I agree. I work for a large (thousands of employees) company and we won't switch from M$ Office until Microsoft freezes over. One thing worth pointing out, though, is how needlessly complex people make documents. If you look at the sample doc, there's nothing in there that *needs* to be as complex as it is. There's no reason that document shouldn't render in Office 3. M$ just made it fancier than it needed to be, as do many people. OTOH, lots of 'interactive' Excel stuff can be handled by web apps as well. They made a timecard for us here in Excel, which is great--except that the 300+ Mac users in the building can't use it. No reason for something like that not to be on our Intranet instead, driven by (scripting language of your choice) and (database of your choice.) (I also enjoy pointing out that a document, _created_by_microsoft_, is unreadable in what they say are comparable and compatible products.)
here is a page I made showing how Windows/MSOffice, Windows/OO, Linux/OO, and Mac/MSOffice handle the same document--a document, as it happens, that comes straight from Microsoft.
I have an iMac DV (graphite), and I DON'T have it plugged into a network, and it's NOT configured for Wake-on-Lan, nor is it configured to wake on phone rings, and I don't have any infrared devices that I know about, and I have an optical mouse, so it won't wake if the mouse gets moved, and it still wakes up when I vaccum my living room or turn on my slide projector.
Obviously, iMacs get jealous whenever another electrical device in the room gets used. "*sniff* there he is, vaccuming again. Maybe if I turn myself on he'll come play with me."
Start using StarOffice or OpenOffice right now. Open as many existing documents as you can, make sure they print well, etc etc etc. THEN, switch operating systems. It's much easier (and costs the same) to do one at a time than both. As you transition, start with dual-boot systems. Have them work in Linux as much as possible and keep track of how often and why they go into Windows. (No, you don't want them switching OSs like you switch apps, think of it like an errand run-- figure out a few things you need to do in the other OS before you switch.) But the main thing is, do it gradually. If you want this done by Sept 1st, don't go around formatting things Aug 30th. Remember the thing about free tools: it costs nothing to start using them immediately.
Also, if possible, start converting old docs to the new formats-- that way, it's in a documented open format and you'll have your data no matter what, not a ???mystery??? binary file that can't be read by anything.
and it was good. peter parker couldn't act his way out of a paper bag-- every scene with him and his family or that nipply chick ground the movie to a halt. there he is, crying, looking like he's trying not to laugh. but the story was good, the action was good, the pacing was good, smooth, and deliberate, not rushed, and jameson stole the show with only a couple short scenes. i'm a computer geek, not a comic geek, so I don't know how 'true' it was to the whole thing, blah blah blah, but overall, it was good. now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go stand in line for ep2.
If we could get just 1% of that...
on
Lunar Power
·
· Score: 1
Reminds me of early Internet business plans (~1995)-- they always included the line "There are X many people using the Internet. If we could get just 10% of them to visit our site..."
And if we all banded together somehow, and wanted to votefuck Hollings when he's up for re-election, could we win?
If we all went out and actually voted, then yes, it'd be a cinch. We could slasdhot any senator, any day. The problem is, it takes a long time to gather critical mass (again, look at the NRA) and even then, it ebbs and flows (1992 pissed off the NRA, they cleaned house in 1994, then in 1996 they lost all their momentum and Clinton stayed in). You have to convince everyone to become a single-issue voter, which is tough--as much as people hate the DMCA, people also have strong feelings on abortion, gun control, etc. Also, you have to somehow (and this is the hard part) move them to vote. Every year in college, someone came along and said "Last year, X students out of Y voted. Senator Z won last year by less than (Y-X) votes, so if every college student voted, he'd lose!" And every year, 4% of the population votes, and things never change. All in all, I'd love to see this happen, and if the geekpac page says on the front "we read his article and he's right!" then my check will be in the mail.
Beige is the color of dust. Look at a beige PC. Now look at a black PC. Now wait a month and look at them again. See the difference? That's why, when you're deploying a few hundred boxes to an office full of humans, clothes, and carpeting, you want them beige.
By piggybacking the.prn issue onto the same bill, they might actually get the.prn issue through into law.
or, more likely, kill the whole thing because of the stupidity of the.prn part. *that* is what happens all the time. someone tacks on a dumb, unrelated 'rider' and the whole thing dies.
The page says the game requires "3.5 or more PalmOS(s)". I can get two instances of PalmOS running at once, *maybe* two and a half on a good day, but three and a half Palm OSs... man, that's more than I can do. They must have some really good engineers over there.
ttr is *hysterical*, not to mention chock-full of violence and nudity. Go kill
this poor guy's server and get yerself the ~35 MB mpg to see for yourself. Every bit as good as the original Spirit of Xmas.
"It's the same information as the front of the license," said Frank Mandelbaum, chairman and chief executive of Intelli- Check, a manufacturer of license-scanning equipment based in Woodbury, N.Y. "If I were to go into a bar and they had a photocopier, they could photocopy the license or they could write it down. They are not giving us any information that violates privacy."
And people are going to hate it for the same reason that the RIAA and MPAA hate computers--because collecting data slowly by hand is one thing, but the speed with which you can collect a huge amount of data with a computer is another. Ripping an MP3 is not much different from taping a song for all practical purposes, but the fact that it's digitized and compressed means it's easy to share and copy. Having an attendant furiously writing down names is one thing, getitng it all in a <1 second DL swipe is another.
Same thing with automated face recognition-- putting cops everywhere with mug books is one thing, cameras hooked up to recognition software is quite another.
*I* want the display: "Sun also unveiled its new 24-inch flat panel monitor, the first digital interface display in the industry to deliver 1920 X 1200 resolution at 60 Hz, fully supporting 2.3 million pixels."
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. I work for a large (thousands of employees) company and we won't switch from M$ Office until Microsoft freezes over. One thing worth pointing out, though, is how needlessly complex people make documents. If you look at the sample doc, there's nothing in there that *needs* to be as complex as it is. There's no reason that document shouldn't render in Office 3. M$ just made it fancier than it needed to be, as do many people. OTOH, lots of 'interactive' Excel stuff can be handled by web apps as well. They made a timecard for us here in Excel, which is great--except that the 300+ Mac users in the building can't use it. No reason for something like that not to be on our Intranet instead, driven by (scripting language of your choice) and (database of your choice.) (I also enjoy pointing out that a document, _created_by_microsoft_, is unreadable in what they say are comparable and compatible products.)
Ack! My DSL is already glowing. Shoulda known better, even for such a lightweight page. OK, it's now mirrored on a real server.
here is a page I made showing how Windows/MSOffice, Windows/OO, Linux/OO, and Mac/MSOffice handle the same document--a document, as it happens, that comes straight from Microsoft.
Obviously, iMacs get jealous whenever another electrical device in the room gets used. "*sniff* there he is, vaccuming again. Maybe if I turn myself on he'll come play with me."
Also, if possible, start converting old docs to the new formats-- that way, it's in a documented open format and you'll have your data no matter what, not a ???mystery??? binary file that can't be read by anything.
and it was good. peter parker couldn't act his way out of a paper bag-- every scene with him and his family or that nipply chick ground the movie to a halt. there he is, crying, looking like he's trying not to laugh. but the story was good, the action was good, the pacing was good, smooth, and deliberate, not rushed, and jameson stole the show with only a couple short scenes. i'm a computer geek, not a comic geek, so I don't know how 'true' it was to the whole thing, blah blah blah, but overall, it was good. now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go stand in line for ep2.
Reminds me of early Internet business plans (~1995)-- they always included the line "There are X many people using the Internet. If we could get just 10% of them to visit our site..."
So do both-- write to them, expressing your support *and* asking them to change their plans.
The day pols stop taking money is the day the Earth stops spinning.
If we all went out and actually voted, then yes, it'd be a cinch. We could slasdhot any senator, any day. The problem is, it takes a long time to gather critical mass (again, look at the NRA) and even then, it ebbs and flows (1992 pissed off the NRA, they cleaned house in 1994, then in 1996 they lost all their momentum and Clinton stayed in). You have to convince everyone to become a single-issue voter, which is tough--as much as people hate the DMCA, people also have strong feelings on abortion, gun control, etc. Also, you have to somehow (and this is the hard part) move them to vote. Every year in college, someone came along and said "Last year, X students out of Y voted. Senator Z won last year by less than (Y-X) votes, so if every college student voted, he'd lose!" And every year, 4% of the population votes, and things never change. All in all, I'd love to see this happen, and if the geekpac page says on the front "we read his article and he's right!" then my check will be in the mail.
Beige is the color of dust. Look at a beige PC. Now look at a black PC. Now wait a month and look at them again. See the difference? That's why, when you're deploying a few hundred boxes to an office full of humans, clothes, and carpeting, you want them beige.
or, more likely, kill the whole thing because of the stupidity of the .prn part. *that* is what happens all the time. someone tacks on a dumb, unrelated 'rider' and the whole thing dies.
Not to mention Michael J. Fox finding Atlantis last year.
like the old saying goes: if you have to ask, you wouldn't understand the answer.
The page says the game requires "3.5 or more PalmOS(s)". I can get two instances of PalmOS running at once, *maybe* two and a half on a good day, but three and a half Palm OSs... man, that's more than I can do. They must have some really good engineers over there.
ttr is *hysterical*, not to mention chock-full of violence and nudity. Go kill this poor guy's server and get yerself the ~35 MB mpg to see for yourself. Every bit as good as the original Spirit of Xmas.
Easy: Hillary Rosen would spend the rest of her days walking from store to store with a 12-pound sledgehammer.
News for nerds. Unfunny jokes.
if it's funny. look into it.
I've gotten two such letters from various registrars, neither of which was from verisign.
And people are going to hate it for the same reason that the RIAA and MPAA hate computers--because collecting data slowly by hand is one thing, but the speed with which you can collect a huge amount of data with a computer is another. Ripping an MP3 is not much different from taping a song for all practical purposes, but the fact that it's digitized and compressed means it's easy to share and copy. Having an attendant furiously writing down names is one thing, getitng it all in a <1 second DL swipe is another.
Same thing with automated face recognition-- putting cops everywhere with mug books is one thing, cameras hooked up to recognition software is quite another.
*I* want the display: "Sun also unveiled its new 24-inch flat panel monitor, the first digital interface display in the industry to deliver 1920 X 1200 resolution at 60 Hz, fully supporting 2.3 million pixels."
no, but sometimes I'm really, really lazy. besides, copying and pasting is good exercise.
but it's about 450k. http://wearcam.org/steve5.jpg
as long as they don't ever take down http://www.arsdigita.com/books/ I'll be happy.