[plug] School Web Page

[Craig Ringer]

Leon Brooks wrote:

>On Tue, 6 Aug 2002 17:22, Craig Ringer wrote:
>  
>
>>So - any idea how to beat mac and windows fonts into good-looking
>>submission, and identify what fonts will and won't work well? I'm so
>>tired of ugly fonts and the huge amounts of effort needed to get
>>anything to look decent under linux that at times I almost consider
>>installing win2k - then I remember the EULA and the (obscene) price tag.
>>    
>>
>
>KDE 3. (-:
>
*sigh* Debian *sigh*
I gather there are KDE3 pkgs but not in main yet, I'll have a hunt 
around. Getting _really_ tired of just how out-of-date Debian is 
becoming, even woody/sarge/sid.

>Needs an X server (eg recent XFree86) which understands Alpha channels. 
>
Didn't know X did at all... but maybe I just don't have any software 
that exploits it right now. XF864.2 required?

>Tunable font antialiasing.
>  
>
yeah :-) but not as good as DECENT FONT HINTING SUPPORT. I know its 
mostly not the fault of the people working on OSS apps (there are patent 
and "intellectual property" issues with font hinting and using the 
hinting info included in fonts) but still its maddening to use a MacOS9 
machine, otherwise one of the worst systems I've ever had to use, and 
say "wow I wish I had fonts like this". Ditto for win98 - its nearly 5 
years out of date but still its font rendering is better than the usual 
available under linux. *sigh*. Time to find some company IP lawers and 
"persuade" them to RF licence the patents... I only wish.

Sorry. Frustration overload. I've been looking at ADSL plans and it 
looks like since I last checked a couple of months ago iiNet has gone to 
new plans (crap, a few gigs of data then shaped to 56k, plus blocks 
ports of services I use like https and smtp) and westnets aren't as good 
as last time I checked either. Eftel want your soul for access, plus 
$15/month for unmetered WAIX, and they've gone and bought q-net 
sometime. Whats worse is that by the time I get my application filled 
out and sent in to whoever I pick (56k no longer cutting it for 4 
people) they will've changed again. To top it off, when they change they 
will be able to say "oh, and btw forget the contract you signed, you're 
getting this for this $$ now and if you don't like it you have to pay 
_us_ to cancel". I know that non-term-limited contracts are possible 
with eg westnet but its extremely aggrivating to have that allowed at 
all. Shouldn't a contract be binding for the period of the contract and 
changeable only by the consent of both parties? Nope, apparently they 
can just force you to agree to sign away your say in any changes and get 
ripped off or stay on 56k.

I've actually seriously thought about seeing if I can get multilink or 
some kind of IP load balancing working and just get 2x56k - it'd be 
decent, un-capped, and I'd know that I would be getting the same thing 
next month too.

OK, I'm not usually quite this bitter and insane but I'm _really_ _fed_ 
_up_.

Craig