Ya know, this thing is very representative of the America mindset. Why should nakedness ever have a negative connotation? What is wrong with nakedness? Peolple are born naked, so why not your PC?
What if Oshkosh B'Gosh said something similar to doctors?
WHAT IS A NAKED BABY?
Naked Babies are those delivered without clothing preinstalled. Babies are useless until mothers install clothing themselves. It's like selling a house without a roof. And, in the end, it leaves your patient just as exposed.
SELL YOUR CUSTOMER A SOLUTION, NOT A PROBLEM?
Your patients depend on you. Trouble is, if you act on your patients' willingness to take home Naked Babies-knowing full well they are at risk of
acquiring stolen clothing elsewhere-you expose them to legal risks, viruses, and frustrating technical troubles. Hardly the stuff of great business relationships, particularly when they come back to you for help. And even if your patient manages to illegally acquire and install
clothing elsewhere, it still costs them far more time and money than they bargained for. No matter how you look at them, Naked Babies are bad for your patients. Which means they are also bad for you.
WHAT TO SAY. HOW TO COMPETE.
Highlight the fact that the Baby will not work without clothing. Mention that preinstalling the clothing on the new Baby saves considerable time, expense and trouble. After all, your expertise is valuable. You install clothing day in, day out, so there is little question you're best equipped to do it well.
Warn customers that acquiring the Baby "naked" and subsequently stealing clothing is never a good option. Explain the risks: technical troubles, upgrade problems, viruses and the law. Politely decline to expose your patients or their families to such troubles.
Point out the benefits of a legally purchased, preinstalled clothing. Customers have the original clothing so they can use the clothing again. They also have a manual for everyday troubleshooting,
and a Certificate of Authenticity that proves the clothing is legal. In short, protect your patient and your good name. Deliver your Babies fully equipped with legally purchased clothing preinstalled. Otherwise, who knows what you're leaving your patients-and yourself-open to?
Try Window Maker for your desktop. Very simple, stable, and very customizable. It has a professional, streamlined, simple interface (based on NextStep) that I think would be suitable for any level of user.
It seems like KDE & Gnome focus too much on designing a solution that mimics the Win32 interface. It's kinda like saying "We're emulating the Windows interface because it's the best." (KDE suffers from this more than Gnome). It gives validity to Windows instead of being original, and perhaps better in that originality. I do however think that said desktops are a step ahead of Windows, but it's a step on the same path.
KDE and Gnome are nice, but they are bloated and buggy right now. I'm sure that they'll improve over the next couple years thought. Same thing goes for Enlightenment--it needs more work, but it's cool as shit. I know that I'll use it when it's ready for prime time.
One of the strong-points of an X desktop is its customizable interface. I can create extremely simple desktop designs that perfectly fit any task. If my secretary only uses two programs there should only be two damn buttons for her to click on (I'm exaggerating, but not much). The Microsoft interface is a one-size-fits-all affair. It is not easily customizable for the task at hand.
Imagine if your company could have a specially tailored desktop for each major job function. It would be very easy to manage with Linux/X/xdm. Can you say the same for NT/2000?
But for now..try Window Maker! www.windowmaker.org
Raw performance is only one variable in the equation. Sure IIS may perform slightly faster under certain circumstances, but at what cost? The instability and babysitting that come along with NT should also be a factor in this equation.
I could care less if Apache has slightly less raw speed; at least I don't have to hold its hand and be on call 24/7.
Basically it's freedom over servitude. Sure the work might get done a little quicker when the workers are being whipped, but I'd rather go a little slower and not be whipped.
Dom
"osm is an artist; I do not question his ways" --troll
What I'm talking about here doesn't really have anything to do with features, flexibility, or ability to run on older hardware. It has more to do with laziness and apathy on the part of programmers.
That attitude makes a lot of sense to me. Software design is a matter of tradeoffs. If software was more efficient, that would mean it would either be less flexible, and/or more buggy, have less features, be released later, etc. The bottom line is that optimization takes time and that's time that could be spent on other things.
Ok here's another tradeoff: I'll code my software in a sloppy, inefficient way so I can get it to market faster and provide the user with lots of new features (selling-points). Now, I, as a user of that software am pleased with the the new features, and speed in which it is delivered to me, but that feeling of pleasure soon goes away when my efficiency takes a hit because the software does not work properly, or is unstable, or is slow.
Bloatedness, instability, design-flaws, etc, are all symptoms of the same disease.
Who says that you can't have all the features of Office running on a 486. If Office were programmed with efficiency in mind you could. It would also mean that it would run faster and take up less space on your computer as well (even if you might not notice the difference; it's still true). It also means that you could run more software on your computer at the same time. Then maybe you wouldn't have to buy a new computer every three years so that you can run the latest software packages.
A few questions for you:
Why would an efficient software design be less flexible?
Why would an efficient software design be more buggy?
Would an efficient software design necessarily have less features?
Wouldn't you rather have software that took longer to develop, but was more efficient and stable?
Have you ever been hynotized by Bill Gates?
Dom
osm is an artist; I do not question his ways --troll
Really though, with that attitude, software will continue to be more bloated and buggy. Just because I have a 60Gig HD, it doesn't mean that the software I run can be bloated because "I've got plenty of space." Very flawed logic.
Belief in God and belief in ritualized dogma (religion) are not quite the same thing. They do often go together however. That is not to say that they must go together.
I do believe in God (God is everything), but I don't see any reason to go to church. Religion is for people who want to be part of God, but can't really get their minds around that concept.
I think that electric cars are a good idea, but I am not happy with the designs that I've seen. Why isn't any of the forward momentum being recaptured to charge the batteries? If my motor is driving a 5 inch gear, and my dynamo is driven by a 15 inch gear, and re-charging the batteries; doesn't this come close to being a perpetual motion machine? Also, remember that the form factor of the vehicle will have to change with other fuels. Make a vehicle slightly larger than a motorcycle, and then each person can drive one. Five vehicles that don't directly pollute, instead of loading five people into one vehicle that pollutes enormously. Dom
"Linux is cool. Definately... BUT, _every_ Linux user I know spends HOURS tweaking their window manager, thier config files, etc.. with what result? They may have an OS completely tailored to their needs, but as soon as somebody else tries to use their machine, they have to _conform_ to your style of thinking."
That is simply not true. Unlike MacOS, which has no concept of multiple users, UNIX allows each user to have a fully customized desktop. When I log into my Linux box I get MY desktop, when my girlfriend logs in, she gets hers. I NEVER have to conform to any users setup.
One of the main reasons why MacOS is unsuitable for anything but the simplest environments.
That and the fact that using it gives me a headache.
I like the RPM based install tools. They are fairly simple to use, but very powerful.
The biggest problem is getting people over the fear of the command line. I've converted enough GUI users to know that after a week, the CLI is not that intimidating anymore.
In my experience Linux has considerably greater performance than NT. Besides, why would I use a Micro$oft product that crashes every day for no reason?
If NT really does perform better, I'll wait until it's stable.
Everything you say is true. This discussion would have been more meaningful if the questioner had specified the type of site the tool would be used for.
That said, I believe that with WYSIWYG tools you should still have some knowledge of the underlying principles. They are not an escape from having to know html. They are a tool that helps someone who already knows what they want to do, and how they want to do it.
No AC, the fucking point is maybe he doesn't know what he is doing in the first place. Is it not better to enlighten the questioner instead of suggesting the latest whiz-bang commercial product.
Have you, AC, ever maintained a large web site? With a WYSIWYG? With CGI? With static HTML? For that matter, have you ever written a web page?
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you mean un-mooned a monolith?
domc
What if Oshkosh B'Gosh said something similar to doctors?
WHAT IS A NAKED BABY?
Naked Babies are those delivered without clothing preinstalled. Babies are useless until mothers install clothing themselves. It's like selling a house without a roof. And, in the end, it leaves your patient just as exposed.
SELL YOUR CUSTOMER A SOLUTION, NOT A PROBLEM?
Your patients depend on you. Trouble is, if you act on your patients' willingness to take home Naked Babies-knowing full well they are at risk of acquiring stolen clothing elsewhere-you expose them to legal risks, viruses, and frustrating technical troubles. Hardly the stuff of great business relationships, particularly when they come back to you for help. And even if your patient manages to illegally acquire and install clothing elsewhere, it still costs them far more time and money than they bargained for. No matter how you look at them, Naked Babies are bad for your patients. Which means they are also bad for you.
WHAT TO SAY. HOW TO COMPETE.
Dom
Yeah, selling a PC without a roof would be selling a PC without a cover!
Dom
Why you ask:
I've helped friends and relatives to this, and saved them a lot of money.
Dom
Better go ahead and make that three or four licenses. You do have to account for "upgrades."
They could just take it out of your check like Social Security. A lifetime subscription to Microsoft Security.
Good thing I am a sovereign citizen of the United States of Linux. Suckers!
Dom
You were using an alpha release. The latest release is still only beta. Do you really expect development releases to be perfect?
Instead of bitching, go report a bug or something.
Dom
Bzzt! Sorry, thanks for playing. You've been a wonderful contestant.
OK, everybody who's had a crashing NT machine that was "fixed" by loading linux on it please raise their hands.
Dom
Try Window Maker for your desktop. Very simple, stable, and very customizable. It has a professional, streamlined, simple interface (based on NextStep) that I think would be suitable for any level of user.
It seems like KDE & Gnome focus too much on designing a solution that mimics the Win32 interface. It's kinda like saying "We're emulating the Windows interface because it's the best." (KDE suffers from this more than Gnome). It gives validity to Windows instead of being original, and perhaps better in that originality. I do however think that said desktops are a step ahead of Windows, but it's a step on the same path.
KDE and Gnome are nice, but they are bloated and buggy right now. I'm sure that they'll improve over the next couple years thought. Same thing goes for Enlightenment--it needs more work, but it's cool as shit. I know that I'll use it when it's ready for prime time.
One of the strong-points of an X desktop is its customizable interface. I can create extremely simple desktop designs that perfectly fit any task. If my secretary only uses two programs there should only be two damn buttons for her to click on (I'm exaggerating, but not much). The Microsoft interface is a one-size-fits-all affair. It is not easily customizable for the task at hand.
Imagine if your company could have a specially tailored desktop for each major job function. It would be very easy to manage with Linux/X/xdm. Can you say the same for NT/2000?
But for now..try Window Maker! www.windowmaker.org
Dom
My personal experience has not shown that IIS is faster than apache. I would say that apache has 1.5x the performance of IIS.
Dom
Raw performance is only one variable in the equation. Sure IIS may perform slightly faster under certain circumstances, but at what cost? The instability and babysitting that come along with NT should also be a factor in this equation.
I could care less if Apache has slightly less raw speed; at least I don't have to hold its hand and be on call 24/7.
Basically it's freedom over servitude. Sure the work might get done a little quicker when the workers are being whipped, but I'd rather go a little slower and not be whipped.
Dom
"osm is an artist; I do not question his ways" --troll
Right and wrong are aspects of the same thing; they only vary by degree.
Dom
Great; now we just have to focus all of our energy into solving problems...instead of creating new ones. Too bad we're better at creating problems.
Dom
"Yo, this one goes out to all you punk bitches who think the Hawk-man is soft just because I'm wicked smart"--MC Hawking
"My dick is twice as long as my attention span"--MC Hawking
That attitude makes a lot of sense to me. Software design is a matter of tradeoffs. If software was more efficient, that would mean it would either be less flexible, and/or more buggy, have less features, be released later, etc. The bottom line is that optimization takes time and that's time that could be spent on other things.
Ok here's another tradeoff: I'll code my software in a sloppy, inefficient way so I can get it to market faster and provide the user with lots of new features (selling-points). Now, I, as a user of that software am pleased with the the new features, and speed in which it is delivered to me, but that feeling of pleasure soon goes away when my efficiency takes a hit because the software does not work properly, or is unstable, or is slow.
Bloatedness, instability, design-flaws, etc, are all symptoms of the same disease.
Who says that you can't have all the features of Office running on a 486. If Office were programmed with efficiency in mind you could. It would also mean that it would run faster and take up less space on your computer as well (even if you might not notice the difference; it's still true). It also means that you could run more software on your computer at the same time. Then maybe you wouldn't have to buy a new computer every three years so that you can run the latest software packages.
A few questions for you:
Dom
osm is an artist; I do not question his ways --troll
Begins! Ha, more like "comes to its end."
Really though, with that attitude, software will continue to be more bloated and buggy. Just because I have a 60Gig HD, it doesn't mean that the software I run can be bloated because "I've got plenty of space." Very flawed logic.
Dom
Belief in God and belief in ritualized dogma (religion) are not quite the same thing. They do often go together however. That is not to say that they must go together.
I do believe in God (God is everything), but I don't see any reason to go to church. Religion is for people who want to be part of God, but can't really get their minds around that concept.
I think that electric cars are a good idea, but I am not happy with the designs that I've seen. Why isn't any of the forward momentum being recaptured to charge the batteries? If my motor is driving a 5 inch gear, and my dynamo is driven by a 15 inch gear, and re-charging the batteries; doesn't this come close to being a perpetual motion machine? Also, remember that the form factor of the vehicle will have to change with other fuels. Make a vehicle slightly larger than a motorcycle, and then each person can drive one. Five vehicles that don't directly pollute, instead of loading five people into one vehicle that pollutes enormously. Dom
I would have to say that this should get the "Most Annoying Netscape Bug" award.
Actually, I'm not completely sure that this is a Nutscrape bug. Could it possibly be an X bug?
domc
That is simply not true. Unlike MacOS, which has no concept of multiple users, UNIX allows each user to have a fully customized desktop. When I log into my Linux box I get MY desktop, when my girlfriend logs in, she gets hers. I NEVER have to conform to any users setup.
One of the main reasons why MacOS is unsuitable for anything but the simplest environments.
That and the fact that using it gives me a headache.
domc
This was true 3-5 years ago, but times have changed. Most sound/graphics software comes out for win32 first, second or never on mac.
domc
I like the RPM based install tools. They are fairly simple to use, but very powerful.
The biggest problem is getting people over the fear of the command line. I've converted enough GUI users to know that after a week, the CLI is not that intimidating anymore.
~20 commands versus vs. a myriad gui delusions.
That would be a good thing. Getting rid of ad banners would be as easy as turning off Java.
domc
No, every companies goal is not to "eliminate the competition!" In a healthy market, a company would try to capture a percentage of a market.
Monopolies don't do anybody any good, except for the monopolizer, unless you figure in karma of course.
domc
In my experience Linux has considerably greater performance than NT. Besides, why would I use a Micro$oft product that crashes every day for no reason?
If NT really does perform better, I'll wait until it's stable.
Dom
Everything you say is true. This discussion would have been more meaningful if the questioner had specified the type of site the tool would be used for.
That said, I believe that with WYSIWYG tools you should still have some knowledge of the underlying principles. They are not an escape from having to know html. They are a tool that helps someone who already knows what they want to do, and how they want to do it.
dom
No AC, the fucking point is maybe he doesn't know what he is doing in the first place. Is it not better to enlighten the questioner instead of suggesting the latest whiz-bang commercial product.
Have you, AC, ever maintained a large web site? With a WYSIWYG? With CGI? With static HTML? For that matter, have you ever written a web page?
domc