Government is less accountable, and there is little or no connection between the bureacrats and the taxpayers. If there were, the taxpayers would not have to put up with the ludicrous long lines and lack of response / rude response that they deal with when putting up with the government services.
Yuo have obviously never called Technical Support, your health insurance company, or the billing office of a University. The problem is not Government vs. the Private Sector. The problem is that of poor management. I feel that branches of our Government are quite friendly and useful. With others the experience is like dentistry without novicane.
Here is another hint, this Government is elected by you and for you. I can't tell you how many bureacratic problems my family has solved with a letter to our Representative and/or Senator. Yup but, they our interests. They cut the bureacrat's checks. Everyone listens to congress.
Now quit your bitching and try participating in Government.
There is no direct accountability in government. Government employment is the place where people go who are too incompetent to compete in the private sector (this does not include college level academia, where government style employment protection is required for academic advancement).
You seem to forget the Insurance industry, Medicine, and Securities. CEOs, yea, they're accountable too. The private sector is as filled with leaches and the clueless. We are only aware of the Government ones because they are accountable to us, the taxpayer.
Surely you don't mean President Bush's regime^H^H^H^H^H presidency. He's been a straight shooter all along. It's just that the targets keep moving. Or at least moving with respect to his ever-shifting platform...
Dude, you are missing the point. First off Open Office does as good a job (in some respect better) as MS Office in reading MS Office documents. You forget that if the office uses Office 2000, Bob's copy of Office 97 isn't going to read some formatting.
My next question for you is which Windows you plan on supporting. Old School 98? 2K? XP? ME? NT? I do this for a living. People need a complete retraining between versions of Windows to do much beyond the start menu. Hell, XP by default hides most of the desktop. Once you start having to note that this isn't really a standard configuration for Windows all of the supposed advantages disappear.
As far as competition with Kinkos, go take a look at what they have. Locked down workstations for the customers. That's real competition, they are one step up from the dollar fed Internet kiosks. While you are at it take a look at what the staff are using. Hmmm, that would be Solaris operating all of those high-volume printers.
You see most "people" don't really give a crap what they are using. It's supposed to get the job done for a price they can afford. License compliance for what you are describing would cost more that the lab equipment itself. All things being equal, most people take the cheaper alternative.
Not to Troll, but every meaningful thing one does in life should have a theme.
You end up selecting an operating system for the lab computers. That selection is a political decision. If you are recieving state monies, that political decision is sometimes made for you.
I like to preach platform neutrality. As such, I like to use a stripped down Linux interface. Not because it is Linux, but because I can turn off all of the distractions. People ask me why Windows isn't there, and I tell them. If windows were present, they would ask me why it doesn't look like their computer at home, where you either have to answer "this is a newer version, and yours is out of date" or "this is an older version because the one you use sucks." You don't have to say it in X number of words. Any euphamism will get the message across.
People read a lot more into your actions than your stated intentions.
Did you just use "slick" and "fast" as adjectives for MS Office?
I'm sorry, office is every bit as bloated and ugly as OO. Come on, they don't even have a consistent interface througout the MS Office Suite. Access and Powerpoint were purchased from other companies. Word's and Excel's interface lack any similarity beyond the "File" and "Edit" menus. And the Edit menu isn't even that consistent between the two.
Frankly MS Office is a travesty to the human-computer interface profession. I know, I DESIGN human-computer interfaces. It breaks every stinking rule. There are 7 ways for sunday to do every task, none of them are organized all that well.
At least one team of developers sat down and thought the whole Open-Office interface out. That cannot be said for MS Office.
Apple gets this. Microsoft gets it but has a business-model problem with it. The Linux community doesn't get it at all.
On the contrary, most Apple users are one with their machine. Somehow Apple makes the interior a bit more accessible by bundling all of the basic drivers into one big happy shell.
Microsoft's business model is to make you dependent on them to change your underwear. If they weren't so clumsy at it, I'd be worried.
To make a blanket statement about the Linux community is dumb. I've built Linux stations that people just walked up and used. They didn't know or care what it was running, it served the web, museum information, etc. The only reason we don't have a click-n-drool interface for Linux is because it hasn't been someone's priority. Scratch that, someone HAS designed a click-n-drool interface. I've used it. It's as easy to use as windows. Most people simply aren't aware as to how difficult Windows is to actually use.
Lastly, it's important to remember that you should be trying to teach computing principles.
My wife does in-home computer tutoring. She tells the the same thing. Her clients are mostly Senior Citizens. (Oddly enough, retired teachers.) Most of her clients call her in to learn Email, how to use the web, and how to use Office. She also comes in and sets up new peripherals and such.
It's been her experience that the best way to teach folks is on their own computer. The differences in even the same OS configured slightly differenty are enough to frustrate beginners.
On other note she has been screaming for a generic operating system she could take along to her clients. For many Windows is just to damn confusing, they just need email, web, and something to write letters to the grandkids. One of theses days I'm actually going to finish that damn bootable CD...
Despite the subtlty of the differences between Windows and Linux/KDE, a lot of people won't want to touch and unfamiliar setup without help.
My wife teaches in-home computer classes. Let me tell you the difference between Windows 95,Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP is enough to make users of one unfamiliar with the other.
Frankly if Windows was all that easy to use, she'd be out of a job!
Though I do disagree. Just because the government throws money at a problem does not instantly make it a success. Look at the Strategic Defense Initiative. How many Billions of dollars did We The People sink into a system that never worked. Scratch that, are STILL sinking into a system that HAS never worked.
Spend half that on a standing army, you would employ a lot more people. Spend a quarter of that on schools and you wouldn't have to.
Coming from a long line of Civil Servents (could Polish decent we a factor?) I can say that many of the people in your government are skilled and dedicated individuals.
The managers of those people, OTOH are another story.
The great thing about standards is having so many to choose from!
I don't doubt that there are standards. Odds are the are contradictory, self serving to whoever crafted them, and devoid of any technical merit. Come on, these people are the biggest purchaser of Microsoft products for crying out loud. For what they spend they could write their own damn system, maintain it ad-infinitum.
it's true.... my mother in-law works at the BIA, and hasn't had email for years. i've offered to do real cheap contracting to help them set up a small, secure network in their regional office, to no avail. they were still waiting for the gov IT dept to work it out.
At my office I would up as network admin after a power struggle involving a guy who refused to do much of anything. Systems were so locked down they were useless. A tiny fraction of the building had email, fewer of those actually had the password.
New network drops? Forget it. Hell, the fund-raising department had its own domain and a dialup line to access email. 2 departments ran their own networks. I was first brought in to try to get them on the Internet, but as soon as folks saw that there was no need for any of the hoop jumping...
... Well, lets just say that person doesn't work here anymore.
Someone has to be willfully not complying. Hell a firewall is as simple as picking up a $40 router at the local Staples. The instructions are printed in bright colors on droolproof paper.
There has to be a lot more to this story. Low priority is one thing. This is right up there with willfully not breathing, or willfully not locking a door.
The next version of Civilization is going to include a wonder known as the "US Patent and Trademark Office." Basically every technology you discover blocks anyone else from the benefits of the technology, even if they had discovered it already, or you simply stole it.
The problem is the gold required to maintain it is atrocious, and your corruption rate goes through the roof.
Slashdot Mirror
Yuo have obviously never called Technical Support, your health insurance company, or the billing office of a University. The problem is not Government vs. the Private Sector. The problem is that of poor management. I feel that branches of our Government are quite friendly and useful. With others the experience is like dentistry without novicane.
Here is another hint, this Government is elected by you and for you. I can't tell you how many bureacratic problems my family has solved with a letter to our Representative and/or Senator. Yup but, they our interests. They cut the bureacrat's checks. Everyone listens to congress.
Now quit your bitching and try participating in Government.
Actually no. Busy as ever. I've just been supervising so very tedious server rebuilds.
You seem to forget the Insurance industry, Medicine, and Securities. CEOs, yea, they're accountable too. The private sector is as filled with leaches and the clueless. We are only aware of the Government ones because they are accountable to us, the taxpayer.
Surely you don't mean President Bush's regime^H^H^H^H^H presidency. He's been a straight shooter all along. It's just that the targets keep moving. Or at least moving with respect to his ever-shifting platform...
I wouldn't mind Linux patches from Microsoft if they were tastefully embroidered, and matched the color of my jacket.
Microsoft linux: It's not just a Distribution, it's an entire Distribution Channel.
My next question for you is which Windows you plan on supporting. Old School 98? 2K? XP? ME? NT? I do this for a living. People need a complete retraining between versions of Windows to do much beyond the start menu. Hell, XP by default hides most of the desktop. Once you start having to note that this isn't really a standard configuration for Windows all of the supposed advantages disappear.
As far as competition with Kinkos, go take a look at what they have. Locked down workstations for the customers. That's real competition, they are one step up from the dollar fed Internet kiosks. While you are at it take a look at what the staff are using. Hmmm, that would be Solaris operating all of those high-volume printers.
You see most "people" don't really give a crap what they are using. It's supposed to get the job done for a price they can afford. License compliance for what you are describing would cost more that the lab equipment itself. All things being equal, most people take the cheaper alternative.
You end up selecting an operating system for the lab computers. That selection is a political decision. If you are recieving state monies, that political decision is sometimes made for you.
I like to preach platform neutrality. As such, I like to use a stripped down Linux interface. Not because it is Linux, but because I can turn off all of the distractions. People ask me why Windows isn't there, and I tell them. If windows were present, they would ask me why it doesn't look like their computer at home, where you either have to answer "this is a newer version, and yours is out of date" or "this is an older version because the one you use sucks." You don't have to say it in X number of words. Any euphamism will get the message across.
People read a lot more into your actions than your stated intentions.
I'm sorry, office is every bit as bloated and ugly as OO. Come on, they don't even have a consistent interface througout the MS Office Suite. Access and Powerpoint were purchased from other companies. Word's and Excel's interface lack any similarity beyond the "File" and "Edit" menus. And the Edit menu isn't even that consistent between the two.
Frankly MS Office is a travesty to the human-computer interface profession. I know, I DESIGN human-computer interfaces. It breaks every stinking rule. There are 7 ways for sunday to do every task, none of them are organized all that well.
At least one team of developers sat down and thought the whole Open-Office interface out. That cannot be said for MS Office.
On the contrary, most Apple users are one with their machine. Somehow Apple makes the interior a bit more accessible by bundling all of the basic drivers into one big happy shell.
Microsoft's business model is to make you dependent on them to change your underwear. If they weren't so clumsy at it, I'd be worried.
To make a blanket statement about the Linux community is dumb. I've built Linux stations that people just walked up and used. They didn't know or care what it was running, it served the web, museum information, etc. The only reason we don't have a click-n-drool interface for Linux is because it hasn't been someone's priority. Scratch that, someone HAS designed a click-n-drool interface. I've used it. It's as easy to use as windows. Most people simply aren't aware as to how difficult Windows is to actually use.
My wife does in-home computer tutoring. She tells the the same thing. Her clients are mostly Senior Citizens. (Oddly enough, retired teachers.) Most of her clients call her in to learn Email, how to use the web, and how to use Office. She also comes in and sets up new peripherals and such.
It's been her experience that the best way to teach folks is on their own computer. The differences in even the same OS configured slightly differenty are enough to frustrate beginners.
On other note she has been screaming for a generic operating system she could take along to her clients. For many Windows is just to damn confusing, they just need email, web, and something to write letters to the grandkids. One of theses days I'm actually going to finish that damn bootable CD...
My wife teaches in-home computer classes. Let me tell you the difference between Windows 95,Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP is enough to make users of one unfamiliar with the other.
Frankly if Windows was all that easy to use, she'd be out of a job!
Though I do disagree. Just because the government throws money at a problem does not instantly make it a success. Look at the Strategic Defense Initiative. How many Billions of dollars did We The People sink into a system that never worked. Scratch that, are STILL sinking into a system that HAS never worked.
Spend half that on a standing army, you would employ a lot more people. Spend a quarter of that on schools and you wouldn't have to.
The managers of those people, OTOH are another story.
Cloning finally has an application I see...
What was that God?
Ok, someone had a little too much fun with the laminator as a kid, didn't they.
The great thing about standards is having so many to choose from!
I don't doubt that there are standards. Odds are the are contradictory, self serving to whoever crafted them, and devoid of any technical merit. Come on, these people are the biggest purchaser of Microsoft products for crying out loud. For what they spend they could write their own damn system, maintain it ad-infinitum.
Whoever does security on it should be hung from a yardarm. Now, just to grab his attention, how about a little @#$#!eDFWERTQ#W$TQS!@#%!@#QEQW#%Q^H
No Carrier
Enjoy the Karma. I'll just enjoy a the chucklefest.
At my office I would up as network admin after a power struggle involving a guy who refused to do much of anything. Systems were so locked down they were useless. A tiny fraction of the building had email, fewer of those actually had the password.
New network drops? Forget it. Hell, the fund-raising department had its own domain and a dialup line to access email. 2 departments ran their own networks. I was first brought in to try to get them on the Internet, but as soon as folks saw that there was no need for any of the hoop jumping ...
127.0.0.1
Come and get me!
Why is it that we seem to be in a world now run by pending litigation? What ever happened to people just doing what they are paid to do!
There has to be a lot more to this story. Low priority is one thing. This is right up there with willfully not breathing, or willfully not locking a door.
The problem is the gold required to maintain it is atrocious, and your corruption rate goes through the roof.