Have you really tried to use Linux lately as your desktop? I find it QUITE useable, particularly the RedHat9 and Mandrake9 variants.
Here are the problems I hear about: mp3 players, full fledged major apps (Gimp != Photoshop), app intergration (aren't there clipboard problems?)... I hear of lots of niggling problems, none of which I have time to solve.
If I were setting it up for office workers though, it's a different story:
* Their tasks are much more clearly defined than my general purpose computer; the scope of issues I must resolve is much narrower.
* I solve each problem once, and roll it out to every user -- a much higher payoff than solve it once just for me.
The author writes very clearly, but focuses on the issues important to the Open Source community, not on the issues important to the audience.
Democratic implications? It's a wonderful ideal, an I support it and I'm sure some of the audience does, but if that's one of the first arguments you offer, you look pretty weak. Maybe I'm misjudging the audience.
Educate the next generation of IT professionals? That's wonderful, but is the user base geeks-in-training or city workers? Even in schools, most students -- believe it not -- aren't studying comp. sci. Heck, I'm an IT professional, and the hassles of Linux aren't worth it for my desktop either.
Privacy? Few people have the obsession with it that is found (rightfully, I think) on Slashdot.
Their concern is price and performance. Focus on the markets where OSS can kill.
* Provide software to all city employees that perform one task, for free
* Sure, some managers need Excel, and someone writing a manual might want something proprietary, but you can provide software to all those employees writing letters and memos for free
* Back end basic infrustructure -- You only need proprietary software in specialized cases. E-mail is a commodity.
etc. I don't know much about the needs of city gov't, so I'm only guessing above. But I doubt their interests align so neatly with the open source community. The point of marketing and sales is to learn your customers needs and address them. OSS serves the developers, not the customers, but don't be surprised when the customers aren't interested.
By now the MS Office file formats have been mostly reverse engineered and there is documentation available on the web about them. OpenOffice can read them, as can AbiWord.
Nothing reads MS formats reliably enough. Every alternative products says they do, but every time I get down to the details of the issue, it turns out they do, BUT,
* only simply formatted documents
* many features aren't supported
* there's degradation on every conversion, so you can't pass the documents back and forth too often
In the end, my users would have to manually reformat the documents, even if only to a small degree, almost every time. They don't have the time or patience.
Wow... What's the catch? How can they do it so cheaply?
I looked at all the leading online backup vendors (US DataTrust, LiveVault, AmeriVault, iBackup). Cost to backup 20GB for 1 yr ranged $8-14K. Firstonlinebackup.com charges $625 (that's $0.625K).
For comparison, how much would this server space cost? Some very rough numbers:
- 100 GB storage (20 GB data + lots of incremental + large margin for error)
- 100 GB data transfer / month (incremental backup every day)
- Immediate support response
$400-500 per month? How can FirstOnlineBackup.com charge $52/month? Admittedly, a web server is a very imperfect comparison, but how can FirstOnlineBackup.com even afford the bandwidth?
It's too good to be true. Either their business is unsustainable or they are somehow fundementally different than their competition. What is the difference?
The debate over using hard drives for archiving is covered in many other threads, so I won't rehash it here.
In this instance, it's too expensive... many of my clients need to archive 12 monthly backups. That's ~ $480 in tapes (using your number) and ~ $1,800 in hard drives.
I manage the systems for several small businesses. At every one, I've spent endless hours dealing with unreliable DAT tape drives. The labor cost is very expensive for my clients.
It could be me of course;-), but I manage to build reliable, low-maintenance systems for other functions. It's not the hardware either; the problems occur regardless of manufacturer or vendor.
Can anyone suggest an affordable, low-maintenance alternative to DAT? After exhaustive searching, DLT is the next best option I could find, but it's very expensive (for a small business) and I don't have enough personal experience to say it's any more reliable than DAT.
I setup one office with removable hard drives, but they have no archiving needs. Most of my clients need to archive, and as the article and others have noted, hard drives aren't up to the job.
Just in case someone thinks there's a kernel of truth in what you say: TCP/IP has been the native protocol in Netware since v5.0, ~5 years ago (?) and before Windows.
Your post is so crappy; why didn't you use the standard quoting style and put italics around your quote? I'm not going to read your posts until you do so.
The funny thing is, before I read the rest of your post, I thought you were mocking open source developers and not users.
There are rude, abusive jerks all over the place, among developers, users, people on the bus, doctors and lawyers, etc etc. Some OSS developers are also abusive jerks, not all, but many think it gives them a license be one.
Re:I don't know the answer, but don't use "and"!
on
Eleventy What?
·
· Score: 1
Actually, that's wrong. Proper English (both British and American) is that "and" is used to denote something added to the whole number. You don't separate a description of an integer with "and". So, 183,269 is "one hundred eighty three thousand, two hundred sixty nine", not "one hundred and eighty three thousand two hundred and sixty nine". It also means that $194.31 is "one hundred ninety four dollars AND thirty one cents".
I shopped around a bit and chose Verizon's Express Network. Here's my experience:
CHOOSING A SERVICE There are two technologies to choose from, at least in my area (forgive me for not sorting out the acronyms): Good old data over the plain old cell connection (up to 19.2 Kbps before compression, often advertised at some wishful compressed speed of ~40 Kbps) and the new high speed data networks (up to 144 Kbps).
I tried Nextel's 19.2. It is painfully slow. I haven't experienced anything like it since I replaced my 14.4 modem with a 28.8. You'll see it advertised as 'up to 56K' (because the 19.2 Kbps is compressed, don't you see?), which is a big big stretch; you'll never see more than 40 AFAIK, and that's only for compressable data (i.e. text, but almost no multimedia). Useful for emergencies, but you'd better check what's in your pop mailbox before you click download. Nextel helpfully puts all attachments in zip files during the download, which is a problem with less skilled computer users.
I'm now using Verizon's 144. There is some technical problem with signal strength, but I think it will be resolved when they replace the card. Otherwise, connects in a few seconds and works very well and at nearly the advertised speed. Service area for 144 is small (e.g. Verizon has nothing in Colorado at all), but it backs down to 19.2 when I'm not in the 144 footprint. Watch out for 'roaming' costs if outside the 144 footprint.
In general: First, look carefully at the their service footprints. Also, nobody provides an SMTP server for reasons I can't fathom, so BYO. Some options if you lack your own: smtp.com, though I've had performance problems with them, or a $10/month Earthlink dialup account provides an authenicated smtp server that works great.
CHOOSING A PROVIDER I've had experience with two:
Nextel provided one of the worst customer service experiences of my life, but that was their billing department. In customer service or tech support, it is hard to find anyone who knew they sold a wireless Internet product, much less someone who could provide any help. Due to the billing nonsense alone, I will personally avoid them whenever possible. On the plus side, they offer unlimited 'up to 56K' service for $50/month, which is easily the best price.
Verizon provided their usual excellent service once I found someone who knew about their wireless products: For sales, call the 800-2JoinIn number. For support, 800-308-3282. Their compression software is a bit immature, so I disabled it. Otherwise, I'm happy if the signal strength problem gets fixed.
-- "data" is not the plural of "anecdote."
- Robert L. Park
lawyers steadfastly refusing to leave their beloved WordPerfect 5.1
I never see attorneys still using 5.1 for DOS. All the law firms I support use versions 8-10 for Windows.
It's funny, I often hear users (outside the law firms) say they prefer Word 2000/XP to WordPerfect, but then learn they are referring to the (13?) year old DOS WordPerfect product!
There was an analysis written regarding the phrase "Life, Liberty and Persuit of Happiness" and it essential boiled down to this. Those words were chosen very specificaly and placed in the order that they were specificaly. That the order is indicative to the order which they must be considered:
I can find an analysis written that says aliens populated the earth with clones. I need more to go on than that slender basis.
I understand the motives of the Phoenix community: I'd love a leaner, faster Moz. But aren't we risking losing both Phoenix and Moz if we split into two separate projects?
First, few will contribute to or implement Moz if it looks like (and appearances count) its own developers and users are abandoning it.
Second, does mozilla.org have so many resources that it can be safely split between two projects? Either we have sufficient resources or one gets shortchanged.
Finally, isn't a lack of long term commitment to a product exactly what corporate IT fears about open source? Shouldn't we take extra steps to avoid the appearance of that problem?
Per the FAQ, and in many other places, the Phoenix developers definitely seem to intend to separate themselves from Moz:
it's not Mozilla. It's backed by mozilla.org, sure, but with each milestone you'll see it further diverge from Mozilla.... We also believe Mozilla, in general, is going in the wrong direction in terms of bloat and UI, and see no reason for our releases to carry those connotations.
Re:Your rights won't be taken away
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 2
There are no such things as "rights." If there were, they wouldn't need to be stated or enforced. Rights are something that can't be taken away by someone else.
That's an argument over which words to use ("rights" or "privileges"), rather than their meaning (our degree of freedom to speak, etc).
The meanings of Jefferson (in the Declaration of Independence) and Utah Phillips (in this quote) are, to me:
1) You always have the right, whether or not someone stops you from excercising it. Do people with advanced ALS still have the right to speak? Does Stephen Hawking suddenly gain it when he turns on his speech synthesiser? Similarly, if someone gags you, you retain your right even if you lose the physical ability. That's what I think Jefferson means by inalienable.
2) For someone to repress this freedom, the repressed must acquiesce. It's not strictly true -- the repressor could lock you up and procede to ignore you -- but practically it works. A repressor can tell you not to speak and not to practice your religion. If you acquiesce, then you indeed give away that freedom. If you continue to speak or to practice, then you are still free. Millions of peaceful dissidents have excercised their rights despite the legal authorities The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free
The problem is that so few resist, especially on others' behalf. We (myself included) all talk, but why aren't we writing our elected representatives and meeting with them. Why aren't we involved in organized politics? We can do it perfectly legally, at little risk or cost to ourselves. No risk of jail, no risk of life and limb, but we're all reading Slashdot instead.
Martin Luther King, and many others in his position, complained that the complacent good-willed multitudes (you and me) are more at fault than the ill-willed few. We can always stop it if we act. He wrote, while in jail for resisting and excercising his freedoms,
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate... Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Re:Your rights won't be taken away
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 1
The point is that if Muslims in the US can't get together and practice their religion, socialize with members of their mosque without being suspected of plotting to blow up a building, then they are not enjoying their rights as guaranteed by the constitution, which makes those rights no longer rights.
Amen.
these inalienable rights are the exclusive province of those lucky enough to live in the US, but rights that everyone everywhere has.
Amen again; and I think people are so worried about what's going on here (for good reason) they're forgetting the far worse abuses around the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Chongking, the largest city in the world
This city covers more than 31,000 sq.miles / 82,000 sq. km! It would rank between Maine and Indiana if it were a state. It's larger than Ireland.
I don't think it's a real city; a few years ago the Chinese gov't merely decided to call it a
municipality.
Chongking, the largest city in the world
?
AOL got IE licenses 'Royalty free'? Does anyone pay for IE licenses?
I've got some Mozilla licenses to sell them, too.
I was playing with my brother's Tivo, and was shocked to discover it had no random access, or at least not that I found.
Why can't I tell it, 'Advance to point 38:14', and have it skip there? It's running off a hard drive, right? Why this ridiculous serial access?.
Have you really tried to use Linux lately as your desktop? I find it QUITE useable, particularly the RedHat9 and Mandrake9 variants.
... I hear of lots of niggling problems, none of which I have time to solve.
Here are the problems I hear about: mp3 players, full fledged major apps (Gimp != Photoshop), app intergration (aren't there clipboard problems?)
If I were setting it up for office workers though, it's a different story:
* Their tasks are much more clearly defined than my general purpose computer; the scope of issues I must resolve is much narrower.
* I solve each problem once, and roll it out to every user -- a much higher payoff than solve it once just for me.
The author writes very clearly, but focuses on the issues important to the Open Source community, not on the issues important to the audience.
Democratic implications? It's a wonderful ideal, an I support it and I'm sure some of the audience does, but if that's one of the first arguments you offer, you look pretty weak. Maybe I'm misjudging the audience.
Educate the next generation of IT professionals? That's wonderful, but is the user base geeks-in-training or city workers? Even in schools, most students -- believe it not -- aren't studying comp. sci. Heck, I'm an IT professional, and the hassles of Linux aren't worth it for my desktop either.
Privacy? Few people have the obsession with it that is found (rightfully, I think) on Slashdot.
Their concern is price and performance. Focus on the markets where OSS can kill.
* Provide software to all city employees that perform one task, for free
* Sure, some managers need Excel, and someone writing a manual might want something proprietary, but you can provide software to all those employees writing letters and memos for free
* Back end basic infrustructure -- You only need proprietary software in specialized cases. E-mail is a commodity.
etc. I don't know much about the needs of city gov't, so I'm only guessing above. But I doubt their interests align so neatly with the open source community. The point of marketing and sales is to learn your customers needs and address them. OSS serves the developers, not the customers, but don't be surprised when the customers aren't interested.
By now the MS Office file formats have been mostly reverse engineered and there is documentation available on the web about them. OpenOffice can read them, as can AbiWord.
Nothing reads MS formats reliably enough. Every alternative products says they do, but every time I get down to the details of the issue, it turns out they do, BUT,
* only simply formatted documents
* many features aren't supported
* there's degradation on every conversion, so you can't pass the documents back and forth too often
In the end, my users would have to manually reformat the documents, even if only to a small degree, almost every time. They don't have the time or patience.
Full disclosure is the best policy!
Wow ... What's the catch? How can they do it so cheaply?
I looked at all the leading online backup vendors (US DataTrust, LiveVault, AmeriVault, iBackup). Cost to backup 20GB for 1 yr ranged $8-14K. Firstonlinebackup.com charges $625 (that's $0.625K).
For comparison, how much would this server space cost? Some very rough numbers:
- 100 GB storage (20 GB data + lots of incremental + large margin for error)
- 100 GB data transfer / month (incremental backup every day)
- Immediate support response
$400-500 per month? How can FirstOnlineBackup.com charge $52/month? Admittedly, a web server is a very imperfect comparison, but how can FirstOnlineBackup.com even afford the bandwidth?
It's too good to be true. Either their business is unsustainable or they are somehow fundementally different than their competition. What is the difference?
Are they a dependable, reliable operation?
The debate over using hard drives for archiving is covered in many other threads, so I won't rehash it here.
... many of my clients need to archive 12 monthly backups. That's ~ $480 in tapes (using your number) and ~ $1,800 in hard drives.
In this instance, it's too expensive
I don't know what you consider low cost
;-)
Under $1.5K, with a year's worth of media (~20 tapes). Thanks to NAS devices, the backup costs more than the file server!
optical - DVD might work
I considered it, but capacity is too low. Adding an auto-changer breaks the budget. Also, which DVD format will be readable in 5 years?
it must be pretty bottom of the barrel.
For christ's sake, have some pity!
Perhaps this should be an Ask Slashdot:
;-), but I manage to build reliable, low-maintenance systems for other functions. It's not the hardware either; the problems occur regardless of manufacturer or vendor.
I manage the systems for several small businesses. At every one, I've spent endless hours dealing with unreliable DAT tape drives. The labor cost is very expensive for my clients.
It could be me of course
Can anyone suggest an affordable, low-maintenance alternative to DAT? After exhaustive searching, DLT is the next best option I could find, but it's very expensive (for a small business) and I don't have enough personal experience to say it's any more reliable than DAT.
I setup one office with removable hard drives, but they have no archiving needs. Most of my clients need to archive, and as the article and others have noted, hard drives aren't up to the job.
Wow. Five years ago nobody had even HEARD of TCP/IP. Novell sure was a trend setter.
I didn't say they invented it. But they did make it the primary, default native protocol of their NOS back then, which was not common IIRC.
IPX is ancient history for them.
Just in case someone thinks there's a kernel of truth in what you say: TCP/IP has been the native protocol in Netware since v5.0, ~5 years ago (?) and before Windows.
Your post is so crappy; why didn't you use the standard quoting style and put italics around your quote? I'm not going to read your posts until you do so.
The funny thing is, before I read the rest of your post, I thought you were mocking open source developers and not users.
There are rude, abusive jerks all over the place, among developers, users, people on the bus, doctors and lawyers, etc etc. Some OSS developers are also abusive jerks, not all, but many think it gives them a license be one.
Actually, that's wrong. Proper English (both British and American) is that "and" is used to denote something added to the whole number. You don't separate a description of an integer with "and". So, 183,269 is "one hundred eighty three thousand, two hundred sixty nine", not "one hundred and eighty three thousand two hundred and sixty nine". It also means that $194.31 is "one hundred ninety four dollars AND thirty one cents".
I shopped around a bit and chose Verizon's Express Network. Here's my experience:
CHOOSING A SERVICE
There are two technologies to choose from, at least in my area (forgive me for not sorting out the acronyms): Good old data over the plain old cell connection (up to 19.2 Kbps before compression, often advertised at some wishful compressed speed of ~40 Kbps) and the new high speed data networks (up to 144 Kbps).
I tried Nextel's 19.2. It is painfully slow. I haven't experienced anything like it since I replaced my 14.4 modem with a 28.8. You'll see it advertised as 'up to 56K' (because the 19.2 Kbps is compressed, don't you see?), which is a big big stretch; you'll never see more than 40 AFAIK, and that's only for compressable data (i.e. text, but almost no multimedia). Useful for emergencies, but you'd better check what's in your pop mailbox before you click download. Nextel helpfully puts all attachments in zip files during the download, which is a problem with less skilled computer users.
I'm now using Verizon's 144. There is some technical problem with signal strength, but I think it will be resolved when they replace the card. Otherwise, connects in a few seconds and works very well and at nearly the advertised speed. Service area for 144 is small (e.g. Verizon has nothing in Colorado at all), but it backs down to 19.2 when I'm not in the 144 footprint. Watch out for 'roaming' costs if outside the 144 footprint.
In general: First, look carefully at the their service footprints. Also, nobody provides an SMTP server for reasons I can't fathom, so BYO. Some options if you lack your own: smtp.com, though I've had performance problems with them, or a $10/month Earthlink dialup account provides an authenicated smtp server that works great.
CHOOSING A PROVIDER
I've had experience with two:
Nextel provided one of the worst customer service experiences of my life, but that was their billing department. In customer service or tech support, it is hard to find anyone who knew they sold a wireless Internet product, much less someone who could provide any help. Due to the billing nonsense alone, I will personally avoid them whenever possible. On the plus side, they offer unlimited 'up to 56K' service for $50/month, which is easily the best price.
Verizon provided their usual excellent service once I found someone who knew about their wireless products: For sales, call the 800-2JoinIn number. For support, 800-308-3282. Their compression software is a bit immature, so I disabled it. Otherwise, I'm happy if the signal strength problem gets fixed.
--
"data" is not the plural of "anecdote."
- Robert L. Park
lawyers steadfastly refusing to leave their beloved WordPerfect 5.1
I never see attorneys still using 5.1 for DOS. All the law firms I support use versions 8-10 for Windows.
It's funny, I often hear users (outside the law firms) say they prefer Word 2000/XP to WordPerfect, but then learn they are referring to the (13?) year old DOS WordPerfect product!
How many average Joe's knew what a nuclear dirty bomb was 2 years ago
I agree that few knew, but I discovered it's not a new concept.
I recently read a popular Frederick Forsythe novel written in 1972, The Dogs of War I think, that discussed dirty bombs.
There was an analysis written regarding the phrase "Life, Liberty and Persuit of Happiness" and it essential boiled down to this. Those words were chosen very specificaly and placed in the order that they were specificaly. That the order is indicative to the order which they must be considered:
I can find an analysis written that says aliens populated the earth with clones. I need more to go on than that slender basis.
To set the facts straight, simdesk was selected by bid rigging and conflict of interest of a software contract in Houston.
Interesting... any support for this statement? I'm sure we can find people who say the opposite, why should we believe you?
I've read CNN almost daily since before I started using Moz (0.9.0) and have never had problems.
I understand the motives of the Phoenix community: I'd love a leaner, faster Moz. But aren't we risking losing both Phoenix and Moz if we split into two separate projects?
... We also believe Mozilla, in general, is going in the wrong direction in terms of bloat and UI, and see no reason for our releases to carry those connotations.
First, few will contribute to or implement Moz if it looks like (and appearances count) its own developers and users are abandoning it.
Second, does mozilla.org have so many resources that it can be safely split between two projects? Either we have sufficient resources or one gets shortchanged.
Finally, isn't a lack of long term commitment to a product exactly what corporate IT fears about open source? Shouldn't we take extra steps to avoid the appearance of that problem?
Per the FAQ, and in many other places, the Phoenix developers definitely seem to intend to separate themselves from Moz:
it's not Mozilla. It's backed by mozilla.org, sure, but with each milestone you'll see it further diverge from Mozilla.
There are no such things as "rights." If there were, they wouldn't need to be stated or enforced. Rights are something that can't be taken away by someone else.
... Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
That's an argument over which words to use ("rights" or "privileges"), rather than their meaning (our degree of freedom to speak, etc).
The meanings of Jefferson (in the Declaration of Independence) and Utah Phillips (in this quote) are, to me:
1) You always have the right, whether or not someone stops you from excercising it. Do people with advanced ALS still have the right to speak? Does Stephen Hawking suddenly gain it when he turns on his speech synthesiser? Similarly, if someone gags you, you retain your right even if you lose the physical ability. That's what I think Jefferson means by inalienable.
2) For someone to repress this freedom, the repressed must acquiesce. It's not strictly true -- the repressor could lock you up and procede to ignore you -- but practically it works. A repressor can tell you not to speak and not to practice your religion. If you acquiesce, then you indeed give away that freedom. If you continue to speak or to practice, then you are still free. Millions of peaceful dissidents have excercised their rights despite the legal authorities The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free
The problem is that so few resist, especially on others' behalf. We (myself included) all talk, but why aren't we writing our elected representatives and meeting with them. Why aren't we involved in organized politics? We can do it perfectly legally, at little risk or cost to ourselves. No risk of jail, no risk of life and limb, but we're all reading Slashdot instead.
Martin Luther King, and many others in his position, complained that the complacent good-willed multitudes (you and me) are more at fault than the ill-willed few. We can always stop it if we act. He wrote, while in jail for resisting and excercising his freedoms,
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate
The point is that if Muslims in the US can't get together and practice their religion, socialize with members of their mosque without being suspected of plotting to blow up a building, then they are not enjoying their rights as guaranteed by the constitution, which makes those rights no longer rights.
Amen.
these inalienable rights are the exclusive province of those lucky enough to live in the US, but rights that everyone everywhere has.
Amen again; and I think people are so worried about what's going on here (for good reason) they're forgetting the far worse abuses around the world.