The main reason why I chose to return to Unity was because that I felt that GNOME3 is incomplete. For example, I experience issues going on battery power (on my notebook) where the screen goes dim after inactivity but movement doesn’t brighten the screen back up – I have to explicitly readjust the brightness. I Unity doesn’t have this issue probably because it’s still using GNOME2 so hopefully by 11.10, they figure out this issue.

I’ve come to realise that the reason why I use an Ubuntu system is stability (I know, people can argue that I could use Debian for that) and to see what UI advances Ubuntu is willing to experiment with. However, I still get to play with GNOME3 on my ArchLinux system so I’m not saying goodbye to GNOME3.

The magic key combination that I really needed in Unity was Super+W, the window picker. Now that I found this feature, Unity isn’t all that bad because now I don’t have to deal with the dock and its responsiveness. So, for me, Super + Typing gives me quick launch, similar to gnome-do and Super+W lets me get an overview of what’s going on.

So for the rest of this release’s lifetime, I intend on staying on Unity. I look forward to see what 11.10 brings!

I’ll be frank and just say it: I don’t like Unity. I find it very inefficient for me whereas GNOME3, with a few gotchas, is very in-tune with how I use my desktop environment. Thus, I find GNOME3 a very efficient environment to work in.

So on to the little things…

The Dock

In Unity, there is a dock/launcher on the left side of the screen. It is always visible unless and window overlaps it either by movement or when it is maximised. Bringing up the dock after it hides seems unresponsive for me and at times, the dock will stick on top and I can’t figure out how to hide it again.

I do like the ability to assign quick-launch keys to items in this dock. That is, you can hold the Super key and press 1–0 and I believe a–z afterward to quickly launch an application that is pinned to your dock. I like that it indicates multiple windows with the dots, similar to Mac OS X and docky.

One thing I loathe is that the launcher items doesn’t show any indication of me launching something. That is, if I click or activate a launcher, it does nothing. I expect the launcher to animate, blink, or something to tell me that I launched something.

Overall, it’s okay and it simplifies the presentation of what’s going on in your environment to the user. However, its slow responsiveness is what kills it for me.

With GNOME3, the dock is on the left, like how it is in Unity. However, the dock is hidden until you activate your Activities mode, which is done either by moving your mouse to the top-left corner or hitting the Super key. There is no auto-hiding because it’s not needed and as a result, the dock in GNOME3 is more snappy and very responsive in comparison to Unity’s. While the launchers don’t animate when you activate one, like in Unity, you are quickly taken back to your normal mode so you know you did *something*. If you miss the dock and hit the dark area of your faded desktop, nothing happens, which is good because if you click near the dock launcher but miss, then you know you didn’t do anything.

Overall, I prefer GNOME3′s dock over Unity’s simply because it’s more responsive. Personally, I don’t really use a dock to gauge the state of my environment as I explain below.

Desktop State

I prefer a window picker to evaluate the state of my desktop. I like to have all the windows presented to me so I can get a quick overview of what I’m working on.

Unity lacks this feature or I can’t figure out how to access this feature. The state of your desktop is evaluated either by looking at your dock and/or using the expose feature, which presents your workspaces and their contents in a zoomed-out view. Unfortunately, it doesn’t reveal covered windows so I feel that this method doesn’t allow you to quickly check out what’s going on on your desktop.

In GNOME3, when you enter Activities mode, it scales all the windows on your current workspace in a window-picker fashion. Actually, this feature functions as a window picker as you can click on a scaled window to activate and focus on it as you’re returned to normal mode. You can even close windows while in Activities mode. What’s nice about GNOME3′s implementation is that it also presents the state of your workspaces at the same time and switching to another workspace while in Activities mode updates the view of scaled windows! Thus, if you really wanted to, you can switch to Activities mode and cycle through your workspaces to see all your windows!

Overall, I feel that GNOME3 offers me a more efficient method of evaluating the state of my desktop.

Workspaces

Heh, a feature that Microsoft Windows fails to grasp for some reason…

Both GNOME3 and Unity offer workspaces. However, in Unity, the number of workspaces are fixed, just like in GNOME2, but in GNOME3, the number of workspaces is dynamic.

So in Unity, as with GNOME2, I would imagine my workspaces as a 2×2 wall and I switch my current view to a different workspace as I see fit. There’s not much to say here because Unity implements this feature fine.

In GNOME3, you start with two workspaces with your first one active from the start. If you move to the second workspace and open a window there, another workspace is created in the background so you’ll have three. Thus, I can no longer imagine a 2×2 wall as that paradigm is no longer valid here. Instead, it’s like a long banner where I add and remove segments as I see fit.

Interestingly, with dual monitors, the workspaces works only on one screen. I don’t know if this is an intended behaviour but my second monitor doesn’t have multiple workspaces so whatever window I place on my second monitor stays there no matter which workspace I enter.

Personally, how workspaces are implemented doesn’t really matter to me as long as that feature is there (looking at you, Windows…). I tend to use three or four at most so the fixed 2×2 that Unity had suffices for me and I wouldn’t mind adding more if I needed to. GNOME3′s dynamic workspaces is nice but not a killer feature to me.

Notifications

Both environments got rid of the idea of notification icons (kind of with GNOME3), which I’m okay with.

Unity’s notifications are like GNOME2′s where it is on the top-right corner of the environment. Applications that want to have a status icon are consolidated in one indicator icon that changes colour when something wants your attention. From here, you can also interact with the application, for example, changing songs, setting your IM status, etc.

In GNOME3, these status icons are placed at the bottom of the environment and are hidden from view until you move your mouse there. They are also visible when you enter Activities mode. They act like normal status icons where you can right-click and interact with applications that way. The bottom area in GNOME3 acts like a queue also. Notifications are queued up and you click on them to dismiss them. Otherwise, they remain there. I find them less intrusive than Unity’s bright-blue envelope but at the same time, I feel that it’s too subtle at times.

Overall, either implementation works for me.

Gripes

A list of general gripes from both environments:

• Unity’s global menubar. I use focus-follows-mouse and so this global menu is pretty useless as if I try to move my mouse to the menubar, it will activate another window before I get a chance to get there.
• Lack of customisation on both environments. However, with GNOME3, I can use tweaking tools to set options like what should happen when I close my laptop lid. Why the developers thought they could dictate how the system should behave beyond the user’s preference is beyond me.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel that GNOME3′s Activities mode itself kills Unity. I get a better sense of what’s going on and what I can launch than with Unity’s launcher. GNOME3 definitely feels a lot more responsive than Unity. Therefore, on my Ubuntu system, I installed GNOME3 early and hopefully in time it will integrate better with Ubuntu. I just can’t use Unity as my personal desktop environment…

To summarise, Netflix offers by-mail movie rental and online streaming services and have recently added the ability to pay for streaming only, which is what I signed up for. Blockbuster, on the other hand, offers by-mail movie rental services, similar to Netflix but also allows the customer to make use of the physical Blockbuster stores where customers can exchange a mailer for a movie in-store at no extra charge and no due date. Recently, Blockbuster added video games in their by-mail service (unfortunately, you can’t exchange for games in-store).

Streaming

Both services offer online streaming services. However, Netflix is subscription-based, meaning that you can stream all you want at no extra charge. Blockbuster, on the other hand, is a on-demand streaming service, meaning you pay a little extra for every movie you choose to stream online. Furthermore, Netflix can stream on game consoles (PS3 for me) and Blockbuster can stream on TVs and phones.

In my books, Netflix offers a better streaming service for its value and since I can use my PS3 to watch HD movies via Netflix.

Library

Blockbuster by far has a larger library than Netflix. A lot of the movies on my queue in Blockbuster are operas, foreign films, and movies from the 1940s. Netflix has available few of those foreign films and most of the 1940s movies (unfortunately, not all were available for streaming). I had trouble finding recorded operas in Netflix, at least, the ones I wanted to see. Furthermore, I understand that Blockbuster has exclusivity for having newly released movies available whereas Netflix has some waiting period — I think it’s a month. Also, Blockbuster offers video games in its by-mail service although they have a waiting period for games, which is why I also have a Gamefly account to access newly released video games!

In my books, Blockbuster has a superior movie library.

Value

To me, both services are the same in value for their by-mail service. However, because Netflix offers streaming, they give you faster access to movies.

Therefore, Netflix has better value if their library suffices for you.

How I Do It

So here is how I utilise the services. I am a member of Blockbuster, Netflix, and Gamefly so I’ll describe what I do with all services since I rent both movies and video games:

• Blockbuster will send me hard-to-find movies. I exchange those in-store for new releases. Thus, Blockbuster is my primary movie rental service.
• Netflix allows me to stream movies that are waiting in my Blockbuster queue. If I find that Netflix has it, I stream it and delete the movie from my Blockbuster queue (or keep it in case I want to see special features).
• Netflix also allows me to access past TV episodes quickly so if I’m in the mood for TV, Netflix it is.
• I keep newly released video games in my Gamefly queue and if I miss out on a game, I have Blockbuster send me that game. Thus, Gamefly is my primary video game rental service and I use Blockbuster for the left-overs.

Subscriptions:

• Blockbuster: 3 items at a time — allows me to juggle with movies and video games.
• Netflix: Streaming service only
• Gamefly: 1 item at a time

shorta913 1 year ago (9 up):

so your saying you hate all racist people, yet you call americans fucking dumb…isnt that being racist?

fourseasonsfun 2 weeks ago

@shorta913

American is not a race idiot, its an ethnicity.

Boarding

I love it when people sitting near the back decide to get off the bus by walking all the way at the front and getting off through the front door. There’s a reason why the bus has a back door, people!

Cars

Apparently for a lot of cars, buses are invisible to them. Then again, this is Honolulu drivers we’re talking about here. I have seen many cars waiting to drive onto the road and suddenly drive out in front of the bus, forcing the bus driver to brake hard.

Double Seats

Okay, so buses have double-seats that face the front. Some people seem to love the aisle seat and just sit there, leaving the window seat open. I believe as a courtesy to other passengers, people should be filling the window seat first, that way, we save the trouble of asking you to move over or to let us through — it also makes for faster boarding.

Also, I really, really, really hate it when asking the aisle seat passenger to make way, they do so by swiveling around. Uh, okay, so I guess you don’t mind me bumping you on the way out. Just stand, let me through, and sit back down!

Finally, personal items. Uh, seats are for passengers, not for your baggage. Please don’t fill double seats (or any seat) with baggage. Even the bus rules forbids it but are these rules enforced? Of course not.

Music Devices

Music devices include music-capable phones. What I hate are people who listen to their music without headphones, also a violation in the bus guidelines. I don’t want to listen to your terrible music!

My suggestion to all these websites is to utilise the user agent string. Let me enter something like “I’m an adult! Let me in!” in the string and I can happily browse the web without silly interruptions. No, actually, I hate that idea. Here’s a better one: DOWN WITH AGE GATES!!!

Many people have different positions in this situation but I shall briefly give you my two cents: I believe that it is unethical for Sony to announce that they are committed to keeping a feature yet a little more than a month later suddenly change their mind. Essentially, Sony lied and they have lost my, and I’m sure others’,  trust. No longer can I believe anything that comes out of Sony. I will need to remain skeptical with anything they announce for they have proven their words are meaningless.

Also, I need to say that I am quite surprised to find people giving in to Sony’s decisions (read user discussions).  Especially those who seem to believe that Linux users are “hackers” and that the Other OS feature was a “hack”. These people are clearly ignorant of what this feature was (and I suppose what Linux is in general). Note that I make emphasis on the fact that a feature is being retroactively removed. It could be any feature, not just Other OS. For example, say they removed themes. I’d still be upset and I’m sure others would be as well. If they remove themes from future models, sure, that’s fine because we know what we are agreeing to purchase but if they remove themes for all models then those who made the earlier purchases may feel cheated. Likewise, this is how some people, myself included, feel about the removal of features of all models.

Until Sony makes a worthy compromise or restores this feature, I cannot support the platform any longer. What’s the point of supporting a platform that is iteratively losing features for those who made explicit purchase decisions for an earlier model? Taking out features in next iterations to lower the costs is acceptable as long as they respect those who made the decision to purchase older models that supported features that influenced the purchase. To retroactively take out features to me is a slap, no, more like a punch to the customer’s face.

Here is what I think Sony should do:

• All users can still log into PSN but they can only join games whose host is running the same firmware as the user. Why remove access altogether when you can easily contain them?
• Allow access to the store for all users. Why shut out potentially paying customers?
• The compromise would be that new media won’t work.

Or, they could just properly fix the “security issues”.

EDIT: So now that I cooled down a bit, I was able to give this subject some more thought. From their recent actions, Sony is clearly making a paradigm shift. At the same time, users have the choice of not joining Sony in this shift, that is, those who remain in firmware 3.15 or below. This shift started emerging ever since Sony released the slim model. So essentially, the PS3 is now split into two partitions: one that is feature-riddled, the fat PS3, which really does everything, and another that is feature-stripped but is market-focused. So Sony is asking its customers the following question: do you wish to join us in this paradigm shift? It is your choice.

Personally, I would rather not have my PS3 lose features. However, I do like where PSN is going and with the Move approaching, I actually may consider purchasing a slim model exclusively for PS3/PSN use, which is what you can only do with it anyway, while keeping my fat PS3 for PS2 (60 GB model), NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis gaming via emulation in Linux.