Discussions

Very rough ideas for a 3-D user interface:

Have Search group results by relevance and place them in "front" of us with the more relevant items "closer" than the less relevant ones.

To support multi-select, turn "selection areas" into "selection volumes."

To support focus, let items with focus be rendered in more detail than items not in focus.

Let us "tag" results we found interesting.  Tagging them would be the same as adding them to a virtual folder.  Make these glow or put a virtual spotlight on them.

Let us "zap" results we don't find interesting.  Make these transparent or just get rid of them altogether.

For pen-based or mouse-gesture UI, have "checkmarks" tag good results and "crossmarks" zap bad results.

3D UI's are going to be hard not because of the output (3D output is easy) but because nobody has come up with a good 3D input control model... yet.

Cool app!

Ink replies, meh.  An 8k GIF to communicate what 80 Unicode bytes could have.  What a waste.

Drama threads are so last year, man.

"Most patents registered" is not the same as "most innovative."  All it means is that they have an efficient legal office that keeps themselves very busy by patenting anything remotely resembling a new idea.

I checked out the 500 software patents IBM is "giving to OSS."  All were either esoteric or incredibly vague.  Those 500 are probably a decent sampling of just how "innovative" their patented ideas were though.

I had the same problem with OneNote.  Its usability for novices leaves something to be desired.

...And, according to independent research sponsors by tobacco companies, smoking isn't hazardous to your health.  Why does Microsoft waste money on these studies?  Are there really people out there gullible enough to believe these?

It works fine for me.  I have a similar setup to you except that I am running Windows XP SP2.

RSS = Active Channels 2006.

As far as MS changing RSS to support ordered lists, as long as I can still use their version of RSS in other apps and ignore their MS-specific tags, I'm ok with it.

IE needs RSS support.  Outlook Express (or whatever its Longhorn equivalent will be) needs it badly.  MS Internet software is badly out-of-date so it's good news that they're finally going to do something about it.  It's unfortunate that Longhorn delays have caused them to fall drastically behind.

I don't like the way RSS support was implemented in Firefox.  In Thunderbird, it's better (aka usable); if only it was integrated into Firefox.  I'm glad IE will be copying Safari, not Firefox, as far as RSS support goes -- though I'm sure MS'll change the look and feel between now and release (they said as much).

I'm disgusted with Firefox and Thunderbird.  They've gotten 90% of it right, but the 10% they didn't get right is really annoying, and the community doesn't seem particularly interested in addressing these deficiencies.  Since IE 7's not here yet, I might give Opera a try.  I really wish Safari ran on Windows.

Hi,

I'm Joe Chung.  I'm a Windows programmer with 11 years professional software development experience.  Lately I've mostly been doing VB development as an independent consultant.  I've also done a little bit of a bunch of other things like C++, C#, ASP, .NET, Java, J# (back when it was J++), php, Perl, FoxPro, etc.

Before getting a job, I played on MUDs (back when Netscape was Mosaic and the only way to get on the Internet was at college) and studied C and Unix system programming in college on Solaris (back when it was SunOS) and Ultrix (back when DEC still existed).  Before going to college, I played lots of computer games and studied Pascal (back when Delphi was Turbo Pascal), C, and Unix (back when Linux was a 0.01 Minix derivative) system programming at computer camps.  Before that, I played online games on Compuserve and GEnie (back before AOL existed), chatted on boards on BBSes (back when USENET was still a Research Triangle Park project), and wrote fun "10 PRINT "I am cool!" 20 GOTO 10" kinds of programs in BASIC, which I saved on a cassette drive that made cool noises when you used it.

My take on computers in my 20+ years of playing, fiddling, and working with them is that we've come a helluva long way since my first computer (an Atari 400) but we've still get a hella long way to go and that I won't live long enough to see the end of that long journey.  It'll be a fun ride while it lasts though.

For fun, I read, watch movies, listen to music, play piano, play basketball, and travel.

PS.  Operating system religious wars baffle me.  I find them incredibly silly and unproductive.

Yes, it is illegal, and no, it is not flattering when someone steals your IP.