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read the discussion on slashdot, and I thought I'd
just drop you a note saying that there really are some users out there that
prefer the approach you are taking. I'm an animator, not a programmer - so I'm
used to working under IRIX systems, but if you ask me how it works, I have no
clue nor do I care. I've been looking at Linux as an alternative to NT for
animation now that some solid apps are being ported (Softimage demo'd XSI
running under Linux at Siggraph, Alias|Wavefront has already ported their
rendering engine, with all of Maya on the way, Renderman has been released by
Pixar, SGI releasing Intel based Linux boxes with full OpenGL acceleration) I
don't care what anyone else says - push a dual CPU NT box maxing out the CPU
usage over 300+ hours swapping 500-800 megs of textures and the thing will
eventually fall down and go boom.
-the subscription service sounds great, and exactly
what I want - taking the hassle of administering much of the inner workings off
my hands - I'm going to assume that there will be a subscription fee of
some kind depending on level of service? auto updates of drivers and apps sounds
wonderful - it would be nice if it stored a list of what updates have been
installed, with links to the readme files to browse over - wake up in the
morning, check the system notes, yippie, new version of gimp installed to play
with.
-I'd like to see some kind of self maintaining
feature that functions locally- i.e. I think I've seen something like this with
redhat's RPM, where you can verify the installation packages for corruption -
I'd like this to be a sort of under the hood feature that the system does
automatically. finds a corrupted package and yanks it down and installs it for
me.
-I would kill for an optional filtering system
in the file manager - I don't want to see anything I could accidentally fuck up.
windows has something like this, you navigate to the system folder and it
warns you about modifying the files inside. take it one step higher, if I'm not
supposed to screw with it, don't show it to me.
-the thing that I enjoyed the most but also hated
about Linux was the ability to change the look and feel of the box, but sorting
through all the skins and options on the web is a pain in the ass - I'd like to
see a theme manager of sorts, linked to your network that shows me a list of new
and updated themes w/preview options so I can click a button within the file
manager and it yanks the theme down and installs it for me.
-the other option that I think would be really
useful is if certain folders would process whatever files were dropped into
it based on user preferences - for example, I usually render out large
amounts of still images that are later combined into movie files - it would be
nice to set up a folder where I could drag and drop a bunch of stills into a
folder and it would process them into movie files automatically. or mirroring
files on a specified remote server - I do a lot of HTML work and it would be
nice to sync a folder to the site where I could change whatever files I want
locally and the remote mirror would be updated through FTP. or a designated
backup folder for burning cds where I could drop files into, select the files I
want to archive, click the burn cd button and I'm good to go. that sort of
thing.
-the mp3 folder screenshot looks great - I'd like
to have some sort of cataloging/find feature that can also link to offline files
- select an album and it prompts you to insert the cd containing the files.
-I can't say it enough, shortcuts and hotkeys, make
it easy and fast. another interesting idea I've seen was sticky keys in
Softimage. basically it remembers what tool or series of operations you just
used and lets you continue to process other objects with a single click - in
terms of its application, lets say I wanted to poke around the
drive print every readme file I find, then move the file to a new folder, I
could select the object, print, then copy to the folder in 3 steps, and the next
file of that type I find, I could just shift-click and it would do it all in one
shot. I hope that makes a bit of sense. kind of like pipes in the command line.
-one really great feature that I would sell a
kidney for would be system recovery - if I wake up and my system is all fuckored
up, I'd like to have some sort of CD-R or disk the system made that I
could just pop in and it would load my previously specified network settings,
connect to your database of my hardware/software config. rebuild the OS/apps and
restore my personal files from the local or remote backup. keep it simple, if
its dead, make it work, I don't really care how.
as an end user, this is what I'm looking for - to
remove many of the steps I go through in daily production, have a box
that I can set up and don't have to deal with much of the administration
aspects, easy to adjust and customize the look to my ever changing desires.
I think the problem I was noticing in the slashdot
discussion is the file manager is just one part of the whole package - and its
not really the revolutionary part - whats really exciting is the tailoring of
information and content to the specific user, and the links to a remote network
system and its offerings. the component arcitecture looks great. it looks like
windows is moving to a similar idea, but what annoys me about it is you are
locked into what they view as an optimal enviornment - give me options. ease of
use is what its all about. I use my grandmother as a benchmark - she isn't too
keen on computers out of fear of breaking it. the multiple levels of user
interaction with a dumbed down option is wonderful. make it an enjoyable
experience and you have a winner on your hands.
brian willard
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