Right. I don't think it's a stupid aim to have. All you need to do is make an OS, that is stupidly easy to use... I still see people flounder over windows. I put Salix with a bare amount of apps on an older family member's computer - and I think it's pretty elementary - but they still run into a few issues. I think it's more user friendly though than Windows XP - so that's a plus point.
I'm running Gnome Classic as I don't fancy Gnome Shell at the moment. And it's nearly there for me. My quit applet hangs my machine, my cpu applet has redraw issues. And nautilus and gedit are giving me some agro, but that's going off topic. It's taken me a week to theme the thing (Gnome 2 at least had a helper app - where I could make my own changes - though it was still problematic - I run a dark theme.) My keyboard switching applet sometimes doesn't respond to clicking. And I'm lost when it comes to audio configuration.
I think that's where the pain lies, when you run into a wall it hurts.
I guess these are teething issues. I'd like to know what GTK3 does bring to the table?
I get video flicker in games under Gnome Shell, and I've had flickering issues with video under Unity (11.10) on an Intel GM45 and Nvidia 6200 respectively. I crashed Unity in about an hour and made my desktop inaccessible the last time I used it. Unity 2D wasn't that bad, but some elements of the UI didn't gel well together at all - dialog boxes that are out of place etc.
The sad thing for me, is that I remember seeing Compiz for the first time. And there were elements and plugins that I really liked about it, and it felt like the desktop was moving forward. I was hoping that Gnome Shell would take the best bits of Compiz - but really get to the point where it would manage my desktop for me . But I can't say it brings me anything.
The negativity is just a case of sour grapes. We'd prefer to see the free desktops outdoing their commercial cousins. OSX10.4 Tiger is a pretty good benchmark to beat. And that's a 2007 OS.
It would be nice to see a Desktop OS competing with Android, W8 and the iPhone though.
I find network-manager takes more time than anything else getting a foot hold onto my wireless network. Other than that Debian Wheezy, with Gnome Classic is pretty good for me on an ancient SATA 1.0 spinner.
I think that there is middle ground to be had, with some sensible defaults, and sensible configuration options.
Make it good for the mouse, good for touch and good for keyboard! And let me mix it up a bit. And good for small and large screens alike.
The last time I tried Ubuntu, probably 11.10 - I could not use it without a mouse, just because of some wretched dialogues that I couldn't get keyboard focus on!
Is that Ubuntu specific? I'm running Debian Wheezy with an Intel GM45, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that hot plugging of my monitor worked. I'd read in the past, that that was Intel specific. Either way it's very welcome. I'd imagined I'd be stuck with Windows because of poor multi-monitor support - on my laptop.
Multiple monitors need a good window manager. I sacked off my second monitor out of frustration in the past, I wanted shortcuts to move apps to the other screen, the ability to turn off one screen when not needed - I inevitably had to turn it back on, when I'd loose a window or dialogue somewhere. Full screen apps chose the wrong monitor, some windows sat between monitors etc. It was just a bind, and a distraction in the end. Virtual desktops were a better fit for me because of the inadequacies.
What a load of rot. You're better to advertise something generic such as 'visit the <brand> website.' or 'find us online', rather than a barrage of non memorable domain names and various social media urls. This is such an elaborate con.
Indeed. Why not just ditch user-facing TLDs in the next DNS overhaul altogether?
People don't recognize the difference between pepsi.com and pepsi.org and pepsi.com.hackers-taking-your-credit-card.tt
.org is interesting meta-data, but why not transport that data as part of a meta-data record and let browsers display it to users in a consistent way they recognize and understand?
The point of DNS is to map a human-knowable name to a network or provider. We not only don't need new TLDs, we frankly don't much need the ones we have. dot-com/net/country codes/etc and even 'www' and 'mail' are of dubious benefit to the average user these days.
Sure, it's useful for engineers. And we can keep that in a diagnostic window. But for user-facing concerns, simplifying DNS is the only conversation worth having.
The iPhone 4 and 4S also "lie". It's not really a lie, though. The displays are intended to have higher pixel density, not more screen real estate. By reporting the "incorrect" size, websites are actually sized consistently across all generations of iPhones and iPads, but the retina devices render the same content with higher resolution.
PS: you may wish to add a "(-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2)" clause to your media queries if you want to target retina devices.
