Did you even look at the Nokia N800, N810s? They are fantastic Linux computers and the WiFi is great!
I believe you can pick them up at great prices today, probably sub $200. They just work.
I had not looked into why they use the cameras that they do...thanks for the info.
I wish I had at least a 10 megapixel on a Nokia Nxxx running Maemo or Android...something Linux that would allow for more options.
When I went from a 6 megapixel to a 10 megapixel camera, the results were incredible. A huge improvement. However with those pinhole cameras and without a lens to auto focus, I wonder how much of the quality of the picture is in the megapixels and how much is in the lens quality (and of course hardware/software making the image)?
Warning this is a LONG post, if you do not like long posts skip to the bottom, however you will miss some useful resources that I linked in as well as the justification for my answer. Just saying...
OK, nice spec 'n' all -but what will I actually be able to do with this puppy that I can't do with my "ordinary" smart phone, or PDA or computer or whatever this turns out to be?
By my definition, the N770 (first released Nov 2005, 4 years ago) , N800, N880 and now the N900 are the ONLY SMART PHONES out there, perhaps you could add the Google Android to that list, though I have not looked at the Linux distro they have running on it yet to be sure. (I am assuming that they did not hamstring it for some proprietary hardware, cause if they did, that is NOT smart) If the hand held (phone, tablet, whatever) will NOT run one of the many distros of Linux, than it simply AINT smart!
With Linux versions that will run on very slow processors, slower than any of the Nokias or so called smart phones that cellular companies try to force on you what is their excuse for not including Linux? Linux is more secure. Linux gives you more options. With the cellular companies, their phones, all of them are locked down, unable to run Linux, unable to even access a WiFi hot spot. Where is the sense in that? How is that smart? Will any of those cellular company provided phones run with RAM memories less than 128MB, or even 256MB, because there are distros of Linux that will! With such low specifications needed to run Linux (and a wealth of applications to enhance your user experience), what is their excuse not to utilize it? Is it ONLY to limit your choice, limit your freedom and tie you in to some pathetic tired pricing system, some failed selection of applications, many of which do not do half of what you need to do anyway?
Sorry but how is this SMART? It is NOT.
With the Nokias, even without Mameo, you have full web browsers available, trust me once you have that, you will not want anything less. You should not be limited to less! It just is NOT smart.
What is "smart" about tethering and limiting choice?
What is "smart" about using cellular minutes when you have a WiFi access point available to you (Note: If you are at work or home, you can, should, have a WiFi Access point (dd-wrt) available to you. That covers 80% of your waking and sleeping life, so no need to waste cellular minutes with a WiFi and VoIP solution available. Wasting cellular minutes is stupid, even worse when they charge you extra for going over. When you consider that a Linux VoIP solution, such as Skype is really a killer app with a TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of less than $100 per year. That is SMART, less than $9 per month for service to chat and call anyone on your continent.
When your cellular company sends you an inflated bill with charges that you did not make, than uses their customer-no-service people to send you to collections, their loss, its NOT SMART! Would you pay for calls you did not make? Neither will the rest of us!
One calendar to rule them all. There can be ONLY ONE!
If you have run any Personal Information Management software (PIM) on any of the current hand helds and you use it seriously:
like in the Franklin's Planner method where you spend a few minutes every day planning the day, week and month;
schedule appointments;
close tasks out after you successfully complete them;
One day we will have a virtual monitor, in the air above the device. At least the Nokias (N770 was released in 2005) have a decent size screen and full browser.
Get a Nokia N800, cheaper, two Micro SD slots, GPS module (extra of course) and it has the FM chip that was discontinued in the N880. I think it will only set you back about $300 today, check pricegrabber.
Now ask if anyone can lend you $300 and that you are good for it.
There are some very inexpensive UPS enabled power strips today. APC makes a bunch. Just pick one up and make sure only your hardware router/firewall and hubs (if you use them) are plugged into it. With that light of a load, they will run longer than a larger UPS hooked up to your monitor and tower PC. Lets face it, if the power is out more than 30 minutes today, most home UPSs will run out of battery power before the smaller one dedicated to the modem and router/firewall. At least that has been my experience.
I put larger UPS hardware next to my primary work tower and (servers + big screen TV) and put a smaller less expensive UPS for my routers, modem, hubs. In the last two years I lost power for longer than 30 minutes only once. It was a no brainer shutting down everything before the UPS battery was completely depleted.
I was able to watch a 42 inch TV for 20 minutes before I had to turn it off, because the power did not come back on. So it is a pretty big UPS for a home. At least I do not have to worry about brown outs any more. The lights blink, no worries.
I turned the larger one off about 10 - 15 minutes before the smaller one keeping the modems and router/firewall hardware up ran out of juice. (I had a firewall/router, dumb hub and cable modem on that one smaller UPS, no problems and nothing else.)
You are if you ignore Microsoft s past of embrace, extend, obsolete, $$$ profit $$$
at some point the past "version" becomes so obsolete you may no longer wish to support it...
What you and I are willing to support is not the point nor the issue, it is what Microsoft has to do, obsolete it, pull support, in order to force people to upgrade and update their software so they can profit.
Not only could I do everything I needed to do from a business stand point on Windows 95/98, but I definitely could do everything with 2000.
The fact that any of those operating systems with a decent browser (obviously Internet Explorer is far from decent IMO, please do not get mad at me, it is Microsoft s fault for fighting against web standards, everything is factually on the record about this except for shills that refuse to acknowledge facts.) can access the cloud, where future applications are being ported to should not be lost on anyone, you or I. It is obviously not lost on Microsoft.
I have been using computers since before Microsoft was a company and have just been burned way too many times to care about them anymore. For me and many others, it is just about survival. Being able to be FREE (not as in money) to choose what applications we want to run, being able to secure our personal environment (PC and network) and not being forced to use anything we do not want to use, just because someone else wants to gouge and profit. Many of us are more than willing to pay for innovation, but when you stick an Intel inside sticker on it next to some MS sticker and claim innovation, many of us are smart enough to call BS! Just saying.
I want a netbook that will run well with only 512MB or 1 GB of RAM. And with processors in the 600 - 800 mhz range, in other words, less than 1000 mhz processor speeds. Why, because its cheap and I am only using it to check mail and social media websites, its not my development machine (even if it is way more powerful then past development machines) How many GBs moves it out of the netbook range, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB...?
I know Linux will run in 512MB of RAM, I ran it this year in 128MB of RAM, so 512MB of RAM, no problem. And yes I prefer 1 GB of RAM as there is more memory for the applications.
I doubt that Windows anything, even XP, will out perform Linux on anything with 1 GB or less of RAM.
Anyone in their right mind would not consider running Vista without at least 4GB of RAM, even if it will run in 2GB. But Windows 7 to run well, what does it need, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB? Surely someone has benchmarked XP vs Windows 7 vs Linux on processors under 1000 mhz with RAM under 2 GB. Will Windows 7 run in less than 1 GB of RAM?
And do NOT even suggest a limited OS that will only let you run one or two software applications concurrently, that is NOT a solution to even consider as viable!
And what is the minimum processor speeds recommended for Windows 7?
Windows 7 has to extend Microsoft's life on the low end side or they can NOT afford to dump XP as all those computers will just migrate to Linux and possibly MacIntosh if their OS is supported on the hardware.
Why I tell people, make sure you buy a computer with Linux pre-installed from the manufacturer, even if you want to run Windows 7 or Vista, its the only way to make sure you avoid the proprietary hardware and software driver vendor lock-in crap from Microsoft, All BIOS writers except Coreboot, Intel, Nvidia, Seagate and many, many others. If your PC will run Linux from day one with video and sound without issues ~ very important, when Microsoft ends of lifes whatever software (and they will) they want you to buy, you still have options for that PC.
Any Linux box (Tower, Desktop PC, laptop or netbook) should run the following right out of the box, or do NOT buy it: Sound, Video (HD H.264, 30fps and higher), usb devices (all kinds: Micro SSD, keyboards, mouse, cameras, etc...), Wifi access, Ethernet 10/1000 (preferrably 10/100/1000), and without special licences to anyone, esp Microsoft or you will be hung out to dry down the road.
Personally I am tired of good equipment, laptops, PCs, desktops, towers getting end-of-lifed by Microsoft s forced upgrades and good equipment that could be used by others going into land fills. Its crazy!
Here is the.pdf letter in full: Check out the names at the end, if these elected leaders represent you, let them know that you want a company like Greenlight for you and your neighbors also. Tell them to vote NO on HB1252
May 4, 2009
The Honorable Joe Hackney
Speaker
North Carolina House of Representatives
2207 State Legislative Building
Raleigh, NC 27601-1096
Dear Speaker Hackney:
We, the undersigned private-sector companies and trade associations urge you to oppose
HB1252, the so-called "Level Playing Field Act." HB1252 is "level" only in the sense
that it will harm both the public and private sectors. It will thwart public broadband
initiatives, stifle economic growth, prevent the creation or retention of thousands of jobs,
and diminish quality of life in North Carolina. In particular, it will hurt the private sector
by undermining public-private partnerships, hamstringing our ability to sell our goods
and services, interfering with workforce development, and stifling creativity and
innovation.
The United States is currently suffering through one of the most serious economic crises
in decades. We also continue to lag behind the leading nations in per capita broadband
adoption, access to high-capacity networks, cost per unit of bandwidth, and growth of
new broadband users. To address these concerns, Congress and the Obama
Administration have made more than $7 billion available to catalyze public and private
efforts to accelerate deployment of broadband infrastructure and services. States can ill
afford to enact measures like HB1252, which impair use of these broadband funds and
the ability of the public and private sectors to work hand-in-hand to reverse these trends.
We support strong, fair and open competition to ensure users can enjoy the widest range
of choice and opportunities to access content online, which is the heart of economic
development in an information-based global market. HB1252 is a step in the wrong
direction. North Carolina should be lowering barriers to public broadband initiatives
rather than establishing new ones, so that we and other high technology companies can
spread and prosper across this beautiful state. Please oppose HB1252.
Sincerely,
Alcatel-Lucent
American Public Power Association
Atlantic Engineering Group, Inc.
EDUCAUSE
Fiber to the Home Council
Google, Inc.
Intel Corporation
Utilities Telecom Council
Telecommunications Industry Association
cc: Governor Bev Perdue (by fax)
Secretary of Commerce J. Keith Crisco (by fax)
Rep. Hugh Holliman (by email)
Rep. William Wainwright (by email)
Rep. Paul Stam (by email)
Senator Marc Basnight (by email)
Senator Tony Rand (by email)
Senator Katie Dorsett (by email)
Senator Phil Berger (by email)
Senator R.C. Soles (by email)
Rep. Ty Harrell (by email)
Senator David Hoyle (by email)
House Public Utilities Committee members (by email)
Let's hope the elected officials in Wilson honestly have their neighbor's best interest at heart. If they do, the Cable companies and telcos can get pissed all they want and it will simply NOT matter.
Based on their lack of action over the last 30 years to put fiber to our homes, something some of them, if not all, have been promising since the 1990s; they do NOT have a leg to stand on.
Economics are not working due the Oligopoly / Monopoly nature of Cable Companies and Telcos, ONLY de-regulation will WORK with this economic model.
Govt deregulation of NTT worked in Japan back in 2000, since 2006 those customers are now getting 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps for less than $52 per month, a cost savings to the customer thanks to technological innovation. A huge success for all, even NTT whose dominance in Fiber is paying off very well.
Here in the US, the Telcos, Cable Companies, ISPs could have innovated us out of their outdated tiered pricing model, but they chose NOT to. They made their choice for all Americans to see. They made their choice when they watered down the Telecommunications act of 1996. They make their choice each and every week today, when they spend $1.5 million or more on lobbying elected officials to prevent fiber getting to our homes. What if they spent that $1.5 million per week and the estimated $300 billion they have received since 1990, some of in tax revenue from Americans, and actually laid fiber to our homes. How many more jobs would Americans have today thanks to the higher bandwidth available to us.
American Telcos and Cable companies continuously choose to hurt Americans with their Actions. Their words fall on deaf ears.
I want to live in a city like Wilson, North Carolina; where they are putting their neighbors first, as it should be. If all politicians did this, treated their office like a public service ~ which it is, and returned to their real work after serving for a few years, lobbyists would not be able to get their way and hurt the average American.
Hey politicians, watch the movie Dave or Mr Smith Goes to Washington and do the right thing! If you can not do the right thing, remove yourself from office with honor and let someone else in that will do the right thing. Or do you really want to continue to mess up your neighbors, hurt Americans and destroy your own family. Do you really hate those you serve that much?
Elected leaders in Wilson, North Carolina, stick to your guns, serve your neighbors who you promised to protect and serve and all will benefit, even you when you leave office. More importantly your kids and their kids will benefit by what you are doing.
What other communities are going to take it upon themselves to put the fiber in the ground, ignore the Cable Companies and Telcos and do the right thing for your citizens? Heads up all Internet corporations, Wilson, North Carolina looks like a good place to relocate your jobs for their citizens and the benefit of your company!
Here I thought it would take a company with no ties, no peering agreements to any other American telco to pull this off. And was secretly hoping such a company would rear its head, I would want to work with them for their success in the US, or at least a company like Google, that is laying undersea cables would be able to offer bandwidth to communities being chocked dry by the current American Telcos and Cable Companies.
Can you please find out who they are buying their Internet access through, as I want to support that company over all the others in America? I will encourage all my friends to do likewise, the day that Wilson North Carolina gets fiber to 10% or more of its homes.
Tell my Cable ISP please. They advertise up to 6Mbps and throttle me back to as low as 4 Kbps. I do see 20 - 30 Kbps regularly, but never more than 100Kbps downstream consistently, yes downstream, except in bursts of 1 sec. I do see bursts of 1 sec up to 1 Mbps, occasionally 1.5Mbps and rarely up to 3 Mbps, but NEVER above 3.5 Mbps, and always for only a second or less at a time, per my DD-WRT logs and bandwidth monitoring.
If its a crime, why are we Americans not bringing a class action lawsuit, as even the FCC states a 768Kbps definition of Hispeed Internet, though they still list 200Kbps - 6 Mbps as the definition in other places.
And Japan has had 100Mbps/100Mbps for $55 per month since 2000, and since 2006 are getting 1Gbps / 1Gbps for Tell my Cable ISP please.
Mod parent down, obviously you did not read the post above from the engineer that worked in the industry, he stated that the Electric Company would love to charge up those cars overnight, thus the existing infrastructure would get more fully utilized.
As for rapid charging and the amount of energy needed, multiple people have stated that these special industrial / commercial charging stations are smaller and need less power than other products being installed and used today, so very, very doable.
Obviously you are not going to rapid charge via your smaller home wiring, but from a charging station designed with larger wires to handle that volume of electric load and you are in business.
While it would be nice to charge up the car in 10 minutes, I would be thrilled with 20 minutes as on a long trip, It takes longer than that for the kids and/or adults to go to the bathroom. Combine this with pic nic tables and shade trees and you are talking about a nice short stop.
Think location, location, location and put the rapid charging stations and some slower less costly options around theme parks, national parks and other parking structures. Heck operate a large garage in a busy city and provide this service to the customers over the course of the day, just like they do car washes and double parking where you are required to leave your keys with a parking attendant.
A little imagination goes a long way. Personally I would be happy never to buy a gas car or alt fuel car using oil or oil derivative ever again.
From an engineering economy POV, it's almost certainly better to swap batteries at a battery-swap station than it is to build infrastructure to support 10-minute charge times. But the latter is a lot more fun to play with.
As someone who takes care of and maintains their vehicle, I would NOT be interested in any "battery-swap" solution that did not give me new batteries for my old ones.
Think about it, if you keep your car stored in a garage, out of the sun, less heat, definitely better for the batteries. As contrasted by the person living in the desert, no garage, all that dust, vehicle always in the sun, interior temperatures reaching 100 - 140 degrees, depending on location in the summer. No, I do not want their battery.
And if the battery pack lasts 10 years, that is the minimum amount of time I keep cars these days, 10 years, 5 years of payments if new, no payments if bought used (better IMO) and 5 years no payments.
A great post, thank you, thank you, thank you. The fact is that Linux is in DIRE need of a good audio solution that is reliable across hardware, across distros, your API idea is spot on. It just seems logical. I wish I had cash and could afford to pay for the development effort. I would settle for a Manager/developer position with a company that is interested in doing this!
For so many ALSA just works when it is installed, not for me.
For so many OSS just works when it is installed, not for me.
For a few, PulseAudio just works when it is installed, not for me.
The one thing I will fault ALSA and OSS for, is not allowing multiple audio streams to play simultaneously without crashing the system; in all circumstances. The support forums are littered with issues like this. It definitely dos NOT work for everyone. At least handle one and play one, just choose one, but to crash and not play anything, that just sucks. And to force a reboot before working again, well that is a FAIL! This is not from my personal experience, as I have posted, I could not get any of them to work for my scenario, but based on days and weeks of searching through forum posts looking for solutions, I know I am far from alone.
I read support requests for all three: ALSA, OSS and PulseAudio. So to date, outside of BSD (which I am currently NOT running, but may in the future) Linux + SOUND is a very REAL ISSUE! (see my solution at the end of this post, there is one solid solution, guaranteed to work)
For any one of these to be the best solution, they must handle additional audio streams, from any source, without crashing the system. For instance, when my VoIP phone rings, and I answer the phone, the Audio Radio stream, CD playing, or Video should pause until I restart it and let me answer the phone and hear the person talking to me.
Ideally if I want to listen to the music and watch a video at the same time, I should be able to mix in the sound levels and do that. The solution should have a way to handle it. Heck I should be able to hear the radio, video and VoIP phone all at the same time if I wanted this. I should be able to mix the sound levels and it should work.
Back in the mid 90s I was using a midi keyboard to play a sound track, save it. Then use that same keyboard to play another sound track and save it. I could even convert what I played on the keyboard and make it seem like it was a different musical instrument. An Oboe, a flute, a trumpet, etc. The software (Audio Visual Communications 1.3 running on OS/2 1.2, when the marketeers would have you think only a MacIntosh PC could do this; I was doing it on both IBM PCs and MACs.) would then let me play back all the sound tracks together. I could literally create my own symphony.
Based on what I read, this was one of the major things PulseAudio was going for that was NOT available in either OSS or ALSA. The fact that OSS had gone proprietary was not helpful either. I think they have both a proprietary and open source OSS solution today, but am not sure.
And this was over a decade and a half ago. So Linux should have this today. Perhaps an API solution would allow for this, but first, just to handle multiple audio streams in an intelligent way without crashing the system would be HUGE!
For anyone reading this that wants to avoid these types of issues, there is a solution. If your PC was installed with Linux out of the box, with everything you need: WiFi, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, Sound (audio), Video, Burn CDs, Burn DVDs, plug n play USB support, Ext Monitor support if a netbook or laptop, You should be okay!
Stop going to any vendor and buying a PC with any other operating system installed on it. Only buy hardware with Linux pre-installed and you avoid allot of issues. Avoid vendor LOCK IN.
Note a very long post with some excellent images and some interesting thoughts, hope you enjoy reading it more than I did creating it! Enjoy!
I was thinking it! I bet hundreds of others were too! Though others will think us off topic, I would disagree. Imagine!
Whenever I have driven across the USA, in a car, and looked at the hills in the desert, I imagined being the silver surfer (home page) with that silver hover board of his, slashing across the mountains side walls, especially where there is a half circle bowl (a concrete bowl) where your speed would increase as you spanned it. (Note: a Bowl shape, easy to see when you are in the wave is not obvious from the front. The sides stick out farther than the middle and with the wave breaking on one side toward the bowl shape, you can whip around it and greatly increase your speed.)
Anyone know of a hover surf board? Able to catch a big wave.
The wipe-outs would be particularly gnarly, think cactus and think beyond ouch!
Gnarly is when you've gone beyond radical, beyond extreme, it's balls out danger, & or perfection, & or skill or all of that combined. This one would be considered fun, not gnarly, lol. Here is gnarly, yep he is going over, wonder if he knows it yet?
Here is what you do not want to see in the tube or wave with you, a Great White shark! The funny thing is that Fergal Smith did NOT know the Great White shark was there when he was surfing, the photographer, Phil Gallagher, showed him later after he was finished surfing.
It is not just you. I have noticed several anti-Microsoft posts getting mod-ed down as either offtopic or Trolll. Often these posts have excellent information based on actual experience as your post did. And even if the post is not 100% on topic, if it is relate-able than I consider it NOT TO BE OFF TOPIC. Relate-able: as in something that occurred before that is similar to what happened today (the Win 95 ~ Win ME ~ Win 2000 analogy to what is happening now with Windows XP ~ Windows Vista ~ Windows 7) OR any example of Embrace, Extend and Exterminate; each example shows a repeatable disdain for us (consumers) and that Microsoft does not care if they abuse your (customer) TRUST! (These relate-able incidents should NEVER be considered OFFTOPIC, they most certainly are examples of a repeatable-abuse-the-customer pattern; therefore, are ON TOPIC, just not 100% on topic.)
Of course pro-Microsoft users will attack you (and me) for even mentioning these facts. We both must hope for meta-moderation. I wish someone at slashdot would look at their server logs to see who is doing this and prevent them from moderating anymore. I had a post go +2 in one category, +3 in another category, than finally get labeled -1 Troll or 0 Off topic, thus my Karma comes into question and makes it more likely that I will be modded down in the future if a post strays a little bit as most real world experiences often do.
Look at this example with auto-updating of a plug-in for FireFox, its been happening for well over a year now, see related link and paragraph below, obviously it could be prevented, but Microsoft in its infinite wisdom chose NOT to do anything about it. What could they do you ask, easy, take it out of the auto update. I included one link, where you see one or more additional comments approximately every 30 days as a new set of Windows users is hit by this junk.
Funny that when you follow the posts in this type of thread about a Microsoft problem issue of this type, you will see the pro-Microsoft crowd at first deny there is a problem. Either outright denial or through misdirection. When this repeated (and it is repeated) denial-redirection-tactic fails as it often does it time for step two.
Deny that anything similar to it has happened before, ever, therefore this is a brand new issue unrelated to any issue that has become before, everything is new under the sun. This is not a repeat issue. (They do not want people to see the repeatable pattern of abuse that most of us have experienced first hand and are fed up with). Of course this fails them as well as there is too much history (too much prior art, bad-analogy I know, but at least its not a bad car analogy) and Microsoft has done this over and over and over again. Sorry folks, that is a fact!
When those two approaches fail, they come out with some lame defense, excuse or attempt at re-direction. Here are some that you will notice over time. Here are some examples:
it was covered in slashdot before, why is it coming up again. (You mean it happened before and nothing was done to fix it, fail again)
Would everyone who voted this old news to the front page kindly line up...thank you. Don't do it again. (Sorry, not going to stop us from shining a spotlight on the obvious, nope, fail again)
We have dealt with this before, please moderate this or that comment down. (Again see first bullet point, you still fail)
nothing to see move along (keep wishing that we would overlook this crap, not going to happen. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, this has occurred or very similar events more than three times already and we know it, you know it, we want others to know it, and it is RIGHT to point this out (AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN), fail again)
they try weak attempt at rationalizing the issue away (they get creative too, these comments shou
I wish the reign of ignorance was over. It is NOT. HINT: If reviewing CSPAN briefs of elected officials or the documentation on IT matters, pay attention to the word PROCUREMENT. The slant is decidedly in Microsoft s favor.
Procurement is being used to focus government agencies on buying Microsoft ONLY solutions.
The politicians looked like they were buying the FUD, hook, line and sinker. The ignorance is alive, well and fostering. More of a pandemic than any flu could be.
Linux is now greater than 2%, get curious and discover why for yourself! Is this why Microsoft is giving away their new OS for 1 YEAR?
Personally I think it is much higher than that, with the stats being skewed based on the source of the data. I also believe that Microsoft is very, very worried.
Not only does the FUD continue, but now Microsoft is releasing FREE copies of their new operating system for 1 YEAR ONLY. At the end of that one year you will have to remove it or pay to upgrade. (Was announced on Leo Laporte s radio, twit TV pod cast today and I was surprised)
I believe they are counting on ignorance of people to not give another operating system or applications a chance, at least for a year so that they can either improve their offering (thus extending...) or replace it with something better. They definitely appear to be trying hard to extinguish the flow of people to other operating systems.
If you HAD to purchase NEW HARDWARE to run Vista and / or Windows 7, keep the old system and load up native Linux (no dual boot, no WINE, no virtual machine initially, no extra anything that might introduce problems and cause unnecessary frustrations, just Linux) and start giving it a try, you might surprise yourself, much has changed in the last year with Linux! Besides, the old PC is no LONGER your primary machine, so go for it, and try some new solutions, you will be glad that you did. Sadly I am not aware of a way to give MacIntosh OS X a try on old PCs, perhaps someone reading this can provide a link for those interested in going there, as my preference is honestly Linux.
Note it is always better to buy hardware from a vendor that focuses on the operating sytem, either Linux or MacIntosh, that way the computer will run out of the box without problems. If you attempt to convert your existing PC to Linux, be patient and remember that some or much of the hardware was NOT designed to run with Linux and therefore problems are to be expected.
Once you go either Mac or Linux, you do NOT HAVE TO go back to MS. At least not if you are smart after learning about alternative software packages to do literally anything and everything you can do in a MS OS environment.
Expect a learning curve, just as you would with the new Microsoft operating system, nothing new there.
Are they vainly trying to staunch the flow of users away from Microsoft operating systems and applications to other alternatives? Especially considering the economy and the markets frustration with Vista and Windows 7.
Personally I was surprised they did not extend Windows 95 yet a second time. At least it would run on a netbook ($200 - $300 PC) with 512MB or less of RAM.
Perhaps they are planning a version of their new Windows OS that will run adequately in 512 MB of RAM and therefore on netbooks
Either this is a very poor analogy, or you have never been hit or kicked in the balls. Anyone who plays sports and has worn a cup knows that it still hurts when you get hit or when the cup breaks, but it would be allot worse without that cup.
No harm, really, Really, REALLY!
Someone contact this persons partner, if they have one, and ask them to show them how it feels. Even if female, granted minus the cup, getting hit or kick there hurts, allot.
Teun, great response to an obvious troll comment! Wish I had mod points, cause after I got done laughing I would mark you as insightful, certainly not the Troll as it shows now.
For many employers, a virus like StalkDaily is an additional reason to block Twitter. -Ben
For many IT professionals, a company that blocks Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or any other social media site is not who they would want to work for in the first place.
Such a company does not want their employees to have a balanced life in and out of the work environment. (Sad when a typical usage might be a quick text message to verify after work plans, which is definitely faster and more efficient than multiple phone calls.) With companies attempting to race pay to the bottom in this economy, proficient IT professionals who still command decent rates are being allot more selective.
Such a backward-wrong-thinking company probably uses Waterfall/RUP instead of Agile/Scrum. Such a company if using Agile/Scrum probably sets too high a velocity that just burns out and drains their employees. As such a company is definitely short-sighted.
Best of all, in a year or two when the economy rebounds, not only are the out-of-date-policy companies going to lose their best people, chances are the companies who understand the need to balance work - family - fun will have innovated beyond them anyway. Primarily thanks to having employees that genuinely enjoy the work that typically comes with a better work environment. As they are getting all the best talent with decent work ethics and standards.
History shows us that people will rise your expectations. Which of the two companies mentioned above has the more positive and forward thinking management team? Yet another Duh moment.
Intelligent and forward thinking companies quickly highlight managers that practice out-of-date expensive (do you know how much your company loses when a poor manager causes a good employee to churn?) suffocating policies and procedures that make the work feel like, well work. Such managers should be moved to a non-management position where they can do no harm to the company, but still something productive, just not with people. Instead such a backward thinking company only promotes these backward thinking expensive managers that ultimately cost the business more than they bring in.
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Did you even look at the Nokia N800, N810s? They are fantastic Linux computers and the WiFi is great! I believe you can pick them up at great prices today, probably sub $200. They just work.
I had not looked into why they use the cameras that they do...thanks for the info.
I wish I had at least a 10 megapixel on a Nokia Nxxx running Maemo or Android...something Linux that would allow for more options.
When I went from a 6 megapixel to a 10 megapixel camera, the results were incredible. A huge improvement. However with those pinhole cameras and without a lens to auto focus, I wonder how much of the quality of the picture is in the megapixels and how much is in the lens quality (and of course hardware/software making the image)?
Warning this is a LONG post, if you do not like long posts skip to the bottom, however you will miss some useful resources that I linked in as well as the justification for my answer. Just saying...
OK, nice spec 'n' all -but what will I actually be able to do with this puppy that I can't do with my "ordinary" smart phone, or PDA or computer or whatever this turns out to be?
By my definition, the N770 (first released Nov 2005, 4 years ago) , N800, N880 and now the N900 are the ONLY SMART PHONES out there, perhaps you could add the Google Android to that list, though I have not looked at the Linux distro they have running on it yet to be sure. (I am assuming that they did not hamstring it for some proprietary hardware, cause if they did, that is NOT smart) If the hand held (phone, tablet, whatever) will NOT run one of the many distros of Linux, than it simply AINT smart!
With Linux versions that will run on very slow processors, slower than any of the Nokias or so called smart phones that cellular companies try to force on you what is their excuse for not including Linux? Linux is more secure. Linux gives you more options. With the cellular companies, their phones, all of them are locked down, unable to run Linux, unable to even access a WiFi hot spot. Where is the sense in that? How is that smart? Will any of those cellular company provided phones run with RAM memories less than 128MB, or even 256MB, because there are distros of Linux that will! With such low specifications needed to run Linux (and a wealth of applications to enhance your user experience), what is their excuse not to utilize it? Is it ONLY to limit your choice, limit your freedom and tie you in to some pathetic tired pricing system, some failed selection of applications, many of which do not do half of what you need to do anyway?
Sorry but how is this SMART? It is NOT.
With the Nokias, even without Mameo, you have full web browsers available, trust me once you have that, you will not want anything less. You should not be limited to less! It just is NOT smart.
What is "smart" about tethering and limiting choice?
Can you say dd-wrt, I knew you could.
What is "smart" about using cellular minutes when you have a WiFi access point available to you (Note: If you are at work or home, you can, should, have a WiFi Access point (dd-wrt) available to you. That covers 80% of your waking and sleeping life, so no need to waste cellular minutes with a WiFi and VoIP solution available. Wasting cellular minutes is stupid, even worse when they charge you extra for going over. When you consider that a Linux VoIP solution, such as Skype is really a killer app with a TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of less than $100 per year. That is SMART, less than $9 per month for service to chat and call anyone on your continent.
When your cellular company sends you an inflated bill with charges that you did not make, than uses their customer-no-service people to send you to collections, their loss, its NOT SMART! Would you pay for calls you did not make? Neither will the rest of us!
One calendar to rule them all. There can be ONLY ONE!
If you have run any Personal Information Management software (PIM) on any of the current hand helds and you use it seriously:
One day we will have a virtual monitor, in the air above the device. At least the Nokias (N770 was released in 2005) have a decent size screen and full browser.
Get a Nokia N800, cheaper, two Micro SD slots, GPS module (extra of course) and it has the FM chip that was discontinued in the N880. I think it will only set you back about $300 today, check pricegrabber. Now ask if anyone can lend you $300 and that you are good for it.
There are some very inexpensive UPS enabled power strips today. APC makes a bunch. Just pick one up and make sure only your hardware router/firewall and hubs (if you use them) are plugged into it. With that light of a load, they will run longer than a larger UPS hooked up to your monitor and tower PC. Lets face it, if the power is out more than 30 minutes today, most home UPSs will run out of battery power before the smaller one dedicated to the modem and router/firewall. At least that has been my experience.
I put larger UPS hardware next to my primary work tower and (servers + big screen TV) and put a smaller less expensive UPS for my routers, modem, hubs. In the last two years I lost power for longer than 30 minutes only once. It was a no brainer shutting down everything before the UPS battery was completely depleted.
I was able to watch a 42 inch TV for 20 minutes before I had to turn it off, because the power did not come back on. So it is a pretty big UPS for a home. At least I do not have to worry about brown outs any more. The lights blink, no worries.
I turned the larger one off about 10 - 15 minutes before the smaller one keeping the modems and router/firewall hardware up ran out of juice. (I had a firewall/router, dumb hub and cable modem on that one smaller UPS, no problems and nothing else.)
... for progress ...
No survival, just saying.
... maybe I'm mistaken ...
You are if you ignore Microsoft s past of embrace, extend, obsolete, $$$ profit $$$
at some point the past "version" becomes so obsolete you may no longer wish to support it...
What you and I are willing to support is not the point nor the issue, it is what Microsoft has to do, obsolete it, pull support, in order to force people to upgrade and update their software so they can profit.
Not only could I do everything I needed to do from a business stand point on Windows 95/98, but I definitely could do everything with 2000.
The fact that any of those operating systems with a decent browser (obviously Internet Explorer is far from decent IMO, please do not get mad at me, it is Microsoft s fault for fighting against web standards, everything is factually on the record about this except for shills that refuse to acknowledge facts.) can access the cloud, where future applications are being ported to should not be lost on anyone, you or I. It is obviously not lost on Microsoft.
I have been using computers since before Microsoft was a company and have just been burned way too many times to care about them anymore. For me and many others, it is just about survival. Being able to be FREE (not as in money) to choose what applications we want to run, being able to secure our personal environment (PC and network) and not being forced to use anything we do not want to use, just because someone else wants to gouge and profit. Many of us are more than willing to pay for innovation, but when you stick an Intel inside sticker on it next to some MS sticker and claim innovation, many of us are smart enough to call BS! Just saying.
It tends to use a lot of cpu when doing simple tasks like moving the mouse around the screen,
Sorry that is a fail. Obviously Windows 7 does NOT run effectively on that size processor with that amount of RAM.
...my Mini with 2 gigs...
I want a netbook that will run well with only 512MB or 1 GB of RAM. And with processors in the 600 - 800 mhz range, in other words, less than 1000 mhz processor speeds. Why, because its cheap and I am only using it to check mail and social media websites, its not my development machine (even if it is way more powerful then past development machines) How many GBs moves it out of the netbook range, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB...?
I know Linux will run in 512MB of RAM, I ran it this year in 128MB of RAM, so 512MB of RAM, no problem. And yes I prefer 1 GB of RAM as there is more memory for the applications.
I doubt that Windows anything, even XP, will out perform Linux on anything with 1 GB or less of RAM.
Anyone in their right mind would not consider running Vista without at least 4GB of RAM, even if it will run in 2GB. But Windows 7 to run well, what does it need, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB? Surely someone has benchmarked XP vs Windows 7 vs Linux on processors under 1000 mhz with RAM under 2 GB. Will Windows 7 run in less than 1 GB of RAM?
And do NOT even suggest a limited OS that will only let you run one or two software applications concurrently, that is NOT a solution to even consider as viable!
And what is the minimum processor speeds recommended for Windows 7?
Windows 7 has to extend Microsoft's life on the low end side or they can NOT afford to dump XP as all those computers will just migrate to Linux and possibly MacIntosh if their OS is supported on the hardware.
Why I tell people, make sure you buy a computer with Linux pre-installed from the manufacturer, even if you want to run Windows 7 or Vista, its the only way to make sure you avoid the proprietary hardware and software driver vendor lock-in crap from Microsoft, All BIOS writers except Coreboot, Intel, Nvidia, Seagate and many, many others. If your PC will run Linux from day one with video and sound without issues ~ very important, when Microsoft ends of lifes whatever software (and they will) they want you to buy, you still have options for that PC.
Any Linux box (Tower, Desktop PC, laptop or netbook) should run the following right out of the box, or do NOT buy it: Sound, Video (HD H.264, 30fps and higher), usb devices (all kinds: Micro SSD, keyboards, mouse, cameras, etc...), Wifi access, Ethernet 10/1000 (preferrably 10/100/1000), and without special licences to anyone, esp Microsoft or you will be hung out to dry down the road.
Personally I am tired of good equipment, laptops, PCs, desktops, towers getting end-of-lifed by Microsoft s forced upgrades and good equipment that could be used by others going into land fills. Its crazy!
Here is the .pdf letter in full: Check out the names at the end, if these elected leaders represent you, let them know that you want a company like Greenlight for you and your neighbors also. Tell them to vote NO on HB1252
May 4, 2009
The Honorable Joe Hackney
Speaker
North Carolina House of Representatives
2207 State Legislative Building
Raleigh, NC 27601-1096
Dear Speaker Hackney:
We, the undersigned private-sector companies and trade associations urge you to oppose HB1252, the so-called "Level Playing Field Act." HB1252 is "level" only in the sense that it will harm both the public and private sectors. It will thwart public broadband initiatives, stifle economic growth, prevent the creation or retention of thousands of jobs, and diminish quality of life in North Carolina. In particular, it will hurt the private sector by undermining public-private partnerships, hamstringing our ability to sell our goods and services, interfering with workforce development, and stifling creativity and innovation.
The United States is currently suffering through one of the most serious economic crises in decades. We also continue to lag behind the leading nations in per capita broadband adoption, access to high-capacity networks, cost per unit of bandwidth, and growth of new broadband users. To address these concerns, Congress and the Obama Administration have made more than $7 billion available to catalyze public and private efforts to accelerate deployment of broadband infrastructure and services. States can ill afford to enact measures like HB1252, which impair use of these broadband funds and the ability of the public and private sectors to work hand-in-hand to reverse these trends.
We support strong, fair and open competition to ensure users can enjoy the widest range of choice and opportunities to access content online, which is the heart of economic development in an information-based global market. HB1252 is a step in the wrong direction. North Carolina should be lowering barriers to public broadband initiatives rather than establishing new ones, so that we and other high technology companies can spread and prosper across this beautiful state. Please oppose HB1252.
Sincerely,
Alcatel-Lucent
American Public Power Association
Atlantic Engineering Group, Inc.
EDUCAUSE
Fiber to the Home Council
Google, Inc.
Intel Corporation
Utilities Telecom Council
Telecommunications Industry Association
cc: Governor Bev Perdue (by fax)
Secretary of Commerce J. Keith Crisco (by fax)
Rep. Hugh Holliman (by email)
Rep. William Wainwright (by email)
Rep. Paul Stam (by email)
Senator Marc Basnight (by email)
Senator Tony Rand (by email)
Senator Katie Dorsett (by email)
Senator Phil Berger (by email)
Senator R.C. Soles (by email)
Rep. Ty Harrell (by email)
Senator David Hoyle (by email)
House Public Utilities Committee members (by email)
Based on their lack of action over the last 30 years to put fiber to our homes, something some of them, if not all, have been promising since the 1990s; they do NOT have a leg to stand on.
Economics are not working due the Oligopoly / Monopoly nature of Cable Companies and Telcos, ONLY de-regulation will WORK with this economic model.
Govt deregulation of NTT worked in Japan back in 2000, since 2006 those customers are now getting 1 Gbps / 1 Gbps for less than $52 per month, a cost savings to the customer thanks to technological innovation. A huge success for all, even NTT whose dominance in Fiber is paying off very well.
Here in the US, the Telcos, Cable Companies, ISPs could have innovated us out of their outdated tiered pricing model, but they chose NOT to. They made their choice for all Americans to see. They made their choice when they watered down the Telecommunications act of 1996. They make their choice each and every week today, when they spend $1.5 million or more on lobbying elected officials to prevent fiber getting to our homes. What if they spent that $1.5 million per week and the estimated $300 billion they have received since 1990, some of in tax revenue from Americans, and actually laid fiber to our homes. How many more jobs would Americans have today thanks to the higher bandwidth available to us.
American Telcos and Cable companies continuously choose to hurt Americans with their Actions. Their words fall on deaf ears.
I want to live in a city like Wilson, North Carolina; where they are putting their neighbors first, as it should be. If all politicians did this, treated their office like a public service ~ which it is, and returned to their real work after serving for a few years, lobbyists would not be able to get their way and hurt the average American.
Hey politicians, watch the movie Dave or Mr Smith Goes to Washington and do the right thing! If you can not do the right thing, remove yourself from office with honor and let someone else in that will do the right thing. Or do you really want to continue to mess up your neighbors, hurt Americans and destroy your own family. Do you really hate those you serve that much?
Elected leaders in Wilson, North Carolina, stick to your guns, serve your neighbors who you promised to protect and serve and all will benefit, even you when you leave office. More importantly your kids and their kids will benefit by what you are doing.
What other communities are going to take it upon themselves to put the fiber in the ground, ignore the Cable Companies and Telcos and do the right thing for your citizens? Heads up all Internet corporations, Wilson, North Carolina looks like a good place to relocate your jobs for their citizens and the benefit of your company!
Here I thought it would take a company with no ties, no peering agreements to any other American telco to pull this off. And was secretly hoping such a company would rear its head, I would want to work with them for their success in the US, or at least a company like Google, that is laying undersea cables would be able to offer bandwidth to communities being chocked dry by the current American Telcos and Cable Companies.
Can you please find out who they are buying their Internet access through, as I want to support that company over all the others in America? I will encourage all my friends to do likewise, the day that Wilson North Carolina gets fiber to 10% or more of its homes.
Stealing bandwidth is a crime.
Tell my Cable ISP please. They advertise up to 6Mbps and throttle me back to as low as 4 Kbps. I do see 20 - 30 Kbps regularly, but never more than 100Kbps downstream consistently, yes downstream, except in bursts of 1 sec. I do see bursts of 1 sec up to 1 Mbps, occasionally 1.5Mbps and rarely up to 3 Mbps, but NEVER above 3.5 Mbps, and always for only a second or less at a time, per my DD-WRT logs and bandwidth monitoring.
If its a crime, why are we Americans not bringing a class action lawsuit, as even the FCC states a 768Kbps definition of Hispeed Internet, though they still list 200Kbps - 6 Mbps as the definition in other places.
And Japan has had 100Mbps/100Mbps for $55 per month since 2000, and since 2006 are getting 1Gbps / 1Gbps for Tell my Cable ISP please.
As for rapid charging and the amount of energy needed, multiple people have stated that these special industrial / commercial charging stations are smaller and need less power than other products being installed and used today, so very, very doable.
Obviously you are not going to rapid charge via your smaller home wiring, but from a charging station designed with larger wires to handle that volume of electric load and you are in business.
While it would be nice to charge up the car in 10 minutes, I would be thrilled with 20 minutes as on a long trip, It takes longer than that for the kids and/or adults to go to the bathroom. Combine this with pic nic tables and shade trees and you are talking about a nice short stop.
Think location, location, location and put the rapid charging stations and some slower less costly options around theme parks, national parks and other parking structures. Heck operate a large garage in a busy city and provide this service to the customers over the course of the day, just like they do car washes and double parking where you are required to leave your keys with a parking attendant.
A little imagination goes a long way. Personally I would be happy never to buy a gas car or alt fuel car using oil or oil derivative ever again.
Too bad this guy was anonymous, but his post made sense and addresses your issues.
From an engineering economy POV, it's almost certainly better to swap batteries at a battery-swap station than it is to build infrastructure to support 10-minute charge times. But the latter is a lot more fun to play with.
As someone who takes care of and maintains their vehicle, I would NOT be interested in any "battery-swap" solution that did not give me new batteries for my old ones.
Think about it, if you keep your car stored in a garage, out of the sun, less heat, definitely better for the batteries. As contrasted by the person living in the desert, no garage, all that dust, vehicle always in the sun, interior temperatures reaching 100 - 140 degrees, depending on location in the summer. No, I do not want their battery.
And if the battery pack lasts 10 years, that is the minimum amount of time I keep cars these days, 10 years, 5 years of payments if new, no payments if bought used (better IMO) and 5 years no payments.
For so many ALSA just works when it is installed, not for me.
For so many OSS just works when it is installed, not for me.
For a few, PulseAudio just works when it is installed, not for me.
The one thing I will fault ALSA and OSS for, is not allowing multiple audio streams to play simultaneously without crashing the system; in all circumstances. The support forums are littered with issues like this. It definitely dos NOT work for everyone. At least handle one and play one, just choose one, but to crash and not play anything, that just sucks. And to force a reboot before working again, well that is a FAIL! This is not from my personal experience, as I have posted, I could not get any of them to work for my scenario, but based on days and weeks of searching through forum posts looking for solutions, I know I am far from alone.
I read support requests for all three: ALSA, OSS and PulseAudio. So to date, outside of BSD (which I am currently NOT running, but may in the future) Linux + SOUND is a very REAL ISSUE! (see my solution at the end of this post, there is one solid solution, guaranteed to work)
For any one of these to be the best solution, they must handle additional audio streams, from any source, without crashing the system. For instance, when my VoIP phone rings, and I answer the phone, the Audio Radio stream, CD playing, or Video should pause until I restart it and let me answer the phone and hear the person talking to me.
Ideally if I want to listen to the music and watch a video at the same time, I should be able to mix in the sound levels and do that. The solution should have a way to handle it. Heck I should be able to hear the radio, video and VoIP phone all at the same time if I wanted this. I should be able to mix the sound levels and it should work.
Back in the mid 90s I was using a midi keyboard to play a sound track, save it. Then use that same keyboard to play another sound track and save it. I could even convert what I played on the keyboard and make it seem like it was a different musical instrument. An Oboe, a flute, a trumpet, etc. The software (Audio Visual Communications 1.3 running on OS/2 1.2, when the marketeers would have you think only a MacIntosh PC could do this; I was doing it on both IBM PCs and MACs.) would then let me play back all the sound tracks together. I could literally create my own symphony.
Based on what I read, this was one of the major things PulseAudio was going for that was NOT available in either OSS or ALSA. The fact that OSS had gone proprietary was not helpful either. I think they have both a proprietary and open source OSS solution today, but am not sure.
And this was over a decade and a half ago. So Linux should have this today. Perhaps an API solution would allow for this, but first, just to handle multiple audio streams in an intelligent way without crashing the system would be HUGE!
For anyone reading this that wants to avoid these types of issues, there is a solution. If your PC was installed with Linux out of the box, with everything you need: WiFi, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, Sound (audio), Video, Burn CDs, Burn DVDs, plug n play USB support, Ext Monitor support if a netbook or laptop, You should be okay!
Stop going to any vendor and buying a PC with any other operating system installed on it. Only buy hardware with Linux pre-installed and you avoid allot of issues. Avoid vendor LOCK IN.
A
Note a very long post with some excellent images and some interesting thoughts, hope you enjoy reading it more than I did creating it! Enjoy!
I was thinking it! I bet hundreds of others were too! Though others will think us off topic, I would disagree. Imagine!
Whenever I have driven across the USA, in a car, and looked at the hills in the desert, I imagined being the silver surfer (home page) with that silver hover board of his, slashing across the mountains side walls, especially where there is a half circle bowl (a concrete bowl) where your speed would increase as you spanned it. (Note: a Bowl shape, easy to see when you are in the wave is not obvious from the front. The sides stick out farther than the middle and with the wave breaking on one side toward the bowl shape, you can whip around it and greatly increase your speed.)
Anyone know of a hover surf board? Able to catch a big wave.
The wipe-outs would be particularly gnarly, think cactus and think beyond ouch!
Gnarly is when you've gone beyond radical, beyond extreme, it's balls out danger, & or perfection, & or skill or all of that combined. This one would be considered fun, not gnarly, lol. Here is gnarly, yep he is going over, wonder if he knows it yet?
Here is what you do not want to see in the tube or wave with you, a Great White shark! The funny thing is that Fergal Smith did NOT know the Great White shark was there when he was surfing, the photographer, Phil Gallagher, showed him later after he was finished surfing.
The holidaymaker only realized
Their bribe was late.
But what makes their lobbyists any different than any other telcos?
Of course pro-Microsoft users will attack you (and me) for even mentioning these facts. We both must hope for meta-moderation. I wish someone at slashdot would look at their server logs to see who is doing this and prevent them from moderating anymore. I had a post go +2 in one category, +3 in another category, than finally get labeled -1 Troll or 0 Off topic, thus my Karma comes into question and makes it more likely that I will be modded down in the future if a post strays a little bit as most real world experiences often do.
Look at this example with auto-updating of a plug-in for FireFox, its been happening for well over a year now, see related link and paragraph below, obviously it could be prevented, but Microsoft in its infinite wisdom chose NOT to do anything about it. What could they do you ask, easy, take it out of the auto update. I included one link, where you see one or more additional comments approximately every 30 days as a new set of Windows users is hit by this junk.
Funny that when you follow the posts in this type of thread about a Microsoft problem issue of this type, you will see the pro-Microsoft crowd at first deny there is a problem. Either outright denial or through misdirection. When this repeated (and it is repeated) denial-redirection-tactic fails as it often does it time for step two.
Deny that anything similar to it has happened before, ever, therefore this is a brand new issue unrelated to any issue that has become before, everything is new under the sun. This is not a repeat issue. (They do not want people to see the repeatable pattern of abuse that most of us have experienced first hand and are fed up with). Of course this fails them as well as there is too much history (too much prior art, bad-analogy I know, but at least its not a bad car analogy) and Microsoft has done this over and over and over again. Sorry folks, that is a fact!
When those two approaches fail, they come out with some lame defense, excuse or attempt at re-direction. Here are some that you will notice over time. Here are some examples:
I wish the reign of ignorance was over. It is NOT. HINT: If reviewing CSPAN briefs of elected officials or the documentation on IT matters, pay attention to the word PROCUREMENT. The slant is decidedly in Microsoft s favor.
Procurement is being used to focus government agencies on buying Microsoft ONLY solutions.
The politicians looked like they were buying the FUD, hook, line and sinker. The ignorance is alive, well and fostering. More of a pandemic than any flu could be.
Linux is now greater than 2%, get curious and discover why for yourself! Is this why Microsoft is giving away their new OS for 1 YEAR?
Personally I think it is much higher than that, with the stats being skewed based on the source of the data. I also believe that Microsoft is very, very worried.
Not only does the FUD continue, but now Microsoft is releasing FREE copies of their new operating system for 1 YEAR ONLY. At the end of that one year you will have to remove it or pay to upgrade. (Was announced on Leo Laporte s radio, twit TV pod cast today and I was surprised)
I believe they are counting on ignorance of people to not give another operating system or applications a chance, at least for a year so that they can either improve their offering (thus extending...) or replace it with something better. They definitely appear to be trying hard to extinguish the flow of people to other operating systems.
If you HAD to purchase NEW HARDWARE to run Vista and / or Windows 7, keep the old system and load up native Linux (no dual boot, no WINE, no virtual machine initially, no extra anything that might introduce problems and cause unnecessary frustrations, just Linux) and start giving it a try, you might surprise yourself, much has changed in the last year with Linux! Besides, the old PC is no LONGER your primary machine, so go for it, and try some new solutions, you will be glad that you did. Sadly I am not aware of a way to give MacIntosh OS X a try on old PCs, perhaps someone reading this can provide a link for those interested in going there, as my preference is honestly Linux.
Note it is always better to buy hardware from a vendor that focuses on the operating sytem, either Linux or MacIntosh, that way the computer will run out of the box without problems. If you attempt to convert your existing PC to Linux, be patient and remember that some or much of the hardware was NOT designed to run with Linux and therefore problems are to be expected.
Better yet, but a new computer meant to run on and with Linux. One of the better offering is the Zareason either the Limbo 2550A ($299, will run Compiz, Beryl and other 3D desktop effects) or the Breeze 3660 ($349)
Once you go either Mac or Linux, you do NOT HAVE TO go back to MS. At least not if you are smart after learning about alternative software packages to do literally anything and everything you can do in a MS OS environment.
Expect a learning curve, just as you would with the new Microsoft operating system, nothing new there.
Are they vainly trying to staunch the flow of users away from Microsoft operating systems and applications to other alternatives? Especially considering the economy and the markets frustration with Vista and Windows 7.
Personally I was surprised they did not extend Windows 95 yet a second time. At least it would run on a netbook ($200 - $300 PC) with 512MB or less of RAM.
Perhaps they are planning a version of their new Windows OS that will run adequately in 512 MB of RAM and therefore on netbooks
Either this is a very poor analogy, or you have never been hit or kicked in the balls. Anyone who plays sports and has worn a cup knows that it still hurts when you get hit or when the cup breaks, but it would be allot worse without that cup.
No harm, really, Really, REALLY!
Someone contact this persons partner, if they have one, and ask them to show them how it feels. Even if female, granted minus the cup, getting hit or kick there hurts, allot.
Excellent analogy jcr.
Thanks for the smile and the laugh!
For many employers, a virus like StalkDaily is an additional reason to block Twitter. -Ben
For many IT professionals, a company that blocks Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or any other social media site is not who they would want to work for in the first place.
Such a company does not want their employees to have a balanced life in and out of the work environment. (Sad when a typical usage might be a quick text message to verify after work plans, which is definitely faster and more efficient than multiple phone calls.) With companies attempting to race pay to the bottom in this economy, proficient IT professionals who still command decent rates are being allot more selective.
Such a backward-wrong-thinking company probably uses Waterfall/RUP instead of Agile/Scrum. Such a company if using Agile/Scrum probably sets too high a velocity that just burns out and drains their employees. As such a company is definitely short-sighted.
Best of all, in a year or two when the economy rebounds, not only are the out-of-date-policy companies going to lose their best people, chances are the companies who understand the need to balance work - family - fun will have innovated beyond them anyway. Primarily thanks to having employees that genuinely enjoy the work that typically comes with a better work environment. As they are getting all the best talent with decent work ethics and standards.
History shows us that people will rise your expectations. Which of the two companies mentioned above has the more positive and forward thinking management team? Yet another Duh moment.
Intelligent and forward thinking companies quickly highlight managers that practice out-of-date expensive (do you know how much your company loses when a poor manager causes a good employee to churn?) suffocating policies and procedures that make the work feel like, well work. Such managers should be moved to a non-management position where they can do no harm to the company, but still something productive, just not with people. Instead such a backward thinking company only promotes these backward thinking expensive managers that ultimately cost the business more than they bring in.
So what comes around goes around.
Talk about opportunity cost