• Changes to Server go to this thread http://overzealousgamers.com/threads/etpub-changelog.6665/

What O/S Do You Use & Why ???

The Admiral

Well-Known Member
Ideally in 10 years time, big software guys will make games and accounting programs etc for Linux/Unix based systems where the code is mostly open source. And I'll be something that isn't a software writer.

Frankly, given the way things are going, who wants to be a software engineer? Only the Government is going to employ you if the open-source community get their way. Getting into Telecomms or the Power/Energy industry seems like the more stable, long-term job option. Particularly with the big Green-Energy push, and everyone offering scholarships to anyone doing power engineering.

Just came from a boring Uni night. Software Engineering seems quite off-putting though. Too big and competitive a market. Competing with a free product...

Much better to go computer systems and write drivers for HW manufacturers, or get into telecomms, or something else.
 

Trigger Happy

Moderator
Yeah you will only lose out if you make general software that OS communities will make. If you are a programmer/Software Engineer, you go into a private company and work on proprietary products that are specialised. You can work for the electrial companies etc working on control software etc, it is really quite a wide area, but only if you do the electrical side to go with it. If you are a straight IT nerd, you will only get into the normal companies and be a code monkey, if you can't understand the underlying structure of what it is you are programming, you are pretty useless for anything that is Real Time oriented or embedded systems etc, all you will end up doing is the flashy webpages and nice GUIs for the program the real programmers make :p

Cheers
 

the whole cake

Well-Known Member
The Admiral said:
Ideally in 10 years time, big software guys will make games and accounting programs etc for Linux/Unix based systems where the code is mostly open source. And I'll be something that isn't a software writer.

Frankly, given the way things are going, who wants to be a software engineer? Only the Government is going to employ you if the open-source community get their way. Getting into Telecomms or the Power/Energy industry seems like the more stable, long-term job option. Particularly with the big Green-Energy push, and everyone offering scholarships to anyone doing power engineering.

Just came from a boring Uni night. Software Engineering seems quite off-putting though. Too big and competitive a market. Competing with a free product...

Much better to go computer systems and write drivers for HW manufacturers, or get into telecomms, or something else.
Thats not quite true dood. A huge chunk of open-source and free software is written by corporations which have an interest in boosting the technology. For example these companies actively contribute to linux, Xorg, Wine etc ..
Google
Intel
AMD/ATi
IBM
Sun
Cisco
HP
Dell
nVidia
And thats only from memory, They all pay engineers to specifically write software for open projects. Like Intel for example has been heavily developing power related stuff for x86 on linux for Atom. And also working heavily on Xorg development. And google has been sponsoring the development of Wine to reverse engineer win32.

Each of these companies has proprietary solutions, however they are all heading towards 'application layer' if you will. Actual end-products, not platformy things. Even their in-house stuff is starting to be opensourced.
 

The Admiral

Well-Known Member
Mmmm, the stuff you guys both mentioned seems to be more a part of the Computer Systems course at UQ, which covers the lower-level programming (the drivers/OS level stuff, not the more basic stuff), while Software Engineering seems to cover more the top-level programming (GUI's for programs etc). And given that Computer Systems is basically half Software and half Electrical, with a few subjects to make it all blend nicely, it seems the better option (both for job options, as well as interesting and fun).

The impression I was given at the open days was that Software Engineering at UQ covers mainly end-user applications, while Computer Systems deals with Embedded Systems, Telecommunications, Power Generation/Transmission and 'deeper' computer things (drivers, OS).

http://www.uq.edu.au/study/program_list ... _prog=2001

Eg Software Engineering covers Human-Computer Interaction, The Software Process, while Computer Systems covers Electrical subjects. It seems that their (UQ's) software engineering course is more aimed at people writing programs for users.

Maybe because the guy talking to me was an Electrical student, and thus thought higher of Computer Systems than Software? Who knows. Apparently by doing Computer Systems I can be half an Electrical Engineer and half a Software Engineer once I pop out anyway. Don't have to decide for over a year anyway.
 

Trigger Happy

Moderator
Not too sure about UQ's SE course, but at QUT you do delve into lower level architecture while still learning the top end stuff. Computer Systems is more to do with hardware than software, that is the main distinction between them. Unless the Computer System course specifically says you are qualified as an Electrical Engineer then whatever that student told you was crap :p You may be able to work in those areas in the IT realm, but you will not get an Electrical position in any respect :p So the half-half business is really just BS. It is the same with the SE course at QUT, you do half electrical and half IT, yet you cannot work in electrical specifically, only in areas that are programming etc. Most of these courses are amalgamating anyways and so your first year or two is identical in any engineering course, so you can choose later once you know what you want to do. It really depends on what you prefer to do, hardware or software. You learn both in both courses in brief but you learn the bulk in the corresponding courses.
Btw, what OP did you get?

Cheers
 

the whole cake

Well-Known Member
Here at the University of Cake, we pride ourselves in a wide variety of cake courses.
We have courses specializing in:
Eating cake
Making cake
Ladder climbing
Professional binoculars usage
Watching girls getting changed
How To Upload Videos to the Internet
Being beautiful
How to run like a girl
And our favorite course: It wasnt Me it was Fuzzi: A beginners guide to shifting the blame.
Free entry for all hot girlies and anyone with cake. Please I have no money.
 

The Admiral

Well-Known Member
the whole cake said:
Here at the University of Cake, we pride ourselves in a wide variety of cake courses.
We have courses specializing in:
Eating cake
Making cake
Ladder climbing
Professional binoculars usage
Watching hot girls getting changed
How To Upload Videos to the Internet
Being beautiful
How to run like a girl
And our favorite course: It wasnt Me it was Fuzzi: A beginners guide to shifting the blame.
Free entry for all hot girlies and anyone with cake. Please I have no money.
Mistake corrected.
 

The Admiral

Well-Known Member
the whole cake said:
Ohh yes thank u for correcting that. We dont offer no courses on watching blobbly blobs
Awesome. I figured it had to be a mistake. No one as awesome as you would ever watch FAT girls getting changed.

I love how this is mainly guys can we can call them fat girls. If there were more girls here, they'd all jump in to defend the fat girls.
 

the whole cake

Well-Known Member
Thats right. U'll only find top shelf girls in cake's penthouse of mystery.

On cake's watch: girls get pulled up on the speedway and given fines for having excess body fat.
 

The Admiral

Well-Known Member
the whole cake said:
Thats right. U'll only find top shelf girls in cake's penthouse of mystery.

On cake's watch: girls get pulled up on the speedway and given fines for having excess body fat.
Damn right. There should be a law against fat girls who don't have medical conditions. And those that do should at least be nice enough to shop in different shopping centres from the hot girls. Segregation of hot and not-hot girls ftw!
 

Tyrian

Well-Known Member
Using Windows 7 64bit build 7100. No dramas at all except when alt+tabbing out of game then back in causes the brightness to drop to an unplayable level. Need to quit & restart ET to get it back to normal. Apart from that, no probs at all.
 

Messenjah

Well-Known Member
Tyrian said:
Using Windows 7 64bit build 7100. No dramas at all except when alt+tabbing out of game then back in causes the brightness to drop to an unplayable level. Need to quit & restart ET to get it back to normal. Apart from that, no probs at all.
Just type /vid_restart into console Tyrian and it will reload all your video settings (brightness included)
 

phatbass

Well-Known Member
or get etmin then its just alt+z to minimize and i have used win7 and vista no probs on either vista came with my lappy then upgraded to win7 oh and skank currently looking for new laptop my old 1 has been retired to under the tv for movies what suggestions ya got ?
 

Death_Reincarnated

Well-Known Member
Win XP Pro. I still find it the most reliable and least CPU/memory hungry out of that and the newer ones. Also security wise is great and tweakibility is of ease and I got used to it.

Not keen on windows7 even though its better than Vista...mainly because of the way it looks and how you have to function around it...sure there may be improvements and great additions but all the beautification IMO is unnecessary and just looks cloggy.
 
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