Lets face it, some people don't give a damn about computers, so long as they work !
The majority of the people in my office only do this:-
email Write a simple document Play solitaire
That's it !
They don't have any interest in using thier computers for anything else and why should they ?
If something happens to thier computer they don't understand, they call in help. If something happens to my car that I don't understand, I call in help.
The motor-mac that fixes my car probably thinks I'm a complete moron, just as I'll think about him if he can't figure out how to copy and paste !
We need to stop thinking in terms of the way we figure things and just give the general users what they need and NOTHING more.
Four icons on the desktop for mail, documents, www and games, all files get saved to a network directory maintained by an IT dept. - that's it.
Sometimes constant innovation is nothing more than an exercise in making money driven by the marketing department, resulting in over-complex, redundant architecture that attempts to fulfil the needs of everyone, even though most of us never missed those needs until they gave them to us !
Firstly, The.za debate is still ongoing, there's a lot that will happen still and hopefully common sense will prevail.
Secondly, I'm frankly not amazed at the kind of total troll bait that's filled up this topic, but what I am shocked about is some white South Africans attitude toward thier country.
The whole attitude of 'everything has gone to shit in the last 10 years'
Well, leave the country then - we don't need your negativity or short-sightedness.
Fact: everything was shit for 80% of the population for 100 years !
Fact: our new government now has to build an infrastructure to support 40 million people as opposed to 3 million 'privileged' whites and you expect it to happen overnight ?
Fact: There was no 'bloody revolution' and as a white South African, you have your patient fellow black South Africans to thank for that - give that some thought.
Yes, we have wide-scale corruption, crime, rape and numerous other problems - we have to fix that somehow. Name me a country without similar problems !
Yes, government is messing up badly on many issues, but heck, at least most people have a fighting chance to succeed these days.
Get over the fact that your a white South African and become just 'a South African' and for gods sake, help make the country work instead of publically degrading it at every opportunity !
We, as South Africa, are, like it not, a roll model for the rest of Africa - if we mess up badly, Africa stays in the dark ages for another 50 years.
As a white South African remember one thing, your living in AFRICA - wake up, this is not 'the colonies' anymore.
Re:$1 for what ? - no thanks - it's just plain dum
on
Live from Iran, Film88
·
· Score: 1
$5.50 ! - wow, I think the UK video stores and cinemas should wake up - costs me about $1.70 where I live to rent a DVD and about $4.50 to see a movie.
Then again, sufficient bandwidth to use a movie streaming service would cost me in the order of $200 a month - it's all relative I guess.
I still think paying $1 to see a low quality movie is daft tho... good old video tapes are better quality for the most part than a steaming video.
$1 for what ? - no thanks - it's just plain dumb.
on
Live from Iran, Film88
·
· Score: 1
Ok, so I'd pay $1 to watch a streaming movie of questionable quality on my small monitor ?
Now that strikes me as being a really dumb thing to do !
I can rent a DVD for under $2 and watch it on my massive TV with surround sound.
Alternatively, I can pay $4 to watch the movie on the big screen.
I just don't get it - ?
Why on earth would someone want to pay $1 for steaming movie quality, when as I mentioned above, for a little bit more, you can get 10x the quality ? - also, if your of the 'criminal?' persuasion, you can rip a rented DVD anyway !
Your Tirade - are you mad ?
on
The Empire Stumbles
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
What was I supposed to glean from your Tirade ?
All I got was 'spiderman is better than clones ?'
Hello - wakey wakey - they are both crap dolled out to rake in the bucks and have very little bearing on the real world.
Are you sane ? - you just had a major rant over two insignificant pieces of film.
"How far is Pluto ? - Is he anywhere near that Europe place I've been hearing so much about lately ? - maybe he's in that odd country called France where they like Disney so much ?"
Oh yes - I forgot, the only use for Flash according to/. is 'annoying banners'
Forget the fact that it's the most widely used and distributed plugin. Forget the fact that people use it for presentations, cartoons, multi-media cd-roms, educational purposes etc. etc. etc.
No, perhaps most of you 'code no graphics geeks' don't like Flash, but 90% of the rest of us do.
Cost = User interest/Company interest Distribution Marketing Licencing
I think that there could be enough user interest at present, so:-
You need to find a distribution model that doesn't involve people having to pay anything for the distribution itself, yet still has large volume - the solution is to approach a magazine like PC Format with a 'close-to-finished' product. Of course, you have the "traditional" web ISO download.
Marketing is the tricky part - you can try the free route 'open source marketing', which amounts to email spam or link swapping, or, you can use a more traditional money-sucking route and do a full marketing campaign.
Trying to team up with a magazine partner would solve that.
The licencing is the issue - however, again, a magazine can help you there.
So - it's simple - all you have to do is to impress the heck out of someone like PC Format.
Must be a joke - anyone basing 'research' or a 'survey' on 'bill gates sucks' and 'blessed are the cheesemakers' is either really bored, or trying to see how deep in the barrel/. will dig for 'stories'
Symobtec announces the anti-dumb-computer-user fix
April 1 2003 Symantec today announced the release of thier new flagship product aimed at protecting people against themselves.
Symobtec CEO, Dr. I love You, gives us a new angle on the breakthough:-
"Lets face it, users are dumb, stupid, fuck-wits and always will be, so our product is aimed at eliminating dumb, stupid, fuck-wits from the workplace"
When pressed for further comments, Dr. V.bs excused himself, indicating that he was coming down with a flu or something, possibly caused by his built in PC coffee-cup holder.
There was an article about designing UI's few days back and all I could think about was my financial partner who has to be told how to minimize a window every time.
The kinda guy that uses a remote email connection to send 10meg word documents to the person in the office next to him, even though all he needs to do is to send locally in 1/100th of the time.
The marketing-type person who leans over your shoulder when your computing and says to a client:-
"You know, these machines are amazing !"
Yeah - you should see the user jump through hoops of fire !
And we worry about virus problems being over-hyped ?
Screw the viruses,
I can see the headlines now:-
"Dumb computer users seen as the biggest risk to computer security."
"Symantec announces the anti-dumb-computer-user fix"
The main reason is that big business most probably doesn't see Linux on the desktop as being ready.
They perhaps see it as a fragmented effort without any clear 'commercial' goals.
Linux has made massive inroads into the server market and I'm sure it will eventually start to penetrate on the end-user desktop market too, but this will take a co-ordinated concentrated effort that will most likely require a fair whack of money...
The thing is, there's different levels of 'stupid users'
I agree, that if you can design a UI that even my boss can use, you could be onto a good thing.
When even the concept of 'folders' can bewilder normally intelligent people, surely we are on the wrong track regarding UI design ?
Or are we ?
You have to learn to drive a car, use an auto-teller, oven, fridge, radio, video machine - so why not a computer UI ?
You can design the most flawless looking UI with the most obvious choices to be made by the end user and many people will still be bewildered about how to use it - there's like this 'stumbling block' there.
There is still very much a fear of computers for the majority of users - not a fear of using them, but rather a fear of 'tinkering' or 'experimenting' with the different options available. I think it's a fear of looking stupid when something goes wrong that they can't handle.
Many people complain about how dumbed down the default microsoft desktop has become, but the truth is, they are on the right path,but just wandering off it a bit.
The KDE and Gnome UI would confuse the heck out of 90% of normal PC users, quite simply because microsofts UI confuses them enough as it is !
Then again, it took me a day to figure out all the options on my video machines remote, simply because I lost the instruction book -...
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno what all the fuss is about.
So some bloke posts why he's switching back to windows and the topic gets 1500 posts ?
Jeez - are Linux users that desperate that they respond so dramatically to something like this ?
Get a life !
Lets face it, some people don't give a damn about computers, so long as they work !
:-
The majority of the people in my office only do this
email
Write a simple document
Play solitaire
That's it !
They don't have any interest in using thier computers for anything else and why should they ?
If something happens to thier computer they don't understand, they call in help.
If something happens to my car that I don't understand, I call in help.
The motor-mac that fixes my car probably thinks I'm a complete moron, just as I'll think about him if he can't figure out how to copy and paste !
We need to stop thinking in terms of the way we figure things and just give the general users what they need and NOTHING more.
Four icons on the desktop for mail, documents, www and games, all files get saved to a network directory maintained by an IT dept. - that's it.
Sometimes constant innovation is nothing more than an exercise in making money driven by the marketing department, resulting in over-complex, redundant architecture that attempts to fulfil the needs of everyone, even though most of us never missed those needs until they gave them to us !
I'm still using my old IBM keyboard that came with a desktop I got second hand 5 years back.
It's been abused, fused, mis-used, had beer, tea, coffee,pizza and soda spills and cleaned a few times, but is still rock-solid !
The old desktop box is now a firewall, the 14" IBM monitor is on my devbox.
So what's the deal these days ?
Are there any good quality keyboards available anymore, or do they all suck ?
The same applies to most the cases (available where I am anyway) - cheap and nasty metal that cuts your fingers - bleh !
Easy, just stick a coupla A4 pages together with some masking tape and force them through the printer with a kitchen knife.
Alternatively, you could actually try using your brain to figure it out as opposed to asking such a totally lame question.
Firstly, The .za debate is still ongoing, there's a lot that will happen still and hopefully common sense will prevail.
Secondly, I'm frankly not amazed at the kind of total troll bait that's filled up this topic, but what I am shocked about is some white South Africans attitude toward thier country.
The whole attitude of 'everything has gone to shit in the last 10 years'
Well, leave the country then - we don't need your negativity or short-sightedness.
Fact: everything was shit for 80% of the population for 100 years !
Fact: our new government now has to build an infrastructure to support 40 million people as opposed to 3 million 'privileged' whites and you expect it to happen overnight ?
Fact: There was no 'bloody revolution' and as a white South African, you have your patient fellow black South Africans to thank for that - give that some thought.
Yes, we have wide-scale corruption, crime, rape and numerous other problems - we have to fix that somehow. Name me a country without similar problems !
Yes, government is messing up badly on many issues, but heck, at least most people have a fighting chance to succeed these days.
Get over the fact that your a white South African and become just 'a South African' and for gods sake, help make the country work instead of publically degrading it at every opportunity !
We, as South Africa, are, like it not, a roll model for the rest of Africa - if we mess up badly, Africa stays in the dark ages for another 50 years.
As a white South African remember one thing, your living in AFRICA - wake up, this is not 'the colonies' anymore.
$5.50 ! - wow, I think the UK video stores and cinemas should wake up - costs me about $1.70 where I live to rent a DVD and about $4.50 to see a movie.
... good old video tapes are better quality for the most part than a steaming video.
Then again, sufficient bandwidth to use a movie streaming service would cost me in the order of $200 a month - it's all relative I guess.
I still think paying $1 to see a low quality movie is daft tho
Ok, so I'd pay $1 to watch a streaming movie of questionable quality on my small monitor ?
Now that strikes me as being a really dumb thing to do !
I can rent a DVD for under $2 and watch it on my massive TV with surround sound.
Alternatively, I can pay $4 to watch the movie on the big screen.
I just don't get it - ?
Why on earth would someone want to pay $1 for steaming movie quality, when as I mentioned above, for a little bit more, you can get 10x the quality ? - also, if your of the 'criminal?' persuasion, you can rip a rented DVD anyway !
What was I supposed to glean from your Tirade ?
All I got was 'spiderman is better than clones ?'
Hello - wakey wakey - they are both crap dolled out to rake in the bucks and have very little bearing on the real world.
Are you sane ? - you just had a major rant over two insignificant pieces of film.
Get a grip, please.
I wil jave party wif nakid girlz
like zomilla - gud browbser, parties on !
Yay mofizla is 1.o many yers laters tha it should-been, woop an crashis like daemon broken sumtimes.
ParTy woop - nakid gurlz.
Bring it on you fiery lizard - it's now or never.
So, when will there actually be some agreement on a default, stable, user friendly desktop for Linux ?
.coms ?
At the rate things are happening and judging by this article, Never.
Perhaps, sometimes, open source eats itself - it starts to defeat the object of it's very existence due to it's 'open' nature.
We need a 'facist' microsoft method to finally get a standardised, stable and useable desktop for Linux.
In my opinion (and screw the humble bit), desktops for Linux still suck badly - no matter which one - they all suck in thier own special way.
There's just no consistency between the desktop developers and software developers.
For christ sake, if you can't cut'n'paste from one app to another (which is a big problem with Linux desktops), there's a problem.
I still have faith, god knows why.
If Linux can repeat the success it's had on the webserver level with the desktop, well, there's finally an alternative to the much maligned win32.
So what are all you Linux developers doing out there ? - squabbling ?
So much for open source then - there needs to be a leader to push, heck, FORCE acceptance of a standard.
Microsoft know this and exploits it, to a lesser extent, Apple do the same.
For a desktop to succeed on Linux, it is going to have to be mostly 'closed source' 'propriety' software - that much is very clear to me.
And it's also going to have to be commercial.
I pay for many things and I'm prepared to pay for an alternative to M$
Are you ? - or are you still living in a dreamland that bombed the
Oh where's the justice !
:D
We're about to upgrade our work diginet line.
Currently it's 64k, upgrading to 128k
And how much per month ?
$700
So quit your whining, there's worse of countries than Australia regarding bandwidth/cost.
and then he asked :-
"How far is Pluto ? - Is he anywhere near that Europe place I've been hearing so much about lately ? - maybe he's in that odd country called France where they like Disney so much ?"
Ah yes, I suppose that's why they aim to spend $500 million to go find out.
"Oh no ! - it's just a strange optical distortion and mobile gravity well !"
"All our brilliant scientists were incorrect and all the data we've collected for decades has proven to be false !"
"Why we never believed that post by the Anonymous Coward on slashdot, I just don't know !"
What the heck is that supposed to mean ?
/. is 'annoying banners'
Oh yes - I forgot, the only use for Flash according to
Forget the fact that it's the most widely used and distributed plugin. Forget the fact that people use it for presentations, cartoons, multi-media cd-roms, educational purposes etc. etc. etc.
No, perhaps most of you 'code no graphics geeks' don't like Flash, but 90% of the rest of us do.
The first thing that comes to mind is :-
:-
Cost =
User interest/Company interest
Distribution
Marketing
Licencing
I think that there could be enough user interest at present, so
You need to find a distribution model that doesn't involve people having to pay anything for the distribution itself, yet still has large volume - the solution is to approach a magazine like PC Format with a 'close-to-finished' product. Of course, you have the "traditional" web ISO download.
Marketing is the tricky part - you can try the free route 'open source marketing', which amounts to email spam or link swapping, or, you can use a more traditional money-sucking route and do a full marketing campaign.
Trying to team up with a magazine partner would solve that.
The licencing is the issue - however, again, a magazine can help you there.
So - it's simple - all you have to do is to impress the heck out of someone like PC Format.
By thoroughly researching the following phrases on www.yahoo.com :-
Sex
Warez
mp3
I have discovered that amazingly, my results differ substantially !
In conclusion, then, it seems that content is ultimately always fresh and there is no indication of decay !
This is news ?
/. will dig for 'stories'
Or a joke ?
Must be a joke - anyone basing 'research' or a 'survey' on 'bill gates sucks' and 'blessed are the cheesemakers' is either really bored, or trying to see how deep in the barrel
Looks like another step in a new for media control between Microsoft and AOL-TW.
:-
...
Lets hope the consumer wins out - but then again
<i>"British Government has decided that all TVs will have to switch over to digital by 2010"</i>
Hmmmm
Close it quick, before the morons get here...
Symobtec announces the anti-dumb-computer-user fix
:-
April 1 2003
Symantec today announced the release of thier new flagship product aimed at protecting people against themselves.
Symobtec CEO, Dr. I love You, gives us a new angle on the breakthough
"Lets face it, users are dumb, stupid, fuck-wits and always will be, so our product is aimed at eliminating dumb, stupid, fuck-wits from the workplace"
When pressed for further comments, Dr. V.bs excused himself, indicating that he was coming down with a flu or something, possibly caused by his built in PC coffee-cup holder.
Exactly,
:-
:-
DUMB COMPUTER USERS
Fact is, 99% of the world fit that category.
There was an article about designing UI's few days back and all I could think about was my financial partner who has to be told how to minimize a window every time.
The kinda guy that uses a remote email connection to send 10meg word documents to the person in the office next to him, even though all he needs to do is to send locally in 1/100th of the time.
The marketing-type person who leans over your shoulder when your computing and says to a client
"You know, these machines are amazing !"
Yeah - you should see the user jump through hoops of fire !
And we worry about virus problems being over-hyped ?
Screw the viruses,
I can see the headlines now
"Dumb computer users seen as the biggest risk to computer security."
"Symantec announces the anti-dumb-computer-user fix"
Correct functionality and useability should be seen as one and the same, as useability suggests functionality and visa-versa.
:)
The main reason is that big business most probably doesn't see Linux on the desktop as being ready.
They perhaps see it as a fragmented effort without any clear 'commercial' goals.
Linux has made massive inroads into the server market and I'm sure it will eventually start to penetrate on the end-user desktop market too, but this will take a co-ordinated concentrated effort that will most likely require a fair whack of money...
The thing is, there's different levels of 'stupid users'
...
I agree, that if you can design a UI that even my boss can use, you could be onto a good thing.
When even the concept of 'folders' can bewilder normally intelligent people, surely we are on the wrong track regarding UI design ?
Or are we ?
You have to learn to drive a car, use an auto-teller, oven, fridge, radio, video machine - so why not a computer UI ?
You can design the most flawless looking UI with the most obvious choices to be made by the end user and many people will still be bewildered about how to use it - there's like this 'stumbling block' there.
There is still very much a fear of computers for the majority of users - not a fear of using them, but rather a fear of 'tinkering' or 'experimenting' with the different options available. I think it's a fear of looking stupid when something goes wrong that they can't handle.
Many people complain about how dumbed down the default microsoft desktop has become, but the truth is, they are on the right path,but just wandering off it a bit.
The KDE and Gnome UI would confuse the heck out of 90% of normal PC users, quite simply because microsofts UI confuses them enough as it is !
Then again, it took me a day to figure out all the options on my video machines remote, simply because I lost the instruction book -