Slashdot Mirror
LA Weekly: The Lonliness of Linux
Bad Juju writes "
Part 1 of 3
on Linux from LA Weekly...semi-informed Linux-using journalist..citing cultural literacy as an excuse for using MS..not totally negative. We'll see how the next 2 articles come out. "
you could lack the intelligence and courage to
tell your colleagues to author their documents in
HTML or LaTeX or not to bother sending them to
you at all. People like you are the reason BR Microsoft has acheived its (now tenuous)
dominance.
Screw.
Sincerely, Slashdot AC
It's a programmer's market right now. The only thing standing between you and a Linux job (either at your current place or elsewhere) is a little legwork.
I did it; you can, too. Make it happen!
...and what makes Linux so much like him?
AC
The numerous incompatible word processor
formats are the single greatest tragedy ever
perpetuated by software makers on the hapless,
unknowing public.
since he admits he is as stupid as to open word files and .exe that are attached to email let's send him some virus programs.. don't have them around here since i do not use windoze but maybe someone else can help here... no seriously: don't send him a virus but it is painful to see such stupid ignorance.. most m$ users are just not aware of the danger...
Yes, but the issue here is compatibility. I know where she is coming from. In my engineering classes, the prescribed format for our documents is either Word, Excel, or Powerpoint. I have to have all three to get work done, and Lord knows i wish I could change.
Another problem is that many people do not want to know about computers. Many of my friends and neighbors just want to get work done, they have no interest in actually understanding the operating system.
First, it's a "she" not a he.
Secondly, she's not ignorant, she has to use word to get her work done. She's a journalist and journalists use word as their lingua franca. Heck, she's even looking forward to using WP8 under linux to open and save word docs. She's not the only one who has to use word every day. I'm a programmer, but word is the standard documentation format at my company.
Third, could you please read an article before shooting your mouth off about it?
DON'T FLAME! IF you do, you'll just make us all look like idiots, as I bet she'll incorporate reader feedback into her next article on Linux.
Her email address is:
judithlewis@laweekly.com
Please, people, give some examples of the kind of Linux work that is out there. M$ escapees want to know!
Because yeah, most users, hell most "techies" and "programmers" I encounter these days, don't know jack shit about how computers work; they only know how to use them.
I find this deeply disturbing. But their ignorance pays my bills; when the moronic MCSE's fuck up, and they fuck up with monotonous regularity, I get called in at $100+ an hour to save the day. My expertise is in Unix/Linux not NT, but when the problems get down to the wire I can solve Windows problems more effectively than the NT "experts". I'm the one-eyed man in the valley of the blind.
It just feels wrong, though.
I just started a new job a couple of weeks ago as an admin/programmer for a large database server that primarily runs on HPUX. Yeah, it's not the greatest Unix, but my last two jobs were primarily on Win95/Netware networks, and it is SUCH a breath of fresh air to not be the person who gets called every time someone in the organization gets a BSOD.
Already in the two weeks I've been here, I've managed to generate a fair amount of interest in Linux. There were a number of people who were curious about it, and seemed enthusiastic to have a new co-worker who was familiar with the OS. It's looking like at least a couple of Linux machines will be added to production systems here in the very near future.
When I first started working in "real" computer jobs, about four years ago, I had one of my bosses suggest that I shouldn't list Linux on my resume, since people would write me off as a hobbyist. I'm very happy to see that perceptions have changed for the better, and most people in the industry have heard good things about Linux as a real-world OS, even if they haven't used it first hand. Still, I *would* recommend getting familiar with at least one commercial Unix - SunOS/Solaris is a good choice - because most shops still run commercial unices, and because the more you know, the better you look to a prospective employer.
Knowledgable Unix people are definitely in demand these days - anybody who really knows their stuff should definitely NOT be wasting their time working in a crappy Microsoft shop.
-double_h
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/5423
I've tried to unsubscribe from this mailing list for days to no avail. Could someone please have mercy on me and remove me from the list. I can't stand this constant flow of nerd news!
Bill S B
I work for a small company that does contract work with Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Rocketdyne, Ball Aerospace, NASA, and many other aerospace companies. Almost every single contract we sign indicates that all data will be supplied in Word and Excel format (and if it isn't in the contract, it almost always is verbally stated by the engineer we're doing work for). In 4 years, I've not had one request for WP/Quattro files.
I argue with my Linux friend all the time, that as much as I respect what the Linux community is doing, its very much a Windows world and it's going to take some killer DESKTOP apps to change that. Network administrators that operate behind the scenes have more freedom to install and use Linux - it won't effect the end user - the desktop user. And don't tell me that StarOffice is the answer. On my PPro 200 (I realize it's old) with 128 megs of memory - that program crawls. Word and Excel (and Quattro and WP for that matter) absolutely fly on my machine under NT.
When Corel introduces it's full office suite - that'll help, but it better be fully Word and Excel compatible (even more than it is now), because it definitely doesn't make our company look good to submit reports to these companies that are our lifeblood only to have them call back and say "What is the matter with this document. The formating looks nothing like the printed version. We can't put THIS in our company database."
Lon Chaney, perhaps?
I guess I can also understand how you lack the intelligence to use the same document format as everyone else you work with.
I don't know exactly how to do that, let alone subscribe to this list in the first place. But I guess you could contact the postmaster at AOL and explain your problem. Be sure to mention that Bob sent you.
Ali-Ben-Hassan Jr.
Maybe you should point out to the people who mandate Word, that TeX is more suitable for scientific, engineering and mathematical document writing.
"cultural literacy as a reason to use MS"
That way one understands TV sitcom references to routine computer crashes, losing data due to reinstalling the operating system, viruses interfering with the important project. Some parts of our culture are reasons to not use MS.
vi in a dtterm on Solaris won't let you go past the end of a line to insert, and that's a problem (a strong hint to use dtpad?)
Yuck... dtterm sux. In fact, CDE sux. Get a dtterm up and then type 'xterm'.
Is it just me, or does MS change file formats on its products far more frequently than its competitors? It seems to be another way of screwing over the public by forcing periodic upgrades and by making it difficult to use competing products. There's always quite a lag before Lotus' and Corel's products can interact with the most recent MS format. I doubt that there's a valid technical reason to change their formats so much.
Maybe Linux would be more like a filet mignon, medium rare, garnished with a peanut butter, banana and celery sandwich, and with a side order of hunan-style sesame chicken and 3 slices of double-dish extra-cheese combination pizza (oh yeah, and with all the cola you can drink).
:)
Now I'm hungry
Reading that article made me physically ill. When my friends asked me why, I was hard-pressed to answer them. Maybe it's because of all the gratuitous excuses for mediocrity. Sort of a refurb of the old saw "Eat shit--fifty billion flies can't be wrong." If relating to popular culture means eating at McDonalds, watching the Teletubbies and Dawson's Creek, listening to the Spice Girls and Hanson, attending WWF matches and whatever they're calling roller derby nowadays, and running Microsoft software, then please show me to the nearest cave. I'd much rather be a hermit and a misanthrope, thankyouverymuch.
Sexist dickwad. What does 'being a woman journalist' have to do with this. Maybe you should spend a little more time with women, they're not such lame creatures as you seem to think. You clearly don't 'understand' them as you profess.
You should also get out and get a little sun and fresh air you mysogynist dork.
-kabloie
Ooooh...
:)
I like that analogy. Except for the celery.
And I'm hungry now, too
--
mdxi, as an AC because I'm at school and have no idea what my password is. FIRST POST!
I've not had one request for this, but that's not to say it doesn't happen after I turn the document over to the company. Although I don't use it, Word can save the report (and I guess much of the formatting) in HTML format for web use.
I know the Office 2000 suite is going to be much more geared to that (much to my distaste - I've got a long list of improvements I would like to see in Excel for improved data analysis, but the last few versions have been less geared to that type of improvement).
Considering that computers have been built to make people's lives easier, why should people *have* to learn how to use them? Despite all of Microsoft's market tactics, despite sucky software, I have to give them (and Apple, and NeXT) one thing - they definitely made it easier for people to get work done. Many of us are hobbyists - we like to tinker with stuff, to learn about computers, before using them. Most computers do not. They have other interests, which are admittedly more worldly than ours, such as earning a living, making friends, etc. They don't want to learn to use an arcane system which has so many idiosyncracies. That's what user interfaces are about.
:-P)
Until KDE, GNOME, or your neighbor's own home-grown desktop environment mature to the level of the Macintosh, for instance, people will still prefer the far more familiar and more intuitive and *consistent* environment that Macs and Windows PCs offer.
(Yes, I *do* own a Linux box, and I also own an NT box. I use Linux most of the time, but when I want to do something productive, I switch to NT - Linux is too distracting and intriguing.
I use Linux, but I haven't had much experience with the power switch.
What exactly is that thing for, more power ? ;-)
Hell, it makes my Pentium II 300 struggle. And the 70 MB download... ouch. Unbundle the word processor for a start, since that's the only part of the package that most people are going to use. The Word Processor's a lot nicer than Word Perfect, which for some reason likes to crash on my system when I try to create a table.
WinNT (desktop use only (and dial-up internet stuuf)) hasn't crashed on me in more than a year. I and my wife mainly use it for data analysis and internet stuff. Win95/98 crashes pretty regulary. Linux crashes quite often (mainly due to me trying to get things to work under it - which I haven't finished doing yet). Although I've had the gimp and WP freeze up a couple of times, but that happens under NT too, but fortunately both OS's are quite capable of remaining stable under those circumstances.
Yesterday my girlfriend mentioned that the company she works for was required by an agency of the U.S. government to supply all documents in Microsoft Word format.
My immediate reaction was 'This has got to be illegal'. The next thing that popped into my mind was 'no wonder fscking M$ has a monopoly'.
If the OS doesn't constitute an essential public facility, then the file formats have to.
People, we have to put a stop to this. Write your congress-critter, write your representatives. Email the DOJ. As long as organizations are required under contract to deliver documents in M$ proprietary formats we will never win. Period.
Joel Gallun
joel@tux.org
If everyone wanted to jump off a bridge ... would you ?
That's a great story. People really should read the ADVOCACY-HOWTO
Greetings Judith.
h tml. We love our OS,
First, I apologize in advance if any other Linux users flame you for
any technical inaccuracies of your article at
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/99/15/cyber-lewis.s
but some take anything which isn't perfectly correct a bit _too_
personally. I assure you, such poorly mannered folk are in the
minority.
Mainly, though, I just wanted to point out StarOffice to you. Look at
http://www.stardivision.com --it's a free, MS-Office compatible suite
which runs on Windows, Solaris, OS/2, and (best of all) Linux. It
imports Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and pretty much everything else. It
is a worthy competitor to MSOffice, and I recommend you check it out.
I run Linux exclusively, and it allows me to import and export
documents with the Windows world without a problem.
I have mirrors on my machines, and the StarDivision web site has more
links:
ftp://narnia.mit.edu/pub/StarOffice/
ftp://world-domination.mit.edu/pub/StarOffice/
Enjoy.
Sincerely,
Charles Coffing
Any idiot can get a driver's license...we're talking about how much of under the hood is exposed to computer users. Obviously you haven't helped a novice set up a system. Forget automation, that's the least of your worries. Try to coach a newbie through setting up an ISP account in Winblows98, it sucks. You have to boil down to the excruciatingly lowest level..."go to the File menu...no, it's at the top left of the window...the window is the rectangular shaped box..." ad nauseum.
Computers are way too complicated for Joe Blow. I blame the de facto standard (M$), not the user.
I find that I'm the complete opposite to that.
For years, struggling with Win 3.x crap and almost hourly crashes, I hoped for a OS and apps that allowed me to do what I wanted to do.
With NT and Office 97, I rarely find myself thinking "if I could only do this or that". It's to the point now that as far as productivity goes, I could care less what happens to MS or Linux. I can use NT and Office and do everything that I NEED to do. Sure Office has options I will never use, but it's lightning fast on my machine (not the top of the line system either, btw), it never crashes, and I'm quite proficient with both it and the VB macro system.
If I was forced to do my daily work under Linux I would be at least a month behind (after trying to install and learn all the software that would be required to achieve the same productivity I have with just NT and the Office 97 suite), and hence would lose most of my customers, and hence be out of a job - at which time I might have more time to focus on learning Linux.
I don't find that Microsoft software nor the holy war that has erupted between Linux supporters or detractors is worth the effort. If you like Linux use it. MS isn't going to bust down your door and drag you away (much to the amazement, I realize, to many of you (based on the comments I've read here over the months)). If you Like Windows and its software, use it. If Linux develops into a true desktop replacement to MS, then the market will respond as required. That's the wonderful thing about capitalism - market forces eventually win out. If in 5, 10, or 15 years MS is still around and Linux is still around - so be it. Use what you want.
Basically it boils down to this - despite what many of you think about MS and your anti-everything MS view (which would mean you're probably missing out on a great game, btw, in Age of Empires), many, many people don't find the OS mediocre nor its apps. They find both provide a wonderful tool for performing their daily activity and have incorporated it into their work. Articles like this aren't important enough to "make me sick". That's just wasted energy and emotion that should be applied to more life altering things.
I like Linux because it's like this big machine that I can tinker with. As soon as a new kernel or feature comes out, I'm downloading it and then testing it out to see what it can do. There's an infinity of things to tweak and tune and test. That's why I like it. Looks like she still had an ancient kernel. 2.0.30. Probably the same one that shipped with her distro. Her perspective seemed to view the Os as a novelty..the little core files, vi, this..that.and now the novelty has worn off. Linux is for tech-heads and someone who rides a computer around on the carpet and down the stairs obvisouly isn't!
I get the impression that her following articles will be about how windows make her feel warm and comfortable and how her friends gossip about her vulgar Linux "habit". Then she will reminiss about linux and how it clashed with her feminine side and is like an old pair of shoes that made her feel fat. *Yawn*.
no no.
linux would definitely be sushi because it's more an obscure social thing.
add saki to. just don't give any to george bush.
The only thing I can add to that is the observation that many of the Linux advocates you mention don't seem to understand the concept of personal preference...for example, that at least a few of the people that use Windows do it because they actually like Windows and/or it gets their job done, and that those people aren't necessarily brain-damaged, computer-illiterate, or brainwashed by The Conspiracy. There just doesn't seem to be any concept of dissent or accepting multiple viewpoints in the Linux advocacy world. As much as we like to think that technology is this cold, objective thing, personal preference and subjective opinion still plays a much greater role than any other factor when choosing software.
But the thing I always ask myself (and it is obviously dependent on the level of proficiency of the said persons) is could my mother or my sister or my father do this too. When it comes to using windows and things under windows. Yes. When it comes to installing Linux, learning that command prompt, learning emacs and html. No.
No. But if everyone I worked with spoke Chinese, I wouldn't piss and moan that they didn't understand my english. If I wanted to communicate with them, I'd learn chinese.
(I wrote the initial message of this thread)
If there could be a legitimate push for a completely standard file format, then that would definitely go a long way in opening up alternative OS's.
My boss still uses WP for DOS (ugh) and he has ordered me more than once that I have to use WP apps so that I am compatible with him. I've told him bluntly each time that I'm not interested in being compatible with him - that our customers are the ones I'm going to be compatible with (especially considering the fact that he's away on vacation 75% of the year now).
Since I doubt MS would ever agree to such a thing, if everyone else got together and adopted such a thing as a common format (that was upgraded over time like HTML code is), then maybe MS would have to give in to this to comply to the accepted standard.
That's why you set it up for them. Install Gnome or KDE and all the nice little applets that come with it. Install StarOffice. Install Netscape. Set up some nice menus. Don't even mention emacs or bash or latex (at least not yet; if they start to learn, maybe later.)
That way,
(1) Not giving any more money to B.G.
(2) They don't have to be scared of breaking their computer.
(3) You don't have to keep fixing their computer.
I did it with my mom.
vi's fine; every word processor, even "word"
can read text. Use applix instead of Staroffice.
Install GNOME and watch their jaws drop as you
demo something BETTER than Win95 GUI !!!
Typing "strings filename > outputfile"
puts the text inside a word document into
ascii. You can clean it up using "vi"
or another word processor.
There's some other "markup"
crap but you can read what's being sent to you.
Do you realize that if this "mediocrity" as you call it is stamped out, then a new mediocrity would have to rise up for you to bitch about?
Wake up call bro, Dawson's Creek makes you, well, *you*, you arrogant ass.
Funny that for years people told me that they
didn't want to remember all of the key combinations
to run emacs...so the use Word, WP, etc.
Now, from this author's perspective, it is important
to be able to use the memorized key sequences (for Word).
Maybe the people who thought these things out really
DID know what they were doing.
Also MS has a definite talent for "making" people accept
things through brute force and infinite patience.
I get sent documents in word format quite often too. I simply return them saying that if they want me to read them they better convert it to RTF or ASCII or something. Heck, it's usually just more work for me to do anyway, why would I want to read it?
I'm still using mostly windows at work though, I just don't want to install that huge buggy word processer. My machine's already nearly full becasue when I wanted a C++ compiler the boss gave me VC++ which apparently won't let me just install the compiler and leave all the rest of the junk on the CD. Guess I could delete some of it but who's got time?
I use windows simply becasue it was on the machine when I got here.
Who speaks Hebrew anymore much less writes in it? Write in English like the rest of the world. :-) We should just all standardize on a "Common" language and make that American English for simplicity.
Did anyone else notice the carefully darkened, photo-doctored, Linux penguin graphic that graced her story? (Rather reminds me of the OJ mugshot in Time a few years ago). It's no surprise that the story was unbalanced and biased.
It seems that the media focus is shifting. Before the "hot topic" was the emergence of linux. Now it is "My experiences with Linux: it sucks because it doesn't run word/excel/games/is too arcane to use." The last bit is the most painful for the growth of linux; for instance, a non-linux user would get the mistaken impression from her story that even the most basic of tasks, such as editing a text file, takes "years to master."
Why not Mandarin? More people speak it..
Well, considering Linus is Scandinavian, perhaps Linux can be compared to Smorresbord..
;)
;) ;)
(Or lutefisk
(Or pizza with extra cod
Anti-semetic much? A whole lot of Israelies, among others, mostly Jews.
OhMyGawd! Finally, someone who publicly said what's been on my mind for YEARS! Computers users have become nothing more than lambs going happily to slaughter (or is that fat, lazy cows?). Amen brother!
You know, the truly funny thing is that we now have a system (OS) that has the possibilities of empowering those people who have been completely shut out of the computer industry for years, and the only thing that journalists do about it is spread FUD! You would think that educated people would have enough sense to recognize something that has the potential to uplift, and improve the lives of so many people who have (for whatever reason) been existing on the low end of society for generations. Now for the first time in history the playing field is just about level.
For me, it's not about MicroSoft, it's not even about the source, it's about liberation, it's about the ability to use low end hardware to do high end computing, and it's about having the ability to improve the human condition through the use of computers. These things my friend are powerful ideals, and it's these things that make Linux so exciting for me personally.
You know, the really sad thing about that article (and what Tux was really crying about) is that someone could have made good use out of that 486/66 that the author so stupidly abused to the point of destruction, and that computer could have made someone's life better. That is the thing that made me think the author was a complete and utter idiot.
Sincerly,
Jason Burke
PS: If anyone is interested in using Linux to help out other feel free to email me at jburke@motion.net. I am currently working to start an organization to help bring computing and training to those who would otherwise not have the opportunity to work with these technologies.
I should have a web site up soon (By monday), and I will be happy to keep interested parties informed of my progress.
MS-Office is essentially the standard desktop Office suite across NASA and all documents are in Word format. I always get 2 or 3 line word documents as attachments to email that I generally ignore because it's too much of a bother to save them from pine, load up star office and view them. I suppose I could use strings to read it but 99% of the word docs floating around in email are worthless.
Ah ... and you as its herald?
Isn't Microsoft Word a defacto standard? Companies (and Microsoft in particular) will need some awfully strong motivations to strongarm them into converting their databases over to a new standard. Microsoft in the past has been quite comfortable with their role in defining standards rather than following them. (Witness the Java debacle). I don't see this trend changing anytime soon, since controlling the standard has just too much competitive advantage. How else can the Redmond folks justify asking companies to shell out mega bucks for incremental changes to Word/Excel?
An Intel Celery 400 then? :)
(ducking)
Well maybe it has friends. But I doubt they are more than Linux. However I'm pretty sure that it has a lot more slave users than all other systems gathered together. I'm one of them. While I ripped off Win home and at one comp at work, I'm still bound to use Windows in another one just because there are a few progs that still don't have their equivalent in Linux. However my soul cries Windows MAZZDIE!
This, in part, is why there is so much pressure to migrate to XML, eventually. Microsoft has siad they will use XML in the office suite, no doubt they are being dragged kicking and screaming by the customers.
XML, like HTML, is a derivitive of SGML. The resulting files will be readable as ASCII.
It will be a lot easier for people to reverse engineer the file formats, when they're XML. Which is why Microsoft really doesn't want to convert to XML, but they're being forced to.
This, in part, is why there is so much pressure to migrate to XML, eventually. Microsoft has siad they will use XML in the office suite, no doubt they are being dragged kicking and screaming by the customers.
XML, like HTML, is a derivitive of SGML. The resulting files will be readable as ASCII.
It will be a lot easier for people to reverse engineer the file formats, when they're XML. Which is why Microsoft really doesn't want to convert to XML, but they're being forced to.
I work in a company that does much of it's documentation with Word. I haven't touched Word much, but I have heard how it sucks. For example -- once a large documentation got corrupted. At least Word refused to load it anymore. We had a backup, but soon that backup was in a similar state. We were able to get over it, but it could have been a disaster.
BTW - computer viruses seem to be able to spread through RTF files. Is there a way to disable the macro/activex functionality from the Word?
Being a derivative work of Eric's, it's likely in the public domain (GPLed most likley) anways, or at least should be.
you're missing an important point: everyone needs to be able to read and write Word format if they want to exchange documents with other people. this is the real world. technical excellence (or lack thereof) has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Believe me, as an Australian living in the US the term `American English' is not an oxymoron at all. Just try asking an American what a `torch' is, or how to spell the word colour, let alone all those `s' to `z' translations :-)
Don't mention vi, bash, cron, or any other of the cryptic-geekisms that are in any UNIX-like system. Install any GUI versions of whatever programs are available and install them in the WM menus with names that the average person can understand. This means "Editor" not "vi," "Solitaire" not "xpat2," "File Manager" not "xfm" to name just a few. No need to change the filenames, just the menu names. This would go a long way to make Linux a lot easier to use.
I'd guess that although more people speak Mandarin as a first language (or at least have a compatible first written language), there are probably more people with at least a passing knowlege of English. Or if not English, then other Indo-European languages, so they'd find English easier to learn than Mandarin.
That said, IMHO if you're going to start mandating a standard language you might as well work do something interesting - either an artificial language like Esperanto or a reformed version of English.
The situation is intolerable. With XML automatic
processing of documents might become much easier
and you wouldn't have to be afraid that some day
the file just is corrupted.
Are you comparing Microslop with the training or the toilet? I definitely believe the latter. ;-)
WAR LINUX! KILL THE MICROSOFT PIG!
Futz with your mimetypes and you should be able to spawn staroffice directly from pine to read those annoying word docs.
Or any other regularly-used word processor. Only in the Linux/OSS community are such offenses as "definately", "kernal", and "lonliness", committed, without the slightest remorse. It's simple, folks: if you want to impress people, in both the consumer and business arenas, don't make preventable mistakes. We come off as half-assed and juvenile when we don't take the time to think of _how_ we say something, as much as _what_ we say. That is where MS, the king of spin, has us beat.
This whole idea that "we needn't put up with bad software or propriety formats" is ridiculous and deserved a rebuttal. Sorry, we HAVE to put up with it because it's industry standard. People aren't going to stop using Word because a relatively small group of software hippies says so. It is a pipe dream.
All of the idealist hippies who think otherwise probably have a Betamax gathering dust somewhere in their homes.
Get real. It is far easier for someone to stick with Word than to learn a new linux app, import Word docs, then export them in Word again so people in other offices can read them. Word is a standard in the business world. The average business dude has enough trouble running Word in the first place and is not willing to jump through hoops to make some software hippies happy.
God forbid someone use an appliance without knowing how it works! What morons! If I don't know how an appliance works, I don't use it!!!
Fucking superior computer geeks. "I find this deeply disturbing"...you must have lived quite a sheltered life.
I too made a move to Linux..
after using linux for 1 month.. i decided Windows
was poisoning my brain.. So, i dropped..
lasted for 10months without my Windows and Warez..
Now my computers is full of source code instead of
warez..
Wow, what a rebel you are. Have fun in your cave.
Regardless of her obviously staggering intellect..."I threw my computer down the stairs" I somehow doubt she's going to have much of a scientific audience to forward Tex documents to.
I dunno, I was a little put off by her poo-pooing writing style. But after considering it for awhile, I guess I don't really care if she likes it or not. I don't like knitting or making doilies out of braided squirrel hair, something she and her friends most likely sit around and do to pass the time. La-la-la-la-la..(knitting and braiding noises here..They're sipping horribly weak coffee too.)
She doesn't seem to have much interest in computers at all. Her attitude seemed rather passive overall. "If they force me to use windows, I will. I have used Linux and I don't have a cover on the case and it's getting dusty.."
why in the world is she even writing articles that are related to computers? It's like getting technical advice from Martha Stewart.
Well, here at work, I use it for everything. It's
the perfect development environment. The tools are not only free, but I can target (using cross-
compiled GCC) all the platforms I need to from my
one machine. I can even generate WIN32 binaries
using Borland C++ command-line tools under WINE.
Applix is fine for slide presentations and the little bit of word processing I do, and StarOffice, although WAY too slow for general use, can handle the one Excel spreadsheet that I have to work on occassionally.
I had WordPerfect at home, but nothing compatable at work. Since I wanted to spend my lunch hour working on it, WordPerfect was out. Besides, it didn't feel right to have all my hard work stuck in a format that might not be supported by anything five years from now.
If I want my work to last, that leaves plain text and HTML. Since I want the benefits of italics and >80 columns, I chose HTML for my writing.
Plus, I get the side-benefit that my work is trivial to put on the web for all to see - if I so chose.
The moral is: if you write in a closed, proprietary format you'd better be willing to accept the price. If I write in Word, for example, I get the benefit of being able to hit "return" for new paragraphs. The drawbacks are if something goes wrong in Word, I have no way to correct the problem and if everything goes right, my writing stays with Word - forever.
But if I write in a strong open format like HTML, I need never fear. And I encourage everyone to do the same.
Squid and Octopi are easily some of the most intelligent and personable non-mammal critters in the ocean.
So, watch your language! Comparing Ballmer and Billy Boy to squid is a disservice to squid.
I don't think Word, with it's pinache for Macro Virus's and stupid little help tip animations will really go that well in the Linux crowd. However, Applixware has already been established in the Unix community as has Star Office. WordPerfect could also fit that bill. God, gEdit is preferable to Word (no slight intended). This is not a Microsoft bash, just a bash on one of their products. I'll bash Microsoft in another thread...
Right on. I love Linux, but spend all my time in NT because I like to do development work and NT is simply superior in just about every way to Linux for developing real applications. Linux is a tinker toy in comparison.
Sorry - it's true.
Bravo!
The Word 2.0 format isn't the same as the Word 6.0/95 format which isn't the same as the Word 97 format which probably won't be the same as the Word 2000 (or is it 2001 or 2002?) standard.
Not only that but Word itself gets more bloated with each new release. When we upgraded from Office 95 to 97 at work, my machine (a Pentium-166 with 32 Mb RAM) slowed down by almost half. Add the "Active" desktop and it made my machine the equivalent of a 486-33. What a joke!
I agree, the world should standardize on one language that would make life for everyone easier.
However, even though I am an American who knows no other language than "American English" I don't think that should be the standard. In fact, we shouldn't use any language that is currently in use, that will avoid any potential political whining of "Why shouldn't it be my language?"
We need to change it to a language that everyone will have to learn equally (or at least most everyone will). I think we should all speak Klingon.
Alright, you made a good point on the squid there captain. But otherwise what he wrote was right on the money.
It's not like there aren't Word Processors for Linu and they even read proprietary MS Word files.
WP 8 for Linu runs much faster than MS Word on the same machine.
You idiot. Those agreements DO NOT state that
everything be in Word/Excel format. They only
say Word/Excel COMPATIBLE format. I wrote hundreds of reports and generated gigabytes of data for those same companies from 1990-1998,
and NEVER had to send a word doc or a Excel spreadsheet!
As a matter of fact, Lockheed reprocesses almost every bit of numerical data they get with a Perl script to get it into their internal format, so they insist on ascii (they do like tabs).
Phil
....Emma Goldman, Hellen Keller, Lydia Sargent, and ...., well the list would never end. Gender has nothing to do with intelligence.
Come on, linux is bit neutral. It's 32bit on 32bit computers, 64bit on 64bit computers.
What about just using body language?
Ummm... But Windows is ALOT more expensive than Linux..
No, no, no...
Linux is like a vanilla milkshake...lots of bubbles and a straw!!!!
My old man couldn't install windows either. I had to do it for him. My girlfriend couldn't install either windows or linux. I did it for her, then set up kde with all the cool games she liked to play. after windows crashing 6 times in one day while trying to do a school report, guess what happened? she went to linux and NEVER went back to windows.
need i say more?
Jesus christ I don't know what I would have done if I had missed this urgent article which includes a person describing word and vi! I can see that my fellow /.rs also consider this an equally groundbreaking piece from the large number of posts it has received! This writer was obviously a dirty MiCrOSluT whore who we should spam and such! Micro$oft sucks! Go linux!
>Even though they are capable of speaking English? Even though this "Chinese" changes every couple of years, each time requiring additional outlays of cash and time spent learning it?
The "time spent learning" a new version of Word, even learning Word from scatch, is very short compared to the amount of time spent learning something like LaTeX. So, the amount of money spent buying Word is made up for in the amount of time saved learning how to use it. Learning Word is pretty intuitive and straight forward for the average users. So is it worth it to spend the money? For a lot of people, yes it is.
Ahh... "You idiot" - wonderfully intelligent comeback (if a comeback was really necessary - I don't think it was, but apparently you have some deformed personallity trait that required it - whatever).
I have only been doing this for the past 4 years, so I can't comment on pre-1996 (but considering the time frame - I find it amazing that in those early years companies were requiring Word formats instead of WP (which was king of the hill then)).
I can not comment to the gigabytes of reports and spreadsheets you have generated (nor can I call you an idiot based on that either). I can only comment about what I have experienced. And over the past 4 years, I have had no company request anything BUT Word and Excel, and the few times files were sent in WP/Quattro they were re-requested in Word/Excel.
Bubba, you need a lotta love, 'cause your bad vibes are burning you up and makin' the rest of us TIRED. If you believe that Linux is the greatest thing since sliced bread, then I know you will let it become the best with ruin it's reputation with your toilet talk.
Clean it up, bubba.
Then watch them laugh when they ask you to open a word processor.
Umm, well we have WordPerfect but it crashes a lot
and can't read some of your bosses files...
Umm, well we've got this or that, but it's still beta, but don't worry...if it busts you've got the source! What's source code you ask -- go to a university on your spare time and find a CS student, he'll know how to fix it! Plus, he'll do it for free, then he'll rewrite all the work you lost too. No problemo.
Umm, well maybe you want to try LaTeX, it's great -- you can forget about formatting the document, you just worry about the content -- ohh, but here's the manual, you only have to learn a full featured mark up language to use it do something you could do in Word in 5 minutes! Plus! Ohh wait! Plus, LaTeX has been around for years and years and the author calls WYSIWYG, "WYSIAYG" (what you see is all you get) so we shouldn't even try to make a word processor, what fools we've been to *try* to encapsulate mark up commands behind an intuitive GUI. Your boss doesn't know what LaTeX is? Well you should send it in ASCII then -- ASCII is great, ohh, you've got pictures in it...well here's a program I wrote to turn gifs into ASCII art! Why don't you tell your boss not to send you any more documents, they're just more work for you anyway!
A lot of journalists/commentators make the same mistake: they think that they are the whole world.
If the author of the artical needs the newest version of MS-Word, then, s/he assumes, everybody must need the newest version of MS-Word.
If we all learned to speak Klingon, we might inherit some of those violent Klingon cultural norms. The global sport would no longer be Soccer but Batlif (sp?) duels. Think of increase in violence!
;)
I think Vulcan would be a better direction
AC who is getting back to work now... honest.
what am i missing? do you mean "non-brainwashed" or something?
funny how you snooty geeks react to an Outsider who thinks of
their computer more matter-of-factly than as the staging ground of
some sort of katzian divine revolution.
for lack of a better term. i hope you never have
a daughter. or a son for that matter. yikes.
I have to agree. There is no "culture" to Windows. Besides, if our boxes crash less often, doesn't that give us more time to socialize?
This is more FUD (an argument I would never have thought of before). People who use Linux have fewer friends? Just because they don't save in Word97 format or discuss Windows Wizards?
What trip is this guy on? My (non-digerati) friends wouldn't bring up 'MS Wizards' in any conversation. My digerati friends talk about ISDN installation problems and who has the biggest ADSL pipe into their house. Sometimes we discuss how to run FireTeam over IP Masq (it looks like IP Chains are the way to go).
Not once do we discuss Word formats (email goes out in ASCII only) or any other 'Windows' cultur' things.
How often do masons sit around with non-masons and discuss concrete or bricks?
How often do electricians discuss wire quality with non-electricians?
How often do gardeners discuss soil qualities with non-gardeners?
NOT VERY OFTEN. PEOPLE THINK THEY'RE BORING IF THEY DO.
Don't be boring. Discuss the geek stuff with the geeks and make sure you don't confuse your geek hobby or job with eveyone else's.
Like the author of that article has done.
Non-geeks don't care about Wizards or connectoids or FAT32 or setup.exe or Alt-F-S or Alt-F-T.
He's projecting and it shows badly.
what are you using, windows?
Or Script?
.sp 5 instead of <br><br><br><br><br>), but I realize that HTML is the direction the world is going. Anyone have a dot-command to HTML translator?
(Script was an IBM product that used a similar dot-command format to Runoff/nroff/troff. Expanded by U of Waterloo to Waterloo Script. Cloned by me as a portable formatter as Formal, originally for CDC machines which had a god-awful character set.)
I still prefer it because it saves typing (easier to type _word instead of <i>word</w> or a leading space instead of <p> or
All my friends are installing Linux after seeing my desktop. I compile my own apps, but for them I just pop in a RedHat 5.2 cd and RPM everything else. Last night I spent 3 hours to install GNOME 1.0, E, get some themes, and upgrade X, and that includes download times. I've never seen the guy happier.
you're only about the 20th super-genius here to offer the
brilliantly insightful "women are stupid" interpretation of
the article in question.
how is using it at work "personal use"?
linux is the new mensa. it attracts the kind of people who
are very into "proving" their superiority.
I agree. But it's also compatatiability in different fields.
In my science classes, they're obnoxiously dependent on MS products. One of the first thing they taught me was using Excel, and ashamed to say, I do all my data analysis on it.
However, in CS courses, they are big proponents on *nix stuff. Many of them use linux and I doubt the prof cares how nice the code looks like on a paper as long as it's readable and works. For that I comfortably use emacs on my linux(don't stone me vi people!). Free compilers are nice addition for linux too. We are hardly lonely in this case. Everyone understands what you're saying.
It depends on the social spheres you're in. And unfortunately, these two seem to be pretty far apart when it comes to programs. I can imagine the distance being greater between writers and programmers. Hopefully this will change as files become more compatible and linux becomes more mainstream. But I doubt it. It's not just the software/hardware that makes a clique (sp?).
Just my $.02
For lack of a sexist term...
What was so sexist about that?
So, I guess there's no need for spell-checkers in your world?
>>....All "*Independant* Software Vendors......>....your business's continued *existance*......
Why you are so polite? There should be no mercy for any windows loser. Especialy this one.
KILL'em ALL!!!
Don't forget minesweeper. It's more addictive than solitaire :)
Linux is the whole damned kitchen. Make your own meal!
Now if only I could get the manufacturer's specs for my (unsupported) oven.
do you, perchance, own any "conan the barbarian" comics?
I, personaly, would beat LOSERS to the bloody pulp. Or better of - kill the suckas.
if the average woman was that brain-damaged
misogyny would be quite justifiable. did it ever
occur to you that real people are infinately
more commendable than celebrities.
Gee, how funny. I spent 8 years, 10 hours a day writing reports and generating data for Lockheed. Boeing, Martin, Rocketdyne, Aerojet, GEAE, Hexcel, Fiberite, the FAA, ACC, Ford, GM and they NEVER asked for or got any M$ word docs or Excel spreadsheets. They got Printed reports and ASCII data, and they were overjoyed with it.
So I sure can't figure who you two were contracting with!
Anyone out there who can say otherwise? For what company? I remember when TRW used Apple II's!
"idiot" is perfectly good for someone claiming to be what they are not.
Phil
Way less rigid than Vulcan, way less violent than Klingon. Just as long as it doesn't mean I'd have to get a Romulan haircut.
Errm... need a GUI for LaTeX? There is lyx you know :) Pretty darn good program imho.
WordPerfect isn't the only word processor. There is StarOffice and Applix too isn't it?
The beta programs I have work fine. Some of them are beta simply because their makers consider them not matured enough yet. I think my WindowMaker 0.51 is really stable, although they choose to call it a development release.
No kidding. I've never seen a word processor that can go from 0 to crash that fast.
of all the random stuff in a word document. I was working on a group project in my EPP (engineering and public policy) class. One of the group members was out of town and sent me his report in word format via email. I strings'd the word file, and found the registration info, so I sent a return email to the effect of "good job on the report. PS. I hear the weather's nice down at Georgia Tech. How's ?
Your letter is rediculous. I don't believe you even read her article. She didn't throw her computer down the stairs as you misquoted she dropped it. She blames the cover being open and dust getting in as one possible reason the computer crashed. It's like you wanted to hate her before you even read her article.
You also didn't even bother to read the article you were replying to. No-one said Judith Lewis, the author of the article, should use Tex. The poster you replied to was responding to an anonymous coward engineering student whose professors demand that homework be submitted in Word, PowerPoint, or Excel format. So to start off with, your reply wasn't even on topic.
Anyway, onto your post. You start off by sarcastically attacking Judith Lewis' intellect, misquoting her in the process. Saying that a computer was "Dropped down the stairs" is a lot different from saying "I threw my computer down the stairs". She never even says she was the one who dropped it, maybe it was a delivery guy. In any case, having dropped something heavy and unwieldy while trying to make it up or down stairs is hardly a valid indicator of intelligence. In your world, what do smart people do? Try to throw it through the window? Matter transporter?
Of course, your groundless insults to her intelligence aren't neccessarily indicators of sexism. Taken together with your condescending and equally groundless comparisons to Martha Stewart or some bizarre sewing circle however, you do really start looking pretty sexist. To me, her writing presented nothing of the sort. I certainly don't agree with the philosophy of jumping off a cliff just because everyone else is, - I choose my own cliffs to jump off, thank you very much - but that doesn't make ad hominem attacks all right. I am fairly certain that you would not have reacted this way if Ms. Lewis had published her article under the pseudonym "anonymous coward" or similar. If you hadn't known she was a woman when you read the article, I'm sure you would have come to completely different conclusions (true, you probably still wouldn't have agreed).
P.S. What's wrong with operating your computer without a cover? I do it all the time. Heck, I operated one of my computers without a case, with the motherboard sitting in its original box for about a week once. And she never claimed that having the cover off was the reason the computer got dusty. Did you read this article or just skim it?
Uh, what about flaky device drivers? And they do exist, even in mainstream releases like Red Hat.
Sexist? Why are you taking this personally?
Or is it your job to parse content on the web and pass judgement on it's moral quality.
Ah..a Sexist content Cop(TM)
'm forced into using windoze even for my cs classes cause we're learning java with visual j++
Like on grounds of gross incompetence. You're there to get an education, and they're giving you halfassed vocational training instead. Demand the difference between their tuition and that of the nearest community college. If that's all you're getting, fuck 'em.
CS has nothing to do with memorizing what to click in the wizard. That's just plain disgusting. MS is probably paying the prof to use that crap. No, dammit, I don't have the documentation handy, but I've read about that happening. IMHO that should be grounds for yanking somebody's tenure. It's not like there's a shortage of PhD's running around loose looking for teaching jobs. They don't have to put up with corruption.
"I threw my computer down the stairs"
It has "even been dropped down the stairs". Read the article before you comment on it. There are a lot of ways it could have been dropped down the stairs (e.g. movers, etc.) without the writer personally "throwing" it.
I don't like knitting or making doilies out of braided squirrel hair, something she and her friends most likely sit around and do to pass the time
There's nothing in the article that even faintly suggests anything like this. She mentions writing perl code and other scripts, and writing articles for a living (since she's a journalist). Nothing about knitting, dumbass. I'd guess that you're assuming all these things because you feel threatened by women, but it could be something else.
Oddly, I just sort of blandly assumed that the article was by a man until I looked at the byline after reading it. Obviously, you looked at the byline first, and you got scared and reacted very badly to the article.
"I have used Linux and I don't have a cover on the case and it's getting dusty.." why in the world is she even writing articles that are related to computers?
Gee, I'm thinking about the other computers I've seen that spent their time with their covers off . . . One was in an EE lab at MIT . . . Others have been under or on the desks of sysadmins etc. Do you get my drift here? Why would somebody who's "not interested" in computers take the cover off, or leave it off? You're really living in a very strange little dreamworld, my friend.
Get help. It's not her fault that you can't get laid.
At the company I used to work for I was working on MS Office Migration (to, not from, unfortunately). One of the things we very quickly became aware of was the fact that while Word can read WP's files and vice versa, neither of them can do it very well. In other words, any document with much more formatting than is possible with, for example, the html tags available for Slashdot comments will not convert cleanly. Oh sure, some do, but so many don't that you have to go through any converted document with a fine toothed comb anyway. We looked for third party converters, and evaluated Conversions Plus. It didn't really do a much better job, although it succeeded in some spots where the built in converters failed and vice versa. Basically, the best solution we could come up with is that each document be manually recreated. This was far from an ideal solution, but it was the only one that provided even the possibility that the final documents would be something like the originals.
I came out of that job with very little love for the MS Word document format. It seems to have been thrown together out of spit, baling wire, and a hundred half-baked ideas. Now, there's nothing all that elegant or wonderful about the Word Perfect format either. We had problems with that too. But, the truly worst thing about conversion was that each program had different ways of doing the same thing. Like, for example, putting a watermark in the background. Or maybe it was the fact that identical looking documents were created in completely different ways. The eternal curse of the WYSIWYG editor: what you see is what you get, but what you _don't_ see is how it was originally formatted, so simple changes to old documents are, if not completely impossible, then at least incredibly involved.
So, the main problem with document conversion is that, these days, most documents are a mess. A complete and utter indecipherable mess. Due to my experiences, I have a great admiration for anyone who creates a web browser. Why, you ask? Implementing the various web standards is easy, or at least relatively easy. The trouble is, that'll only create something that can view five percent of web pages at best. To view the rest you have to create something that can _correctly_ display incorrect html. For example, anything created by Frontpage will be full of nesting errors which I'm pretty sure are there intentionally so that the pages won't work well on non-IE browsers.
Sorry, but this all is crap. You DON'T have to
use MS-Ware, if you don't want to, even if some
idiots out there still think MS is THE thing.
There is more than enough software in market, even
for Linux, to easily dodge the "I HAVE to" thread.
If you want to use Linux, and get Word-attachments
use Applix for Linux. Period.
is it your job to parse content on the web and pass judgement on it's moral quality.
Look, the original poster said something stupid. If he's allowed to say something stupid (and if you're allowed to say something almost as stupid in his defense), the rest of us are certainly allowed to say something intelligent about it all. Deal with it. It's a free country.
It's amazing how some people think that "free speech" only applies to speech that is abusive and moronic. Anything worth saying annoys them to no end. If you dare disagree with their bullshit, they think they're being "oppressed" or something. What losers.
You're being just as much of a self-appointed net cop as he is, but there is a difference: You're an idiot. He's not.
It's also a fine dessert topping and shoe polish.
Have a look at 'sapphire' ...
(For the 90,000,000,000th time . . .
To be honest, I did laugh at it the first few times I heard it).
And how do you define 'line-' and 'form-feed' ?
;-)
Even if more people speak English than any other language, and I'm not really sure if that's true or not, more people do not speak English than do. In fact, it's probably quite accurate to say that the majority of people do not speak English, just as the majority of people do not speak Mandarin or Spanish, or French. There's no language spoken by the majority of people. The whole philosophy of saying "everyone should speak our language" is just like saying "our country is the most powerful in the world, therefore it's more powerful than all of the others combined". Sorry, it just doesn't work like that.
The other thing to consider, is if there's any rule like Turing completeness that applies to spoken language. In other words, can a given language express everything that spoken language can express? Of course, that's not a very simple thing to figure out, but expressive completeness isn't the only concern. A language could be expressively complete but still be very inefficient for expressing certain things. We already know this to be true of English, and also of every other language, which is why there is value in having more than one language. Besides, it's not as if there are very many people who can use English well. Oh sure, most native speakers can get by, but there aren't all that many truly great English hackers anymore. Most of us are just script kiddies.
Well, what I love about Microsoft is their ability
...
to implement YEAR old features (like multiuser or
multitasking) to their "operating systems" (which
they are NOT, by strict definition) and sell them
for BRAND NEW.
What makes me sick to my stomach is that the
so-called "experts" fall for it each time again.
But maybe, the syntax error is on the opposite
side of a computer's keyboard
Just very, very ignorant of the world and its cultures and countries. The poster probably thinks that Hebrew is only used by scholars poring over ancient dusty scrolls or some such.
Which was expressly designed for the purpose of being an intermediary language. There are quite a few problems I can think of with Klingon. For one thing, wasn't it intentionally designed not to have a verb "to be". The creator thought it would be an interesting idiosyncracy. That wouldn't work very well for most human cultures.
Well, Slashdot continues to publish FUD like this, like it's newsworthy. Slashdot continues to be visited mostly by Windows users, who get a very negative impression from so many articles like this one. Who is being served here?
This particular article may be mostly due to ignorance, not FUD, but still.... How is it newsworthy?
What would be better - and truly newsworthy? Feature stories about what people are acutally doing with Linux and other open technology in education, business and at home. Far fewer stories about what OTHER web sites and on-line journals are saying about Linux. Far more creativity (rather than just links to negative external stories) from Slashdot editors.
It's time for an alternative to Slashdot. The site may have served a good purpose, once. It seems now to serve mostly the purpose of getting more hits from controversy and negativity.
Any suggestions? Any promising sites with similar
format (stories and feedback) for Linux users and other who may be considering Linux and don't need to be discouraged by the Slashdot sellout?
John Califf
Well, Slashdot continues to publish FUD like this, like it's newsworthy. Slashdot continues to be visited mostly by Windows users, who get a very negative impression from so many articles like this one. Who is being served here?
This particular article may be mostly due to ignorance, not FUD, but still.... How is it newsworthy?
What would be better - and truly newsworthy? Feature stories about what people are acutally doing with Linux and other open technology in education, business and at home. Far fewer stories about what OTHER web sites and on-line journals are saying about Linux. Far more creativity (rather than just links to negative external stories) from Slashdot editors.
It's time for an alternative to Slashdot. The site may have served a good purpose, once. It seems now to serve mostly the purpose of getting more hits from controversy and negativity.
Any suggestions? Any promising sites with similar
format (stories and feedback) for Linux users and other who may be considering Linux and don't need to be discouraged by the Slashdot sellout?
Well, Slashdot continues to publish FUD like this, like it's newsworthy. Slashdot continues to be visited mostly by Windows users, who get a very negative impression from so many articles like this one. Who is being served here?
This particular article may be mostly due to ignorance, not FUD, but still.... How is it newsworthy?
What would be better - and truly newsworthy? Feature stories about what people are acutally doing with Linux and other open technology in education, business and at home. Far fewer stories about what OTHER web sites and on-line journals are saying about Linux. Far more creativity (rather than just links to negative external stories) from Slashdot editors.
It's time for an alternative to Slashdot. The site may have served a good purpose, once. It seems now to serve mostly the purpose of getting more hits from controversy and negativity.
Any suggestions? Any promising sites with similar
format (stories and feedback) for Linux users and others who may be considering Linux and don't need to be discouraged by the Slashdot sellout?
We did use to send ascii and data. But with today's technology, people expect a bit more for their money - it's the basic premise of competition. If the other guy says he'll provide all the data in Excel with all the graphs pre-rendered and everything done for them for the same price, then they come back to us and say "why don't you do that".
Would you like me to start listing contact names for these companies? Addresses? I'm not going to sit here and try to convince some hard-headed moron of something he's not going to believe no matter what I say. I perform contract material testing (4K to 1500K - if you have any idea what that means) for the companies that I originally listed (plus about 100 others that I did not list. Whether or not it is beyond your mental capacity to believe that, I have no problem with nor am I going to try to convice you otherwise.
Maybe when you were doing it, they came to expect crap and therefore didn't ask you to do more than that - or maybe you had a corner on the market - who knows. We attempt to provide our customers with as much information as possible and attempt to minimize there effort in analyzing our data. We do this by doing what they ask - provide the data in Excel and Word format (they also get a bound printed copy for their files). I guess they should be happy that you're not doing the work for them - I don't mind spending the few extra hours to help minimize their time. Keeps our business in business. And makes me a lot of money in the process.
All our data starts out as comma delimited data. We stopped sending files in that format 4 years ago - basically when everyone started requesting the Excel formated data.
By providing them the Excel data with the graphs that appear in the report, we save them countless hours (considering most test programs for these companies involve hundreds of tests). We are able to give them data that already has the stress vs. strain, stress vs. displacement or Coefficient of TE graphs (just three examples) for them.
Sure I could give them 100, 200, or 300 comma delimited files, but with the volume of work they have, they now expect us to give them more - especially now. Now, with Phil (previous message), I guess they would be out of luck and would be stuck spending hours graphing that data again (which I had already done for the report). Maybe we took his customers - which is why he's so bitter.
I wrote that article that everyone is so angry
about and I apologize. I went a little overboard.
I read the linked article several times and
something about it struck me as being very
funny. It wasn't.
ps. The bit about the case..it was *not* meant
to be a criticism but an example of.....eh...heh.
an AC who'll keep his mouth shut for awhile....
Nowhere in the article does he say "Linux sucks because it doesn't have word," nor is it suggested anywhere. The article basically says "I wish Linux had Word." If you're going to flame an author, atleast take the time to read his article to make sure you aren't misinterpreting things.
Also, if you used your computer in an environment where most people use Word, you would realise ("gee... what a concept!") that while Word Perfect 8 and Star Office 5 can read some Word 97 documents, they can't read all of them. Nowhere in this article does the author lament about not being able to save in Word format. That's the easy part. He needs to read files that people send him, and right now that means running Word.
I know people are going to respond that he could just tell everyone that sends him something written in word quicksave format to disable that feature. And that is an option. But believe me, it gets annoying after a while.
It would be alot easier if there was a program for linux that could reliably read Word documents, so I'll join the author in saying "I wish Linux had Word," or atleast something that did a good job reading Word files.
"it's a kernel issue, and so should be posted to linux-kernel."
OK, but if Linux doesn't crash, why is there a kernel issue at all?
"Remember, the kernel (and the drivers embedded in it) are the same for all distros. Red Hat or Debian Joe Bob's Linux, makes no diff."
Well now, that's even worse! What that means is that I am stuck with the same bug no matter what distribution I use. I thought Linux was supposed to give me the freedom to switch to another release if one was buggy.
Why is everyone getting their shorts/panties in a bundle over somebody talking about their experiences with Linux?
Relax, hot-heads.
The writer uses the word "MISS" 9 times as in "I MISS LINUX". She conceeds she's running Linux on an old 486. She conceeds that the only reason she doesn't get to use it as much as she would like to is because she's grown so attached to Word and everyone she exchanges documents with uses Word.
My soul rebels against the idea that if you are an American, you must eat at McDonald's, watch trash TV shows, and use Microsoft Windows.Where did Judith even come close to saying this?
Relax please- cut down on the Mountain Dew or something...She is right about culture. I understand C and unix jokes, but I wouldn't recognise a bad pun to do with MS file formats because (weirdly enough) in eight years of messing with computers I've never actually used MS products.
I am desperately trying to avoid getting into the sexism debate I see breaking out all over the comments here, but 'some wench' smacks of disparagement to me as much as 'some guy who thinks he's a stud' would.
As to spell-checking: I know enough professional journalists to know that they work to deadlines and that anything that helps with spellchecking is handy. If you have ever read your own work for typos, found none and then handed it to someone else to check you will know that it's easy to miss your own typos and easy to spot other people's. As to Shakespeare and the American Constitution: it's well-known that Shakespeare contributed dozens of new words to the language, altered the spelling of others randomly, and was never sure how to spell his own name. Being a Brit, I'm not familiar enough with your Constitution to comment. Anyway, I'll only get into a row if I do :)
I think you - and a lot of other people have misread that article. She *liked* her Linux box. She went to LinuxWorld Expo. I only hope that she met some of the less rabid members of the Linux community there rather than the ones who post here slagging off journalists for daring to comment that there's a lot of MS format documents around in the workplace.
One other thing: slagging off journalists doesn't strike me as a clever thing to do. More people are likely to read their words than are likely to read yours.
I used to write all my papers in school using nroff/groff. I had taken Windows 3.1 off of my PC at the time, and had Linux (somethng pre 1.0 that I had to install by hand...). I had no word processor, no HTML viewer (hell, the web hardly existed at the time anyway...).
:)
nroff was great -- very easy to set up very nice looking pages in, quick to type (which is good when you're doing it in vi...), and I could get a lineprinter version, a text version, a dvi version or a postscript version very easily, and the papers that ended up laserprinted from the postscript looked better than the crap that came out of Word 2.0.
I still use it from time to time, usually when I find myself formatting something on a machine that doesn't have the RAM to run StarOffice (my WP of choice, and a memory hog to make microsoft proud).
I did go through a three or four month phase in school however when I wrote everything in postscript just to make a point that I could.
She just says that she doesn't use it for her work, which pretty much involves writing. Of course, she can write in Linux, but, as she points out, exchanging documents with people who use Word gets to be a pain. So, she uses MS Windows for work and has fun with Linux on the side, which she plans to continue doing.
P.S. I used to keep my SGI Personal Iris in my dorm room at school as my only computer. I wrote papers on it and so forth, but I usually ended up copying the text of those documents into an MS Word document before printing or handing it in on disk. Obviously I didn't have to do that for printing, except for the fact that I didn't have a printer, and only the Wintel computers in the general computer lab could print to the printers there. I could have printed things out in the CS labs, but that involved a long, dangerous trek across campus, over the train tracks, through the fire swamps and the Slough of Despond followed by a rappel down a cliffside (okay, maybe there's a bit of hyperbole there). Anyhow, I can certainly see how people can be pushed into using MS software because of a lack of standards. And no, MS Word format is not a standard. Standards are published.
Why should they, the whole school is probably on the take from MS. They make deals with schools whereby they get free NT licenses and so forth just so long as they promise to use NT exclusively for teaching. Personally, I think contracts like that should be illegal. Maybe they are and no-one cares enough to actually enforce it. I mean, it's perfectly obvious what MS is doing: giving away software to schools so that students will get used to using MS tools. Apple used to do the same thing. Except, of course, that MS doesn't need to target everyone, just CS departments which stubbornly insist on using real operating systems. I think, also, that Apples giveaways may not have required that schools use only Apple computers. I could be mistaken, of course.
If you're running fairly widely used hardware, Linux will never crash. In seven years of running it on everything from a 386/33 to a AlphaStation 4/233, to a Dual Pentium II-Xeon with 768 meg of RAM, I've had it crash less than ten times. I'd say at least six or seven of those led to me finding faulty hardware, either a harddrive or RAM. I've had two crashes on the AlphaStation in the last year when the system for whatever reason became unable to fork processes and eventually crashed. But that was all the software hanging, not the kernel itself. (And that's running AlphaLinux that's almost two years old, I haven't gotten around to upgrading it).
Other than that, not a problem. Ever. I ran one system when I was in school for 9 months without so much as a reboot, that was a 486/66 with 8 meg of RAM running all my applications, X-windows, hosting two or three occasional users other than myself telnetted in, and a mailing list requiring almost 800 messages to be mailed a day.
Never a hiccup, even at times when the load would be at 3-4 for hours straight.
I took the machine down to add 16 meg of RAM to it. Six years later its sitting at home in my apartment, down to 20 meg of ram and it runs my firewall, voicemail and home automation. Its been running almost three months, last time I took it down it was to hardwire a couple buttons into it so I can check my voicemail without having to log in.
Two other machines -- a 586/133 and a 486/33 -- never had any problem with them, the 586 is running Oracle. (*not* recommended... they're not kidding in those system requirements...)
So the point is, your hardware will crash before the Linux kernel does. If your applications are crashing, its still a good idea to look at the hardware. Flakey video cards I've seen cause X-Windows a lot of grief. Bad memory is the famous one for problems compiling things.
So don't worry that you're stuck with the same kernel for every distribution. If you're getting crashes, its not coming from there. And if it did, upgrade it or downgrade it. Said 486/33 above is still running one of the various 1.2 releases of the kernel.
I notice that her second article is going to be notes from LWE. I am going to enjoy reading that. Or - at least - I hope I am. I do hope that the 4% of the Slashdot poll responders who said they were at LWE don't include the truly obnoxious posters above, or we can look forward to an article that basically says, "Great OS, shame about the users" next week.
Or my AudioPCI sound card! I've been trying for months to get that thing to work - it only ends up crashing linux (have to reboot completely to solve it). I hear that 2.2.x solves this, but I haven't had the motivation yet to do it. I've been too busy playing Thief, Baldur's Gate, Independence War, Grim Fandango, and Jedi Knight (after a hard day's work and a long workout - it's nice to just do something mindless for an hour or so).
M$ is a game os
and fuck word
It might be said that MS Word is a "standard application", but the MS Word document format is not a standard as the term is usually applied in the computer world. Among other things, for it to be a standard, its specifications would have to be available somehow.
The trouble is, the MS Word format, as is, is a hopeless mess. I really haven't been paying much attention, but I heard a long time ago that supposedly Word 2000 would use html for its document format. That would improve things greatly, and would actually count as a real standard. Provided, of course, that they don't try to "extend" it.
Oh yeah, I don't have a Beta player lying around, but I do have a bunch of tapes that are direct descendents of Betamax right next to me. They're from the summer video course I took a while back at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. We use them because the quality is much, much better than VHS. Mostly, my tapes are filled up with all sorts of spiffy feedback effects (aim video camera at nice flat monitor that displays what the camera sees). It's amazing what you can do just by zooming in just right and aiming the camera at fractions of a degree different than a right angle to the monitor. Several times, when I whammed up the brightness and got the camera just a bit out of focus, I managed to create an interactive light blot effect. You could actually reach your hand out in front of the screen, and "grab" the point of light it displayed and move it around. Boy was that a fun class!
>Not being a newbie myself, I use Linux when I want to do something productive. I switch to NT when I want to play StarCraft.
Why? Go to http://linuxgames.com, they have information on using StarCraft under Wine.
Once upon a time:
There was this dude that started on Dos 3.3; on his never ending journey into a possible mind warp.
He toiled with Dos 5.0, 6.0, 6.2 and 6.2
He battled with Win3.1 and Win3.11
He grudgematched with Win95 and 98
He was swept into the Winnt realm
He seemed destined on a one-way road; with a single set of eyes that could not find its way out. He was starting to become a mindless fool- destined by someone elses fate, not his own
Linux found him in the nick of time. Linux stated that there is life after vaporware. Linux led him to an understanding. Linux is becoming more and more real. Linux is life!
MS conspiracy filter off:
Scene: Newsroom, 10pm. The author is talking with the graphic design guy about a picture to run with the story.
Judith: Well the story is about how lonely I felt using linux. You know, the alienation I felt whenever I got an attachment I couldnt read.
Design Guy: I guess this happy little penguin just isn't gonna cut it then.
Judith: No, try to _feel_ the mood of the story...
Design Guy: Oh, OK... Ill just make the penguin look bummed out... yeah that's easy.
MS conspiracy filter on:
Scene: Newsroom, 10 pm. Judith and her editor are talking about her story.
Editor: Dammit Judith, what is this! What the hell am I supposed to do with your story.
Judith: What do you mean, I thought it was fine. I put that line about Windows users having more friends. Just like you said...
Editor: No! Look... I double click on the icon and it opens Notepad. I want Word dammit. What did you do?
Judith: I, (softly) I used Linux
Editor: What? What did you say?
Judith: I said I used Linux.
Editor: Didn't you read the memo? All stories must be written in Microsoft Word. (looking down at the story) And look at this! You misspelled lonley right here. Don't you know what that squiggly red underline means?
Judith: Sorry sir... It wont (sniff) wont happen again.
(Judith slips out)
Editor: (yelling) Danny! get in here, where is the picture to go with this article?
(Danny runs in, beaming with that fresh out of design school glow)
Danny: Look boss, a happy little linux penguin. Its the logo.
Editor: Dont you even look at the story first? This story is a warning! A warning about being different. You wont have any friends, youll start slipping at work. You have to learn all these arcane commands to write anything. How does that make your happy little penguin feel?
Danny: Umm... sad? I know! Ill make the penguin look sad!
Editor: Fine... just dont let me catch you playing with that Mac again.
We follow the editor out of the newsroom into his office. There the editor opens an envelope, the return address reads "Microsoft World Domination HQ" Inside the envelope is a check.
Editor: (voice over) If only I hadn't turned down that job at ZD. They must get checks like this every single day...
Hey you! Why don't you read a little of her other
articles to see her outlook on technical issues,
which is a lot more wide ranging and insightful
than you mostly find in this narrow mined place.
Or are you just completely unfamiliar with women,
they are more than half the population you know.
Microsoft is one of the creators of XML standards. They are responsible for a lot of
innivative ideas in this area. Data islands,
DOM extensions etc. Next time think twice before you accuse Microsoft of lack of innovation.
>Most of us had to start with something.
;).
I had the good ol' apple ][+ ( _not_ apple II+). This wasn't the mac by the way, this was based around this clever thing that apple had invented called 'DOS'. That was before Gates desided that he should develop his own dos that improved over the apple one by preventing users from doing stupid things like making files with names longer than 8 characters.
Ahh those were the days. Installing new software meant "putting a different disk in the drive, and then turning the computer off and on". None of this '... and now reinstall windows to get your other apps working again.'
It was even WYSIWYG in the sence that what you saw was ASCII text, ( and guess what you got
still, I eventually dumped it *sniff*. And you thought that switching from MS to Linux was hard? In those days switching machines was easy because there was none of this confusing 'compatibility' stuff to go wrong. You just made up you mind, and said goodbye all your old data.
These days what you could do with them would seem quite primitive, but it was probably a very good machine to learn on.
Cars, too, have an arcane interface that should be overhauled. Since they're too dangerous to be operated without a license, I suggest that someone comes up with an easy, *safe*, foolproof interface which prevents collisions, and lets people get where they want to efficiently and effectively. There - you just eliminated a steep learning curve.
(Think back to the days when you were learning to drive and you'll understand. Even better if you learned to drive stick-shift - now *that's* an arcane interface.)
Indeed, Linux is useful. I never doubted that. When I said that I switch to NT to do productive work, it was because I'm still learning the intricacies of Linux, and I'm more interested in that learning than doing my actual work.
My point was entirely different - it was related to user interfaces and why having an arcane interface a-la-*nix undermines its popularity, no matter that it's free (what common person cares about open source?) and robust (I know many people who'd rather have ease-of-use combined with great entertainment value rather than stability).
I agree that you can do great things with Pico and Emacs - precisely why I use Linux as my primary programming environment - but can you *seriously* say that you grandmother would prefer them to MS Word, just for stability's sake? (OK, I know WordPerfect for Linux is more stable, has a better, more intuitive interface [no stupid Insert and Format menus], and equal functionality, but Pico and Emacs are good examples of open-source software; WP8 is not.)
Um, the reason American's don't speak more than one language is that there isn't any _reason_ to. In some parts of the world it certainly makes sense to speak more than one language; the US is not one of them, yet.
Let me speak in Siberian when everyone else speaks in English. Better yet, let me kill off everyone who speaks in English, including dictionary makers. After all, Siberian is *so* much better than English.
Oh, and your bratty juvenile talk impresses me *so* much.
. . . and profanity will only make you seem even more juvenile.
Thinker, huh? Well, if you could think, you'd understand what I'm trying to say.
---
Open source? Get an open mind first.
The serious comment that vi is a reasonable substitute for Word is yet another example of the unreasonable, ridiculous nature of many of the Linux communities arguments. "The fact that it is an archaic, grossly obsolete piece of crap is a FEATURE!"
Just out of curiousity: How are you benchmarking these word processors? It's been quite some time since a word processor has seemed at all slow on even the most obsolete of PCs, so I'm interested in your assertion. Or perhaps this is yet another chance to throw out some insults Microsoft's way with absolutely no basis in fact?
"Of course, I design and develop software for a living, and things like perl, sed, awk, grep, emacs, and others are the screwdrivers and pliers that get me through my day. While they've been ported to run in a DOS box under '95, they don't run as well. For some reason, they're real slow to boot (I think I know why). "
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It must be that insidious Microsoft looking for any utility that might have some correlation with the UNIX world. When they are seen it toggles the "slow to boot" flag.
What a bunch of bullshit. You can get ALL of those utilities on any Microsoft platform, indeed you can usually just recompile the SAME code. This whole "pretend it's all a part of Linux" campaign is just absurd. ALMOST EVERY ODDBALL APPLICATION FOR LINUX IS JUST AS AVAILABLE FOR WINDOWS.
"In my experience, NT's TCP/IP stack is about the WORST implementation I've seen. Well, second worse, 95's takes the cake."
And how exactly do you know this? (Or perhaps you're just making this up or taking it from some _100%_BULLSHIT_BUT_THE_IDIOTS_EAT_IT_UP [ie. the "Kirch Paper". I was laughing for several hours after reading that piece of nonsense]) As a programming the API is the same sockets API as on Linux, so what's the deal? Or are you perhaps disassembling DLLs? Sounds pretty fishy to me.
"The only time I've seen Linux crash is when I've been monkeying with the kernel, or various drivers, or had a hardware problem."
The only time _I_ have ever had NT crash is with a) crappy video drivers [which for performance reasons do have the ability to bring down your PC. Call it a weakness if you will, but it is one of the many compromises that make up a good operating system. Get a good video card and WHQL drivers and you won't have crashes.] b) see a.
After several times having Linux crash on me for no apparent reason (on hardware that works perfectly fine in NT), and after dealing with reams of unprofessional, poorly executed, VERY poor performance applications (apps that strangely get hyped as serious competition to the real world...), Linux got wiped off my PC. Who needs the hassle.
Zontar wrote:
I dunno, it sounded like she's a typical user -- and the box did last 6 years, after all. I suppose your idea of "proper use" is to keep the box tighly wrapped in several layers of plastic and safely unplugged? Let's face it, stuff happens -- hard drives blow guts, keyboards wear out, monitor screens get burnt. The box died. It wasn't her fault. Lighten up.
P.S. -- The expression is "Hear, hear!"
-----------------------------------------------
Stuff happens? So it's normal for users to drop their computers down a flight of stairs (which according to the article is what finally did the poor box in)? It's normal to drag an open case across a carpeted floor?
Sorry, I don't buy it. To justify this kind of stupidity with "stuff happens" is ridiculous. However, your right about hardware failing, it happens, and on occasion there's not much you can do about it, but this is obviously more than just a case of simple hardware failure, it's a case of pure neglect and ignorance.
In any event, since you seem to have missed the real point of my post, I won't waste anymore of your time trying to explain my convictions, or the reasons behind them. I will simply just invite you to check my spelling and grammer, and flame those. After all, I'm sure they are a much easier target than my beliefs, and if it makes you feel better about yourself then I'm all for it.
Take it easy,
Jason Burke
PS: Thanks for the correction on my subject line.
Kinda like Linux, huh? Reinvent all the shit that people cast aside in the late 70s and pretend you've invented something new.
> Errm... need a GUI for LaTeX? There is lyx you :) Pretty darn good program imho.
...
> know
That's one of the programs that I was talking about (beta programs). I've been burnt by Lyx in the past, and quite frankly Lyx really doesn't compare to the functionality of Word. I would enjoy seeing how stable Lyx is when they have half the functionality of Word.
> WordPerfect isn't the only word processor. There > is StarOffice and Applix too isn't it?
I must admit, I haven't tried StarOffice, so I can only pass on secondhand opinions -- that StarOffice is slow.
I have tried Applix (mind you not the latest version, the one that was available with RedHat5.0), and it was a clunky piece of
It crashed so often that I would basically save my
file after every couple of words. Finally I just deleted it...not worth the trouble.
Furthermore, I was astounded that Applix somehow beat Netscape's medal for the slowest program to load on my system. A job well done! What an excellant idea: lets put all of the code for a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation creator, other crap, into one executable!
> The beta programs I have work fine. Some of them > are beta simply because their makers consider
> them not matured enough yet. I think my
> WindowMaker 0.51 is really stable, although they > choose to call it a development release.
A window manager is substantially less complicated than a full featured word processor. That's why there are so many of them, and so few decent word processors...
Sorry to say it. But it's true. You say you won't repair your Linux box in your article but you say you love love love love Linux in your post.
Mental problems.
Get real. It's an OS. Because it is so amazingly stable and amazingly configurable, you can set it up to do what you want and then go play in the garden.
You can set it up to grab all your email from all your mail boxes and sort them for you so you only have one email client at home connecting to one mail box. This gives you time to do other things.
I don't love Linux. I am very appreciative of it because it frees my time to be spent on pursuits other than rebooting, re-installing, re-formating and hoping my backup got the important stuff.
Less stress in my life.
More time to do the things I enjoy.
And my friends don't all get together and expound upon the joys of squiggly lines under words.
Seek therapy.
Did you know you could hook up a water sprinkler control to a Linux box and your flowers could be watered while you slept? This is the best time to get the water down to their root systems (it doesn't have as much chance of evaporating before the plants get it). Your garden could be healthier because of Linux.
Less work, more life.
/. sucks, but I have it bookmarked so I must continue to visit out of habit :) I suggest going to another news site which simply filters all the pointless linux evangelism out and prints the good stuff. there are many
A bunch of the papers on research.microsoft.com are even written in LaTeX, on NT. So let your Windows friends get that!
No, Apple didn't legally bind schools to only use their equipment. However, it did tend to have the effect of "hey, we have this expensive Apple II, don't want to waste it, so let's fill the computer lab with them."
What do you think NT lacks that prevents it from being an "operating system" in your opinion?
And over the past 4 years, I have had no company request anything BUT Word and Excel, and the few times files were sent in WP/Quattro they were re-requested in Word/Excel.
Ever tried to send plain ASCII text or tab-separated spreadsheet?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
All our data starts out as comma delimited data. We stopped sending files in that format 4 years ago - basically when everyone started requesting the Excel formated data.
Comma-separatel list *is* supported by Excel. Directly. If they want some pre-processed graphics you can generate and attach it, or give them scripts that will generate that in their beloved Excel. But no, it was easier for you to say "yes, sir!" and contribute to this proprietary-fromats madness.Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
But if Judith Lewis will find a local LUG, she'll find out that Linux users have *better* ones.
--
It's hard to type.
How hard is it to learn to type plain text? That's all that's required for most of the communication people do. Basic HTML is relatively easy, too, and suffices for most of the rest it.
I'm a MacOS/linuxppc user! ;) ;)
There's nothing _that_ obligatory about the W98/W95/Wforever interface. It always amazes and fascinates me how people put on blinders and make assumptions in very MS-centric ways: maybe it's just easier for me to see since I have never ever owned a Wintel PC! (or had one in the house, or done schoolwork on one, or worked with one in the workplace etc etc)
People assume there has to be a taskbar. Why does there have to be a taskbar? To see what programs are open. Well, you could have a little tile or icon that popped out a list of running programs when clicked on (Mac system 8 and under), you could have a little application with lots of info about everything that is running for only when you really need serious process info (top, of course, the Unix version of this type of tool: also MacOSX has top, in a spiffy translation to GUI instead of ascii-art, but keeping all the organisation precisely the same!). Or you could have a scrolling wheel device that looks like those tacky web counters, and you roll it with the mouse or even use one of those scrollwheels (wee, MS tech, ohboy) to see what apps are available- click the app that comes up to raise it... or simply leave the whole thing to the person's memory, rather like a Mac user who never needs to check the apps menu because he or she remembers perfectly well what apps were launched, including ones with no open windows currently showing. That, too, is possible- something will always need to be memorized, even if it is 'duh, button in taskbar mean running proggy'.
Now, this little rant was entirely and singlemindedly about process shortcut tools. Imagine all the other windows98 interface details and consider how other ways could exist to do those things. I _do_ hope people are not equating checkboxes and radio buttons with W98: everybody does those, they aren't specifically Windows at all. Some Windowsish features are actually detrimental- for instance, tab-panel interfaces are most often used to not have to think about interface but instead organize UI like you were shoving it into a drawer- tabpanel interfaces tend toward the really arbitrary and annoying, and there's no situation where you _have_ to take several unrelated interface objects and bung them into one UI container to hit the user with the ability to do half a dozen unrelated things under one dialog box. This is just poor design... but I'm beginning to cover other bases, so I'll shut up
applix won't import Word 95 or Word 97 files. The last version that it will import or export (according to their web site) is Word 6.0.
If I wan't to write a word processing document, Applixware is fine. I have StarOffice and Wordperfect8 too.
I can get by without Word - easily.
I do have one problem with Linux though... There is more software available than I have time to run - and it irkes the heck out of me!
Using Windows is like... pulling teeth with no anesthesia using rusty pliers.
I go over to my friend's house every once in a while - he's heavily into games and runs Windows98.
Here is the scenario:
I arrive to find him working on his computer adding this new widget or that. Usually, he's adding a new cooling device for his CELERON. Big fans and heatsinks, WaterFall, temperature gauges, Voodoo cards etc... This takes him about 30 minutes.
Next, comes loading the drivers and rebooting, downloading the latest drivers, loading them and rebooting again and again and again. Going into the BIOS to jimmy around with the settings. Half the time, the Windows OS is bluescreening and asking to be rebooted. This takes another hour and a half.
Then, he has to figure out what is wrong with his network because it ain't working now. More rebooting and loading of drivers and rebooting.
Then, he loads a new game he's downloaded. Something goes wrong. The DLL's get corrupted half the time and he has to reinstall Windows from his image file. This takes another 2 hours.
By this time, I'm falling asleep so... he makes some coffee or expresso.
This has been a day in the life of a Windows Gamer. YMMV
With LINUX, I can download the source code (or binaries) to a zillion different programs. Compile and run with hardly ever a problem. I almost NEVER have to reboot - can't remember the last time I rebooted because of a crash. I can sit down and get to work doing what I want to do without having to FIX my computer on a daily basis. I can't put into words the increase in my piece of mind. I've been spoiled by Linux! I've been ruined! Woe is me... I have no patience for Windows anymore.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Continuing the story after the coffee episode...
We begin playing a game after installing it and rebooting and downloading the latest patch and installing it and rebooting again.
We get into the game and begin playing... everything is going fine - when all of a sudden. BANG! Blue screen or automatic reboot. Kule! I just love watching the BIOS information and hearing the beep. It makes my day.
We try to play the game again... all is well until. WHIMPER~ Windows freezes. Reboot!
In the game again. This time we play awhile then when we try to save where we are in case of a lockup - Windows locks up. FIZZLE. Damn!
I can't stand that freakin OS Windows and can't wait till more games are available on Linux. The world will be a better place.
Was I ranting? Who me? Naaaw - you've got to be kidding! I never do that. I do? Oh.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
What does that have to do with the original post?
I love Linux, and have switched to it from NT because I find Linux far superior for developing real applications. I would REALLY like to hear the specific areas in which you found linux lacking. Email me if need be -- I'm willing to put my name behind my posts.
Ohhh, yeah. LyX, baby! :)
And Emacs for coding.
.
I can write a decent essay when I put my mind to it. Having everything spelled right... now, that I have trouble with.
So I use LyX (which uses ispell as its spellchecker backend). I was able to become proficient w/ it in five minutes. Are the documents I make in LyX somehow worse than if I'd written them with a typewriter or in vim?
Indeed.
When switching from Linux I just added a new (8GB) hard drive and kept my old data on the old one. Going through it recently, it struck me how much of one's life can end up on a little spinning disk.
I don't really play MIDIs much anymore, though now that I've got a faster CPU I should be able to play 'em via software synth (there are a few such programs available for linux I understand to be pretty good). Anyhow, do keep the stuff around -- it's nice to be able to be sentimental once in a while.
Something I've found, comparing the work on my new HD to the old one... the OS you use influnces who you are. I've stopped dabbling in graphics and play less games (if any at all). I have more programming projects and tend to reach completion on more of them. Although I have spreadsheet software, I now make no spreadsheets; Although I have graphical mailreaders, I use PINE. I'm more attentive to security issues, using SSH regularly.
I care more about doing things right and less about simply making it work. Simply reloading the OS is not an option; Rebooting is not an option; These mean defeat, and I will not accept defeat. Nothing happens "just because"; If there is a problem, I WILL find it and fix it.
Okay, enough rambling. Anyhow, I do encourage you to make the switch... but keep your old stuff 'round.
Perhaps many Unix folks are perfectionists somewhat; Good linux sysadmins (or hackers) will not accept anything wrong with their systems; They know what constitutes a good file format and are greatly disturbed by having to use bad ones -- I am, at least.
Honestly -- I look at the Glade save files (in xml) and consider them beautiful. I can edit them without using the application they're generated in... it's a Good Thing. Hackers appreciate Good Things.
Word's file format is a Bad Thing. I'll leave it at that; Other folks have explained why. I have no tolerance for such ugliness and the arrogance assumed by the use of an incompatible format.
I'm lucky; I communicate w/ my co-workers by email, sending no documents in formats other than text... When I have to turn in nice-looking documents I write them up using LyX and print or send in PostScript documents.
Of course, other folks may not be so lucky. They'll have to find their own way (perhaps through WordPerfect, Applix or WordViewer, a program I've seen on Freshmeat that converts Word docs to HTML) -- but as for me, my idealism won't allow me to use something so ugly and wrong.
---
Does this make me a software hippie? Perhaps. The folks I work with don't think of me that way, though. I don't talk to them in terms of ideals but rather of practicality and prices. On slashdot, however, my ideals are a bit better accepted.
It IS disturbing.
People should know how their car works. Not be able to fix it, neccesarily, but have a very basic idea of what does what. If they don't, they're liable to get BSsed out of a lot of cash when it breaks down.
People should know how their blender works. If they don't, they're liable to hurt themselves.
There should be no black boxes. Really, there shouldn't. Computers shouldn't be black boxes. Appliances shouldn't be black boxes. The policital system shouldn't be a big black box.
Because I believe these things, have I lived a sheltered life? Do I consider myself superior? BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN THE EMPOWERMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL THROUGH UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR ENVIRONMENT, AM I SOME SORT OF FREAK?
Society should not become too complicated for an individual to understand. Once it has, things have gone terrably wrong and should be fixed.
This doesn't always work... I'm not sure if it's QuickSave or what, but I've seen docs where strings came up with absolutely no usable text.
Is it the X server crashing (or causing the kernel to crash -- as a privilidged app it can do that) or the linux kernel crashing soly in response to unprivilidged apps?
If it's the second of the two, there are plenty of folks on linux-kernel who'd be interested in hearing the details of your problems.
I don't use Windows, but I have no problem with playing AOE or running Encarta under WINE. I don't play AOE or run Encarta (after switching from Windows I've really stopped playing games, though I've got several), but I could and have no moral problem with it.
Anyhow, though, the OS one uses really can alter one's life. I've got a big rambling post somewhere else in this article about that... search the main page if you care.
It's a kernel issue, and so should be posted to linux-kernel.
Remember, the kernel (and the drivers embedded in it) are the same for all distros. Red Hat or Debian or Joe Bob's Linux, makes no diff.
Unless it's video drivers you're talking about. That's the X server's problem.
Look at what happened to the commercial unices when they forked.
You find a bug using the kernel in Joe Bob's distro. You report it to linux-kernel. It gets fixed. Now not only you but the folks running Red Hat, Debian and Little Joey's Linux Distro get the benefits. This is supposed to be a bad thing?
Regarding the TCP/IP implementation, there's very good documentation behind this; It's better not only than that of NT but of almost all commercial unices.
Regarding the video driver issue... I disagree that video drivers should be integrated with the kernel, even for a significant performance increase, in a server OS. Face it -- reliability is one helluva lot more important than graphics performance in a server or a developmennt platform.
As for your problems w/ linux, I can only say that my experiences have been very different. After moving my low-end hardware from win32 (P5/133, P5/90, some old used 486's), I've been thrilled with the performance. Some of those 486s have been doing AppleTalk sharing faster than the PowerMac Workplace Servers previously given the job; My home machine was almost unusable when working on big software under VC++'s development environment and compiler; With Emacs/GCC, I'm still using that hardware -- and happy with it.
Please detail your performance problems... unless you're talking about something like StarOffice. We all agree that that sucks (well, performance-wise, at least).
I'm a student at CSU Chico. They do have Windows-based development stations here, but the lion's share of work is done on Unix. Some folks in my assembly class use the Windows interface to our MIPS simulator because it looks prettier; I'm writing a nice GTK one to dispel that.
Banning folks from using pico was really a good idea. I see folks using it and cringe; As it requires the user to do all the formatting themselves (and does things like word wrap by default that just mess up code), it really results is much less readable code (as compared to Emacs with its auto-tabbing and other programmer-friendly features). Re the reasons for not using Windows for development... well, just ask me by email; It's a bit much to put here.
Anyhow, you're entirely right -- that guy just gave a completely unfounded position without any backing evidence, making him no more useful than any other piece of PR garbage.
Posted by F.A.N.G.:
It isn't Word, either.
The only legitimate use of Windows is to run Solitare.
Posted by Clueless Newbie:
If someone sends me Word *.doc file I usually
request it in text-only RTF format even though StarOffice does a pretty decent job of converting.
It's a matter of principle.
Why is this FUD? It's just a Linux user's musings on the social aspects of using it in a Windows World. There's no intent to feed Fear, Uncertainty, or Doubt here; it raises the usual (important) issue of file formats, something that fits in the "Stuff That Matters" category for any Linuxer who has to deal with Word-ed junk.
Slashdot continues to be visited mostly by Windows users...
Oh? Where are your numbers?
Are we here to impress people? Screw them. Screw you.
Who is being served here?
Feature stories about what people are acutally doing with Linux and other open technology in education, business and at home.
Did you read the article? It was written by a writer for LA Weekly. She's in the writing business, or does that not count, since she doesn't pull in $100K? The article is Part One of three - the series is only one-third over, and you see fit to turn this thing into a gratuitous anti-/. rant that's as meaningful as the copy-and-paste antics of the recent pro-MS trollbots. Get a fsckin' grip!
Move along. Let us know when you get your site up and running. Will it be called "Pissed Geek Troll" or something?
--
--
=8^
>But if everyone I worked with spoke Chinese, I wouldn't piss and moan that they didn't understand my english.
Even if it required that you spend hundreds of dollars (buying MS Office) to understand their "Chinese"? Even though they are capable of speaking English? Even though this "Chinese" changes every couple of years, each time requiring additional outlays of cash and time spent learning it?
It's rather like sending all your vital letters postage due...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
>Even the great plagarist
Bell's Second Law of USENET*: Spelling and grammar flames almost invariably contain similar errors.
It's "plagiarist."
(Bell's First Law of USENET: No matter how farcical or satirical your message, someone out there will think you were serious.)
* Obviously we're not on USENET, but the laws are much the same...
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Personally, I hate the idea of sending someone text in a BINARY file. Especially since some of those blocks contain whatever just happened to be in a chunk of memory at the time (like passwords, the secret formula etc..). With a TEXT file, I know I needn't worry about that.
Personally, I'm going to laugh in a couple of decades when businesses start realising those old documents they saved as Word97 are completely unreadable in WizBang2029 and they have to spend big bucks to convert and re-archive everything.
Meanwhile, ASCII has allready been around for decades, and will probably still be in use in 2029. If not, it is at least well documented.
Innovation is creating "new things" that helps you get customers. It is always market-driven.
That includes "creative imitation". It's how Microsoft wins - again & again... They give the herd what they want, even if it's not what they need.
Sucks, huh? Deal with it. No monopoly can win forever on creative imitation...
-Stu
Ascii is portable, So long as you only want to do US english (NO £ sign, dont you know) The 8 bit ISO charsets are much nicer, BTW does anyone know where I can get some nice ISO-8859-8 charsets?
(Hebrew)
--Zachary Kessin
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I mean, using Windows and Word just to stay in touch with the ``culture''? This is sheer lunacy. First of all, Windows has no culture. It has no leading characters that would create a culture. There are guys like Ballmer and Gates, but they have the personalities of squid and next to no technical capabilities. Secondly, familiarity with the kludges of a poor quality operating system doesn't constitute cultural awareness. It's just a form of self-inflicted torture, i.e. masochism.
In the UNIX and free software worlds there is a true culture. There are characters like Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Alfred Aho, Chris Torek, Keith Bostic, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, David Korn, Stephen Bourne, Alan Cox, Donald Knuth, Bill Joy, etc. I could drop a lot more, these are just names that pop into my head.
As well, the long endurance of software in this culture leads to a true heritage, whereas the historical awareness of a typical Windows user doesn't extend beyond the previous releases of the software packages he or she is using. The legacy behind it all is just disgusting, anyway. MS-DOS, for instance, is just a bad memory for those who used it, and users of modern Windows feel little connection to that time, except for backward compatible kludges whose origin they are hardly aware of.
Whereas people who used early UNIX versions like V6 have fond recollections and stories to tell to new generations of hackers. There is a greater awareness among UNIX users about where it all came from and how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
Also, I take exception to the remark that vi takes years to learn. That is just downright silly. I remember I was proficient in about a week to the level that I could do all the things in vi that a lesser editor is barely capable of. I wouldn't say that I'm exceptionally gifted in learning text editors, either. The ``years'' estimate for learning vi might apply to the mentally retarded, but not to the person of average intelligence.
Where is the standard which describes the Word format?
For something to be a ``de jure'' standard, there has to be a document which describes it which is approved by ISO and its member bodies throughout the world.
Then there are de-facto standards, like RFC's and so on. Things which are standardized either through an informal document which everyone agreees upon, or in the form of a sample open-source implementation. Some communication protocols would fall into the former category. Things like the X11 window system would be the latter.
The Word document format isn't ANY kind of standard. It's simply whatever the latest version of Microsoft word reads and writes. It's a moving target that is in the sole control of one corporation. I don't know of any programs that are *completely* compatible with Word 97. They are based on reverse engineering, which is far less reliable than following a specification.
A specification, even an ambiguous or informal one, is superior to reverse engineering. At least it gives you something to argue about. People can get together and hash out fixes to a specification and then update their respective implementations.
She got a point; that I may not like it, that would be another story. Before I got my hands on WP8 for Linux, it was a pain in the ass whenever one of my windoozer friends sent me a Word document. If they could at least save it in Word 2 or 6 format (or rtf for Christ's sake), I may open it with Applix Words. But no, they insisted (and still do) in sending me Word 97 files (@#$~@&^* ... some Klingon cursing ... _*&%@!) And when I think about it, it is sad that I had to make a huge download of WP using my 33B modem just so that I could open these stupid Word 97 files.
...)? That's where illiteracy really is. To them, Linux (or anything non-windooze, even something such as Mac or BeOS) will be too much for their mental capacity (and willigness to learn.) They have chosen to be computer users instead of computer professionals.
:) They, I believe, will have the willigness to learn Linux which implies learning about the internals of computer far more than learning Windows.
It is surprising to see people that do not know that there is such a thing as Word versions lower than 97. It is depressing when some of these people have just got their B.S. degree in Computer Science or M.I.S. Scary shit. Scary shit that these people still wonder why the receiver (even in Windooze) cannot a Word document they sent (which btw contained a LINKED Excel spreadsheet which wasn't sent in the mail.) I do not care that much about the general, untamed computer user. They don't need to know the dark secrets and digital mantras of computing, but, man, what about computer people (CS, MIS,
This form of ignorance is wide spread at all levels of professional society. So Linux, at least for now, is only used (consistently) by those willing to learn. That's the key, willigness to learn. That, I think, will be the greatest asset of countries like Mexico. Thousands and thousands of students and professionals who would do anything to have a chance to work in a computer (even if it were running DOS 1.x
M$ did a good job in creating a massive illiterate population. That way, it ensured a consistent, uninterrupted cash flow to their pockets.
Please read the post. Go ahead, read it. Now:
:-) )
He was talking about people whose job it is to know about computers. Not a random appliance. Understand?
Daniel
(and btw: I certainly don't know how the internals of a blender, a TV, or a car work in detail and I couldn't fool with them, but I have a general clue about what's inside. I don't think TVs have hamsters.
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Heh... with friends like those, who needs enemies?
^D
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
With friends like that, who needs enemies?
I use Linux because it DOESN'T CRASH ON ME!
IOW, it works, and does what it does very very well.
Of course, I design and develop software for a living, and things like perl, sed, awk, grep, emacs, and others are the screwdrivers and pliers that get me through my day. While they've been ported to run in a DOS box under '95, they don't run as well. For some reason, they're real slow to boot (I think I know why).
Unfortunately, my target debugger and compiler run under DOS/Windows, so I'm stuck dual booting. But, even with the hassles this causes, it's STILL FASTER for me to reboot into Linux, run a 1000 file grep, and reboot back into '95.
Linux works. Windows doesn't. 'Nuff said.
In Liberty, Rene
In my experience, NT's TCP/IP stack is about the WORST implementation I've seen. Well, second worse, 95's takes the cake.
The only time I've seen Linux crash is when I've been monkeying with the kernel, or various drivers, or had a hardware problem.
In Liberty, Rene
It was rather blatantly AND repulsively sexist. I don't know if you are the same AC or a different AC, though, but it was.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Surely it's more of a hint to learn how to use "A" to append to the end of a line? Using cursor keys to go past the end of the line seems to me counterintuitive. Maybe that's just a hacker mentality, and it's perfectly logical to the general population. Not that I use cursor keys anyway. h, j, k and l work just fine without the need to remove your hands from the main part of the keyboard. Besides, they're the same keys as moria/angband and they're even in the same layout as the cursor keys on a good old speccy.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I do all my documenting in vi. ASCII text is small, portable, able to be grepped, and doesn't ever ever ever contain macro viruses.
MS is culture in the same way that WalMart is culture.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
I didn't ask, I just sort of did it (Set up a big ol' Big Brother monitoring system, paging, etc). :-)
Then I told my boss, we got a support contract, and now I'm Linux admin.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
If most people use Windows who cares? Do I need to spend hours online just preaching"LINUX RULZ, WINDOZE DR00LZ"...NO. I just go on being happy with Linux. Not because it is not MS, But because the way it is. I like not crashing, I like a OS that is logical. I like knowing why it does something, and how it did it. I could care less if MS whent away...or if they ruled the earth..Why? Because my linux box and the other linux users like me will still go on.
:)
Alot of the "LinuxBigots" realy do give Linux a bad name. I see them in going into MS-OS(or MacOS) chat rooms, or MS-OS message boards and posting their AntiMS crap. Most non linux users view the Linux using group as HS hippys or something. Think about it...would you want 100's of MS users coming into your Linux message boards or chat rooms and ranting and raving about how we are all dumb for not using their OS of choice?
We could all do alot more good for Linux coding or making better docs then we do when we try to convert "The MS using Sheep". Face it, if they realy like their OS then not much will make them switch. Just like not much would make me switch to MS. It dosnt to anyone any good if you sound like a nutcase MacHead or a bible pusher. I don't need it, i don't want it, so leave me the hell alone.
Of course thats just my opinion...I could be wrong
______
ya ya...my spelling sucks..so what
I have to return some videotapes...
I use "strings" to extract the relevant content from word documents people send me. Then I reply with gzipped postscript. :-)
...richie
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Check the W3C site--Microsoft is one of the authors of the XML format. They may not be leading the charge, but they're not being dragged "kicking and screaming" toward it at all. This doesn't necessarily mean it'll support it in a way which is easy for non-Microsoft programs to interpret, but let's be clear: Microsoft is doing this because they want to be "buzzword compliant." The actual demand for XML in the target market for Microsoft Office (primarily business offices with general secretarial needs and some basic statistical modeling in Excel) is nearly non-existent.
It should also be noted that while Office 2000 should support XML, Microsoft has suggested that XML will not be its native file format. The "problem" of people using Word as the de facto file format for exchanging documents will still be around.
It's remarkable that an article that's a personal reflection from someone who likes Linux, has been using it a while and is buying a new computer to re-install it is attracting essentially nothing but flames. What was it? That she dared to write that people in the business world have to have Microsoft Office compatibility? Even worse, she admitted she's--gasp--acclimated to Word's keystroke commands.
The horrors! The fact that she finds any value in being in sync with the majority of computer users negates anything else she might have to say, doesn't it? If it's not All Linux, All The Time, to hell with it. There's no hardship in using Linux if you're a real hacker.
Right.
Judith Lewis should be commended, not flamed, for writing a funny article that encapsulates the dilemma most users are intimately familiar with when they're trying to use a computer platform that's outside the mainstream. This kind of reaction makes me question just how serious the Linux community is about "capturing the desktop"--people who think that gvim and LaTeX together can replace Microsoft Word for the average office worker, journalist or humanities academic don't really understand what those people do. Insulting them isn't going to lead to a greater understanding of Linux on their part--it's going to lead to a dismissal of it based less on technology than on the coldness of the users. It's probably not an exaggeration to say that for every one person turned onto Linux by Slashdot there's several more turned off by the apparent attitude.
(And, just so flamers have the proper weapons loaded, I use gvim on a regular basis and prepare a quarterly newsletter in LaTeX. I am not "dissing" text editors by saying they're not word processors any more than I'm "dissing" my word processor of choice, Nota Bene, by not writing C++ in it.)
Agreed. From the looks of things, Word Perfect uses the same format it has since version 6.0, and it seems to work just fine, even exchanging files between Linux WP8 and Win-don't WP8. Word's constant format changes have to be just another way to suck up consumers' money. Either that, or just shoddy software engineering to begin with. I would put my money on the former.
I guess I'm the exception to your poll. Although I'm probably quite proficient with Word (using tons of wps over the years will do that to you), I haven't used it regularly in... 7 or 8 years. Nowadays, I'd say I open up word and do things in it about once every 2 or 3 months. I use WP/Unix more often, say once every 2 weeks or so. It's nice working within a Unix shop.
(FWIW, while my fiancee's machine has word on it, it also has Linux and WP8 and she's been transitioning over to that and LaTeX.)
The problem with nroff is that it is difficult to find a good tutorial on using it. Anyone know of any?
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
About eight months ago I gave up on dual booting 95 and linux. I realized I don't need Word Processors at all, I don't need games, I don't need warez; I don't need any of that crap.
I needed to learn linux, and it just wasn't going to happen if I kept booting into comfy, crash happy windows.
It's painful to switch because unix was so alien to me, yet I saw an elegance and beauty in it's design that I just didn't see in windows.
Now I can't stand to even look at windows, and I get along in Linux just fine. I write everything in emacs/html.
When using windows I feel chained, hampered. Dead ends and barriers to use everywhere. Learning unix is definitely liberating.
support gun control: take guns from cops
The only things MS has innovated are those stinking macro viruses, corrupted binary mailbox files, and untranslatable file formats. Word is absolute trash. Outlook is even worse. The two combined are incredible to behold in action, sort of like Satan.
Every day in my life is a new adventure in the cesspool of M$ software. Everything they make is pure, utter garbage.
support gun control: take guns from cops
"Demand the difference between their tuition and that of the nearest community college."
Chances are that s/he_is_talking about the nearest community college.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Hebrew or Yiddish? Not a joke, I really don't know and am curious.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Does she have the same delivery guy as Jon Katz?
If so, maybe they live close enough that she could give him writing lessons.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Windows 3.x maybe, but everybody knows Freecell is what keeps 95 around.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
> Yeah, but you wouldn't let 'em drive without a license would you? So why should they use a computer without a clue?
You don't need a license to use your feet, or a bicycle, so why should you need one to use a computer. They're tools, not weapons...;)
Or to paraphrase, "Considering that cars have been built to make people's lives easier, why should people *have* to learn how to drive them?"
Almost all tools that increase one's ability to do something, or give one an entirely new ability, will require have some learning curve. "Universally intuitive user interfaces" are a myth.
I'm not saying that all UI's are equal. You're right that a bash prompt is likely to be considerably less usable to a newbie than Windows Explorer. But some amount of training or experimentation is required to use either. Even using a mouse has a learning curve.
I agree too that the typical Linux desktop is a bit too much for the typical user. Things are progressing rather nicely though. If/when we finally get a standard desktop environment with lots of nice apps, and no longer have to worry about a.out vs elf and libc5 vs glibc issues, then newbies might be able to start using Linux.
Not being a newbie myself, I use Linux when I want to do something productive. I switch to NT when I want to play StarCraft.
This was about Microsoft Word and the self-
fulfilling standard it has become for word
processing. Self-fulfilling because of OEMs'
bundling Microsoft Office with new PCs for so
many years.
This woman is an ignorant coward.
As I see you read Alan Cox's great essay, I am
sure you saw the part about having to gently
remind "suits" about the way things are done in
the free software community, and do likewise for
AOLers about the Internet.
It is the same thing that must be done in
respect to information exchange in general.
When people post PowerPoint presentations and
Word documents to the Web, they need to be gently
reminded that it is Not The Right Thing To Do.
How long does it take to learn the needed
features in a GUI based word processor,
especially the modern gargantuan bloatware, to
become marginally proficient with it? I would
submit it takes far less time to learn some basic
HTML, especially if all you are going to
do is write a few paragraphs of text, like
Judith's column.
I do not think that the use of word processing
software has elevated the quality of journalism
or writing in general in any medium. If you are
incapable of spell checking your documents sans
the aid of word processor, do not write. Do not
call yourself a writer, and do not have your trash
published, especially on the Web; where so much
trash exists already, thanks to the likes of
Microsoft Word, Claris HomePage, Microsoft
FrontPage, et al.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
In Microsoft's Office 2000 Preview they concur. Notice how every page of that brochure touts Office 2000's Web integration and how documents created with it can easily be viewed with a Web browser.
Ignorant sheeple have placidly accepted the numerous incompatible file formats when what they should have been doing is breaking down the doors of software vendors. "What do you mean I need a plugin/viewer to open this document?"
Fuck that.
Fuck Mac bigots and PC weenies.
Fuck Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
And Judith? Fuck her. Fuck her and fuck her Word.doc bearing journalist friends. Their kind is dead, too.
Anyone who takes issue with that should read the piece on Douglas Englebart, a.k.a. The Man Who Invented The Mouse, that was mentioned on Slashdot a while back. He saw it all. Pervasively networked computers and hyperlinked documents. Information flowing and being shared, all for the good of humanity.
Instead what we got was a bunch of money grubbing, near sighted bastards who have perpetuated bug ridden applications and unstable operating systems.
15 years to accept a common file format for documents?!!!
15 years to give your operating system memory protection and preemptive multi-tasking?!!!
L O S E R S.
These people have made billions off people's misery; by keeping them in the dark; by feeding and playing off their ignorance.
No longer. The Internet is the "killer application". All "Independant Software Vendors", as they like to call themselves, will conform to it, or die. I cite as proof the fact that the maker of the world's number one application is trumpeting not the spell checker in the next version of its product, but its ability to integrate with the Web.
So take your "Linux will suceed when it has a killer desktop application" and shove it up your ass. First of all, Linux is not the X Window System. Linux does not have an "easy to use desktop", and never will. Of course there will be mass confusion over this, because of companies like Red Hat and Corel. "Making Linux easier to use." "Linux for the everyman."
No, you are piling crap on top of the X Window System; and by the way, if your crap does not compile, with minimal tweaking, on every other UNIX running X, it is a failure. Of course, you think people are too stupid to understand the distinction between X and Linux. Well, you are wrong. People are ignorant because you keep them that way.
Why? So you can ensure your business's continued existance, of course. Breeding ignorance ensures they will be back for that upgrade, or will sign that service agreement.
"Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day..." ...you know the rest.
Standardize your company/office/school/home/girl scout troop on HTML/XML/Java(well...not until Sun really opens it up) now. When Office 2000 come out, you will be hailed as a visionary; and hopefully people will think twice before assuming the necessity of "upgrading" to it.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
...and for a longer, equally profane response
to your idiocy, see my other post on this topic.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
The "Loneliness of Linux" column had nothing to do with Linux.
Read it.
It is about some wench who cannot spell check
her own documents, and whose friends all send her
documents in some strange format which needs some
strange program to decipher.
Before you get your panties in a bunch about
Feel free to make up your own questions, pursuingthat, let me ask you this:
a similar line of investigation, children.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
the writer of the column did.
The issues are twofold:
column, and the column has nothing to do with Linux.
Nevertheless, and due to a general lack of
reading comprehension, people will read the title,
read the column, and come away thinking
that it was about Linux; that is most evident by a
good number of the responses here.
lot of people think exchanging documents saved in
proprietary file formats is acceptable in 1999.
I do not give a flying fuck what people use to
author their documents or that people make
spelling and grammatical errors. I do care about
perpetuating idiocy via resignation to its
assumed insurmountable dominance.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
My post had nothing to do with Linux.
Your post had nothing to do with Linux.
The following profanity has everything to do
with your lack of reading comprehension:
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
view a Microsoft Word document has anything to do
with Linux.
Or "the ability to run Microsoft Word" is a
"feature most people need to get their work
done".
Or, for that matter, believes Linux might have
something to do with a "katzian divine revolution";
the thought of which makes me ill, even though
I have no idea what such a thing might be.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Silly person.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
GRRRRR@!#@ Anyone who dosen't wear wool jackets in the summertime is a PUSSY!@ Everyone knows that if something is convenient, then it isn't damn well worth doing. I mix shredded glass in with my corn flakes and DARE my mouth to bleed! I even spam sex messages in UNRELATED newsgroups!@ I don't use word processors, I write my own in asm every time I want to write something. I'm the baddest motha around, so you BETTER not try to mess with me. I'm so bad, I'm not even using the preview button.
But how do you WRITE PDF files from Linux? I've never looked into it, I know Adobe has an Acrobat Reader for Linux but does it have Acrobat too? Isn't Acrobat kind of expensive? Is there a PS to PDF converter I don't know about? :)
Inquiring minds want to know
.
A fiance who groks LaTeX ?!
You lucky bastard!!!
:)
Hehehe, she speaks!
OK, now I KNOW she's cool!
I agree with your assessment of StarOffice Judith... I found it perplexing that so many people recommended the beast. Not only is it a piece of bloatware that would make Bill Gates proud, it does a crappy job of translating all but the simplest of Office97 docs.
But I also found your characterization of vi a bit misleading... years? I know you meant no harm by your exaggeration, but think how intimidating that is to someone who wants to try Unix ("it will take me years to learn to edit an ASCII file?").
Oh yeah, I liked that sushi analogy too... damn I'm hungry now.
Cheers,
.
Oh... duh. Here it is! ps2pdf !
/me slaps forehead
.
On a 486/66 ? You must be kidding ! It brings a P100 to its knees. Oh, and the word filters suck quite badly - not that thats SD's fault.
personally, I like braiding things out of road-kill squirrels...
I think that the poster was just trying to conjure up an image of generally mentally weak people. that's what it did to me, anyways. her article made me nauseated. hmm. let's not even mention StarOffice and just kinda whine. ok. good reason to use (what she admits to be) inferior technology. I sent her a polite but firm letter. I hope she takes them seriously and stops writing this crap.
personally, I thought she sounded rather ditzy -- and it wasn't just the way she mistreated her hardware. my computer's been knocked around quite a bit as well (but not down the stairs...) but I don't use the failure of my hardware to reflect on how I never use my better OS becasue I want to have "cultural literacy"
/not/ a technical reason. that's a ditz reason, and it sounds like my sister the cheerleader or my guy friend who will probably never stop using a Mac simply because he used to like a girl who used one -- and he doesn't like it.
I don't have a problem with people using MS Windows -- I do myself. it just annoys me when people spout random crap and act in a totally non-logical fashion -- and then try to justify it with whatever random reason they can come up with. maybe she's just been brainwashed by MS, but certainly someone has wrung whatever computer sense might have been in her originally out for her to jutiify using inferior technology with a need to fit in. that is
People confuse me, I guess.
whatever he/she may have said, I actually didn't realize it was a woman writing (didn't check the byline) until after. I still came to the conclusion that she needed some help.
stupidity is what really trancends gender
stupidity is what really transcends gender
well, if she needs the newest version of MS Word and she likes Linux so much, use StarOffice or something.
stupidity is what really transcends gender
that's originally from some story about B'rer Fox and B'rer Rabbit... Fox was trying to get rabbit, and so he made a "tar-baby" so fox would grab it and not get him... fox grabbed and got VERY stuck...
:-)
yes. random.
.. and you'd have to admit that the windoze 98 interface IS pretty slick
It's entertaining, which is more than you can say for a lot of things. And it never pretends to be anything more than it is.
The Rock says: Know your role.
WordPerfect 8 reads _and_ writes Word format ...).
files for all versions of Word, as I heard the amplified voices from the Corel booth at LinuxWorld say (over and over
In addition, Quattro Pro at least reads (probably writes, too, but I wasn't paying much attention) Excel files, and will be available under Linux Real Soon Now (2nd or 3rd quarter this year, from what I heard in the Corel Keynote address).
No, I don't work for Corel. AFAIK, Applix's stuff probably can do all this, too.
No, no, no. Linux is the Sushi of the OS menu. Loved by some, disliked by others, but mostly people are stunned that you would actually eat something of that nature.
You are intimidated, at first, by the otherness of it, but after your first bite, you are transported into delight, and wonder what you ever feared about it.
I've been noticing more and more of a trend away from Word format, and more and more documents published in HTML, so that they can easily be placed on the company Intranet and/or Internet.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
P.S. -- The expression is "Hear, hear!"
Zontar
(somewhere in tenn.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The real monopoly is not Windows 3.1/95/NT. The real monopoly Microsoft has is on MS Office.
Despite the talk of thousands of applications for Windows, 90% people are prefectly happy with
MS productivity applications (Office, Outlook, Project). There are millions of files files lying around. I don't what is going to be Linux standard office suite, Koffice/Achutung/Staroffice/Applix. Whatever it is, it has be able to read and port to MS formats. The moment it is done, Linux has a chance to move to desktop. Writing a filter to MS files is a complex undertaking. But it is absolutely necessary for Linux to get a foothold on the desktop. Until then Linux on the desktop is a pipedream.
Ramana
I work in place where all the documents are MS Office docs, and I don't have a problem using StarOffice, wich is free for personal use.
Did you try to change?
I tend to move people in my office toward WordPerfect when I can, just because it's the WP of choice among the administrators at the school I work at. Unfortunately, Linux-on-the-desktop here isn't too likely. Our primary app is a bloated, nasty thing that tries to "emulate" a Mac look-n-feel within windows. Consequently, my one-man war against Redmond is carried out on the applications side, with the exception of Access, which allows me a convenient back door to the school app's dbf files and spares me running 8 meg of app over a 10baseT net with 100 other clowns. Perl scripts are underway to cure that, too, but Access does what I need it to.
I don't think the author of that piece was too out there. I also concentrate on Windows 95 from time to time because it helps when I provide support to people. They don't want to hear me crying about better alternatives, and neither do the IT managers here. They just want me to help them.
In the mean time, I'm looking forward to seeing what Corel has to offer with the whole desktop Linux thing.
----------
----------
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
"A horse laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms"
I use linux now for everything. I've discovered that for a profession that is entirely engaged in text documents, linux is the answer.
;?
Now that legal research has switched to the internet, lawyers (and other info research oriented professions) need a computer that can stay on the internet all day, dowload hundreds of pages of text/html files, and never cough.
I've lost hundreds of hours over the years do the same in a Windows environment. My system has crashed and burned baby!
So when you say, 'use windows to be more productive.' I beg to differ. Who remembers to hit the save button every five minutes to ensure no information loss.
In fact, in the legal setting those lost hours may not be billable (i.e., they are the fault of the attorney's negligence in using something defective).
No, Linux has been a godsend for me. My uptime is permanent, My 56k modem connection pulls info at 10K/sec. (yes it's true 'insmod bsd_comp && insmod ppp_deflate).
I work on legal issues for debian. Nothing could be better. When I share documents with my colleagues, I show them how they can edit documents in netscape's 'composer' and everyone can share no matter what wprocessor they use. Now the legal market is fully balkanized with users of wp-dos, Word9x, and WP6-8. There are a rediculous number of doc formatters.
I say compose in plain text/html, edit in plain text/html. Post info to intranet server. Format in your wordprocessor.
Needless to say. I never have Netscape composer crash on me. But for serious writing, I use PICO(TM).
I'd use vi, but I never learned how to make it word wrap. emacs is the same way. Although now I write html in emacs.
Give Joe Six pack the following linux configuration. xdm starts on boot, wmaker comes up. Big square icons for the following (wp, or staroffice, netscape, terminal). Tell them, in the black window type 'pon.'
There you go. Browser, wordprocessor. ppp connection. What else is there for Joe Six pack. Joe's gonna love how much faster his internet connection is now.
I'm a lawyer, trust me
At real technical institutions, (i.e., the UC system, CalTech, MIT), unix is the development tool.
Windows is not taught. I'm not a programmer so I can't really say why exactly, but all the students I know who learn CS learn it in linux, because it is a unix one can afford.
If you think, gcc, gdb, emacs, vi, etc. are tinker toys, then you are a tinker toy.`
My girlfriend's cs classes at uc davis even banned them from using PICO (why?) because they wanted them to learn real editors (i.e., vi/emacs). So there.
Buddy, you're a commercial, a T-Shirt; your a 30-second sound byte.
This fragment of a sentence explains it all:
"An operating system is a culture, with ways of doing and seeing and expressing things peculiar to its members..."
Stephen King once said that he is the "Big Mac and shake" of literature. I guess that makes M$ the Big Mac and shake of software. So, what's Linux?
I like to think of it as spicy, Moroccan vegetable stew (and no, I don't mean ratatouille) with cous cous.
Anyway, I like my private, M$-free culture better than the brain-dead culture my employer forces upon me.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I'm in definite agreement on that one.
A majority of the public doesn't even know what kind of computer they have, let alone how to operate it. They couldn't use Linux if they tried, because they can't even learn to use the power switch.
It is woeful ignorance and its perpetuation that keeps M$ in business.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Yeah, but you wouldn't let 'em drive without a license would you? So why should they use a computer without a clue?
Sure, they can do less damage with a computer, at least physical damage to other people, but I would think that everyone would want to understand at least how to get their work done on a computer in the most efficient manner.
We haven't seen productivity gains from computerization because of lusers who don't know how to use their hardware and OS (whatever it is).
EG, I've been given boringly repetitive work that was estimated at four hours and done it in 20 minutes, because I did the first two entries, saw there was a pattern and wrote a little script to do the rest. If Joe Blow luser ever learns to do that.... Well, I'll leave that up to your imagination.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Now seems a good point to comment that OpenDoc is still out there, not-quite-yet-dead.
IIRC, IBM & Apple were going to OpenSource the APIs. But I may be wrong.
-- Cerebus
-- Cerebus
Indeed, i have to agree with you there.
i'd almost say that linux is toro to be too specific.
(fatty tuna)
great now i'm hungry.
Your gvim suggestion is excellent. The latest version is 5.3. Get more info.
I only use Word for official reports. Everything else is done in VIM.
Feel the power of VIM.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
I've done some projects in Visual Basic for Applications/Word, but other than programming in it I don't have an in-depth knowledge of the thing. All the documents I create for myself or others are in plain text or HTML, and nobody has ever told me I can't continue using them.
:-(.
I have five actively-used computers. Two run Linux exclusively, one runs NT, one runs dual boot W95/Linux, and the other runs MacOS. Computers are so cheap nowadays that there's no reason not to have a system devoted to Windows if you deal with people who insist you use it
D
----
There's even - of all things! - a Smooth Jazz song title:
Did I save?
Curiously enough, this tune has no words. Bouncy and cheerful, which doesn't quite describe my mood when Word crashes on me.
D
----
I use HTML myself - but since I use emacs HTML mode and auto-fill mode, I don't have to press enter after 80 characters, either.
I've never lost a single byte in over 20 years of using Emacs and Emacs clones (Epsilon, MicroEMACS, joe) on a daily basis to do editing. Word's record is many fewer characters typed, disasterously more bytes lost.
D
----
Judith Lewis strikes me as a fine and intelligent woman, but I think she's missed the mark on the cultural aspects of computing.
- ------------------------------------
3 3.shtml and see what all the fuss is about.
My soul rebels against the idea that if you are an American, you must eat at McDonald's, watch trash TV shows, and use Microsoft Windows. To me, if you do those things, you are supporting mediocrity and low quality; you are giving your money - which is another way of saying your votes and support - to institutions that quite deliberately produce bad products.
You see, the excuse producers of terrible things give is that it's what the customer wants; customers want lousy hamburgers and cardboard chicken nuggets, so that's what they get; customers want Windows, in all its glitzy, crashy glory, so that's what they get.
If you don't want a computer that crashes all the time, that loses your work, that drops it on the floor so you never see it again, you want something other than Windows.
In a word, you want Linux.
And, incidentally, not only can StarOffice for Windows read and write Office 97 files, it can even put that little squiggly line under the misspelled words you like so much. Add the KDE desktop environment, and you have something that looks a lot like Windows, is as easy to use as Windows, but - as a nice bonus - is fast and reliable. Give it a shot. http://www.stardivision.com/ and http://www.kde.org/ give details.
David H Dennis
Marina del Rey, California
david@amazing.com
(310) 827-7153
-----------------------------------------------
PS to Judith [not for publication]: My sympathies. Your article has been slashdotted. If nobody's pointed you to it yet, read
http://www.slashdot.org/articles/99/03/05/07582
Best
D
----
I recommended StarOffice to her in my letter to the Weekly mainly because she likes the squiggles when spelling errors come up in Word. But she's right; it is frustratingly bloated, but any modern computer should be able to handle it just fine. I would think, anyway.
I just got a demo of Applixware, and it certainly is a lot faster and less bloated than StarOffice; maybe I'll send them some money for the full version.
Now, if someone, somewhere, would only do something about our hideous fonts, I'd be happy.
D
----
I think the guy is right.. For the average user (he is above average) the reason not to stick with Linux is exactly Word..
;-) are not the majority...
:)
Computers have received their name from the word Compute, but nowadays they are mostly used by curly women in small cubicles for writing useless reports...
Unfortunately guys like us/you (I'm just learning
The only difference between him and me, is that he does not know what Star Office is..
s/guy/girl/
Ipologize.. But I barely made it out of the tree this morning -- too much bananas last night..
the monkey
Spell it right!
Even the great plagarist, Noah Webster, spells it with an "e"...or is this some new variant of the American (tee hee) language you are now employing?
Buzz Lightyear
She should use StarOffice. It kicks ass, plus it has filters for MS Word 95 and 97, so she can shut up about document portability.
:)
Stupid pop-culture airhead.
Zonker Harris "There is not, nor ought there be, any food more exalted on the face of god's grey earth, than that
I talk the talk, I walk the walk. I push Linux hard at work - I must be the biggest anti-M$ fanatic at work (which I shall be leaving in exactly two weeks). I do use Linux at work (Debian 2.0), but at the end of the day I come home to my Win95 box. Sure, I have a FreeBSD 2.1 server and a Mac Classic (in my bedroom, my Write Now 3.0 retreat) but at the end of the day I fire up my trusty P166 with Windows 95 and spend most of my time using it. Why is it so? I guess, the software I primarily use for work, ArcView GIS, that which the monthly deposit into my bank account depends on runs on Windows. Sure, there are versions for Sun and DEC boxes but I am hardly able to afford those. And over time, my peecee has become more than an operating system with its many technical failings - there's a lot of me here. There's a picture of an ex-girlfriend that's my background, there's the directory with all my pithy love letters and self-exploration crud. There's the directory with my Java musings. Over here are my favourite MIDI files played through the Yamaha XG synthesizer.
Yeah, time for a clean break. No, I don't love Windows. I don't even like it. As a matter of fact I hate it for the badly engineered piece of rubbish that it is (I am a systems analyst by trade and a hacker by background - homebrewed a Nat Semi Series 32000 sound and light machine years back). But there is a momentum to these things. There's the emotional baggage, the directories and mail spools full of momentos.
One thing I find weird about the author's sentiment is that he finds more friends amongst the Windows community. This is bizarre. Most Windows users don't care for the technology, the computing experience. They aren't passionate. For them, computing is swapping pirated games and buying the latest motherboard and 3D card. This is very, very sad. Uncritical acceptance of the Microsoft party line. They will guide your future. The truest believers I have found, those passionate about their computing experience, those who value _deep_ quality in software as opposed to superficial user interfaces. I have found those in the Linux/Java community.
What the fuck am I doing here? I love you, Cherie. I'm sure I can port your JPEG to Gnome...
-t.
All a MCSE "qualifies" you for is to know how to "rebuild" a system i.e. format the hard disk and sit there with a bunch of CDROMs and reinstall everything. At least, this is what I have gathered so-called MCSE professionals do. On a number of occasions I have had problems with NT4.0 and the company ends up paying $100/hr for some clown to come in to format my hard disk and reinstall NT.
Yeah, I probably could do better but "system administration" is what I leave to the sysadmin in deference to his self-esteem. A programmer like myself should not need to soil his hands on such grubby affairs.
-t.
People use microsloth because they are computer literate and afraid of anything different. This is why Microsoft has a monopoly. Not because there are not better competing products on the market, but because of ignorant consumers. They all want to buy what everyone else has.
People use microsloth because they are computer illiterate and afraid of anything different.
Sorry.
I should use the preview button.
Thanks for the off-topic tirade in response to the orignal tirade. The point the original poster was trying to make was that we needn't put up with bad software or propriety formats. People don't have to use M$ software to communicate. To assume there aren't is ignorant. While not elegantly phrased, I think this a good point.
Who uses Unix anymore? Use Windows like the rest of the world. :-) We should just all standardize on a "Common" system and make that Windows for simplicity. -- or so Microsoft says
I must say, I do respect her for her opinion. Most people try to outsmart Linux people for the 'technical superiority', but she simply states that she likes the look & feel of Windows better.
I do respect that opinion - (more or less) the only way to make people like her to use Linux is to make Linux look and feel like Windows.
I for one wouldn't want to see that - being a Linux hacker for 4+ years, I like the way Linux works. If I wanted Windows, I'd use Windows. (well, I do, but only at work).
Of course we should all demonstrate Linux to everyone we know, but afterwards - please do respect the people that say that they want Windows because, well, they like it. Pressing hard will only make us look like fanatics and will only damage our case. And fanatics can be front page stuff, but usually not for anything good.
Finally, for those of you people out there who are forced to use Windows, but would like a whiff of UNIX, here's a link for you (vi for Windows!)
vi for Windows
"History keeps repeating itself - it has to - nobody ever listens!" (thanks to Alan Cox for this quote)
Q: How does a Unix guru have sex? A: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;more;yes;umount;sleep
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It really is unfortunate that you need to run Word to generate this stuff. Do you think there will ever be a free program that can generate line noise this elegantly?
Judith Lewis says that she uses Windows just to use Word. She uses a computer just (I assume predominantly) for word processing? Uh - I guess that, when I think about it, my job is about 5% programming these days and about 95% documenting. So I do too.
After 9 hrs a day at my terminal, I'm not in a mood to go home and play games - I'm getting too old for Doom and never bothered with Unreal and my time is spent enjoyably with my lover doing things that people do.
So just what was it for that I spent that $3k 8 years ago? Upgrade headaches?
Joe
I often write HTML when I have to communicate with Windoze users. If not, I write LaTeX. LaTeX is small, portable to all (to me known) U*N*X clones and VMS. Anyway, how do you write a swedish text in ASCII? Nearly every sentence in swedish contains a word containing one of the characters å, ä or ö (Don't know if you are able to view them correctly, anyway, its an a witha rng over, an a with two dots over and finnaly, an o with two dots over).
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
How many of you remember back when M$ only had BASIC and DOS? They targeted applications, realizing that was the means of establishing their lock on the desktop. They took on a product named WordPerfect, holder of the lion's share of the word processing market. They displaced WordPerfect through fierce competition in conjunction with the ability of Word to mimic WordPerfect. It read the competition's files, it provided their metaphors and keystrokes. Gradually, they succeeded--millions of WordPerfect users endured another learning curve and now are Word users.
Points:
On the matter of culture, I am in agreement with the author. Here's a poll: Degree of Familiarity /Amount of Use of Word. I expect we're all facile with it and most of us use it daily (and hate being forced to). I keep M$ products on my family PC because my wife and kids need to be able to move within the culture. Changing the culture will take years, but it is possible, and even necessary.
*All a MCSE "qualifies" you for is to know how to "rebuild" a system i.e. format the hard disk and sit there with a bunch of CDROMs and reinstall
everything. At least, this is what I have gathered so-called MCSE professionals do. *
It's not as simple as that - NT, Exchange, IIS, Proxy Server, etc. are riddled with Service Pack interdependencies. Things like you have to have Service Pack 3 to install RRAS, but if you install that Proxy Server dies unless you apply the patch which is included with SP4, which kills several
third party apps like PCAnywhere unless you download THEIR patches, and then those patches only fix things up part of the time unless you reinstall the TCP/IP service, etc. etc. etc. Don't knock your good MCSE, he's been burned many times by the vagaries of NT and if he's still sane and functional he's both intelligent and tough.
Most decent NT engineers I know also have Linux familiarity and would install Linux for internet services every time given a choice. Actually the resource greed and lack of inter-app compatibility of NT usually means installing a File Print Server, Exchange Server, IIS Server and Proxy Server all as separate boxes, which a single Linux box will handle comfortably.
Unfortunately those of us that work in the real world are often faced with these sort of silk-purse-out-of-sows-ear scenarios, which those of you still at school are so far able to avoid.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
*This has been a day in the life of a Windows Gamer. YMMV *
Sounds a lot like the lost weekend I spent trying to get the PCMCIA modem cards on my laptop working with Linux (the NetComm Card56 works with the serial driver, but CardManager doesn't detect it every time and has problems loading and unloading the driver, and the Xircom Realport don't work at all). Forgive me if I feel my time will be better spent doing things other than learning all about PCMCIA and contributing to the Linux/Xircom PCMCIA driver project.
Windows is crappy. But Linux still has some maturing to do.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
*Regardless of her obviously staggering intellect*
Chill. At least this woman had the nous and intellectual curiousity to give Linux a shot. She managed to write a few scripts, which is more than many do or are capable of.
The fact that she, as a non Unix weenie, gave it her best shot and decided it was not for her, says more about the shortcomings of Linux than any shortcomings she may have.
She doesn't like Linux, so SHE's at fault? Ever hear of Procrustes?
I like Linux. I'm using it for this. But I know why some people don't and respect their opinions. If you meet constructive criticism with hostility and refuse to see weaknesses, you'll never be able to make the product stronger.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I started coming to slashdot about 6 months ago because it was the only place that I could hear the "other side" comment about Linux without the truth being filtered through the mainstream press.
But the personal BIGOTRY that goes on here is starting to tax a lot of people's patience.
We all know that MS is a big, mean ole company that has foisted haphazard bloatware on the public. Fine. We know this.
What the world could do with a lot less of are the screaming Linux KKK that is out to denigrate everyone who uses a Microsoft product or admits that it is easier to "go with flow" than to fight their employer, their peers (the attachment sending ones), and the predominant consumer experience.
Face it: Most folks who are using MS products do so for reasons other than passion, and aren't sure why Linux folks go screaming-yellow-zonkers over what they view as an APPLIANCE. Sure, it crashes. WE know that the average consumer is jaded to this unnecessarily. But look at the alternative: To get a stable system, they would need to unlearn their limited knowledge about computers and then learn a HUGE amount about an Operating System that doesn't look, act or feel like anything they've ever known. Are you surprised that the common user (if they even know what Linux is) would consider switching Operating Systems to be a hassle that wasn't worth the benefit? How do you think flaming them is going to change their mind?
Essentially, the Linux community makes every migration and attitude change harder the more it screams and shouts insults at users of another OS. The most public Linux advocates seem to have the manners and grace of a spoiled, tantrum throwing CHILD. The Linux claim of "communal computing" has already started to wear thin for Windows users who ask a question on Usenet or listserv and get flamed into a pile of ashes by Linux bigots who burn down the people they claim they are trying to win over.
This behavior is a conundrum for radicals: It takes a loud voice to get a milling crowd's attention, but that same loud voice is ignored as "just another nutcase" if it doesn't speak reasonably once it has the crowd's attention.
The Open Source cause has a double-pronged PR problem. One, the most visible Linux & OSS proponants don't talk, discuss or debate: they rage like angry little Klansmen. Second, people in computing are very gifted intellectually, but at the cost of our social skills. Face it: we like to be left alone with the bit-box because in all of it's complexity, it seems simpler to deal with than other people.
The grandest conundrum in this sorry evaluation is that Linus Torvalds doesn't fit into the public image that the Linux & OSS bigots are defining for themselves. When the average IT person is asked if they know anyone who really likes Linux, the picture they get isn't someone who is happily trying to push a good idea. They envision someone like ESR: vastly brilliant but completely devoid of social skills. In other words, the prototypical OSS or Linux bigot.
I'll close with this analogy of changing people's mind for their own good:
Many years ago in Tanzania, two white missionary women that had just come to the country saw the way that the native woman would gather a handful of rushes and then stoop over to sweep out their huts. This constant bending did these native women significant harm and the older women bore the results in poor posture and limited mobility.
Both of the missionary women felt obligated to improve the lot of these native women and as each prepared to go to their assigned villages, they agreed to make their best effort to change this unnecessary and injurious habit.
About two years later, they met again at a conference in the capital. They compared their experiences.
"Oh, those stubborn woman!" the first one seethed. "I showed them how to tie the rushes in a bundle to a stick and that way they could stand up properly to clean. But they ignored me! They told me I was welcome to clean my house in my way, and they would clean their in their way. Not one of them has changed. They are completely set in their ways."
The second missionary mulled the first's story for a moment and then said, "Perhaps they are stubborn because it is all they know and it is easier to deal with the hardships you know than to risk changing then for hardships you don't know. Besides, by telling them that your way was better, you implied that they were fools for not being like you."
"What do you mean?" inquired the first, sharply.
"Well", said the second lady, "I did not tell them that using a stick would be better or that it would be good for them. I just did it myself. And when they saw that I stood upright without pain, they slowly and surely tried it themselves. And though standing up straight pained them at first, some of the older women who have been stooping over for years are feeling better."
Let him hear it who may...
flames > dev/null
Let me clarify:
As you pointed out, my comments were directed both to the tone and the content of the original post. I understood what the poster's point.
Also, my comments were hardly off topic. The subject of the article being discussed is why people use or don't use Linux.
Thanks for your comments.
flames > dev/null
My humble thanks.
As you say, despite being the self appointed harbingers of "choice" and "freedom", Linux folks have walked differently than they have talked. I need only remind readers of last week's discussion of the Virtual Faith review by Katz: The slash and burn vitriol against anyone stating (not evangelizing) a religious faith was very telling.
Perhaps all this passion is good for something, but the wholesale dismisses and marginalization of those you don't agree with isn't one of them. One might go so far as to say that when we scream FUD about MS, we have adopted their tactics and become what we despise.
Life is funny like that.
flames > dev/null
Reconsider your evaluation. Perhaps M$ does make some things unnecessarily difficult, but Linux can hardly be said to be an improvement on the usability scale. Great for geeks, but Joe Six-pack is having a hard time adjusting.
Background: I a former Windows 95 Support Engineer. BELIEVE ME, I know where you're coming from. The horrors I had to bail people out of were nasty, and full 50% of them were MS's fault.
But the 50% were just plain old user errors, mistakes or thrashing. (What we came affectionately to refer to as "smacking a tar-baby in the mouth. Reference: Song of the South)
These are the folks that either can't be taught or are embarrassed enough about their lack of knowledge that they fight you the whole way.
My wife is a Registrar for a educator's technical training center. Teachers come in and are taught basic computing skills like email. Not surprisingly, a good portion don't want to be there and don't want to learn.
This isn't just teachers; it is society at large. The sheer volume of information and skills that we need to have to survive today boggles the mind. Our grandparents are overwhelmed by it, and our parents struggle with what the younger generation is picking up much faster than they.
I am beginning to wonder how we, as a society, are going to deal with information overload.
flames > dev/null
I have recently had the most amusing experience with Word. A guy at work comes to me with a document that he cannot load into his version of Word, and when he tries to load it to an older version the thing actually crashed ! So I try reading the file with StarOffice. Bingo. No problem.
Sorry I don't recall the version numbers.
Dear Judith,
I'd like to apologize for all the mysogynist dorks in this otherwise enlightened community who feel the need to bring up your gender as if it mattered and then denigrate you as if your gender had anything to do with intelligence or courage. I hope these immature yutzes come out of their hovels some day and learn as much about intelligent, courageous women like Clara Barton, Jane Addams, and Maya Angleou (to name a very few) as they have about yacc and gcc.
You don't have to be an antisocial dweeb with blinders on to be a good hacker. Why don't we prove it?
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
Jason Dufair
"Those who know don't have the words to tell
and the ones with the words don't know too w
Okay, you asked for it.
;)
[flame]
YOU FUCKING RETARD LOSER!!! REAL hackers do NOT call themselves 'h4x0rs', much less '3l33t'!!!!! It's because of those idiots and people like YOU that Micro$loth rules the FUCKING WORLD!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!
[massacre weapon="old_pdp11_box_to_the_head"]
[/flame]
Satisfied?
Peace,
Rafael "No epithet" Kaufmann
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
They also do not contain any character or paragraph formating.
Everybody Lies. But it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
I see your point here and I agree.
But not all comp users were born with a complete knowledge of every imaginable *nix system. Newbies, in general, use Microsoft stuff. We were all newbies once. (I consider myself a power user, but the real "3l337 h4x0rs" would likely still say to me, "y0u c1u313ss LUS3R!!"...hoo boy, flames, here I come.) It's an inescapable, and somewhat painful, part of many a Linux afficianado's past: Most of us had to start with something.
Maybe, then, in this context, we can euphemically compare Microsoft to toilet training, rather than the usual comparison to the products thereof.
LOL! I was actually comparing Microsoft to the PRODUCTS of toilet training...in other words, what do you FIND in the toilet?
;]
But, we don't need that kind of crap here, eh?
(Ha! I just made ANOTHER funny!)
Funny, but in all the copies of vi that I've used, the arrow keys work just fine.*
:-)
I do realize that you're not supposed to use them to be 100% hardcore.
"Linux sucks because it doesn't have Word?" What is this guy, a satisfied Word customer since version 1.0? Of all the invalid lame excuses to not use Linux... yeesh. I don't see what this guy needs to do with Word that's so special that he can't do with WordPerfect or Applixware or StarOffice... produce documents in Word 97 format maybe because his boss requires it? There is such a thing as "Save As", you know, where you can specify the file format to save in... gee... what a concept! I don't think this guy has even bothered to try the word processors available on Linux.
If he were talking about a spreadsheet I might take him more seriously, but even then IIRC Applixware has one and StarOffice might too.
Oh, did I mention that all these apps are much cheaper than Word?
I'd say try Applixware... you might get lucky and find it in your local Best Buy!!
*vi in a dtterm on Solaris won't let you go past the end of a line to insert, and that's a problem (a strong hint to use dtpad?)
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
American English? Now there's an oxymoron.
Life sucks but death doesn't put out at all....
I stole it immediately.
author caught in sadness of something-or-other
Just another perl hacker in Bangkok
actually, there is such a thing as "american english." you can even by a style book for it, although it's pretty useless unless you're a journalist.
count yourself among the lucky ones. i'm forced into using windoze even for my cs classes cause we're learning java with visual j++ on NiceTry boxes.
btw, if anyone knows of a really good robust ide for java that runs in linux i will happily abandon the p75 i have running windows in the corner.
emacs doesn't count =).
and now because of all this sushi talk I have to go to one of the japanese places across the river for dinner.
thanks.
but you're suprised to find out it's much more tender and palatable than the cooked stuff.
1.
if america was cut up into 20 different countries with most having their own language, americans would generally speak more than one language.
2.
no matter what language you pick, there are many naitive speakers who don't use it properly.
Not to mention 'tab'.
--C
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Ms Lewis can download StarOffice from startdivision.com. It's a full fledged application suite that has ms word filters.
PS: Window users don't have more friends.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Plus it's still pretty raw. =)
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
So... never mind.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Even a spell checker doesn't solve all your problems, as this classic poem demonstrates:
Owed Two the Spell Checker
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
My Finn/Swede grandparents told stories of curing lutefisk. For the best flavor, they said it was best to leave the frozen slab of fish out on a particularly chilly evening (only -20F or colder qualifies) let the dog pee on it and soak it in lye. Mmmm-mmmm good.
I think as the popularity of Linux continues to
grow, so will the amount of FUD. No big surprise.
I'm one of a handful of Linux users in our company and I've begun a push to get people to distribute documentation in PDF format instead of Word (or any application specific for that matter). It's actually been partially successful - about half the stuff I get is now PDF. I also posted the UNIX and NT versions of Ghostscript on my internal web page. Granted, it doesn't work if the end user has to be able to edit the document, but in reality this is the case only a few percent of the time.
It's actually pretty simple. You probably already have what you need: Ghostscript 5.1 or higher. If you have a distro version of Ghostscript (3.x or whatever) you will have to download at least 5.1. Once it's installed, create a postscript file with your application and use the ps2pdf command to generate a pdf file.
One tip: Try to stick to standard ghostscript fonts in your document (times, helvetica, courier). Other fonts go into the pdf file as bitmaps which are fine when printed but don't look so great on the screen. BTW, this works in NT too - you don't have to buy Acrobat.
I'm sure there's a MIDI file for the background music out there somewhere.
/. To my delight, I was not offended at all. As I said to one respectful correspondent, three years ago when I wrote about Linux (in a piece called "The Very PC PC," still up on the Leary website -- http://leary.com/news/feature/Linux.html), I heard not a peep from anyone at all. Now I've inspired a flame war. Hooray for us all. Open source is the future.
Look, to clear up a few misconceptions:
1. I am a woman.
2. I do not knit. At least, not anymore. But I do garden and make soup.
3. I am a very good speller, except for those two words I mentioned in my piece.
4. I love Linux. Hear me, one and all. I love love love love love Linux. Ask anyone who knows me. Of course, all those friends of mine will probably say "Oh yeah, she likes her Lie-nucks box" with a long I, and then you'll all seize upon them like screaming harpies and I'll have to explain why I would associate with such disassociated gearheads. I'd be ostracized. So, nevermind. Don't talk to any of my friends.
5. This morning, I came in to find several messages in my mailbox (Eudora running on Windows, if you must know, which I use with utmost reluctance while I wait for my new system to arrive) warning me that people were saying horrible things about me on
Carry on.
Oh, by the way, StarOffice, last I tried it, was a lumbering giant way too cumbersome for any system I run. But I tried WP 8 in San Jose yesterday and liked it fine. Perhaps there's hope. Even for me.
And I'm going out for sushi tonight to celebrate the "Linux is Sushi" analogy.
Namaste,
Judith
"One of the signs of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." -Bertrand Ru