Slow news day? More like OLD news day. My first thought was--what the fuck is this, early 2001? OS X has been out for SIX FUCKING YEARS--who cares that some douchebag just now spent 30 days with it?
The use of, benefits of, and shortcomings of Mac OS X have been thoroughly documented on a thousand* different sites. It's not like it's even a new version--10.4 has been out for TWO EFFING YEARS!!! Where has this retard been? (Reminds me of the NewsRadio episode when Bill discovered rap.)
Up next: 30 days spent breathing air and drinking water--a Hard OCP exclusive!
I'm browsing at +3, over 50 comments visible, and NOT ONE "in soviet russia" joke? What's wrong? I'm not good with jokes, but there's GOT to be one in there somewhere.
AFAIK, fax machines don't use caller ID. The faxer's number is sent to the faxee as part of the data. (Just like the return address on an email--faxes were designed with the quaint friendly idea that you'd want to be able to send a fax back to whoever faxed you.) Usually this number is programmed into the fax machine itself--i.e., it's not auto-determined, and is changeable. OTOH, your employer probably doesn't want you anonymizing the company fax machine.
Gates has more money than God. So, first of all, he can probably pay off the whole amount at the end of each month, thus getting hit with no interest. (Ironically, this would earn him the title "deadbeat" by the credit card companies.) Secondly, do you think he cares for one second about something as piddling as credit card interest? He could buy a new Gulfstream V every day at 1000% interest compounded continually (remember calculus?) and not even notice. Thirdly, his time is very important. Why go through some crazy hoops to get a custom debit card when you get all the advantages with a stock credit card? As it happens, he's probably got a wallet full of black cards anyway.
The highlight clips were great. I look forward to watching the whole thing. As much as we vilify Gates, he is a bright guy and he did some good stuff once upon a time and I could listen to either of them tell stories all day. That said, Steve is far and away the better presenter.
Note to interviewers: SHUT UP! When you ask a question and the guy is trying to answer, quit trying to get your stupid little Friends-esqu quips in. NO ONE is there to hear you speak. Quit trying to be the life of the party. Example: watch Steve TRYING to tell his story at the 5:40 mark in the highlight reel and the inane banter at around 6:15.
A good 20k$ RAID array does much more. First, it doesn't use cheap SATA drives...
The 'I' in RAID stands for Inexpensive. Why pay 3x more per disc to go from 99.5 to 99.9% reliable? The whole point of RAID is to get them cheap and have bunches of them. I'd rather have a whole second server than just one server with an array of unobtanium disks. Of course, space, heat, and power may become issues, but for a lot of people, simpler-cheaper-more is a good way to go.
And lets not forget that EMC etc are not perfect magic bullets by any means. We've gone through 3 SAN vendors in the last 5 years. A recent quote to add 0.5 TB to 2 or 3 servers came in at $2-3000 per server. For that kind of money, I'd rather just give each department a couple Mac Pros or XServes. Personally, I'd rather have my eggs in several baskets, rather than trying to build the one holy storage system, forever and ever amen, which WILL eventually fail spectacularly with dramatic results. (Unless you've got buckets and buckets of money to throw at perfect reliability, like banks and airlines--but for most of us in the real world, with managers trying to cut corners here and there, I'd rather spend $10,000 on two $5,000 boxes than one $10,000, supposedly better box.)
I've got a few nice boxes laying around that used to be for testing various Win & Lin stuff, which is now mostly done with Parallels. Glad I didn't get rid of them all yet! I last looked at Myth a year or two ago, and even with Knoppomyth, I still got stuck.
The funny thing is, looking at the article, there's not a single player I'd get, for a friend or for myself as a toy, even if they were close to free. I just look at the front panel and think "There's no scroll wheel. I'll have to click-click-click to get around.*"
Also, there is such thing as a cheap(er) iPod. Go to Apple.com -> store -> click the red 'save' tag in the right column (about 2/3 the way down) then (if it isn't already selected) click 'Apple Certified (iPod).' That gets you refurbished and NIB discontinued models at a pretty good discount. (Note that they may come in plain packaging so be careful when ordering as gifts.)
Right now you can get a silver shuffle for $49. 2 GB Nanos are $109 and 30 GB iPods are $199. Price depends on inventory. The best thing to do is go there when they introduce new/upgraded iPods and jump on the old ones.** They used to sell first-gen video iPods for $169, and just before Christmas I bought three 512 MB original Shuffles for $29 each. (And I sold two of them, last week, for $25 each. w00t!) They were so cheap that I couldn't resist--got one for the wife, one for the kid, and one for me--mostly to check it out, since I've already got a full-size iPod. (The wife has upgraded to a Nano and I decided I didn't need mine, which is why I sold them.)
* yes, you've got to click a lot with the displayless Shuffles. That's why I sold mine.
** this also works for computers. When the Core 2 Duo MacBooks came out, the $1999 15" MacBook Pro dropped to $1399 overnight. Come one, Steve, hurry up and put the damn Core 2 chips in the Mini--I want to buy two current models but $599 is too much.:-)
...and the bubble of no 0-day exploits on OS X is just waiting to burst.
Waiting, yeah... six years and counting so far. Any day now, right?
It is NOT written in stone that all OSs are equally vulnerable and will all have a certain number of exploits found and that Windows just happens to be getting all of theirs out of the way early. Maybe, just maybe, OS X really is better, security-wise, than Windows. Or maybe it's because of smaller market share. Who fucking cares?!? The point is, I haven't had to worry about Sasser or anything else that has cause uncountable amounts of pain for so many of my companies' and friends' Windows computers.
Is it possible that Vista will be more secure than XP? I honestly hope it is, for the sake of my inbox if nothing else. On the other hand, I've sure enjoyed the last few quiet years. If Windows is now as secure as OS X, I have just one thing to say: it's about fucking time. Welcome to the party. You'll like it here.
I'll more or less re-post what I said the other day.* Disney built their empire largely on non-copyrighted works, especially their earliest and biggest hits. A very short list: Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, The Little Mermaid, and most (if not all) of the music from the Fantasia movies. And now their position is "We created some things**, profited from them, continue to do so, and would like a governmet-sponsored monopoly to allow us to continue to do so until the end of time."
* mod me funny if you don't want me to gain karma for saying the same thing twice. I just think this is an important point which should be brought up in every single discussion where Disney wants copyright enhanced.
** I'm not saying that they shouldn't be allowed to profit from their use of other people's work. I'm saying that their original creations should fall into public domain, same as all those other things did. But no. Their attitude is "I got mine, now no one else gets any." Fucking hypocritical bastards.
>>But USERS can't see headers. Metadata in a filename is a Good Thing.
> I've kicked this around for a LOT of years, and ultimately I disagree.
The thing about user-supplied metadata is that it shows the user what's important to the user. Some users only care about "images" versus "documents" (i.e., text), while others really care if they're looking at JPEGs, TIFFs, EPSs, GIFs, PNGs, etc etc etc. Why do so many users put the date into the filename? Because that's what's important to them. Yes, 'date created' and 'date modified' are stored automagically, but maybe NEITHER date matters--maybe a template was created on 1/1, most of the work was done on 1/2, and small revisions were made on several days following. Neither the creation date nor the modified date are what's important--the user will think of this as "The January 2 version" and that's what's important to them. (Besides, dates only show up in list/details view--some people actually like icon view. Or, on OS X, column view--the default.) And many times, a word is worth a thousand pictures--I can see (and sort by, and search by) the letters 'tif' or 'jpg' much more quickly and easily than I can do anything useful with a folder full of distinct icons. Text has magic inherent properties compared to images or metadata--it can be quickly and easily understood (and searched, sorted, and filtered) by both humans and machines. Mac may have popularized extensionless files but UNIX invented it--but then why are there.pl,.conf,.c,.h, etc etc etc files all over your typical UNIX filesystem? Because that's effing useful!!!!! And really, think about it: why do so many files (which would be named.exe in Windows) in the/bin/ folder lack extensions? Because they're in/bin/--which is effectively another kind of metadata!
One point I will REALLY agree with you on--computers SHOULD be smarter in looking at files. Especially Outlook variants, which just say "Attachments may damage your computer!" to every single attachment I have. I guess no one at MS ever read "the boy who cried wolf." ("You are attempting to read 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'--Cancel or Allow?":-) )
> You talk about web browsers, and that's still not entirely correct. First of all, IE and Firefox may save files in a different location by default.
No, I really think I'm right on this one. Clean installs on a virgin system: MSIE, Firefox, Safari, and Opera, on Win95-XP or Mac OS 7.5-10.4: 1 of 2 things happen: 1) the user is asked where to put the file, and the default options are the desktop or documents folder, or 2) the file is automatically saved to the default location, which is either the desktop or documents folder. If the user has changed them, they'll behave differently, but again, that's my point--if the user changed them, they should know what they did and where their files will go. And they should know how to get around in the 'save' dialog. Navigation should be a very basic skill. Even the dumbest person knows how to get around in their house and their neighborhood, and can get to school or work. Same thing on a computer: even if you just go to the same 2 or 3 places all the time, you should know how to get there; and if you get lost, how to right yourself by using landmarks--like the big 'desktop' and 'documents' icons in the left panel of just about any OS dialog. Discussing other apps is beyond the scope of this flamefest.:-)
> I've had more Windows admins tell me over the years, "type the following to map a drive..."
And having told many users that many times, you should see the blank stares I get.
> The number of people I know who have had to manually map a drive and/or pull up a file in a web browser...
Wow. You've got users who know that 'File -> Open' works in web browsers?:-) As for HTML help, that usuall
> Extensions are nothing whatsoever to any half-assed operating system, which can read a header to find out the contents of a file.
But USERS can't see headers. Metadata in a filename is a Good Thing.
> Oh, except Windows--I guess that's all you're familiar with.
15 years of DOS, Win, & Mac; 10 years of Linux. But nice try.
> This is usually spoofed, whenever it's actually a bad idea to click on a link.
A) There are plenty of bad links that aren't obscured by javascript, like phishing attempts viewed in webmail. B) There are many problems that come with not knowing what you're clicking on: - Clicking on a PDF that will take a while to load - Knowing if a click will take you to a different domain or not.
> This is an application and OS-specified location.... It could be anywhere, and often is.
Bzzt, wrong. By default, every web browser on every platform will do exactly one of exactly two things: A) Save the file to a basic location, like the Desktop or Documents folder B) Prompt the user where to put the file--and again, the default location will be the Desktop or something similar. Knowing how to use 'Find' (and they'd know the name of the file they just got if they would have looked at the name in the status bar first) is also handy.
> They see backslashes all the time, in Windows share paths, in Windows file paths...
Most home users don't connect to servers. Most large companies give users computers with pre-mapped drives. I know this, because whenever I need to tell them to go anywhere else and try to explain how to map a network drive, it's clear that they've never right-clicked on 'my computer' to enter \\servername\share. And Windows, by default, doesn't show the path in the location box or the title bar. Apparently you aren't aware of this.
> You don't like being an admin and having to deal with users? > Then get the hell out of the field.
I like helping people just fine. And I do it quite well. I just wish they'd learn a few more basics than just "click on the big E, W, or X."
> The reality is this: computers are anti-intuitive, ubiquitous, and understood to be easy. > If you can't live with those criteria, then GET THE HELL OUT! You're not helping anyone.
I help people day in and day out. I know computers are complicated, which is why I give users plenty of leeway. Like I said, I just wish they had a bit more basic knowledge.
1) knowing what extensions are - Both the fact that that they exist in the first place AND what the different ones mean--"ooh, should I click on hotsex.jpg.doc.exe.scr.pif?"
2) looking at the URL in the status bar before clicking on a link - Apple: I love you, but you SUCK for having the status bar off by default in Safari.
3) knowing where downloaded files go - Every phone-based support call I've ever made: a) Painfully (see #4) navigate to a URL. b) Painfully (see #5) instruct user to download a file. c) Spend 5 minutes telling them where that file is on their computer
4) the difference between \ and / - these people saw a backslash ONCE in their lives while using DOS about twenty years ago, and now every time I tell them an address, it's "Is that forward slash or backslash?" (Despite the fact that I've told them a million times that they'll pretty much NEVER see a \ in a URL.) This is usually followed by the question "Which one is slash?" God damn you, PaulAllen.
5) the difference between click, right-click, and double-click "OK, right click on My Computer... no, close that window. Now, see the mouse? Press the RIGHT BUTTON..."
6) the concept of paths, root directories, etc. - I why do I have to explain fifty times a day how to get from example.com/foo to example.com?
Admins can get whatever skills they want--they picked the career, thy can accept the fact that things change. The backends are usually handled by people with some know-how. It's the end-users that cause all the problems. It'd be like driving in a world where people didn't know how to use turn signals, didn't check their blind spots, didn't know they shouldn't talk on the phone while making complicated maneuvers--oh, wait, bad example.
If everyone's life were public, you'd know if Piotr was an agent. You'd know who in your circle of friends ran to authorities. You'd know the personal lives of those running the country.
Besides the fact that you wouldn't know about #2 until it was too late, the real killer here is #3. The government has more to hide than anyone, and since they're the ones with the power and who make the rules, this will never come to pass. The first thing the government does when it passes a law is to make itself exempt. It's the old saying--"who will watch the watchers?"--but as long as the watchers don't consent to being watched, I'd prefer to keep my privacy.
In short, why should I give up my privacy when they won't give up theirs? You can pretty much bet that they never will, so I don't want to volunteer to give up mine first.
"Apart from games, which the clueful use as an excuse to not convert at least one box to Linux..."
The average user only *has* one box.
The fact is, there are a *lot* of computer users out there. Most--I'm not exaggerating when I say it's probably 95%--don't care to know anything about their machine other than which icons to click to launch IE, Word, and Solitaire. Most users don't know what an OS is, or that Windows is one; they certainly don't know that there are options. They don't know the difference between memory and storage, they don't know the difference between the desktop and the hard drive; if you change their wallpaper they freak out that their computer is broken, etc etc etc. Computer runs slow? It's been two years, buy another.
To respond to the question in question, yes, Linux is light-years out of touch--not that it's unusable, but that most users don't know what it is, where to get it, or why they'd want it. The fact that it's bulletproof against malware isn't enough--they fear change more. Don't underestimate the power of inertia.
Slashdot Mirror
Slow news day? More like OLD news day. My first thought was--what the fuck is this, early 2001? OS X has been out for SIX FUCKING YEARS--who cares that some douchebag just now spent 30 days with it?
The use of, benefits of, and shortcomings of Mac OS X have been thoroughly documented on a thousand* different sites. It's not like it's even a new version--10.4 has been out for TWO EFFING YEARS!!! Where has this retard been? (Reminds me of the NewsRadio episode when Bill discovered rap.)
Up next: 30 days spent breathing air and drinking water--a Hard OCP exclusive!
* the funny thing is, "thousand"--usually an exaggeration--is in this case a drastic understatement. Googling for 'os x review' yields 67,400,000 matches. Just in case anyone has been under a rock and wants to read some good reviews by smart people, here are a couple:
Review of 10.3 by Bruce Tognazzini, Apple employee #66
Detailed technical review of 10.4 from ars.tecnica with links to reviews of every version of OS X, ever
Typical review from a Mac site
Review of 10.4 from PC World
GOOD! Serves those price fixing bastards right.
I cried almost as much when I heard that lackluster SUV adoption was cutting into oil company profits.
Jeez, it'd be much simpler if they could just remember the combo: up up down down left right left right B A START!
I'm browsing at +3, over 50 comments visible, and NOT ONE "in soviet russia" joke? What's wrong? I'm not good with jokes, but there's GOT to be one in there somewhere.
OS X (10.4) needs Perian to play FLVs.
What kinds of machines do you have that a) CAN'T boot something that's been out for years like Knoppix but b) CAN boot from a USB drive?
AFAIK, fax machines don't use caller ID. The faxer's number is sent to the faxee as part of the data. (Just like the return address on an email--faxes were designed with the quaint friendly idea that you'd want to be able to send a fax back to whoever faxed you.) Usually this number is programmed into the fax machine itself--i.e., it's not auto-determined, and is changeable. OTOH, your employer probably doesn't want you anonymizing the company fax machine.
Gates has more money than God. So, first of all, he can probably pay off the whole amount at the end of each month, thus getting hit with no interest. (Ironically, this would earn him the title "deadbeat" by the credit card companies.) Secondly, do you think he cares for one second about something as piddling as credit card interest? He could buy a new Gulfstream V every day at 1000% interest compounded continually (remember calculus?) and not even notice. Thirdly, his time is very important. Why go through some crazy hoops to get a custom debit card when you get all the advantages with a stock credit card? As it happens, he's probably got a wallet full of black cards anyway.
The highlight clips were great. I look forward to watching the whole thing. As much as we vilify Gates, he is a bright guy and he did some good stuff once upon a time and I could listen to either of them tell stories all day. That said, Steve is far and away the better presenter.
Note to interviewers: SHUT UP! When you ask a question and the guy is trying to answer, quit trying to get your stupid little Friends-esqu quips in. NO ONE is there to hear you speak. Quit trying to be the life of the party. Example: watch Steve TRYING to tell his story at the 5:40 mark in the highlight reel and the inane banter at around 6:15.
LiveLournal users are revolting!
A good 20k$ RAID array does much more. First, it doesn't use cheap SATA drives...
The 'I' in RAID stands for Inexpensive. Why pay 3x more per disc to go from 99.5 to 99.9% reliable? The whole point of RAID is to get them cheap and have bunches of them. I'd rather have a whole second server than just one server with an array of unobtanium disks. Of course, space, heat, and power may become issues, but for a lot of people, simpler-cheaper-more is a good way to go.
And lets not forget that EMC etc are not perfect magic bullets by any means. We've gone through 3 SAN vendors in the last 5 years. A recent quote to add 0.5 TB to 2 or 3 servers came in at $2-3000 per server. For that kind of money, I'd rather just give each department a couple Mac Pros or XServes. Personally, I'd rather have my eggs in several baskets, rather than trying to build the one holy storage system, forever and ever amen, which WILL eventually fail spectacularly with dramatic results. (Unless you've got buckets and buckets of money to throw at perfect reliability, like banks and airlines--but for most of us in the real world, with managers trying to cut corners here and there, I'd rather spend $10,000 on two $5,000 boxes than one $10,000, supposedly better box.)
Also, used original XBoxes can be had for $50-100, so if you want XBMC *and* Xbox live, it's cheap enough to just buy another.
I've got a few nice boxes laying around that used to be for testing various Win & Lin stuff, which is now mostly done with Parallels. Glad I didn't get rid of them all yet! I last looked at Myth a year or two ago, and even with Knoppomyth, I still got stuck.
The funny thing is, looking at the article, there's not a single player I'd get, for a friend or for myself as a toy, even if they were close to free. I just look at the front panel and think "There's no scroll wheel. I'll have to click-click-click to get around.*"
:-)
Also, there is such thing as a cheap(er) iPod. Go to Apple.com -> store -> click the red 'save' tag in the right column (about 2/3 the way down) then (if it isn't already selected) click 'Apple Certified (iPod).' That gets you refurbished and NIB discontinued models at a pretty good discount. (Note that they may come in plain packaging so be careful when ordering as gifts.)
Right now you can get a silver shuffle for $49. 2 GB Nanos are $109 and 30 GB iPods are $199. Price depends on inventory. The best thing to do is go there when they introduce new/upgraded iPods and jump on the old ones.** They used to sell first-gen video iPods for $169, and just before Christmas I bought three 512 MB original Shuffles for $29 each. (And I sold two of them, last week, for $25 each. w00t!) They were so cheap that I couldn't resist--got one for the wife, one for the kid, and one for me--mostly to check it out, since I've already got a full-size iPod. (The wife has upgraded to a Nano and I decided I didn't need mine, which is why I sold them.)
* yes, you've got to click a lot with the displayless Shuffles. That's why I sold mine.
** this also works for computers. When the Core 2 Duo MacBooks came out, the $1999 15" MacBook Pro dropped to $1399 overnight. Come one, Steve, hurry up and put the damn Core 2 chips in the Mini--I want to buy two current models but $599 is too much.
...and the bubble of no 0-day exploits on OS X is just waiting to burst.
Waiting, yeah... six years and counting so far. Any day now, right?
It is NOT written in stone that all OSs are equally vulnerable and will all have a certain number of exploits found and that Windows just happens to be getting all of theirs out of the way early. Maybe, just maybe, OS X really is better, security-wise, than Windows. Or maybe it's because of smaller market share. Who fucking cares?!? The point is, I haven't had to worry about Sasser or anything else that has cause uncountable amounts of pain for so many of my companies' and friends' Windows computers.
Is it possible that Vista will be more secure than XP? I honestly hope it is, for the sake of my inbox if nothing else. On the other hand, I've sure enjoyed the last few quiet years. If Windows is now as secure as OS X, I have just one thing to say: it's about fucking time. Welcome to the party. You'll like it here.
next time,
- install sshd
- open firewall
- free account from dyndns.org (or bookmark whatismyip.com)
Wait... I have mod points but can't find "+/-1, Crazy"
I'll more or less re-post what I said the other day.* Disney built their empire largely on non-copyrighted works, especially their earliest and biggest hits. A very short list: Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, The Little Mermaid, and most (if not all) of the music from the Fantasia movies. And now their position is "We created some things**, profited from them, continue to do so, and would like a governmet-sponsored monopoly to allow us to continue to do so until the end of time."
i n_characterst ed_features
Compare the lists at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_doma
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Disney_anima
for more clues.
* mod me funny if you don't want me to gain karma for saying the same thing twice. I just think this is an important point which should be brought up in every single discussion where Disney wants copyright enhanced.
** I'm not saying that they shouldn't be allowed to profit from their use of other people's work. I'm saying that their original creations should fall into public domain, same as all those other things did. But no. Their attitude is "I got mine, now no one else gets any." Fucking hypocritical bastards.
>>But USERS can't see headers. Metadata in a filename is a Good Thing.
.pl, .conf, .c, .h, etc etc etc files all over your typical UNIX filesystem? Because that's effing useful!!!!! And really, think about it: why do so many files (which would be named .exe in Windows) in the /bin/ folder lack extensions? Because they're in /bin/--which is effectively another kind of metadata!
:-) )
:-)
:-) As for HTML help, that usuall
> I've kicked this around for a LOT of years, and ultimately I disagree.
The thing about user-supplied metadata is that it shows the user what's important to the user. Some users only care about "images" versus "documents" (i.e., text), while others really care if they're looking at JPEGs, TIFFs, EPSs, GIFs, PNGs, etc etc etc. Why do so many users put the date into the filename? Because that's what's important to them. Yes, 'date created' and 'date modified' are stored automagically, but maybe NEITHER date matters--maybe a template was created on 1/1, most of the work was done on 1/2, and small revisions were made on several days following. Neither the creation date nor the modified date are what's important--the user will think of this as "The January 2 version" and that's what's important to them. (Besides, dates only show up in list/details view--some people actually like icon view. Or, on OS X, column view--the default.) And many times, a word is worth a thousand pictures--I can see (and sort by, and search by) the letters 'tif' or 'jpg' much more quickly and easily than I can do anything useful with a folder full of distinct icons. Text has magic inherent properties compared to images or metadata--it can be quickly and easily understood (and searched, sorted, and filtered) by both humans and machines. Mac may have popularized extensionless files but UNIX invented it--but then why are there
One point I will REALLY agree with you on--computers SHOULD be smarter in looking at files. Especially Outlook variants, which just say "Attachments may damage your computer!" to every single attachment I have. I guess no one at MS ever read "the boy who cried wolf." ("You are attempting to read 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'--Cancel or Allow?"
> You talk about web browsers, and that's still not entirely correct. First of all, IE and Firefox may save files in a different location by default.
No, I really think I'm right on this one. Clean installs on a virgin system: MSIE, Firefox, Safari, and Opera, on Win95-XP or Mac OS 7.5-10.4: 1 of 2 things happen: 1) the user is asked where to put the file, and the default options are the desktop or documents folder, or 2) the file is automatically saved to the default location, which is either the desktop or documents folder. If the user has changed them, they'll behave differently, but again, that's my point--if the user changed them, they should know what they did and where their files will go. And they should know how to get around in the 'save' dialog. Navigation should be a very basic skill. Even the dumbest person knows how to get around in their house and their neighborhood, and can get to school or work. Same thing on a computer: even if you just go to the same 2 or 3 places all the time, you should know how to get there; and if you get lost, how to right yourself by using landmarks--like the big 'desktop' and 'documents' icons in the left panel of just about any OS dialog. Discussing other apps is beyond the scope of this flamefest.
> I've had more Windows admins tell me over the years, "type the following to map a drive..."
And having told many users that many times, you should see the blank stares I get.
> The number of people I know who have had to manually map a drive and/or pull up a file in a web browser...
Wow. You've got users who know that 'File -> Open' works in web browsers?
> Extensions are nothing whatsoever to any half-assed operating system, which can read a header to find out the contents of a file.
But USERS can't see headers. Metadata in a filename is a Good Thing.
> Oh, except Windows--I guess that's all you're familiar with.
15 years of DOS, Win, & Mac; 10 years of Linux. But nice try.
> This is usually spoofed, whenever it's actually a bad idea to click on a link.
A) There are plenty of bad links that aren't obscured by javascript, like phishing attempts viewed in webmail.
B) There are many problems that come with not knowing what you're clicking on:
- Clicking on a PDF that will take a while to load
- Knowing if a click will take you to a different domain or not.
> This is an application and OS-specified location.... It could be anywhere, and often is.
Bzzt, wrong. By default, every web browser on every platform will do exactly one of exactly two things:
A) Save the file to a basic location, like the Desktop or Documents folder
B) Prompt the user where to put the file--and again, the default location will be the Desktop or something similar. Knowing how to use 'Find' (and they'd know the name of the file they just got if they would have looked at the name in the status bar first) is also handy.
> They see backslashes all the time, in Windows share paths, in Windows file paths...
Most home users don't connect to servers. Most large companies give users computers with pre-mapped drives. I know this, because whenever I need to tell them to go anywhere else and try to explain how to map a network drive, it's clear that they've never right-clicked on 'my computer' to enter \\servername\share. And Windows, by default, doesn't show the path in the location box or the title bar. Apparently you aren't aware of this.
> You don't like being an admin and having to deal with users?
> Then get the hell out of the field.
I like helping people just fine. And I do it quite well. I just wish they'd learn a few more basics than just "click on the big E, W, or X."
> The reality is this: computers are anti-intuitive, ubiquitous, and understood to be easy.
> If you can't live with those criteria, then GET THE HELL OUT! You're not helping anyone.
I help people day in and day out. I know computers are complicated, which is why I give users plenty of leeway. Like I said, I just wish they had a bit more basic knowledge.
1) knowing what extensions are
- Both the fact that that they exist in the first place AND what the different ones mean--"ooh, should I click on hotsex.jpg.doc.exe.scr.pif?"
2) looking at the URL in the status bar before clicking on a link
- Apple: I love you, but you SUCK for having the status bar off by default in Safari.
3) knowing where downloaded files go
- Every phone-based support call I've ever made:
a) Painfully (see #4) navigate to a URL.
b) Painfully (see #5) instruct user to download a file.
c) Spend 5 minutes telling them where that file is on their computer
4) the difference between \ and /
- these people saw a backslash ONCE in their lives while using DOS about twenty years ago, and now every time I tell them an address, it's "Is that forward slash or backslash?" (Despite the fact that I've told them a million times that they'll pretty much NEVER see a \ in a URL.) This is usually followed by the question "Which one is slash?" God damn you, Paul Allen.
5) the difference between click, right-click, and double-click
"OK, right click on My Computer... no, close that window. Now, see the mouse? Press the RIGHT BUTTON..."
6) the concept of paths, root directories, etc.
- I why do I have to explain fifty times a day how to get from example.com/foo to example.com?
Admins can get whatever skills they want--they picked the career, thy can accept the fact that things change. The backends are usually handled by people with some know-how. It's the end-users that cause all the problems. It'd be like driving in a world where people didn't know how to use turn signals, didn't check their blind spots, didn't know they shouldn't talk on the phone while making complicated maneuvers--oh, wait, bad example.
A fucking FELONY?
TrackMeNot is the dumbest thing ever.
If everyone's life were public, you'd know if Piotr was an agent. You'd know who in your circle of friends ran to authorities. You'd know the personal lives of those running the country.
Besides the fact that you wouldn't know about #2 until it was too late, the real killer here is #3. The government has more to hide than anyone, and since they're the ones with the power and who make the rules, this will never come to pass. The first thing the government does when it passes a law is to make itself exempt. It's the old saying--"who will watch the watchers?"--but as long as the watchers don't consent to being watched, I'd prefer to keep my privacy.
In short, why should I give up my privacy when they won't give up theirs? You can pretty much bet that they never will, so I don't want to volunteer to give up mine first.
"Apart from games, which the clueful use as an excuse to not convert at least one box to Linux..."
The average user only *has* one box.
The fact is, there are a *lot* of computer users out there. Most--I'm not exaggerating when I say it's probably 95%--don't care to know anything about their machine other than which icons to click to launch IE, Word, and Solitaire. Most users don't know what an OS is, or that Windows is one; they certainly don't know that there are options. They don't know the difference between memory and storage, they don't know the difference between the desktop and the hard drive; if you change their wallpaper they freak out that their computer is broken, etc etc etc. Computer runs slow? It's been two years, buy another.
To respond to the question in question, yes, Linux is light-years out of touch--not that it's unusable, but that most users don't know what it is, where to get it, or why they'd want it. The fact that it's bulletproof against malware isn't enough--they fear change more. Don't underestimate the power of inertia.