I think that the whole myth surrounding the difficulty with Linux, is that they already know Windows. They get used to one system, and when they go to use another system, they expect it to work exactly the same. I taught my step-mother how to burn CDs using Nero in Windows, then I got sick of maintaining the spyware-infested OS, and forced Linux upon her. She commented that "How would I have known to click 'k3b' to burn CDs?" I replied, "How would you have known to use Nero?"
It's all about teaching someone, and once they learn to use something one way, it's hard to get them to learn a new method. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, as they say.
My step-mom now says how much she loves Linux. She loves no spyware, no pop-ups and spam thanks to Mozzie, and uses OpenOffice without a hitch. (Also uses k3b to burn CDs)
The appeal is the size. Look at it, it's 128mb and 1.5 ounces. It's so super light, it could actually be put into your pocket without a big square lump. I haven't seen a lot of MP3 players, but this looks to be one of the smaller ones out there. And the fact that it can double as your geek-kit-driver-holder is pretty neat.
Maybe this stuff can be put in all those crappy DSL modems and routers that freeze up due to overheating. It would be easier than modding the whole damn thing to pieces with fans and whatnot...
Freevo is a good start. It uses a very straight forward interface that has the most common functions that you are planning on using. Since it's open source, I'm sure you could modify it to have the menu options and programs you want to run on it. Its large font makes it easy to read on TVs and small LCDs alike.
http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
Sorry, I do think that Freevo lacks the MSN icon, so you may be out of luck there...:) better stick with winblows:)
Since this unit looks to be replacing a head unit stereo, why would you want to use a sound processor like an ESS? I would think that an emphasis on sound quality would be the ultimate thing in a stereo situation. I know that the cabin of your car isn't the most efficent place for quality of sound, but you can still tell a lot. I'm no expert on sound chips, but IMHO, ESS isn't the top choice for high qulity sound.
Could the same thing be applied to software? Probably not because of the license you agree to. What if this provokes the RIAA to set up music in a license format?
"By opening this package you agree to the terms of the Listener Licence Agreement on the back of the package"
Thereby you would only be licensed to listen to this CD on a certain device and don't have a license to copy this CD. Oh well It was nice while we had our rights...
You mean, they can check-out the file via CVS, make their enhancement, and then submit their changes to Linus ?
Wow there is this amazing compiler now called GCC, it takes source code and makes it into an executable program! If Linus doesn't accept it, or it takes a long time to get into the main codebase, you can still compile it yourself, and you can still be running a final product!
You know we're talking about secretaries, don't you ?
Yeah but secretaries aren't that intense in the software that they use. And the secretaries aren't going to be the people out doing the software development. You could take the money wasted on MS software, and pay a person to develop something that is totally custom based off existing code. Hell my parents and my younger sister seem to be able to use linux just fine. OpenOffice, Mozilla, Evolution, all work perfectly well. If gnome doesn't float your bubble, then there's KDE and a billion other WM's. You probably are going to be locking down your secretaries computer from doing advanced features anyways, we don't want her updating DNS records or anything.
Let's not take the RedHat vs. Microsoft example then. RedHat drops old versions a lot faster than MS.
Yeah, except you don't have to pay for newer versions of RedHat. You just continue paying for the support. And the support includes helping you upgrade. The bitch with MS, is that they drop the old software, but that forces you to continue to pay for support AND pay for the newer versions of software. So, IMHO RedHat still beats the crap out of Microsoft.
And remember all the distros out there are made by companies that care about big bucks also.
WRONG. There are a few distros out there made by companies that care about big bucks. How about Gentoo? How about Knoppix? How about Debian? How about College Linux? Or Vine or Rock or IPCop or RedFlag... The list goes on...
Seems to me that by them buying MS software, they are only hurting thier economy. They take money that could go to people in the AU, and send it straight to the US. If they were to invest it in Open Source software it would only benefit the AU economy.
All they would have to do to "invest" in open source software, is to hire people to support it. Either they woulc create jobs internally or they would create jobs by contracting out to a business in the area who in turn hires people to do the work. Imagine more people with jobs! They would be able to go out and buy stuff, and support the economy even more. All thanks to open source software
WTF is flamebait about that? It's 100% true. I don't even remotely see how this is a flame! Everyone bitches about Comcast, and if you read up in the posts you see that everyone says what a crappy interface the Digital Cable boxes have. What tard moderators.
Yeah they rock unless you want to print on legal paper. Appearantly the drum circumfrence isn't long enough to print a full legal sheet of paper, so you wind up getting this 1 inch margin on the top and the bottom. This would be fine and woudln't bother me, if only I had known this when I bought the dedicated legal tray. Whats the point of a legal tray if you can't print the full sheet of legal paper (i.e. LEGAL documents) ?
By value, they mean that they can shove more advertising down your throat. More value for them. They already have ads on the sides where valuable information could be kept. Noooo, we'd hate to sacrifice a little bit of money in order to make this a great service. Now they can have ads come up in the middle of the screen, "Would you like to see more information on the Pepsi(TM) that you just saw Britney Spears drinking?" And that could redirect you to some websites with more popups and annoying shit that people who just learned how to flip channels, won't know how to deal with.
Cumcast has such potential as to what they really could be providing to thier customers. The bandwidth that they have, and the possible services that they could be providing to customers is endless. Instead they just look at inital costs, and just how can they squeeze another penny out of you with out spending anything. So, no there is NO benefit to cable customers.
I can't believe that people put up with the current Cumcast Digital Cable. Hell, half the channels aren't digital, and the other half are so impossible to find using the program guide. Where is my option to turn off the channels I don't have? Where is my favorites menu? The interface is a piece of crap and the cost of the service is absolutely outrageous. Basic expanded cable TV itself is $38.00/mo. I can get the same from Dish for about $25.00/mo. Oh yeah thats with a REALLY cool reciever box, ALL digital channels, and no advertising on the program guide. I'm sure DirecTV has very similar pricing plans, as I know that nobody is nearly as expensive as Comcast.
Sun's not the only place using Netscape 4.x. The entire school district at which I used to attend still uses it. They don't have any custom applications or anything written for it, but they seem to be attached to the Roming Profiles feature of Netscape 4 which seems to be completely absent from Mozilla or any of the newer vesions of Netscape. This feature allows you to set up a server for which you use to log into Netscape, and the server carries all of your e-mail, bookmarks, and preferences. This makes it wicked easy for students to be able to sit down at any computer in the school district (Mainly OS9-based Macs) and check thier mail. Too bad its missing from any other web browser today.
Fine by me... I'm so sick of everybody and thier dog ripping low bitrate, crap quality music with RealJukebox or whatever and sharing them. Partial downloads are a pain in the ass, because so many people share them. I don't really care if only people who are slightly more knowledgeable with computers are the ones doing the swapping, because it only means that the quality will go up...
Is it just me, or is sales for EVERYBODY seem to be a little bit slumped? From what I learned in a basic economics class, is that the economy can go up and down. You would think that since we've got the worst economy in 20 or so years, maybe people are holding off on buying CDs to do things like, oh I don't know.. PAY THE BILLS?
Perhaps sales for them will start going back up when jobs quit getting exported overseas, when people start buying things as locally as possible, and corporations stop paying people dick for wages. I think if this were to happen, people here would have more money, and they could buy more CDs.
Parent is right, get rid of.DOC files. They are the main source of incompatibility, and the main thing that keeps people from getting away from MS Office. The problem I see with the open source word processors, is the incompatable file formats. I'm aware that they are open formats, mostly XML format, but for crying out loud I can't send my OpenOffice document to my friend who uses AbiWord or KOffice. That is very frustrating. What is needed is ONE open format, not 3. This is the only way that people are going to get a real choice.
I'm the IT guy for mortgage company. This industry makes everything a real pain in the ass to switch ANYTHING to open software. To send loan documents to banks electronicly, most of the banks have ActiveX apps that only run in IE to upload files magically. Every bank does it a different way, and they all only set things up for windows. And they send everything in Excel or Word format.
I'm trying to get this mortgage company as open as possible. I'm forcing them to use OpenOffice, and I only get away with this because I tell the owner that it saves the company thousands of dollars every year. OO is as far as I have gotten, as Wine won't run thier loan processing software due to it integrating Internet Explorer. When are programmers for proprietary software, like mortgage processing apps, going to get away from the crash-laden, virus-running, forces-me-to-give-users-administrative-access, web browser and OS.
I've tried talking to the companies that make the software, and they have heard the complaints from the IT guys a million times before. They just don't care.... It's frustrating...
Well, if you CHOOSE to be a farmer, and provide food to people around the world, or if you CHOOSE to ranch cattle, or raise any kind of animals as your job, why should you be punished by the telcos by not getting phone access?
People who live way out in BFE would not have telephone access if it weren't for programs like this. The telcos don't give a flying fuck about people who live in sparse areas. They would rather not even run a pair of copper out to these people because the profits for them would be too low or in the negative.
You think that the farmers don't deserve equal access to emergency communications? How about the border guards who live along the sparse Canadian borders along Washington, Idaho, Montana, etc? Should they not need communications access? Or should we just not have a border patrol at at all?
I'm sure the costs of buying hundreds of acres of land is probably not too much less than your silly mortgage payment. Why not just give these people a break, since the farmers are already slowly dying off...
Man, I have a 450MHz G4 at work that I use every day. It blows away my AMD Athlon 3000+. I mean not just a little, but it really BLOWS it away in mulitples. The 450MHz G4 is easily 4X faster than my Athlon. Especially when I load OSX on my computer, it really takes advantage of my Vector Processing Unit well, and lets the G4 shine.
Ah yes, you are right. We live in BFE and that's what made me realize think that everyone could get it. I suppose that if Dish didn't have equipment set up to pick up the local channels in an area, you couldn't get them. We used to have the LA stations, and it was really really wierd to watch. Car chases CONSTANTLY interruping shows...
Yes that used to be true, but they released that problem, oh about 2 years ago or so. Both DirecTV and Dish Network offer local channels now. At least they do in 99% of the country, not sure about where you live tho....
Uhm, last time I checked, Cable and Satellite didn't do a very good job getting local broadcast channels in very clear. Cable just looks like CRAP. Satellite does a better job, but they just rebroadcast digitally the signal they pick up over the air anyways. If you live in a metro area, and put up a properly configured antenna, the signal absolutely will BLOW AWAY any cable or satellite feed you can get.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah thing is, she doesn't know what a ROM is. More or less its a technical looking term that scares her into not wanting to click that.
I think that the whole myth surrounding the difficulty with Linux, is that they already know Windows. They get used to one system, and when they go to use another system, they expect it to work exactly the same. I taught my step-mother how to burn CDs using Nero in Windows, then I got sick of maintaining the spyware-infested OS, and forced Linux upon her. She commented that "How would I have known to click 'k3b' to burn CDs?" I replied, "How would you have known to use Nero?"
It's all about teaching someone, and once they learn to use something one way, it's hard to get them to learn a new method. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, as they say.
My step-mom now says how much she loves Linux. She loves no spyware, no pop-ups and spam thanks to Mozzie, and uses OpenOffice without a hitch. (Also uses k3b to burn CDs)
There are TONS of other small mp3 players like this... it's really nothing new...
0 06RVH3/104-5806291-7855108?v=glance&me=ATVPDKIKX0D ER
2 000/R eviews/product/read_product/1,7235,3310,00.html
RipFlash http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00
Irock 520
http://hardwarecentral.dealtime.com/dealtime
Sony NW MS9
http://sudhian.dealtime.com/xPR-Sony_NW_MS9
The list goes on and on...
Just search google... Like I did....
The appeal is the size. Look at it, it's 128mb and 1.5 ounces. It's so super light, it could actually be put into your pocket without a big square lump. I haven't seen a lot of MP3 players, but this looks to be one of the smaller ones out there. And the fact that it can double as your geek-kit-driver-holder is pretty neat.
Maybe this stuff can be put in all those crappy DSL modems and routers that freeze up due to overheating. It would be easier than modding the whole damn thing to pieces with fans and whatnot...
Freevo is a good start. It uses a very straight forward interface that has the most common functions that you are planning on using. Since it's open source, I'm sure you could modify it to have the menu options and programs you want to run on it. Its large font makes it easy to read on TVs and small LCDs alike.
:) better stick with winblows :)
http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
Sorry, I do think that Freevo lacks the MSN icon, so you may be out of luck there...
Since this unit looks to be replacing a head unit stereo, why would you want to use a sound processor like an ESS? I would think that an emphasis on sound quality would be the ultimate thing in a stereo situation. I know that the cabin of your car isn't the most efficent place for quality of sound, but you can still tell a lot. I'm no expert on sound chips, but IMHO, ESS isn't the top choice for high qulity sound.
Could the same thing be applied to software? Probably not because of the license you agree to. What if this provokes the RIAA to set up music in a license format?
"By opening this package you agree to the terms of the Listener Licence Agreement on the back of the package"
Thereby you would only be licensed to listen to this CD on a certain device and don't have a license to copy this CD. Oh well It was nice while we had our rights...
You mean, they can check-out the file via CVS, make their enhancement, and then submit their changes to Linus ?
Wow there is this amazing compiler now called GCC, it takes source code and makes it into an executable program! If Linus doesn't accept it, or it takes a long time to get into the main codebase, you can still compile it yourself, and you can still be running a final product!
You know we're talking about secretaries, don't you ?
Yeah but secretaries aren't that intense in the software that they use. And the secretaries aren't going to be the people out doing the software development. You could take the money wasted on MS software, and pay a person to develop something that is totally custom based off existing code. Hell my parents and my younger sister seem to be able to use linux just fine. OpenOffice, Mozilla, Evolution, all work perfectly well. If gnome doesn't float your bubble, then there's KDE and a billion other WM's. You probably are going to be locking down your secretaries computer from doing advanced features anyways, we don't want her updating DNS records or anything.
Let's not take the RedHat vs. Microsoft example then. RedHat drops old versions a lot faster than MS.
Yeah, except you don't have to pay for newer versions of RedHat. You just continue paying for the support. And the support includes helping you upgrade. The bitch with MS, is that they drop the old software, but that forces you to continue to pay for support AND pay for the newer versions of software. So, IMHO RedHat still beats the crap out of Microsoft.
And remember all the distros out there are made by companies that care about big bucks also.
WRONG. There are a few distros out there made by companies that care about big bucks. How about Gentoo? How about Knoppix? How about Debian? How about College Linux? Or Vine or Rock or IPCop or RedFlag... The list goes on...
Seems to me that by them buying MS software, they are only hurting thier economy. They take money that could go to people in the AU, and send it straight to the US. If they were to invest it in Open Source software it would only benefit the AU economy.
All they would have to do to "invest" in open source software, is to hire people to support it. Either they woulc create jobs internally or they would create jobs by contracting out to a business in the area who in turn hires people to do the work. Imagine more people with jobs! They would be able to go out and buy stuff, and support the economy even more. All thanks to open source software
WTF is flamebait about that? It's 100% true. I don't even remotely see how this is a flame! Everyone bitches about Comcast, and if you read up in the posts you see that everyone says what a crappy interface the Digital Cable boxes have. What tard moderators.
Yeah they rock unless you want to print on legal paper. Appearantly the drum circumfrence isn't long enough to print a full legal sheet of paper, so you wind up getting this 1 inch margin on the top and the bottom. This would be fine and woudln't bother me, if only I had known this when I bought the dedicated legal tray. Whats the point of a legal tray if you can't print the full sheet of legal paper (i.e. LEGAL documents) ?
By value, they mean that they can shove more advertising down your throat. More value for them. They already have ads on the sides where valuable information could be kept. Noooo, we'd hate to sacrifice a little bit of money in order to make this a great service. Now they can have ads come up in the middle of the screen, "Would you like to see more information on the Pepsi(TM) that you just saw Britney Spears drinking?" And that could redirect you to some websites with more popups and annoying shit that people who just learned how to flip channels, won't know how to deal with.
Cumcast has such potential as to what they really could be providing to thier customers. The bandwidth that they have, and the possible services that they could be providing to customers is endless. Instead they just look at inital costs, and just how can they squeeze another penny out of you with out spending anything. So, no there is NO benefit to cable customers.
I can't believe that people put up with the current Cumcast Digital Cable. Hell, half the channels aren't digital, and the other half are so impossible to find using the program guide. Where is my option to turn off the channels I don't have? Where is my favorites menu? The interface is a piece of crap and the cost of the service is absolutely outrageous. Basic expanded cable TV itself is $38.00/mo. I can get the same from Dish for about $25.00/mo. Oh yeah thats with a REALLY cool reciever box, ALL digital channels, and no advertising on the program guide. I'm sure DirecTV has very similar pricing plans, as I know that nobody is nearly as expensive as Comcast.
Sun's not the only place using Netscape 4.x. The entire school district at which I used to attend still uses it. They don't have any custom applications or anything written for it, but they seem to be attached to the Roming Profiles feature of Netscape 4 which seems to be completely absent from Mozilla or any of the newer vesions of Netscape. This feature allows you to set up a server for which you use to log into Netscape, and the server carries all of your e-mail, bookmarks, and preferences. This makes it wicked easy for students to be able to sit down at any computer in the school district (Mainly OS9-based Macs) and check thier mail. Too bad its missing from any other web browser today.
"...Joe Q. Kazaa will get cut out of the loop."
Fine by me... I'm so sick of everybody and thier dog ripping low bitrate, crap quality music with RealJukebox or whatever and sharing them. Partial downloads are a pain in the ass, because so many people share them. I don't really care if only people who are slightly more knowledgeable with computers are the ones doing the swapping, because it only means that the quality will go up...
Is it just me, or is sales for EVERYBODY seem to be a little bit slumped? From what I learned in a basic economics class, is that the economy can go up and down. You would think that since we've got the worst economy in 20 or so years, maybe people are holding off on buying CDs to do things like, oh I don't know.. PAY THE BILLS?
Perhaps sales for them will start going back up when jobs quit getting exported overseas, when people start buying things as locally as possible, and corporations stop paying people dick for wages. I think if this were to happen, people here would have more money, and they could buy more CDs.
Guess they're not so Open about things after all?
Where do they come up with these names?
Parent is right, get rid of .DOC files. They are the main source of incompatibility, and the main thing that keeps people from getting away from MS Office. The problem I see with the open source word processors, is the incompatable file formats. I'm aware that they are open formats, mostly XML format, but for crying out loud I can't send my OpenOffice document to my friend who uses AbiWord or KOffice. That is very frustrating. What is needed is ONE open format, not 3. This is the only way that people are going to get a real choice.
I'm the IT guy for mortgage company. This industry makes everything a real pain in the ass to switch ANYTHING to open software. To send loan documents to banks electronicly, most of the banks have ActiveX apps that only run in IE to upload files magically. Every bank does it a different way, and they all only set things up for windows. And they send everything in Excel or Word format.
I'm trying to get this mortgage company as open as possible. I'm forcing them to use OpenOffice, and I only get away with this because I tell the owner that it saves the company thousands of dollars every year. OO is as far as I have gotten, as Wine won't run thier loan processing software due to it integrating Internet Explorer. When are programmers for proprietary software, like mortgage processing apps, going to get away from the crash-laden, virus-running, forces-me-to-give-users-administrative-access, web browser and OS.
I've tried talking to the companies that make the software, and they have heard the complaints from the IT guys a million times before. They just don't care.... It's frustrating...
Here is some info for those of you who would like to know more about Jabber and how it's doing in AU.
/ 13 152
r ou ps.htm
http://www.jabber.org.au/
http://australia.internet.com/r/article/jsp/sid
http://www1.hurgh.org:81/
http://support.jabber.com/jimhelpfiles/Shared_G
Well, if you CHOOSE to be a farmer, and provide food to people around the world, or if you CHOOSE to ranch cattle, or raise any kind of animals as your job, why should you be punished by the telcos by not getting phone access?
People who live way out in BFE would not have telephone access if it weren't for programs like this. The telcos don't give a flying fuck about people who live in sparse areas. They would rather not even run a pair of copper out to these people because the profits for them would be too low or in the negative.
You think that the farmers don't deserve equal access to emergency communications? How about the border guards who live along the sparse Canadian borders along Washington, Idaho, Montana, etc? Should they not need communications access? Or should we just not have a border patrol at at all?
I'm sure the costs of buying hundreds of acres of land is probably not too much less than your silly mortgage payment. Why not just give these people a break, since the farmers are already slowly dying off...
MOD PARENT UP!
Man, I have a 450MHz G4 at work that I use every day. It blows away my AMD Athlon 3000+. I mean not just a little, but it really BLOWS it away in mulitples. The 450MHz G4 is easily 4X faster than my Athlon. Especially when I load OSX on my computer, it really takes advantage of my Vector Processing Unit well, and lets the G4 shine.
I AGREE!!
Why the hell do we watch all the goddamn advertising?
We pay for cable TV...
Then we watch commercials... which, uh, pays for cable TV.
I can see paying for HBO, there are NO COMMERCIALS.
But check out Comedy Central, COMMERCIALS.
E!, COMMERCIALS.
MTV, COMMERCIALS.
CNN, COMMERCIALS.
Sci-Fi, COMMERCIALS.
ESPN, COMMERCIALS.
TechTV, COMMERCIALS.
Nickelodeon, COMMERCIALS.
Cartoon Network, COMMERCIALS.
Discovery Channel, COMMERCIALS.
Get the point?
Next thing you know, they'll be showing commercials in movie theaters.... oh wait....
Ah yes, you are right. We live in BFE and that's what made me realize think that everyone could get it. I suppose that if Dish didn't have equipment set up to pick up the local channels in an area, you couldn't get them. We used to have the LA stations, and it was really really wierd to watch. Car chases CONSTANTLY interruping shows...
Yes that used to be true, but they released that problem, oh about 2 years ago or so. Both DirecTV and Dish Network offer local channels now. At least they do in 99% of the country, not sure about where you live tho....
Uhm, last time I checked, Cable and Satellite didn't do a very good job getting local broadcast channels in very clear. Cable just looks like CRAP. Satellite does a better job, but they just rebroadcast digitally the signal they pick up over the air anyways. If you live in a metro area, and put up a properly configured antenna, the signal absolutely will BLOW AWAY any cable or satellite feed you can get.