Just another thought. If possible, why not get a list of malicious websites, install Squid and blacklist them, and configure IE/Firefox/whatever to surf behind the proxy service? Such a list can be obtained from a variety of places. (e.g. the one at http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt -- it just takes a little shell/Perl/Python/whatever programming to transform such a hosts file to a plain blacklist suitable for inclusion in a Squid ACL. The original purpose of the list I linked is to be used as the Windoze equivalent of/etc/hosts, which I think is a bad idea.)
No matter what you do to the computer, it's not enough. Take the time to write a short, concise manual (or "cheat sheet") and print it on dead tree paper, in large and clear fonts. Write in the manual basic things like how to update the system/antivirus, etc., etc.. You can always tell them what to do but you can't expect them to remember every detail well.
This is not meant to be an insult on senior people. You said these people are unfamiliar with computing and this is an approach for them to familiarize themselves with it. Human memory is unreliable, especially for unfamiliar things.
Much more complex molecules have been discovered in outer space. Indeed water isn't something fascinating compared with these ones. The cool thing here is about the sensitivity of the hardware, which is able to identify the faint signals from a very distant object.
You are right, but the spectral signature of water is not the only thing present in the radio emission from a galaxy. Together with other signatures e.g. Hydrogen, CO etc., it is possible to work out a big picture.
Don't know about Ubuntu, but for Fedora, stuff that works with Fedora N doesn't necessarily work with Fedora (N + 1). They sometimes make rapid changes between releases and you'll have to do a lot of reconfiguration.
I list the notion of "user friendliness" as marketspeak nonsense. Whether someone/something is "friendly" or not is always a subjective matter. Cover-all statement like "foo is user-friendly" doesn't make sense to me.
Oh wait, we are really talking about a *marketing* thing, aren't we? That being said, I still consider the "unfriendliness" (if you call it) an advantage even in its marketing sense. There's a famous saying that goes like "Unix is user-friendly. It just chooses which users it's friendly with." The cool thing about Linux-based OSes is that *you* can choose it and choose it to be your specific customer, because it's built entirely on open-source software that is "obedient" and be customized to death.
Apart from the business angle, I'd say it's human nature.
No matter what we say or think about it, we humans (most of us) have a tendency of avoiding being alone and unrecognized. Especially for geeks who are attached to the idealistic aspects of technology and don't think "it's just a tool". We want to spread the *word*, not only the *thing*.
On the other hand, I wonder what people would be thinking if one day Linux gain its significant market size. I think my first thought would likely to be "so this is how Linux dies -- with thunderous applause."
This may be a bit off-topic but I just came across with this idea when reading your post.
As said in a few posts here, the future of Linux on netbooks and desktops may lie in its good support for non-x86 architectures e.g. ARM. However none of the binary blob plugins seem to be working on that direction. I'm all against the plague of non-standard Web plugins, but if the FOSS implementations of Flash etc. finally turn up with workable products, that would be a greater win than it seems to be: good portability and hardware-independence because the source is there.
I find you post interesting because it contradicts my (and I guess most other's) experience with today's Linux distros. A decade ago, maybe, I don't know so I can't really comment. But today? I think your situation would really be rare.
I never wrote a kernel patch myself. I suppose less than 1% of the Linux-using masses have ever done so. I don't even need to recompile a kernel unless it's strictly necessary or strictly fun. Today's distro maintainers do that patching jobs pretty well and that's partly the reason why "distros" exist.
It's good for you to be able to write your own kernel patches and solve the problem yourself. I know sometimes you may have to do it because of unsupported hardware or special needs. I'm not saying patching your kernel is unnecessary these days. I'm saying it's not an obstacle for ppl to adope Linux these days.
Slashdot Mirror
Game of Life?
Why do they make such a long EULA... and why do end users have to "agree" to a license?
Why not just change the EULA to a concise "Notice of Rights" telling end users to do whatever they like, and distributors to follow the GPL?
Just another thought. If possible, why not get a list of malicious websites, install Squid and blacklist them, and configure IE/Firefox/whatever to surf behind the proxy service? Such a list can be obtained from a variety of places. (e.g. the one at http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.txt -- it just takes a little shell/Perl/Python/whatever programming to transform such a hosts file to a plain blacklist suitable for inclusion in a Squid ACL. The original purpose of the list I linked is to be used as the Windoze equivalent of /etc/hosts, which I think is a bad idea.)
No matter what you do to the computer, it's not enough. Take the time to write a short, concise manual (or "cheat sheet") and print it on dead tree paper, in large and clear fonts. Write in the manual basic things like how to update the system/antivirus, etc., etc.. You can always tell them what to do but you can't expect them to remember every detail well.
This is not meant to be an insult on senior people. You said these people are unfamiliar with computing and this is an approach for them to familiarize themselves with it. Human memory is unreliable, especially for unfamiliar things.
Vanilla VNC without encryption is terrible. I use VNC only with SSH tunnelling.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Scigen
Does this program pass the Turing Test?
But... but you must make sure the trace dump comes in pretty, anti-aliased, glossy fonts!
No worry pal. We all know that only the Japanese volcanoes host Angels!
> Another useful feature is integrated host based networking, no more fiddling around with network bridges.
Can anyone explain what this "host based networking" is? And what's wrong with the bridges?
Thanks.
But the real problem is in the 8th level.
> Censorship Minister Stephen Conroy announced
What is a "Censorship Minister"? Is there a "Ministry of Censorship" in Australia??
Much more complex molecules have been discovered in outer space. Indeed water isn't something fascinating compared with these ones. The cool thing here is about the sensitivity of the hardware, which is able to identify the faint signals from a very distant object.
You are right, but the spectral signature of water is not the only thing present in the radio emission from a galaxy. Together with other signatures e.g. Hydrogen, CO etc., it is possible to work out a big picture.
--
Brian: You are individuals!
The mass: (in unison) Yes! we are individuals!
Brain: You are all different!
The mass: (in unison) Yes! We are different!
Man in the mass: I'm not.
Men around him: Shhhhh!
--
Sorry. Can't help.
Now that's air pirates! https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Porco_Rosso
The secondary display pulled out at the side just looks so fragile to me. Especially when considering the cost of such a computer.
On the other story, does the Dell "Adamo" has anything to do with Battlestar Galactica?
It's just a model. Oh, I mean "test".
So what is a "bridging function"? Definitely not something about Ethernet bridging... but what is it?
Maybe something called "trolling for information"? ;-)
Don't know about Ubuntu, but for Fedora, stuff that works with Fedora N doesn't necessarily work with Fedora (N + 1). They sometimes make rapid changes between releases and you'll have to do a lot of reconfiguration.
I list the notion of "user friendliness" as marketspeak nonsense. Whether someone/something is "friendly" or not is always a subjective matter. Cover-all statement like "foo is user-friendly" doesn't make sense to me.
Oh wait, we are really talking about a *marketing* thing, aren't we? That being said, I still consider the "unfriendliness" (if you call it) an advantage even in its marketing sense. There's a famous saying that goes like "Unix is user-friendly. It just chooses which users it's friendly with." The cool thing about Linux-based OSes is that *you* can choose it and choose it to be your specific customer, because it's built entirely on open-source software that is "obedient" and be customized to death.
Apart from the business angle, I'd say it's human nature.
No matter what we say or think about it, we humans (most of us) have a tendency of avoiding being alone and unrecognized. Especially for geeks who are attached to the idealistic aspects of technology and don't think "it's just a tool". We want to spread the *word*, not only the *thing*.
On the other hand, I wonder what people would be thinking if one day Linux gain its significant market size. I think my first thought would likely to be "so this is how Linux dies -- with thunderous applause."
This may be a bit off-topic but I just came across with this idea when reading your post.
As said in a few posts here, the future of Linux on netbooks and desktops may lie in its good support for non-x86 architectures e.g. ARM. However none of the binary blob plugins seem to be working on that direction. I'm all against the plague of non-standard Web plugins, but if the FOSS implementations of Flash etc. finally turn up with workable products, that would be a greater win than it seems to be: good portability and hardware-independence because the source is there.
I find you post interesting because it contradicts my (and I guess most other's) experience with today's Linux distros. A decade ago, maybe, I don't know so I can't really comment. But today? I think your situation would really be rare.
I never wrote a kernel patch myself. I suppose less than 1% of the Linux-using masses have ever done so. I don't even need to recompile a kernel unless it's strictly necessary or strictly fun. Today's distro maintainers do that patching jobs pretty well and that's partly the reason why "distros" exist.
It's good for you to be able to write your own kernel patches and solve the problem yourself. I know sometimes you may have to do it because of unsupported hardware or special needs. I'm not saying patching your kernel is unnecessary these days. I'm saying it's not an obstacle for ppl to adope Linux these days.
The US Air Force has been doing this for quite a long time.