Anything less is mercenary. The politician you vote for is not the politician you inaugurate. Bush voters know what this means; and soon Hillary voters will, too.
Ain't that the truth. I voted for Bush twice, just to keep out Kerry and Gore. Never again; I'm voting my conscience or not at all. If too many people vote for Hillary then I guess we get what we deserve.
Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, there is definitely a movement against our two party system. The democrats are leaving for the Green Party and some to the Libertarians. The republicans are leaving for the Libertarians and Constitution parties.
I think it'd be nice if such a system had a "similar to:" feature. For example, lets say Joe User has the package manager installed. He goes to it and looks for "Photoshop". Well, he's not going to find Photoshop, but if setup properly he would instead find "GIMP".
No troll, I've been around too long to screw with that stuff.
As far as my personal leanings, most moderates would see me as right leaning, socialists would see me as right leaning, and "conservatives", at least the ones in power, would see me as left leaning.
As I said when I started my post, the three categories I used were broad generalizations, not definitions that I'm using to paint everyone of every political leaning.
It's really simple (generalizations coming - yes, there are exceptions):
Leftists/Socialists tend to: a) follow the herd b) not rock the boat c) not have enough independent thought to try something new. d) be unwilling to work on something that's "too hard"; that's why they want the gov't to do everything for them.
Moderate rightists/Republicans tend to: a) be more independent, but still follow the herd to a large extend. b) don't care what anyone thinks but other "conservatives" c) be market-minded; cost would be one reason they might switch to linux.
"far-right" people/Constitutionalists and Libertarians tend to: a) value privacy b) appreciate fiscal value c) distrust the republicans and the socialists and government in general. d) like control of themselves and their environment.
When you put all of this together you can see why "right" people would be more likely to use Linux. I know that on the whole more conservative types that I know are open to alternative computing than liberals.
Yes... have you ever heard of Ames? Bargains by the Bagful? They've been bankrupt for probably eight years now. The parent describes the reason.
I worked there in high school. Given that I was more competent than 90% of the other staff, they made exceptions for me to get me behind the service desk. That was an eye-opening experience.
A customer brings in a phone, complaining that it doesn't work anymore. He has no receipt. The phone is _yellow_ with smoking stains. The brand of phone is one we haven't carried for at least six months. I tell the guy we can't take it back. The customer gets escalated to management and what happens? Store credit. The guy _should_ have been put out on his ear.
The parent is right. "The customer is always right" is a sure way to go bankrupt. Letting the customer _think_ they're right is good for business.
There's probably a very good, technical reason for this, but I'm going to ask anyway. Why can't KDE and/or Gnome be ported over to Windows? You could then have your free desktop on your already paid for (or pirated) windows installation. You could still run your Windows apps until free alternatives are developed or learned, and then switch to Linux (if you want) when it isn't as painful.
I have a handful of things keeping me from running Linux full time on the desktop, but I wouldn't mind being able to use Gnome instead of Explorer (natively, not via cygwin or whatever).
Semi-autos, your pappy's deer rifle, etc are all valid methods of defense or offense. They help conserve ammunition and keep you from getting too crazy. Without getting into the NFA, the 2A should allow automatic weapons, the same as the guns we can now legally own.
Besides, if there was a conflict between the government or an invading force and united States citizens, the first enemy you kill nets you one of those fancy automatic weapons if you lack the skill to properly employ whatever you have.
My company is close, and it wouldn't surprise me if they decided to ramp up the requirements...
Classes: lower case letters upper case letters numbers symbols
The password has to have eight characters, three of the above four classes, can't contain your name, username, or any part thereof.
You should hear our users whine, even though they could have pretty easy passwords if they stopped to think...
Password1 Pass1234 password! Ilikecheese!
I have a few base passwords, and most systems use a variant of them. Over time, my most secure password rotates to my second most secure password, and so on down the line.
I can't tell you how many times I have had to sit through a minute of "Hi, this is Joe Blow, Manager of widget development for the south-western european region. I'm in the middle of a very important project that... ZZzzzzzzz..." Eventually, he gets to telling me what the problem is.
Or... "Hi, this is Joe with the Baltimore Warehouse." "OK, Joe, what's your last name?" "I'm having problems with my microsoft." "Joe, what's your last name?" "It won't start." "WHAT IS YOUR LAST NAME?!?!" "What?" "WHAT IS YOUR LAST NAME?"
Or...
"Hi, this is Joe Blow, Manager of widget development, and I'm having problems with Outlook." "Ok Joe, let's start -" "Hang on, I need to take this call..."
- Wait three minutes, hang up, repeat. -
Or... "Hi, this is Joe Blow, Manager of widget development, and I'm having problems with Outlook." "Ok Joe, let's start by making sure you're on the network" "Oh, we can't do that now, I'm getting on a plane and have to hang up." "Uh... OK, call us back when you're on the network and available to work then."
Don't call unless you're ready to work and paying attention! Otherwise you're going to make critical mistakes and the support people will just get ticked.
The thing that really ticks me off about the flashing taskbar icon is that it pulls up the task bar if it is hidden. Considering that my taskbar is three units high, this is almost as distracting as just pulling the offending app up.
Books don't fail to boot. Books don't require batteries. Books are often more compact than their electronic equivalent. Books can withstand massive g-forces and falls from great heights. Properly cared for books can last hundreds to thousands of years.
Eight Characters No repeats within 10 passwords No part of your name or username. Change every 90 days.
Three of the following: At least one lower case character At least one upper case character At least one number At least one special character (!@#$, etc)
These are pretty simple. I mean, Password1 or password1! are both acceptable. We _still_ have idiot users who have the memory of a goldfish who can't remember that.
I had a guy the other day who called because his computer was locked and didn't remember his password. He had reset it 70 days before. I told him to just use the password he'd been using for the past 70 days. He said that he didn't have to use it since the day he changed it because he just left the machine logged on!
I get people who write their passwords down all the time and they get incensed when I tell them that it is a really bad idea. Like it is our fault that we make them change their passwords to something that nobody would guess...
I moved almost two years ago from Pennsylvania (about an hour from Philly) to the suburbs of Seattle. Talk about culture shock...
The physical moving of the trappings of your life from one location to another is fairly simple. The pros and cons of DIY vs. paying someone have been pretty well covered. In the end, you'll take better care of your stuff than someone else, regardless of legal liability.
The financial side requires careful consideration. Assuming that you have a place to live, do a mock-up of a budget for one month of living there, exactly as you do where you are (same amount of electricity used, same amount of phone service, same amount of clothing purchased, etc) and compare the final numbers. This is your true financial impact.
The emotional side of things is something only you can know, and you may only truly be able to evaluate in hindsight. Moving to Seattle was better than making my wife miserable, despite the fact that it imparted a fair amount of misery on myself. I hate the city, I hate the traffic, and I hate how everything is so darned expensive. I hate not being able to stretch my arms without hitting someone. I hate the pollution (light, noise, and air) and the "hurry, hurry" feel of everything. On the other hand, it beats having an unhappy wife or no wife, so I deal with it. Although I miss my friends, I'm a fairly solitary person. The thing I hate about the suburbs is the difficulty in finding solitude outside of four walls.
Anyhoo, in the end, you need to decide if it is worth it. If not, you need to figure out what the company needs to do to make it worth it.
This could be OK, but would require maturity that your average college student doesn't possess. I just started going back to college, laptop in hand (dumpster-dived T20/T21). It has been a great tool for me. I can do maple in my Calc II class, for example. For loosely organized classes (read: pointless liberal arts junk), I can get my homework done or work on the tutorial CD that came with the book.
If the textbook industry wasn't such a racket, you could get PDFs of the books and not need to lug around a bunch of textbooks with you. I'd love that! They could sell the PDFs for half of the print book price, or just include them with the print book. It'll never happen, though.
Actually, I'm quite fond of the look. They don't look like some $2 hooker coated in makeup to make her more palatable. I mean really, look at any laptop out there today. How many blue LEDs do you need?
Basic black is where it's at. My old boss used to tell me a story about when he worked at IBM. He said that his boss told him he could wear any color shirt as long as the collar and cuffs were white (implying, of course, that you had to wear a suit). IBM was all business. You have to respect that.
Thankfully, after a massive outbreak of spyware at my company 18 months ago, the users have gotten a little smarter. We still see spyware calls, but it's not like Ad-aware finds 3000 items at a time anymore.
I've said this on another message board before. People treat their computers like microwaves instead of like a complicated device requiring care in handling. Microwaves don't require any maintenance. You give it input (uncooked spam, cooking time) and get an output (tasty cooked spam). It requires no effort on the user's part.
People need to stop assuming that computers cannot be hurt and treat them more gingerly - especially if they don't know what they're doing. Common sense precautions would stop most of this stuff cold, before it coudl spread.
Why not colocate a server (or rent one) off-site? With a decent connection at home, you could back your laptops up over the network a few times a week (maybe use an external USB drive for dailies) and bang, you're done, and someone else can foot the power bill.
On a related note, does anyone have a good source for cheap, naked USB to IDE boards? I don't want an enclosure or power supply, just the board. Google wasn't very useful (most I found cost more than buying an enclosure).
The reason is cost: A user can afford to spend $100-$200 for a legal copy of Windows in the US, but in India due to the exchange rate it becomes a huge amount! It's comparable to the actual price of the desktop, and note that people spend a large fraction of their income to buy a desktop in the first place.
I can build a complete PC, better than the one I use right now for under $200. It's not just India - it's everywhere! I'm seriously unmotivated to pay that for Windows when it essentially doubles my cost.
To paraphrase my good friend Fred, I'm not sailing the seven seas anymore. I've switched to Linux for my personal machines. There may be a learning curve, but it's worth the time I invested in it.
If they're trying to create a demand for tech in India, wouldn't the manufacturer be wise to meet all of the demand there, first, and then ship excess units to the US?
The manufacturer
- sells more units
- meets 100% of the demand of the intended audience
- Doesn't have machines getting obsolete in a warehouse somewhere.
- If they sell more units, they'll need more support, creating more jobs (in India). Those people who just got jobs will suddenly be capable of affording tech, starting some economic growth.
I'm not saying that's what they're doing, but IMHO that's what they should do.
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Ain't that the truth. I voted for Bush twice, just to keep out Kerry and Gore. Never again; I'm voting my conscience or not at all. If too many people vote for Hillary then I guess we get what we deserve.
Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, there is definitely a movement against our two party system. The democrats are leaving for the Green Party and some to the Libertarians. The republicans are leaving for the Libertarians and Constitution parties.
I think it'd be nice if such a system had a "similar to:" feature. For example, lets say Joe User has the package manager installed. He goes to it and looks for "Photoshop". Well, he's not going to find Photoshop, but if setup properly he would instead find "GIMP".
No troll, I've been around too long to screw with that stuff.
As far as my personal leanings, most moderates would see me as right leaning, socialists would see me as right leaning, and "conservatives", at least the ones in power, would see me as left leaning.
As I said when I started my post, the three categories I used were broad generalizations, not definitions that I'm using to paint everyone of every political leaning.
By dictionary and original definition, you're correct; no argument here. However, that's not what the reality is today...
It's really simple (generalizations coming - yes, there are exceptions):
Leftists/Socialists tend to:
a) follow the herd
b) not rock the boat
c) not have enough independent thought to try something new.
d) be unwilling to work on something that's "too hard"; that's why they want the gov't to do everything for them.
Moderate rightists/Republicans tend to:
a) be more independent, but still follow the herd to a large extend.
b) don't care what anyone thinks but other "conservatives"
c) be market-minded; cost would be one reason they might switch to linux.
"far-right" people/Constitutionalists and Libertarians tend to:
a) value privacy
b) appreciate fiscal value
c) distrust the republicans and the socialists and government in general.
d) like control of themselves and their environment.
When you put all of this together you can see why "right" people would be more likely to use Linux. I know that on the whole more conservative types that I know are open to alternative computing than liberals.
Yes... have you ever heard of Ames? Bargains by the Bagful? They've been bankrupt for probably eight years now. The parent describes the reason.
I worked there in high school. Given that I was more competent than 90% of the other staff, they made exceptions for me to get me behind the service desk. That was an eye-opening experience.
A customer brings in a phone, complaining that it doesn't work anymore. He has no receipt. The phone is _yellow_ with smoking stains. The brand of phone is one we haven't carried for at least six months. I tell the guy we can't take it back. The customer gets escalated to management and what happens? Store credit. The guy _should_ have been put out on his ear.
The parent is right. "The customer is always right" is a sure way to go bankrupt. Letting the customer _think_ they're right is good for business.
"I get four rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!"
There's probably a very good, technical reason for this, but I'm going to ask anyway. Why can't KDE and/or Gnome be ported over to Windows? You could then have your free desktop on your already paid for (or pirated) windows installation. You could still run your Windows apps until free alternatives are developed or learned, and then switch to Linux (if you want) when it isn't as painful.
I have a handful of things keeping me from running Linux full time on the desktop, but I wouldn't mind being able to use Gnome instead of Explorer (natively, not via cygwin or whatever).
Semi-autos, your pappy's deer rifle, etc are all valid methods of defense or offense. They help conserve ammunition and keep you from getting too crazy. Without getting into the NFA, the 2A should allow automatic weapons, the same as the guns we can now legally own.
Besides, if there was a conflict between the government or an invading force and united States citizens, the first enemy you kill nets you one of those fancy automatic weapons if you lack the skill to properly employ whatever you have.
My company is close, and it wouldn't surprise me if they decided to ramp up the requirements...
Classes:
lower case letters
upper case letters
numbers
symbols
The password has to have eight characters, three of the above four classes, can't contain your name, username, or any part thereof.
You should hear our users whine, even though they could have pretty easy passwords if they stopped to think...
Password1
Pass1234
password!
Ilikecheese!
I have a few base passwords, and most systems use a variant of them. Over time, my most secure password rotates to my second most secure password, and so on down the line.
... and pay attention.
... ZZzzzzzzz..." Eventually, he gets to telling me what the problem is.
I can't tell you how many times I have had to sit through a minute of "Hi, this is Joe Blow, Manager of widget development for the south-western european region. I'm in the middle of a very important project that
Or... "Hi, this is Joe with the Baltimore Warehouse."
"OK, Joe, what's your last name?"
"I'm having problems with my microsoft."
"Joe, what's your last name?"
"It won't start."
"WHAT IS YOUR LAST NAME?!?!"
"What?"
"WHAT IS YOUR LAST NAME?"
Or...
"Hi, this is Joe Blow, Manager of widget development, and I'm having problems with Outlook."
"Ok Joe, let's start -"
"Hang on, I need to take this call..."
- Wait three minutes, hang up, repeat. -
Or...
"Hi, this is Joe Blow, Manager of widget development, and I'm having problems with Outlook."
"Ok Joe, let's start by making sure you're on the network"
"Oh, we can't do that now, I'm getting on a plane and have to hang up."
"Uh... OK, call us back when you're on the network and available to work then."
Don't call unless you're ready to work and paying attention! Otherwise you're going to make critical mistakes and the support people will just get ticked.
- tell them to go to the "whatever" (Systems/Database/...) Administration department 'cause "they can fix it for you".
That can backfire on you, however. If you keep sending dumb users to colleagues in another department, your colleagues are going to be a bit ticked...
The thing that really ticks me off about the flashing taskbar icon is that it pulls up the task bar if it is hidden. Considering that my taskbar is three units high, this is almost as distracting as just pulling the offending app up.
Books don't fail to boot.
Books don't require batteries.
Books are often more compact than their electronic equivalent.
Books can withstand massive g-forces and falls from great heights.
Properly cared for books can last hundreds to thousands of years.
Now why again should I go exclusively digital?
My company requires:
Eight Characters
No repeats within 10 passwords
No part of your name or username.
Change every 90 days.
Three of the following:
At least one lower case character
At least one upper case character
At least one number
At least one special character (!@#$, etc)
These are pretty simple. I mean, Password1 or password1! are both acceptable. We _still_ have idiot users who have the memory of a goldfish who can't remember that.
I had a guy the other day who called because his computer was locked and didn't remember his password. He had reset it 70 days before. I told him to just use the password he'd been using for the past 70 days. He said that he didn't have to use it since the day he changed it because he just left the machine logged on!
I get people who write their passwords down all the time and they get incensed when I tell them that it is a really bad idea. Like it is our fault that we make them change their passwords to something that nobody would guess...
I moved almost two years ago from Pennsylvania (about an hour from Philly) to the suburbs of Seattle. Talk about culture shock...
The physical moving of the trappings of your life from one location to another is fairly simple. The pros and cons of DIY vs. paying someone have been pretty well covered. In the end, you'll take better care of your stuff than someone else, regardless of legal liability.
The financial side requires careful consideration. Assuming that you have a place to live, do a mock-up of a budget for one month of living there, exactly as you do where you are (same amount of electricity used, same amount of phone service, same amount of clothing purchased, etc) and compare the final numbers. This is your true financial impact.
The emotional side of things is something only you can know, and you may only truly be able to evaluate in hindsight. Moving to Seattle was better than making my wife miserable, despite the fact that it imparted a fair amount of misery on myself. I hate the city, I hate the traffic, and I hate how everything is so darned expensive. I hate not being able to stretch my arms without hitting someone. I hate the pollution (light, noise, and air) and the "hurry, hurry" feel of everything. On the other hand, it beats having an unhappy wife or no wife, so I deal with it. Although I miss my friends, I'm a fairly solitary person. The thing I hate about the suburbs is the difficulty in finding solitude outside of four walls.
Anyhoo, in the end, you need to decide if it is worth it. If not, you need to figure out what the company needs to do to make it worth it.
This could be OK, but would require maturity that your average college student doesn't possess. I just started going back to college, laptop in hand (dumpster-dived T20/T21). It has been a great tool for me. I can do maple in my Calc II class, for example. For loosely organized classes (read: pointless liberal arts junk), I can get my homework done or work on the tutorial CD that came with the book.
If the textbook industry wasn't such a racket, you could get PDFs of the books and not need to lug around a bunch of textbooks with you. I'd love that! They could sell the PDFs for half of the print book price, or just include them with the print book. It'll never happen, though.
Actually, I'm quite fond of the look. They don't look like some $2 hooker coated in makeup to make her more palatable. I mean really, look at any laptop out there today. How many blue LEDs do you need?
Basic black is where it's at. My old boss used to tell me a story about when he worked at IBM. He said that his boss told him he could wear any color shirt as long as the collar and cuffs were white (implying, of course, that you had to wear a suit). IBM was all business. You have to respect that.
Preach on!
Thankfully, after a massive outbreak of spyware at my company 18 months ago, the users have gotten a little smarter. We still see spyware calls, but it's not like Ad-aware finds 3000 items at a time anymore.
I've said this on another message board before. People treat their computers like microwaves instead of like a complicated device requiring care in handling. Microwaves don't require any maintenance. You give it input (uncooked spam, cooking time) and get an output (tasty cooked spam). It requires no effort on the user's part.
People need to stop assuming that computers cannot be hurt and treat them more gingerly - especially if they don't know what they're doing. Common sense precautions would stop most of this stuff cold, before it coudl spread.
Why not colocate a server (or rent one) off-site? With a decent connection at home, you could back your laptops up over the network a few times a week (maybe use an external USB drive for dailies) and bang, you're done, and someone else can foot the power bill.
On a related note, does anyone have a good source for cheap, naked USB to IDE boards? I don't want an enclosure or power supply, just the board. Google wasn't very useful (most I found cost more than buying an enclosure).
Don't forget CTRL-SHIFT-ESC, another oft overlooked combo.
I can build a complete PC, better than the one I use right now for under $200. It's not just India - it's everywhere! I'm seriously unmotivated to pay that for Windows when it essentially doubles my cost.
To paraphrase my good friend Fred, I'm not sailing the seven seas anymore. I've switched to Linux for my personal machines. There may be a learning curve, but it's worth the time I invested in it.
If they're trying to create a demand for tech in India, wouldn't the manufacturer be wise to meet all of the demand there, first, and then ship excess units to the US?
The manufacturer
- sells more units
- meets 100% of the demand of the intended audience
- Doesn't have machines getting obsolete in a warehouse somewhere.
- If they sell more units, they'll need more support, creating more jobs (in India). Those people who just got jobs will suddenly be capable of affording tech, starting some economic growth.
I'm not saying that's what they're doing, but IMHO that's what they should do.
Steve