Started with DSL, switched to Cable
on
DSL Rising
·
· Score: 1
My family and I recently moved into a house in one of the many districts of Salt Lake City.
When we moved in, I ordered DSL from Qwest.com. They sent out a DSL kit a couple of weeks later. I couldn't get it to work without putting filters on all my phone jacks, which make a crackling noise during phone conversations. Further, the download speeds were atrocious--not much better than 56K dialup. To add injury to insult, the AresCom DSL modem they provided didn't work with my Linksys firewall / router--they required that I purchase an AresCom router in order to share connectivity with all my home machines. Of course I ended up cancelling my service.
After this DSL fiasco, I went ahead and ordered cable Internet services from AT&T, which is what I had before I moved to Salt Lake City. They sent someone out and had it turned on within a couple of days. I plugged my Linksys firewall / router into the cable modem and voila! shared connectivity at very high rates--I regularly clock the bandwidth at nearly 1.5 Mbs / sec.
Needless to say I am very happy with my cable service and highly recommend it to others.
Re:Mental Illness and the media.
on
A Beautiful Mind
·
· Score: 1
Saying that someone with mental illness cannot fight back is to yank the rug out from under those who actually are fighting back. People can most certainly fight back--it takes determination, a support system, often times medication, and the ignoring of those who say it's a lost cause, such as this poster.
Note that the article stated that the NeuLevel subsidiary will share some of the security and technical developments used in ".biz."
Hopefully one of these shared technical developments will be the reuse of the eXtensible Registry Protocol (XRP), which is defined as a profile for the Internet-standard BEEP framework. NeuStar used hardened implementations of the BEEP framework, called "Beepcore," that my former employer Invisible Worlds developed under contract.
I don't know of any open source implementations for XRP, but these Beepcore implementations are available as free software under a BSD-style license at Beepcore.org.
............ kris
Kris Magnusson
(formerly marketing and developer relations manager for Invisible Worlds)
(2) S-Video is not suitable for most applications viewed on a TV.
Due to the limitations of S-Video, most TVs don't display computer output clearly. However, some new TVs are designed in part for optimal display of computer output up to 1024 x 768. This summer I was in the market for a big-screen TV as a computer display for business presentations, occasional web surfing, occasional e-mail, very occasional gaming for my DP's two kids. All of those apps looked like crap on all TVs (including HDs) through the S-Video output on the high-end laptop built for presentations, etc. My solution was a TV with (S)VGA ports. I ended up purchasing a 36" RCA Digital TV with max res of 800 x 600, and the TV sports two SVGA ports for the simultaneous connection of a computer and an external HDTV decoder. The tube's not quite flat, but for the money and size I didn't care. It looks spectacular--especially for USD $1100.
TVs and their qualities aside, I would never have that pop-tin monstrosity of a computer chassis in my house. The chassis I selected looks like a prev-gen HP Pavilion, which I find aesthetically pleasing. Then I selected a Radeon, DVD, wireless kb/m, and 802.11B, making it a great platform for the apps I already mentioned. But one component of TV/computer success that I overlooked and consequently found out about later is to get super-quiet power supplies, fans, etc. The resulting noise levels are too loud for quiet TV watching, but they are thankfully acceptable for nearly everything else. The result: the computer looks great in my living room, and aside from a little noise the computer/TV combo is perfect for couch web-surfing.
........... kris
a.i. represents human experience (spoilers)
on
Review: A.I.
·
· Score: 2
delete "mecha" from the following and i'm describing human experience. that kubrick definitely has a way of expressing complex, subtle inner emotions.
mecha boy's parents are neurotic messes who create mecha child for their own benefit, not that of the mecha boy
mother inevitably creates unhealthy, unbreakable bond between her and mecha boy
father and brother obstruct mecha boy's relationship with mother, causing mecha boy's suffering to increase
mecha boy's desire for greater closeness as well as fear of being hurt leads him to inadvertently cause harm to others
mother inevitably abandons mecha boy for selfish reasons, but leaves him a chance for survival and thus a faint but real chance to find happiness
mecha boy immediately finds his own kind: other damaged mecha people fumbling around for their missing pieces in the dark, neurotically stuck in their own self-limiting programming/conditioning
mecha boy finds the strength to continue by blindly holding onto his idealized notion of mother, as well as his own childlike perceptions of his uniqueness and special qualities
unable to get what he needs in the real world, mecha boy develops magical thinking, believing a fictitious supernatural force will help him meet his needs
mecha boy ultimately finds that he is neither special nor unique and will never get the love he needs from his mother--then he tries to kill himself
i left out "mecha boy gets therapy and feels better" because that doesn't always happen, but i thought it could have worked.
He's still missing the point
on
Mundie Responds
·
· Score: 1
The business model for GPL-covered code is the same one as for BSD-covered code and so forth--to enable corporations to share the load of creating software essential to a business, but which does not provide the business with a competitive edge. This business model works for Microsoft, if even in a small way. MS didn't have to develop that TCP/IP stack from scratch--they just lifted it from the BSD source tree. What Mundie is really saying in his response is that Microsoft wants to benefit from this business model, but doesn't want to share its improvements with its community of developers, and is upset with the authors of the GPL for making them do so.
However, Mundie is right in that conservative legal departments in many businesses fear the GPL and its risks. I believe the FSF could do a better job of easing the fears of corporate attorneys who may have no experience with the GPL and the FSF.
"My life is meaningless now," said Jayanta Majumder, Shinjan's father. "I worked so hard to bring up good children in a good school district."
This guy's son died and all he can think of which school district his son attended? No wonder getting caught hacking seems so terrible to this kid--dying may have seem better than getting in trouble with his dad.
ObDisclaimer: I am not speaking in an official capacity for Invisible Worlds here. That said, I think JXTA is pretty interesting. From where I sit, I can see at least one clueful thing to do with BEEP and JXTA.
Incidentally, BXXP.org will be retired soon. Try Beepcore.org for the freshest BEEP info and code.
Beepcore is the replacement for the legacy SpaceKits. Beepcore is available in Java and Tcl flavors, with C and C++ in the works. Also, we use the BSD license for our code.......... kris
Kris Magnusson
Site Manager of Beepcore.org
Invisible Worlds, Inc.
People are thinking about the IP redistribution issue, notably scientists at InterTrust and Microsoft. New revenue models for IP such as InterTrust's Digital Rights Management system are probably technically possible to defeat. But it's technically possible for everyone in our society to rise up, throw chairs through plate glass windows, and steal televisions en masse, but we all don't because we are all afraid of going to jail.
Note that social pressures such as the risk of imprisonment, as well as technical barriers such as locks and keys, are hardly foolproof protections against theft. Yet a small percentage of the population is willing to shoulder the risk, and a sophisticated thief will be able to defeat locks, keys, and even electronic alarm systems. But if you forget to lock the door to your flat one morning, chances are good that all your stuff will still be there when you get home from work that evening, because most people who notice that it is unlocked will not steal anything for fear of getting caught and jailed.
All the RIAA (this was The Man in the '60s) needs to do is make so scary to share MP3s that 80% of Napster users drop off the network. Since the Napster network derives its value from people who participate, increasing risk and cost of participation will decrease the value of the network, and Napster will cease to be much of a problem to the RIAA.
If the music industry violated the GPL by shipping binaries derived from covered code without publishing source code, the Slashdot readership would likely call for the wholesale assassination of music industry executives.
How funny, then, that when the music industry complains that we are doing something similar to them by violating their intellectual property rights wholesale and distribute their IP against their express wishes, we call for their boycott.
Perhaps we are more than a little hypocritical?
IPR is IPR, whether it's licensed using the GPL or a commercial license. We have no right to use IP in ways other than how the licensor intends. We should honor their wishes before someone does to us what we are doing to the music industry. Payback's a bitch, right?
NetWare developers traditionally used the Watcom compiler. When Watcom tanked, they were forced to use CodeWarrior and even (gasp) gcc. Now at least Novell can manage its own compiler destiny.
I like the idea of a really efficient car and will buy one--but not this one. At 11 seconds to 60, a well-tuned Super Beetle could blow the doors off an Insight.
I loved the Civic VX when it came out. It had the vroom that I expect from a pocket rocket--and it got 50 miles to the gallon. But boy racer that I am, I waited for and later purchased a del Sol VTEC so I could smoke VR6s and not get dusted too badly by Mustangs and RX-7s--the performance to fuel economy ratio was still acceptable to me at the time. (It still is, frankly, even at $2.11/gallon for 92 octane in downtown SF.)
When I can purchase either a hybrid- or fuel cell-powered car and kick V8 ass with the angry whirring of a high-performance electric motor, I will plunk my money down. But not until then. Fuel economy is a plus, but it's not worth trading off the visceral experience of sheer horsepower.
I'm also much less interested in a hybrid car than a hydrogen-powered fuel-cell. The sooner I can completely wean myself off of gasoline and onto a renewable resource, the better I will feel about my rampant commercialism.
What I am waiting for is nothing less than a fuel cell-powered 21st century hot rod that is affordable. That car will send me running to the credit union.
Good first effort, Honda, but I'll wait for Insight 2.0 or later.
IMXP is, as the authors of the IETF draft put it, "extensible, asynchronous message relaying service for application layer programs."
Another way to look at IMXP is a kind of SMTP for instant messaging, except that communication takes place in XML instead of some other format, and instead of handling mail messages, IMXP handles IM requests and responses.
IMXP is implemented as a profile for a new protocol framework called BXXP, or the Blocks eXtensible eXchange Protocol. This protocol framework also uses XML instead of some other format to specify authentication and transport security, as well as the type of data communication profile used between two endpoints.
I'm sure no one is going to see this post--I missed the big news due to a business trip in the big city. Oh, well.
I think directories could be the next frontier for illegal monopolistic behavior. Active Directory wasn't mentioned explicitly in the language regarding middleware.
Active Directory certainly is middleware--directories sit on top of the OS and provide a service to clients and applications.
Failure to explicitly mention AD in the list of middleware MS must give to the apps company just leaves MS a hole. Through this hole, MS might be able to sneak AD past the gov't and illegally lock out directory providers such as Novell, iPlanet, etc.
I hope that the gov't requires MS to give AD to the applications division rather than allow them to keep it in the OS division. It would suck if customers were forced to pay for a directory they don't want. It would be good if they could choose the directory that best meets their needs.
I think failure to mention AD explicitly in the ruling indicates that the judge has missed something, ironically what MS has been saying all along--the market is dynamic, not static.
The judge evaluated what MS was doing illegally in 1998, then formulated his ruling based on that evaluation. He should have also taken into account what MS is doing in the year 2000. ............ kris
Apple is immune from dependence on the open source community or, for that matter, on a large number of Unix gurus to keep it running.
Apple could certainly support MacOS X without any help from you or me; they employ an original Mach architect as senior technical management.
As to the argument that no one will be able to use MacOS X because there is Unix under the hood, well, you don't know what you are talking about.
If MacOS is anything like NEXTSTEP, your mom could administer a Mac network. NEXTSTEP isn't like Linux distributions, or, for that matter, traditional Unix products, that require a battery of arrogant gurus just to keep things up and running.
NEXTSTEP, the precedessor to MacOS X, pretty much administered itself; you could accomplish almost all sysadmin tasks from a well designed set of coherent and intuitive applications. These admin tools made NEXTSTEP in many ways easier to administer than MacOS or Windows.
From what I have seen, MacOS X is only going to improve on NEXTSTEP, which is still one of the easiest to use and administer OSs ever made.
Yes, Compaq has one quarter of the market for Linux servers. They are the 800-pound gorilla. But if VA is such a lousy player at 5%, then so are HP and Dell, who only command 7%. I'd say that's a pretty impressive achievement for a new company up against the marketing power of HP and Dell.
Kris Magnusson Director of Developer Relations Invisible Worlds Former open source architect, Novell, Inc.
If the market can't kill NetWare, what makes you think Unix will ever go away? Collectively, the switching costs are too big. Unix will be strong for many years to come........... kris
I can't do everything, and I am doing my part already.
Besides, sometimes even *I* want to use the computer, not rewrite its software.
If you think that J. Random Secretary is going to leap at the chance to stop twiddling memos and hack on GNOME, think again. That's why her boss BOUGHT HER A WINDOWS MACHINE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Because he wants her writing memos, not writing software.
Open source works due to the energy of people who want to write software, not from the people who want to do other things. Most people want to do other things.
If someone doesn't fix the BROKEN user interfaces on Linux, the only people using Linux in the future will be the people using Linux now.
I love Linux, but I run it without an X server because I hate every GUI ever made for it.
It all comes down to the user interface.
Sure, Linux has GNOME and KDE. Yes, absolutely, Linux has support for most every video card in the hardware taxonomy. Of course, Linux users can play Freecell.
But what it doesn't have is anyone who pays attention to HOW MOST PEOPLE REALLY USE COMPUTERS.
Where's the trash can in the GNOME interface? Why are there no keyboard modifiers for copy, move, or link mouse operations in KDE? Why is it that when I use a marquee to select and move icons on the GNOME desktop, that it only displays the top-most icon? Why is copying files using the KDE file manager harder typing "cp -Rf" on the command line? What's up with all the flicker and redraw with X, anyway? Don't you guys hate that? You should!
Enlightenment (or any other X window manager) is not the answer. Neither are themes, infinite configurability, or cool spinning clocks. I'm sick of eye candy. I want GUI meat and potatoes!
Hopefully the Eazel guys will help. If they don't, maybe someone could rape the NEXTSTEP Human Interface Guidelines and produce a real NEXTSTEP workalike, instead of the bastardization that is AfterStep.
If I hate Linux GUIs, Ghod knows the secretary in the mortgage company isn't going to like Linux any better. And that's the person you need to sell to.
It's not easy for corporate managers to let go of years of attachment. It's been a long time coming, but better late than never. I commend AT&T for releasing the Korn shell under an open source license agreement.
It's nice to hear of some alternatives to Netscape on Linux, but Konqueror is too tied to KDE for my tastes. And the others mentioned in the review are either just too esoteric or too slow for my purposes.
I wish I knew of a Really Good Browser for Linux, but alas, none exists.
I like the autocomplete feature of Netscape and IE on Windows, but it doesn't exist for the Linux platform, at least not the last Netscape version I tried. (I admit that there might be newer ones that use autocomplete, but I am still using whatever came with Red Hat 6.1--Netscape 4.1?) Plus Netscape seems to hang an awful lot.
Netscape on Linux is slow compared to IE on Windoze. Netscape on Windoze is also slower than IE.
Mozilla is too slow and unresponsive to be more than a lick and a promise to me. (I don't have time to help contribute performance enhancements, sorry.)
Further, the Mozilla UI seems like an artistic disaster, despite its themes functionality.
I like the idea of an open source browser, however, and encourage the competent Mozilla team to keep plugging, because assuredly they will get it right and I will use Mozilla on a day-to-day basis.
I have never gotten used to Opera. Perhaps it is the best thing since the invention of the zero, but it's not clicking with me.
Slashdot Mirror
My family and I recently moved into a house in one of the many districts of Salt Lake City.
When we moved in, I ordered DSL from Qwest.com. They sent out a DSL kit a couple of weeks later. I couldn't get it to work without putting filters on all my phone jacks, which make a crackling noise during phone conversations. Further, the download speeds were atrocious--not much better than 56K dialup. To add injury to insult, the AresCom DSL modem they provided didn't work with my Linksys firewall / router--they required that I purchase an AresCom router in order to share connectivity with all my home machines. Of course I ended up cancelling my service.
After this DSL fiasco, I went ahead and ordered cable Internet services from AT&T, which is what I had before I moved to Salt Lake City. They sent someone out and had it turned on within a couple of days. I plugged my Linksys firewall / router into the cable modem and voila! shared connectivity at very high rates--I regularly clock the bandwidth at nearly 1.5 Mbs / sec.
Needless to say I am very happy with my cable service and highly recommend it to others.
Saying that someone with mental illness cannot fight back is to yank the rug out from under those who actually are fighting back. People can most certainly fight back--it takes determination, a support system, often times medication, and the ignoring of those who say it's a lost cause, such as this poster.
............. kris
Hopefully one of these shared technical developments will be the reuse of the eXtensible Registry Protocol (XRP), which is defined as a profile for the Internet-standard BEEP framework. NeuStar used hardened implementations of the BEEP framework, called "Beepcore," that my former employer Invisible Worlds developed under contract.
I don't know of any open source implementations for XRP, but these Beepcore implementations are available as free software under a BSD-style license at Beepcore.org.
............ kris
Kris Magnusson
(formerly marketing and developer relations manager for Invisible Worlds)
(1) That box is tres ugly.
(2) S-Video is not suitable for most applications viewed on a TV.
Due to the limitations of S-Video, most TVs don't display computer output clearly. However, some new TVs are designed in part for optimal display of computer output up to 1024 x 768. This summer I was in the market for a big-screen TV as a computer display for business presentations, occasional web surfing, occasional e-mail, very occasional gaming for my DP's two kids. All of those apps looked like crap on all TVs (including HDs) through the S-Video output on the high-end laptop built for presentations, etc. My solution was a TV with (S)VGA ports. I ended up purchasing a 36" RCA Digital TV with max res of 800 x 600, and the TV sports two SVGA ports for the simultaneous connection of a computer and an external HDTV decoder. The tube's not quite flat, but for the money and size I didn't care. It looks spectacular--especially for USD $1100.
TVs and their qualities aside, I would never have that pop-tin monstrosity of a computer chassis in my house. The chassis I selected looks like a prev-gen HP Pavilion, which I find aesthetically pleasing. Then I selected a Radeon, DVD, wireless kb/m, and 802.11B, making it a great platform for the apps I already mentioned. But one component of TV/computer success that I overlooked and consequently found out about later is to get super-quiet power supplies, fans, etc. The resulting noise levels are too loud for quiet TV watching, but they are thankfully acceptable for nearly everything else. The result: the computer looks great in my living room, and aside from a little noise the computer/TV combo is perfect for couch web-surfing.
........... kris
- mecha boy's parents are neurotic messes who create mecha child for their own benefit, not that of the mecha boy
- mother inevitably creates unhealthy, unbreakable bond between her and mecha boy
- father and brother obstruct mecha boy's relationship with mother, causing mecha boy's suffering to increase
- mecha boy's desire for greater closeness as well as fear of being hurt leads him to inadvertently cause harm to others
- mother inevitably abandons mecha boy for selfish reasons, but leaves him a chance for survival and thus a faint but real chance to find happiness
- mecha boy immediately finds his own kind: other damaged mecha people fumbling around for their missing pieces in the dark, neurotically stuck in their own self-limiting programming/conditioning
- mecha boy finds the strength to continue by blindly holding onto his idealized notion of mother, as well as his own childlike perceptions of his uniqueness and special qualities
- unable to get what he needs in the real world, mecha boy develops magical thinking, believing a fictitious supernatural force will help him meet his needs
- mecha boy ultimately finds that he is neither special nor unique and will never get the love he needs from his mother--then he tries to kill himself
i left out "mecha boy gets therapy and feels better" because that doesn't always happen, but i thought it could have worked.However, Mundie is right in that conservative legal departments in many businesses fear the GPL and its risks. I believe the FSF could do a better job of easing the fears of corporate attorneys who may have no experience with the GPL and the FSF.
This guy's son died and all he can think of which school district his son attended? No wonder getting caught hacking seems so terrible to this kid--dying may have seem better than getting in trouble with his dad.
ObDisclaimer: I am not speaking in an official capacity for Invisible Worlds here. That said, I think JXTA is pretty interesting. From where I sit, I can see at least one clueful thing to do with BEEP and JXTA. Incidentally, BXXP.org will be retired soon. Try Beepcore.org for the freshest BEEP info and code. Beepcore is the replacement for the legacy SpaceKits. Beepcore is available in Java and Tcl flavors, with C and C++ in the works. Also, we use the BSD license for our code. ......... kris
Kris Magnusson
Site Manager of Beepcore.org
Invisible Worlds, Inc.
Note that social pressures such as the risk of imprisonment, as well as technical barriers such as locks and keys, are hardly foolproof protections against theft. Yet a small percentage of the population is willing to shoulder the risk, and a sophisticated thief will be able to defeat locks, keys, and even electronic alarm systems. But if you forget to lock the door to your flat one morning, chances are good that all your stuff will still be there when you get home from work that evening, because most people who notice that it is unlocked will not steal anything for fear of getting caught and jailed.
All the RIAA (this was The Man in the '60s) needs to do is make so scary to share MP3s that 80% of Napster users drop off the network. Since the Napster network derives its value from people who participate, increasing risk and cost of participation will decrease the value of the network, and Napster will cease to be much of a problem to the RIAA.
How funny, then, that when the music industry complains that we are doing something similar to them by violating their intellectual property rights wholesale and distribute their IP against their express wishes, we call for their boycott.
Perhaps we are more than a little hypocritical?
IPR is IPR, whether it's licensed using the GPL or a commercial license. We have no right to use IP in ways other than how the licensor intends. We should honor their wishes before someone does to us what we are doing to the music industry. Payback's a bitch, right?
NetWare developers traditionally used the Watcom compiler. When Watcom tanked, they were forced to use CodeWarrior and even (gasp) gcc. Now at least Novell can manage its own compiler destiny.
I loved the Civic VX when it came out. It had the vroom that I expect from a pocket rocket--and it got 50 miles to the gallon. But boy racer that I am, I waited for and later purchased a del Sol VTEC so I could smoke VR6s and not get dusted too badly by Mustangs and RX-7s--the performance to fuel economy ratio was still acceptable to me at the time. (It still is, frankly, even at $2.11/gallon for 92 octane in downtown SF.)
When I can purchase either a hybrid- or fuel cell-powered car and kick V8 ass with the angry whirring of a high-performance electric motor, I will plunk my money down. But not until then. Fuel economy is a plus, but it's not worth trading off the visceral experience of sheer horsepower.
I'm also much less interested in a hybrid car than a hydrogen-powered fuel-cell. The sooner I can completely wean myself off of gasoline and onto a renewable resource, the better I will feel about my rampant commercialism.
What I am waiting for is nothing less than a fuel cell-powered 21st century hot rod that is affordable. That car will send me running to the credit union.
Good first effort, Honda, but I'll wait for Insight 2.0 or later.
............ kris
Kris Magnusson
Director, Developer Relations
IMXP is, as the authors of the IETF draft put it, "extensible, asynchronous message relaying service for application layer programs."
Another way to look at IMXP is a kind of SMTP for instant messaging, except that communication takes place in XML instead of some other format, and instead of handling mail messages, IMXP handles IM requests and responses.
IMXP is implemented as a profile for a new protocol framework called BXXP, or the Blocks eXtensible eXchange Protocol. This protocol framework also uses XML instead of some other format to specify authentication and transport security, as well as the type of data communication profile used between two endpoints.
Here is more information about BXXP.
............ kris
Kris Magnusson
Director, Developer Relations
I think directories could be the next frontier for illegal monopolistic behavior. Active Directory wasn't mentioned explicitly in the language regarding middleware.
Active Directory certainly is middleware--directories sit on top of the OS and provide a service to clients and applications.
Failure to explicitly mention AD in the list of middleware MS must give to the apps company just leaves MS a hole. Through this hole, MS might be able to sneak AD past the gov't and illegally lock out directory providers such as Novell, iPlanet, etc.
I hope that the gov't requires MS to give AD to the applications division rather than allow them to keep it in the OS division. It would suck if customers were forced to pay for a directory they don't want. It would be good if they could choose the directory that best meets their needs.
I think failure to mention AD explicitly in the ruling indicates that the judge has missed something, ironically what MS has been saying all along--the market is dynamic, not static.
The judge evaluated what MS was doing illegally in 1998, then formulated his ruling based on that evaluation. He should have also taken into account what MS is doing in the year 2000.
............ kris
Kris Magnusson
Director, Developer Relations
Apple could certainly support MacOS X without any help from you or me; they employ an original Mach architect as senior technical management.
As to the argument that no one will be able to use MacOS X because there is Unix under the hood, well, you don't know what you are talking about.
If MacOS is anything like NEXTSTEP, your mom could administer a Mac network. NEXTSTEP isn't like Linux distributions, or, for that matter, traditional Unix products, that require a battery of arrogant gurus just to keep things up and running.
NEXTSTEP, the precedessor to MacOS X, pretty much administered itself; you could accomplish almost all sysadmin tasks from a well designed set of coherent and intuitive applications. These admin tools made NEXTSTEP in many ways easier to administer than MacOS or Windows.
From what I have seen, MacOS X is only going to improve on NEXTSTEP, which is still one of the easiest to use and administer OSs ever made.
[eom]
You have made a misleading assertion.
Yes, Compaq has one quarter of the market for Linux servers. They are the 800-pound gorilla. But if VA is such a lousy player at 5%, then so are HP and Dell, who only command 7%. I'd say that's a pretty impressive achievement for a new company up against the marketing power of HP and Dell.
Kris Magnusson
Director of Developer Relations
Invisible Worlds
Former open source architect, Novell, Inc.
I am a board member of Driversoft. I'll have to talk with the senior VP of engineering there about taking you up on this.... =)
Kris Magnusson
Director, Developer Relations
Invisible Worlds
Member of the Board of Directors,
Driversoft
How did you get it to run Rhaptel binaries? Does that mean I could run the window server and the File Viewer as FreeBSD processes? ........... kris
If the market can't kill NetWare, what makes you think Unix will ever go away? Collectively, the switching costs are too big. Unix will be strong for many years to come. .......... kris
I can't do everything, and I am doing my part already.
Besides, sometimes even *I* want to use the computer, not rewrite its software.
If you think that J. Random Secretary is going to leap at the chance to stop twiddling memos and hack on GNOME, think again. That's why her boss BOUGHT HER A WINDOWS MACHINE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Because he wants her writing memos, not writing software.
Open source works due to the energy of people who want to write software, not from the people who want to do other things. Most people want to do other things.
If someone doesn't fix the BROKEN user interfaces on Linux, the only people using Linux in the future will be the people using Linux now.
I love Linux, but I run it without an X server because I hate every GUI ever made for it.
It all comes down to the user interface.
Sure, Linux has GNOME and KDE. Yes, absolutely, Linux has support for most every video card in the hardware taxonomy. Of course, Linux users can play Freecell.
But what it doesn't have is anyone who pays attention to HOW MOST PEOPLE REALLY USE COMPUTERS.
Where's the trash can in the GNOME interface? Why are there no keyboard modifiers for copy, move, or link mouse operations in KDE? Why is it that when I use a marquee to select and move icons on the GNOME desktop, that it only displays the top-most icon? Why is copying files using the KDE file manager harder typing "cp -Rf" on the command line? What's up with all the flicker and redraw with X, anyway? Don't you guys hate that? You should!
Enlightenment (or any other X window manager) is not the answer. Neither are themes, infinite configurability, or cool spinning clocks. I'm sick of eye candy. I want GUI meat and potatoes!
Hopefully the Eazel guys will help. If they don't, maybe someone could rape the NEXTSTEP Human Interface Guidelines and produce a real NEXTSTEP workalike, instead of the bastardization that is AfterStep.
If I hate Linux GUIs, Ghod knows the secretary in the mortgage company isn't going to like Linux any better. And that's the person you need to sell to.
Kris Magnusson
Open Source Architect
Novell, Inc.
It's nice to hear of some alternatives to Netscape on Linux, but Konqueror is too tied to KDE for my tastes. And the others mentioned in the review are either just too esoteric or too slow for my purposes.
I wish I knew of a Really Good Browser for Linux, but alas, none exists.
I like the autocomplete feature of Netscape and IE on Windows, but it doesn't exist for the Linux platform, at least not the last Netscape version I tried. (I admit that there might be newer ones that use autocomplete, but I am still using whatever came with Red Hat 6.1--Netscape 4.1?) Plus Netscape seems to hang an awful lot.
Netscape on Linux is slow compared to IE on Windoze. Netscape on Windoze is also slower than IE.
Mozilla is too slow and unresponsive to be more than a lick and a promise to me. (I don't have time to help contribute performance enhancements, sorry.)
Further, the Mozilla UI seems like an artistic disaster, despite its themes functionality.
I like the idea of an open source browser, however, and encourage the competent Mozilla team to keep plugging, because assuredly they will get it right and I will use Mozilla on a day-to-day basis.
I have never gotten used to Opera. Perhaps it is the best thing since the invention of the zero, but it's not clicking with me.
The paranoid answer is that AOL is tracking mouse movements.
What are other answers?