons on the screen, and n a mac its in
the dock. No difference really.

The point of the dock is not to need to have icons cluttering the screen.


Huh? The dock IS icons cluttering the screen. They just happen to be at
the bottom, thats all.

Or up the right, depending..

They are usually at the bottom, out of sight.





If I need something else in either case I have to use a finder type tool.

No..the mouse movement up to the extreme screen top s a pain, as is
finding a subwindow buried behind other windows.

Not needed. Dashboard and Expose.

I turned off dashboard. It was chewing 30% of the CPU and was a complete PITA.

Another platform issue where OS capabilities are ahead of the hardware.

Pete C wrote:

OK.

The reason for my 'in the fold' comment is that while Macs are
BRILLIANT with Apple peripherals, peoples experience with non Apple
stuff has been variable.

That is still complete and utter ********.

Though I accept that you and others have no problems doing so.

That would be "me and the vast majority of users." All of this stuff
about problems with non Apple peripherals is either (a) Harking back to
the days of the Mac 128, 512 or SE or (b) referring to peripherals so
old that even Windows doesn't support them.

I still use a PowerMac 601 running System 7 for some jobs, it's so old
that it doesn't have USB. So getting anything connected to it is
unlikely, some of your comments may apply to that computer. However its
contemporary was a 486sx PC running Windows 3.1, care to tell me how
many of those are currently running and supporting current PC
peripherals? That computer ran for so long and was infinitely
upgradeable since all I had to do was to fit yet another driver to the
SCSI chain that I never bothered upgrading or buying a new one. It ran
for 15 years and indeed still runs today.

Over than same period I went through at least five Wintel laptops and
countless numbers of desktop boxes all superseded because they didn't
support some peripheral or other or because Windows would no longer run
on them. Indeed I have a lock-up with several racks full of PC
peripherals that no longer work *with PCs*.

And I repeat for the hard of thinking that just about everything that I
have bought recently has bene branded for use with a PC, and has worked
just fine with my Mac. Indeed, rather than you being full of **** and
wind, I'd love you to tell me which peripherals you have or know of that
do not work with the Mac, or for which there is no reasonably priced
substitute. And also I'd need proof that those same peripherals also
work with Vista.

So for some buying non-Apple stuff for a Mac is straying 'outside the
fold'

I agree with you, and what do you find inside a fold? Sheep.

And to make that point, you did of course have to delete all the ad
hominem you previously posted and develop teflon shoulders.

Are you related to Drivel?

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Pete C wrote:
On Sep 26, 9:29 pm, "dennis@home"
wrote:
"Pete C" wrote in message
.
Nope, it's just mass-market crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy.
Macs are overpriced trendy crap sold to people who don't know much
about what they buy...
There is nothing wrong with a Mac if it does what the user wants.
The same goes for any machine and OS combination.
Its personal choice.
What is wrong is people saying any one system is crap just because they
don't like it without any regard as to what is suitable for the other
users. One size does not fit all.

You're right Dennis, I shouldn't call Macs crap.


They are pretty good, BUT nowhere near as good as Mac adverstising says,
or mac purchasers think, they are.

For home use, probably as good as it gets. Which isn't saying much..

For work, if they happen to run what you need, pricey, but solid. If
they don't, totally useless, as I discovered.

And to remind others that you are talking about a computer so old that
it used a G4 processor. That's like complaining that a 486 and Windows
95 isn't up to the mark anymore.

dennis@home wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

For work, if they happen to run what you need, pricey, but solid. If
they don't, totally useless, as I discovered.

That is true for all computers.. if they don't run the apps you
want/need they may as well be put in the scrap.

BUT the salient point is that its less likely on a WINPC than any other
platform. I hate the things, but I have to use one.

The mac simply doesn't do the job. Period.

dennis@home wrote:

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
Pete C wrote:

I do think they're better for those who don't do regular backups,

How do you work that out? Any system needs regular backups, Macs are
little different to any other computer in that respect. A journaled
filing system helps, but only an idiot would neglect to back up their
system.

Actually a journaled file system is no help at all in this case.

In which case? A journaled file system helps in exactly the cases in
which most WinBoxen lose data, an interuption of power or other failure
leading to a crash. A journaled file system does not help if the drive
is totally foobared but no one said it did or would.

Niether are disk mirrors which is another common error.

And another red herring since no one had mentioned disk mirrors, which
actually increase drive failure rates.

I suggest you get some specs and read what I wrote:

"Any system needs regular backups, Macs are little different to any
other computer in that respect. A journaled filing system helps, but
only an idiot would neglect to back up their system."

Andy Hall wrote:

As far as the hardware platform is concerned, a PC and a Mac use the
same components in many aspects such as the hard drives, so no issue
there.

More than that, indeed it's interesting that Intel have, with Apple's
permission, started to market an Intel motherboard which is the same as
the one in the current MacPro, with support for eight core Xeon
processors. BTW, excuse me while I laugh at anyone who describes a Mac
as "slow" or "expensive", they may care to compare the cost/performace
of a MacPro to any PC with eight cores. They may also want to sit down
and have a good cry when they compare it to their own "KrappiAldiPC".

And how many PCs have Quad 4GB fibre channel?

Andy Hall wrote:

Huh? The dock IS icons cluttering the screen. They just happen to be at
the bottom, thats all.

Or up the right, depending..

They are usually at the bottom, out of sight.

On mine they are on the left, out of sight. This is so I can have the
Windows bar at the bottom when running Parallels in "coherence" mode.

Hmm, how many Winboxen support drag and drop between Unix, Linux,
Windows and MacOS?

Steve Firth wrote:
Andy Hall wrote:

Huh? The dock IS icons cluttering the screen. They just happen to be at
the bottom, thats all.

Or up the right, depending..
They are usually at the bottom, out of sight.

On mine they are on the left, out of sight. This is so I can have the
Windows bar at the bottom when running Parallels in "coherence" mode.

Oh how ****ing interesting. Now you've stopped squabbling about how many
air miles you've both clocked up, you're going to lick one another's
arses about your toys. Back to the bloody playground every time

Hmm, how many Winboxen support drag and drop between Unix, Linux,
Windows and MacOS?

On Sep 27, 4:39 pm, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Pete C wrote:
OK.

The reason for my 'in the fold' comment is that while Macs are
BRILLIANT with Apple peripherals, peoples experience with non Apple
stuff has been variable.

That is still complete and utter ********.

OK, though TNP said:

"Well a 5 year old scanner and A1 plotter both failed utterly to work
correctly on MAC OSX"

(Presumably they weren't Apple peripherals)

And to make that point, you did of course have to delete all the ad
hominem you previously posted and develop teflon shoulders.

Well, I just said that you were a Mac user. I didn't mean to infer you
didn't back up your Mac, just explain why you were negative about PCs.

cheers,
Pete.

"Andy Hall" wrote in message
...

In other respects, it's an advantage to have a defined hardware platform.
For example, if I need a power supply for a Mac notebook, I can walk into
almost any Apple dealer in any city in the world and find one on the
shelf. I am back running in less than half a day. If I need one for a
specific Dell notebook, I would be screwed.


Staples.. £79.. will do IBM, Toshiba, Sony and a few others too.. also works
from 12V and 24V just in case you need one.
Just in case you thought it was hard to get bits for PCs.. where did you say
I needed to go to buy a spare power supply for a mac book?
BTW most PC notebook supplies don't run hot like mac book supplies appear to
so you may want a none Apple PSU next time.

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
Andy Hall wrote:

As far as the hardware platform is concerned, a PC and a Mac use the
same components in many aspects such as the hard drives, so no issue
there.

More than that, indeed it's interesting that Intel have, with Apple's
permission, started to market an Intel motherboard which is the same as
the one in the current MacPro, with support for eight core Xeon
processors.

I think you will find that Intel make motherboards and Apple don't.
In fact Intel make the motherboards in lots of machines from people like HP.

BTW, excuse me while I laugh at anyone who describes a Mac
as "slow" or "expensive", they may care to compare the cost/performace
of a MacPro to any PC with eight cores.

Is there any applications that can make use of eight cores?

They may also want to sit down
and have a good cry when they compare it to their own "KrappiAldiPC".

How much Mac book do you get for £299?

And how many PCs have Quad 4GB fibre channel?

Any that need it I would say.
There isn't much point if you don't need it and its easy to fit.

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
...
dennis@home wrote:

"Steve Firth" wrote in message
.. .
Pete C wrote:

I do think they're better for those who don't do regular backups,

How do you work that out? Any system needs regular backups, Macs are
little different to any other computer in that respect. A journaled
filing system helps, but only an idiot would neglect to back up their
system.

Actually a journaled file system is no help at all in this case.

In which case?

The case above where you said a system need regular backups and a journaling
file system helps.

A journaled file system helps in exactly the cases in
which most WinBoxen lose data, an interuption of power or other failure
leading to a crash. A journaled file system does not help if the drive
is totally foobared but no one said it did or would.

BTW NTFS is journaled.

Niether are disk mirrors which is another common error.

And another red herring since no one had mentioned disk mirrors, which
actually increase drive failure rates.

People think they help with backups too.. they don't.


I suggest you get some specs

specs of what?
file systems?
Macs?
backup software?


and read what I wrote:

"Any system needs regular backups, Macs are little different to any
other computer in that respect. A journaled filing system helps, but
only an idiot would neglect to back up their system."

Yes.. have you read what you said and what I said?
I still say that journaling does nothing for backups and neither does disk
mirroring.

Funny how you can get that antagonistic tone when we almost agree.

In article ,
dennis@home wrote:
Same as RISC OS. Each time I use my windose box - as I have to for
some things - the operating system frustrates. One that really does
annoy is clicking on a file you want to view and up comes the choice
of which prog you want to use. Except that many won't even load that
type of file...

So you tell it and then it remembers. How does RISC OS know how to open
a .doc file or any other file that has a new extension or type?

It loads it into a suitable app. A text file for example will be claimed
by your favourite editor if you've set things for that to happen.

Any OS can only open the application if something has told it which
application to use.. this is usually the application but they don't all
associate with file types when you install them, if so the OS has no
choice but to either ask or just assume you are stupid and ignore you.
Windows asks, what does RISC OS do?

In this case a straightforward text file. So I'd have expected Notepad to
claim it.

--
*Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 2007-09-27 16:51:02 +0100, The Natural Philosopher said:

dennis@home wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

For work, if they happen to run what you need, pricey, but solid. If
they don't, totally useless, as I discovered.

That is true for all computers.. if they don't run the apps you
want/need they may as well be put in the scrap.

BUT the salient point is that its less likely on a WINPC than any other
platform. I hate the things, but I have to use one.

The mac simply doesn't do the job. Period.

It would be more reasonable to say that your Mac doesn't do your job
any more in the same way that you might say that a 386 with the Win95
monitor doesn't either.

On 2007-09-27 18:57:07 +0100, "dennis@home"
said:


"Andy Hall" wrote in message ...

In other respects, it's an advantage to have a defined hardware
platform. For example, if I need a power supply for a Mac notebook, I
can walk into almost any Apple dealer in any city in the world and find
one on the shelf. I am back running in less than half a day. If I
need one for a specific Dell notebook, I would be screwed.


Staples.. £79.. will do IBM, Toshiba, Sony and a few others too.. also
works from 12V and 24V just in case you need one.

Does it run an Inspiron 5150? 130W? There are 3rd party supplies for
this model, but I'm not likely to find one in a PC dealer in Riga.

I could find an MBP one in an Apple if it were required, simply because
the range of inventory isn't that large.

If one is traveling, the price of the PSU is irrelevant if it makes the
difference between being able to work or not.


Just in case you thought it was hard to get bits for PCs.. where did
you say I needed to go to buy a spare power supply for a mac book?

I didn't.

BTW most PC notebook supplies don't run hot like mac book supplies
appear to so you may want a none Apple PSU next time.

The MBP supply doesn't run hot.

On 2007-09-27 17:18:15 +0100, (Steve Firth) said:

Andy Hall wrote:

Huh? The dock IS icons cluttering the screen. They just happen to be at
the bottom, thats all.

Or up the right, depending..

They are usually at the bottom, out of sight.

On mine they are on the left, out of sight. This is so I can have the
Windows bar at the bottom when running Parallels in "coherence" mode.

Hmm, how many Winboxen support drag and drop between Unix, Linux,
Windows and MacOS?

... and very good it is too.

I was quite impressed with Parallels, especially, as you say the
coherence mode.

I am a bit more impressed with VMWare in that it manages USB a bit more
smoothly even for a 1.0 version.

I think that once they have produced a 2.0 version, it will eclipse
Parallels to an extent.

On 2007-09-27 17:43:05 +0100, Stuart Noble
said:
Now you've stopped squabbling about how many air miles you've both
clocked up, you're going to lick one another's arses about your toys.
Back to the bloody playground every time

Did you want a trip somewhere?

Believe me, when you go somewhere or other pretty much every week, it's
less than interesting to make them for non-work purposes.

I don't think I've spent any airline frequent flyer points for nearly 10 years

In article ,
"dennis@home" writes:

BTW NTFS is journaled.

You are correct. It is however the only journaled filesystem
I've come across which is unrecoverably trashed by removing
the power from the system whilst filesystem is in heavy use.
I suspect the journalling in NT is for speed, and not
resilience against unexpected system outage.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
dennis@home wrote:
Same as RISC OS. Each time I use my windose box - as I have to for
some things - the operating system frustrates. One that really does
annoy is clicking on a file you want to view and up comes the choice
of which prog you want to use. Except that many won't even load that
type of file...

So you tell it and then it remembers. How does RISC OS know how to open
a .doc file or any other file that has a new extension or type?

It loads it into a suitable app. A text file for example will be claimed
by your favourite editor if you've set things for that to happen.

And it knows how to do this by having an file type code as part of the file,
rather than using a file extension. I like that.

Any OS can only open the application if something has told it which
application to use.. this is usually the application but they don't all
associate with file types when you install them, if so the OS has no
choice but to either ask or just assume you are stupid and ignore you.
Windows asks, what does RISC OS do?

In this case a straightforward text file. So I'd have expected Notepad to
claim it.

Windows/unix have no real concept of file type, unlike RISC OS where it was
designed in from the beginning (dunno about mac). Windows works by file
extensions, hence bits like "hide file extensions" where it encourages
people to not know about them.

Personally I use a command shell to do things like opening files in a text
editor.

cheers,
clive

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"dennis@home" writes:

BTW NTFS is journaled.

You are correct. It is however the only journaled filesystem
I've come across which is unrecoverably trashed by removing
the power from the system whilst filesystem is in heavy use.
I suspect the journalling in NT is for speed, and not
resilience against unexpected system outage.

Maybe?
Its not a problem I have come across.

Anyway it takes a lot more to ensure a system will always restart
successfully after a crash.
I have seen plenty of instances where a config file has been half written
when a system crashed and it then failing to restart due to an invalid
config.
Journaling does not stop that, only proper system and application design.
The first rule of which is to avoid keeping your configs in multiple files
like Unix does in places and nearly every damn programmer does unless you
are damn certain they never change.

"Clive George" wrote in message
...

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
dennis@home wrote:
Same as RISC OS. Each time I use my windose box - as I have to for
some things - the operating system frustrates. One that really does
annoy is clicking on a file you want to view and up comes the choice
of which prog you want to use. Except that many won't even load that
type of file...

So you tell it and then it remembers. How does RISC OS know how to open
a .doc file or any other file that has a new extension or type?

It loads it into a suitable app. A text file for example will be claimed
by your favourite editor if you've set things for that to happen.

And it knows how to do this by having an file type code as part of the
file, rather than using a file extension. I like that.

And if I create a text file on my Linux machine and call it bill and give it
you on a USB stick its going to know its text how?
You can put mime types and encodings in windows files IIRC and it will
handle them correctly.. however most still use extensions as its easy.


Any OS can only open the application if something has told it which
application to use.. this is usually the application but they don't all
associate with file types when you install them, if so the OS has no
choice but to either ask or just assume you are stupid and ignore you.
Windows asks, what does RISC OS do?

In this case a straightforward text file. So I'd have expected Notepad to
claim it.

So what would RISC OS do with my text file bill above?
Does RISC OS guess at it by having a quick nose around to see if it looks
like text?
Sounds like it would be fun to create some odd file types and see what
happens.


Windows/unix have no real concept of file type, unlike RISC OS where it
was designed in from the beginning (dunno about mac). Windows works by
file extensions, hence bits like "hide file extensions" where it
encourages people to not know about them.

Personally I use a command shell to do things like opening files in a text
editor.

I usually right click and select edit.. somewhat safer than double clicking.

Pete C wrote:
On Sep 27, 4:39 pm, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Pete C wrote:
OK.
The reason for my 'in the fold' comment is that while Macs are
BRILLIANT with Apple peripherals, peoples experience with non Apple
stuff has been variable.
That is still complete and utter ********.

OK, though TNP said:

"Well a 5 year old scanner and A1 plotter both failed utterly to work
correctly on MAC OSX"

(Presumably they weren't Apple peripherals)

In fact they were respectively an HP designjet 450C plotter and a HP
Scanjet 4100C scanner.

Gimp almost worked with them. No other program did, although I found a
Mac app that could read the scanner correctly, but it cost as much as a
new scanner.

And didn't integrate with other programs, so it was necessary to
scan-to-file and import the file separately.

And to make that point, you did of course have to delete all the ad
hominem you previously posted and develop teflon shoulders.

Well, I just said that you were a Mac user. I didn't mean to infer you
didn't back up your Mac, just explain why you were negative about PCs.

cheers,
Pete.

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
"dennis@home" writes:
BTW NTFS is journaled.

You are correct. It is however the only journaled filesystem
I've come across which is unrecoverably trashed by removing
the power from the system whilst filesystem is in heavy use.
I suspect the journalling in NT is for speed, and not
resilience against unexpected system outage.

Try ReiserFS.

Thats fails even worse.

ANY file system can be irrecoverably trashed - and the disk physically
damaged - by yanking the power cord when its active with the heads
against the platters.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

dennis@home wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

For work, if they happen to run what you need, pricey, but solid. If
they don't, totally useless, as I discovered.

That is true for all computers.. if they don't run the apps you
want/need they may as well be put in the scrap.

BUT the salient point is that its less likely on a WINPC than any other
platform. I hate the things, but I have to use one.

Nope, that's still ********. Have you tried to run Avid or FinalCut on a
PC?

The mac simply doesn't do the job. Period.

And yet more ********. You've identified one application, and that
fairly niche, for which *you* have been unable to use a Mac, however
that seems to be more down to incompetence rather than any flaw in the
Mac.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
"dennis@home" writes:
BTW NTFS is journaled.

You are correct. It is however the only journaled filesystem
I've come across which is unrecoverably trashed by removing
the power from the system whilst filesystem is in heavy use.
I suspect the journalling in NT is for speed, and not
resilience against unexpected system outage.

Try ReiserFS.

Thats fails even worse.

ANY file system can be irrecoverably trashed - and the disk physically
damaged - by yanking the power cord when its active with the heads
against the platters.

While what you say is technically true its not how modern hard drives work.
A modern drive should be able to finish the sector its on and park if the
power fails.