"Microsoft Word has committed an error and must be closed" is about the most useful information for basic users. What information could you give them that's actually useful and valuable? The DLL that failed? Why will they care? What error did Microsoft Word commit? Again, why would they care? That information is available for me, as a technical user, if I want it--but I have to click a button to access it and it's out of the way of those end users.
End users given more detail can be surprisingly effective at resolving problems. For example end user deletes:
abc.dll and then gets an "file not found -- abc.dll" so they think "better put that back".
In the 1980s everyone used a CLI even on home systems. What do you think has happened since then has caused people to lose so much intelligence?
Seriously though. For Linux to be successful there needs to be a cultural transformation with regard to computing. The idea we are going to provide less information to avoid confusing people is a terrible culture.
Yesterday I was having a serious problem with my DVR, I would have loved some way to look at a log file and figure out what was going wrong. It is much harder to reverse engineer in the absence of information than to respond to complex information. That's why diagnostic medicine (for example) is so complex and error prone.
HIPPA ain't close to what you would need to keep this information secure. The thing that is really working is that the records are so fragmented now they have very little value.
The medical record system has to be integrated with the rest of the business, like insurance claims processing. Further the machines have to not support standard networking otherwise anyone of them could be a relay point.
You are talking about millions and millions of machines here.
OK I can see that working. With a dozen rings of defense you get rid of most of the incentives to puncture 5 of them since the majority are still left. The conspiracy just takes too many people.
Oh I see. You mean make it illegal to receive the records not create them. That means you have to hit extracts from, derived works from the records regardless of source. I have some serious questions about the constitutionality of laws like that. Remember you have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a law was broken.
Try and write one up that gets around all the ways the data can me modified and then sold.
I don't see that as likely working. The main problem is the only crimes the US law enforcement seem to really care about are speeding and murder.
A produces a legit machine which can access records B produces a machine that spoof being a machine of type A but also copies the records off via email. C owns a medical office D get a job in C's office as a receptionist. and replaces A's machines with B's machines over a period of a week. D then quits and gets a job at another office....
E lives outside the US and receives the records. Each machine of type B has pushing through say 500 records / week on average. Placement is currently costing about $1500 per machine and they work for say 20 weeks on average before the scam is discovered.
I had that with a Verizon DSL line. It was just a setting that could be changed via the web configuration. Actually I used Linux to solve that, because with Linux you can set the broadcast MAC address to whatever you want.
Essentially what you need is DRM. The data is only available on a limited number of machines and then strictly limited in what you can do with it, with strong audit trails. Not using general purpose computers but rather devices might help.
But in the end I don't think this is likely to work, the incentives for hacking are too strong and the distribution has to be too wide. EHRs mean that there will be substantially less medical privacy in exchange for better medical care and lower costs (70b-300b / year). That doesn't seem like a bad trade.
The thing is there is likely embarrassing stuff on most people's medical records.
A used to use drugs B had a horrible depression C has a fatal disease that kill them over the next 10 years D got an STD at a sex party
etc...
Right now people freely talk about physical injuries they got from reckless behavior. It could be that with leakage mental disorders stop being something that people have more embarrassment about discussing.
Apple's first big loss to Microsoft was thinking people would pay more for mac quality
They would pay more. It was a question of how much more for how much more quality. The same thing (and it is easier to compare) happened to IBM with their MicroChannel computers. Those were unquestionably the best PCs in their classes, the problem was the ratios sucked:
Microchannel 386SX cost what a generic 486DX cost low range Microchannel 486DX cost what a super high end generic cost
I remember when the Pentiums 60, 66, 75mhx came out the 75mhx Microchannel was $10,000 with a reasonable configuration while you could get the Ambra (high end non Microchannel IBM) with almost the same configuration for $3500.
I was a regular CC customer, thinking of it for about 18 years. I saw them as a slightly upscale version of BB, so I guess I agree but I didn't see it as a mistake. They could be a pleasant shopping experience something is almost never the case at a BB. Pricewise they were in line with BB and I liked their warranties.
I have a bunch of their warranties, on GPSs and about 4 months ago I bought a widescreen with a 4 year warranty from them, hope it doesn't break.
I think if I were them I might have gone even a little more upscale in terms of amount and knowledge of staff. Oh well.
Libraries are not code reuse they are use. Reuse would be taking code from a library and building another library. So no I don't consider using a library to be code reuse.
But very few libraries are released GPL. So I'm not sure how relevant it is.
I think 98% penetration is reasonable, and we are mostly there.
Cable DSL Direct TV (any house with a clear view of the south)
My guess is that gets you to 95% of American households having the capability. In terms of pricing lets not forget how much speed is improving and bandwidth usage increasing. They are moving a lot more bytes. That being said regulation might help.
OTOH in terms of projects growing and forking and branching off from one another and then rejoining its hard to make any claims that the GPLed code doesn't encourage that. I think the evidence if you look at the large GPLed projects:
Linux kernel KDE Emacs GNU tools (binutil, bash...) GCC
Assuming you have source getting old software to work usually is not a big deal, for a programmer. For example IBM was able to port all sorts of mainframe apps over to OS/2 easily and these used to be available on the IBM OS/2 bbs.
The net is filled with people who got old games to run even without source code.
Did you ever consider that this might be her first computer purchase?
If this was her first car purchase would we expect basic troubleshooting? 2 years ago I did my first mid priced bike purchase and had to learn maintenance. I also had to learn a hell of a lot about bikes to make it. I wasn't born knowing the plusses and minus of various gear systems of what different frame geometries meant.
I recently did my first house purchase. There were hundreds of pages of documentation regarding loans, titling, maintenance, insurance. I had to do. Heck I just did a $200 extra tank you county would have fined me huge if I didn't follow pages and pages of complex instructions and it was my obligation to find those instructions.
Every year I do my taxes. I probably have to do a dozen forms with 12-40 pages of instructions each. Now admittedly this is a one time learning curve but that is a lot of material.
This woman is an adult, not a nine year old. So yes I expect she knows how to do basic research. I expect her to have access to a network of friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances that can help. I expect her to know how to use tech support, beyond the basics.
Anyone of those would have solved this problem.
Did you ever consider that she might not HAVE another configured machine to connect to the internet and do said research?
Library, friends, school, work....
Further: the woman is taking a course to figure out how to use office. OFFICE!
How do you know that? The article just says that she said it was a requirement for some online class she is taking. So I think you are mistaken. But if you were correct that means she most certainly didn't buy the right thing. Ubuntu doesn't run Microsoft Office.
Dell or the Ubuntu designers should provide tutorials that AUTOMATICALLLY RUN unless you tell them not to, and those tutorials should lay-out the basic steps to create an office document, and the steps required to connect to the internet.
Actually a better solution would be I think Ubuntu should have a package "Verizon internet connect" which does the 3 steps from the install CD. Then Verizon / Dell could just have her do that.
A "how to do stuff with your computer" a printed manual would be very useful. That could lead to the tutorials.
You are treating a feature like a cost saving disadvantage, removing the importance of the software repository model of distribution.
For example a lamborghini doesn't have a comment in the guide that sells
"To be able to get the acceleration this car burns through tons of gas and costs a fortune to repair. Some drivers enjoy the extra acceleration but if you really need to do anything practical you may want to consider a Ford Taurus".
Slashdot Mirror
"Microsoft Word has committed an error and must be closed" is about the most useful information for basic users. What information could you give them that's actually useful and valuable? The DLL that failed? Why will they care? What error did Microsoft Word commit? Again, why would they care? That information is available for me, as a technical user, if I want it--but I have to click a button to access it and it's out of the way of those end users.
End users given more detail can be surprisingly effective at resolving problems. For example end user deletes:
abc.dll and then gets an "file not found -- abc.dll" so they think "better put that back".
In the 1980s everyone used a CLI even on home systems. What do you think has happened since then has caused people to lose so much intelligence?
Seriously though. For Linux to be successful there needs to be a cultural transformation with regard to computing. The idea we are going to provide less information to avoid confusing people is a terrible culture.
Yesterday I was having a serious problem with my DVR, I would have loved some way to look at a log file and figure out what was going wrong. It is much harder to reverse engineer in the absence of information than to respond to complex information. That's why diagnostic medicine (for example) is so complex and error prone.
You can be HIPPA complaint and insecure. So it may end up doing the opposite.
HIPPA ain't close to what you would need to keep this information secure. The thing that is really working is that the records are so fragmented now they have very little value.
Once everyone's records are out there everyone ends up having bad stuff.
The medical record system has to be integrated with the rest of the business, like insurance claims processing. Further the machines have to not support standard networking otherwise anyone of them could be a relay point.
You are talking about millions and millions of machines here.
It is almost impossible to get a complete medical history in the US. The system is too decentralized.
OK I can see that working. With a dozen rings of defense you get rid of most of the incentives to puncture 5 of them since the majority are still left. The conspiracy just takes too many people.
Oh I see. You mean make it illegal to receive the records not create them. That means you have to hit extracts from, derived works from the records regardless of source. I have some serious questions about the constitutionality of laws like that. Remember you have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a law was broken.
Try and write one up that gets around all the ways the data can me modified and then sold.
The thing is that everyone is an A,B a C or a D.... You have to hire someone.
I don't see that as likely working. The main problem is the only crimes the US law enforcement seem to really care about are speeding and murder.
A produces a legit machine which can access records
B produces a machine that spoof being a machine of type A but also copies the records off via email.
C owns a medical office
D get a job in C's office as a receptionist. and replaces A's machines with B's machines over a period of a week. D then quits and gets a job at another office....
E lives outside the US and receives the records. Each machine of type B has pushing through say 500 records / week on average. Placement is currently costing about $1500 per machine and they work for say 20 weeks on average before the scam is discovered.
That works out to 7 records for a $1.
I had that with a Verizon DSL line. It was just a setting that could be changed via the web configuration. Actually I used Linux to solve that, because with Linux you can set the broadcast MAC address to whatever you want.
Essentially what you need is DRM. The data is only available on a limited number of machines and then strictly limited in what you can do with it, with strong audit trails. Not using general purpose computers but rather devices might help.
But in the end I don't think this is likely to work, the incentives for hacking are too strong and the distribution has to be too wide. EHRs mean that there will be substantially less medical privacy in exchange for better medical care and lower costs (70b-300b / year). That doesn't seem like a bad trade.
The thing is there is likely embarrassing stuff on most people's medical records.
A used to use drugs
B had a horrible depression
C has a fatal disease that kill them over the next 10 years
D got an STD at a sex party
etc...
Right now people freely talk about physical injuries they got from reckless behavior. It could be that with leakage mental disorders stop being something that people have more embarrassment about discussing.
Thank you. Glad it helped.
Apple's first big loss to Microsoft was thinking people would pay more for mac quality
They would pay more. It was a question of how much more for how much more quality. The same thing (and it is easier to compare) happened to IBM with their MicroChannel computers. Those were unquestionably the best PCs in their classes, the problem was the ratios sucked:
Microchannel 386SX cost what a generic 486DX cost
low range Microchannel 486DX cost what a super high end generic cost
I remember when the Pentiums 60, 66, 75mhx came out the 75mhx Microchannel was $10,000 with a reasonable configuration while you could get the Ambra (high end non Microchannel IBM) with almost the same configuration for $3500.
I was a regular CC customer, thinking of it for about 18 years. I saw them as a slightly upscale version of BB, so I guess I agree but I didn't see it as a mistake. They could be a pleasant shopping experience something is almost never the case at a BB. Pricewise they were in line with BB and I liked their warranties.
I have a bunch of their warranties, on GPSs and about 4 months ago I bought a widescreen with a 4 year warranty from them, hope it doesn't break.
I think if I were them I might have gone even a little more upscale in terms of amount and knowledge of staff. Oh well.
Libraries are not code reuse they are use. Reuse would be taking code from a library and building another library. So no I don't consider using a library to be code reuse.
But very few libraries are released GPL. So I'm not sure how relevant it is.
I think 98% penetration is reasonable, and we are mostly there.
Cable
DSL
Direct TV (any house with a clear view of the south)
My guess is that gets you to 95% of American households having the capability. In terms of pricing lets not forget how much speed is improving and bandwidth usage increasing. They are moving a lot more bytes. That being said regulation might help.
There is very little code reuse anywhere.
OTOH in terms of projects growing and forking and branching off from one another and then rejoining its hard to make any claims that the GPLed code doesn't encourage that. I think the evidence if you look at the large GPLed projects:
Linux kernel
KDE
Emacs
GNU tools (binutil, bash...)
GCC
Is that this happens quite freely.
OK I tried. Right after I click that what I see on the right hand column is:
Ubuntu Linux version 8.04.1
Obsidian Black
1Yr Ltd Warranty and Mail-In Service
512MB DDR2 at 533MHz
4GB Solid State Drive
No Camera Option
It is the very first line item.
I'd say it was more intimate. People knew each other. Even the largest discussions groups (usenet) would have under 100 highly active members.
Less useful. Yeah.
Assuming you have source getting old software to work usually is not a big deal, for a programmer. For example IBM was able to port all sorts of mainframe apps over to OS/2 easily and these used to be available on the IBM OS/2 bbs.
The net is filled with people who got old games to run even without source code.
Did you ever consider that this might be her first computer purchase?
If this was her first car purchase would we expect basic troubleshooting? 2 years ago I did my first mid priced bike purchase and had to learn maintenance. I also had to learn a hell of a lot about bikes to make it. I wasn't born knowing the plusses and minus of various gear systems of what different frame geometries meant.
I recently did my first house purchase. There were hundreds of pages of documentation regarding loans, titling, maintenance, insurance. I had to do. Heck I just did a $200 extra tank you county would have fined me huge if I didn't follow pages and pages of complex instructions and it was my obligation to find those instructions.
Every year I do my taxes. I probably have to do a dozen forms with 12-40 pages of instructions each. Now admittedly this is a one time learning curve but that is a lot of material.
This woman is an adult, not a nine year old. So yes I expect she knows how to do basic research. I expect her to have access to a network of friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances that can help. I expect her to know how to use tech support, beyond the basics.
Anyone of those would have solved this problem.
Did you ever consider that she might not HAVE another configured machine to connect to the internet and do said research?
Library, friends, school, work....
Further: the woman is taking a course to figure out how to use office. OFFICE!
How do you know that? The article just says that she said it was a requirement for some online class she is taking. So I think you are mistaken. But if you were correct that means she most certainly didn't buy the right thing. Ubuntu doesn't run Microsoft Office.
Dell or the Ubuntu designers should provide tutorials that AUTOMATICALLLY RUN unless you tell them not to, and those tutorials should lay-out the basic steps to create an office document, and the steps required to connect to the internet.
Actually a better solution would be I think Ubuntu should have a package "Verizon internet connect" which does the 3 steps from the install CD. Then Verizon / Dell could just have her do that.
A "how to do stuff with your computer" a printed manual would be very useful. That could lead to the tutorials.
You are treating a feature like a cost saving disadvantage, removing the importance of the software repository model of distribution.
For example a lamborghini doesn't have a comment in the guide that sells
"To be able to get the acceleration this car burns through tons of gas and costs a fortune to repair. Some drivers enjoy the extra acceleration but if you really need to do anything practical you may want to consider a Ford Taurus".