Even if I have used RedHat for several years, I have never recommended it to new PC users. The reason is that (even if they probably be satisfied if I set up a Linux ystem for them) they be more happy if I set up something running MS Windows.
To be an alternative for the ordinary user on the desktop, Linux must have: * A decent office suite * A decent browser * A decent e-mail program * A streamlined desktop * A sentralized way to change the system settings
A year ago, Linux didnt have any of this. Open Office 1.0, Mozilla 1.0 and Evolution (or KMail) are brilliant programs. I have no problems recommending them instead of MSOffice, IE, Outlook. (To be honest MS Office is a better program then OpenOffice, but MS Office is way to expencive for an ordinary user, and Open Office is GoodEnough(TM)).
With Gnome 2 and KDE 3 the desktop starts to look fairly streamlined. It still some work to be done on Gnome 2, but hopefully Redhat will fix the most annoying bugs before releasing 8.0.
With "a sentralized way to change system settings" I do mean that the most important settings should be reached from a "control panel"-like program. To the ordinary user it is very hard to explain that the desktop resolution have to be changed by editing a text-file, while the desktop backgroud can be changed by right-clicking the desktop. I hope Redhat have a better control-panel in 8.0.
If they fix the last two items, this could be the first Linux distribution I recommend to a novice computer user. Im looking forward to it..:-)
> What do you expect of a country where everyone votes for the same party....
What do you expect from someone coming from a country where everyone have to choose between two political parties that everyone (except those coming from the same country) knows are almost totally identical, has a political system where it is virtually impossible to start new polical parties that even get represented and still believe he comes from a democracy.
Any employer will pay you as little as possible. Its just as simple as that. The only reason for paying more is getting more satisfied (and better) employees.
You need a way to show your employer that you are worth more than he is paying you. A straight forward way of doing that is to show him what someone else is willing to pay you more.
He'll have to decide if he can match it. If he says he can do it, of course you'll accept it. Thats the only reason for asking him!
If your employer thinks you are disloyal because you think he should pay you what you are worth...well...then you should think of finding a new job anyway.
My point was mainly that it is the.doc-monopoly and not the Word-monopololy that first needs to be broken. (and that OOs XML format is the first step)
I live in a.doc world myself, and usually recieve 5-10 Word-document each day. Most of the time (thanks to OO, AbiWord, CodeWeavers Word-plugin and doc2pdf), I manage without Word.
Still, if I did manage a large business where the main document format was.doc, I would choose a word processor that reads this format natively.
...if the main document exchange format was an open XML format, it wouldnt really matter what word processor was used....
MS Office almost doubles the price of a low price computer. In any business setting, you have to have it.
Having an office suite that can read 95 percent of all Word documents is the first small step in overcoming this monopoly, but it is not enough. Even 99 percent compability is not enough. The cost of Office is high, but not so high that you risk having some of your documents destroyed.
The.doc-monopoly will never be broken by someone making Word-clones that reads the format almost perfect. Sorry....
Here is the only way to brake the monopoly(that I can think of): * Attack the weaknesses of the.doc-format. There are plenty of good reasons for saving your documents in XML-format instead of a proprietary, binary format. * Develop 1 - one - XML-based document standard. Here is the most important small step that OO is taking. Now we have to convince AbiWord, KWord ++ to use the same format 100 percent. * Start making plugins for Word that reads this format. Plugins that can be installed with one click if somebody recieves a document in XML. And plugins that allows the administrators to decide that this XML-based format should be default instead of.doc.
Then you can introduce other programs that reads this format perfectly.
Brilliant search engine. It has parser for most file-formats (You can use pdf2txt to index your pdf-files). It even indexes your mp3's if you should happen to have some on your local net.
Free (at least as in beer) for Unix. Binaries for Windows costs between $99 and $699.
Re:Okie dokey - time to figure out how to migrate!
on
Evolution 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Just copy all your local Outlook-folders to the mail-server.
Connect with Evolution, and copy them back.
I think you can mail all your contacts to yourself, but I didnt get vCard to work with the last beta. Haven't tried the last release.
What will the kids run?
Wolfenstein! Thats what I was running during my computer classes 10 years ago, and now it runs under Linux as well...
Seriously.. any computer in schools will mostly (My guess is at least 95 percent) be used for simple word processing and surfing. That you can do perfectly well under Linux.
The trick with publicly accessible computers in schools (with no support personell), is to get them to work most of the time. The standard configuration you use on your personal computer isnt really such an good idea. Take a look at projects like Linux Terminal Server Project for Schools.Its not perfect yet, but it is a much better aproach to the problem than simply installing WindowsXP on all the computers.
If RedHat was allowed to put their software in such a number of computer (of course, nobody seriously believes they ever will), I think they could come up with something OK.
Re:Define your terms better!
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 1
I agree. And you could probably have added five more meanings.
But the author is not alone in not defining globalism. Look at the Slashdot-replies!
Globalism discussions is usually as meaningful as discussing if hackers are good or bad. When the participants define the words totally different, you usually get - as you say - total gibberish.
Most small projects does not need transactions, subqueries or locking. And to really take advantages of such features you need to have some good understanding of databases.
With mySQL you can actually make fearly decent, fearly fast and fearly stable application without using hours trying to design things optimal, (and actually without not really understanding what you are doing.)
If you worry about +2-4 percent performance, how to handle peeks of hundreds of hits a second... then you have several good databases to choose from.
If you should store a few thousand posts, and are hoping for a few hundred hits a day, and your web-application had deadline yesterday, and you are aout to start developing (90% of the web-application of today).... mySQL is a killer!
(You can use it for other things as well. And it does scale fairly well (so Im told)... but then you should consider several other good databases..like PostreSQL)
There is a very good article in Wired (1998) about Podkletnov. Check out:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.03/antigrav it y.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=
It states that his first article had passed peer-review and was about to be published in British Journal of Physics-D, when things started to happen...
The way he was threated explains why this new article is not peer-reviewed..
VR have some fundamental drawbacks, that will limits its uses significantly:
* Its almost impossible for any machine (at least until AI makes a significant step forward) to understand the context of a message. When you say "remove it": do you want to write it in the application, remove the last part to wrote, or are you talking to someone who just entered the room? Yes, of cource there are solutions to this, but they are all ackward.
* Unless you are working alone in an office, most people will prefer using a keyboard than speaking everything out load. Are you ever in a situation where you would feel comfortable using VR on your laptop?
* Most people type just as fast as they will ever be able to dictate it.
Of cource there are advantages for people not being able to use a keyboard, and fancy stuff for controlling you mp3-player with shouting to it, but will we sometime in the future drop the keyboard and start talking to the PC? Never!
TTS, however. Ever found your Palm insuitable for reading a manual? Ever wanted to read some documents while you where bicycling to work?
VR is fancy technology, but what I would really use is a good TTS-engine together with a portable computer.
(IBM's ViaVoice TTS is not really there yet, but its a good start.)
Since you are mentioning dual head, Im guessing Matrox G400. There is a known problem with G400, XFree 4.02 and the 2.4.0 kernel at the moment. (my main reason for not upgrading). Looks like Matrox is working to fix this.
pere
Why leave data on the laptop?
on
Laptop Lojack?
·
· Score: 1
No system for protecting the data thats already on an laptop will ever be 100% safe. So why not save all the data on the net instead? Because no transfer will be 100% safe either..
Then do neither. Make an encryption system where half of the information is saved locally and half is saved on the laptop.. That will be 100% safe from decryption (without having both the server and the laptop), because no individual parts contains enough info.
The drawback is of cource that the laptop have to be online all the time, and you will still loose all info when the laptop is stolen...
Slashdot Mirror
Even if I have used RedHat for several years, I have never recommended it to new PC users. The reason is that (even if they probably be satisfied if I set up a Linux ystem for them) they be more happy if I set up something running MS Windows.
To be an alternative for the ordinary user on the desktop, Linux must have:
* A decent office suite
* A decent browser
* A decent e-mail program
* A streamlined desktop
* A sentralized way to change the system settings
A year ago, Linux didnt have any of this. Open Office 1.0, Mozilla 1.0 and Evolution (or KMail) are brilliant programs. I have no problems recommending them instead of MSOffice, IE, Outlook. (To be honest MS Office is a better program then OpenOffice, but MS Office is way to expencive for an ordinary user, and Open Office is GoodEnough(TM)).
With Gnome 2 and KDE 3 the desktop starts to look fairly streamlined. It still some work to be done on Gnome 2, but hopefully Redhat will fix the most annoying bugs before releasing 8.0.
With "a sentralized way to change system settings" I do mean that the most important settings should be reached from a "control panel"-like program. To the ordinary user it is very hard to explain that the desktop resolution have to be changed by editing a text-file, while the desktop backgroud can be changed by right-clicking the desktop. I hope Redhat have a better control-panel in 8.0.
If they fix the last two items, this could be the first Linux distribution I recommend to a novice computer user. Im looking forward to it..:-)
> What do you expect of a country where everyone votes for the same party....
What do you expect from someone coming from a country where everyone have to choose between two political parties that everyone (except those coming from the same country) knows are almost totally identical, has a political system where it is virtually impossible to start new polical parties that even get represented and still believe he comes from a democracy.
Any employer will pay you as little as possible. Its just as simple as that. The only reason for paying more is getting more satisfied (and better) employees.
You need a way to show your employer that you are worth more than he is paying you. A straight forward way of doing that is to show him what someone else is willing to pay you more.
He'll have to decide if he can match it. If he says he can do it, of course you'll accept it. Thats the only reason for asking him!
If your employer thinks you are disloyal because you think he should pay you what you are worth...well...then you should think of finding a new job anyway.
My point was mainly that it is the .doc-monopoly and not the Word-monopololy that first needs to be broken. (and that OOs XML format is the first step)
.doc world myself, and usually recieve 5-10 Word-document each day. Most of the time (thanks to OO, AbiWord, CodeWeavers Word-plugin and doc2pdf), I manage without Word.
.doc, I would choose a word processor that reads this format natively.
I live in a
Still, if I did manage a large business where the main document format was
...if the main document exchange format was an open XML format, it wouldnt really matter what word processor was used....
MS Office almost doubles the price of a low price computer. In any business setting, you have to have it.
.doc-monopoly will never be broken by someone making Word-clones that reads the format almost perfect. Sorry....
.doc-format. There are plenty of good reasons for saving your documents in XML-format instead of a proprietary, binary format. .doc.
Having an office suite that can read 95 percent of all Word documents is the first small step in overcoming this monopoly, but it is not enough. Even 99 percent compability is not enough. The cost of Office is high, but not so high that you risk having some of your documents destroyed.
The
Here is the only way to brake the monopoly(that I can think of):
* Attack the weaknesses of the
* Develop 1 - one - XML-based document standard. Here is the most important small step that OO is taking. Now we have to convince AbiWord, KWord ++ to use the same format 100 percent.
* Start making plugins for Word that reads this format. Plugins that can be installed with one click if somebody recieves a document in XML. And plugins that allows the administrators to decide that this XML-based format should be default instead of
Then you can introduce other programs that reads this format perfectly.
Try http://www.mnogosearch.org
Brilliant search engine. It has parser for most file-formats (You can use pdf2txt to index your pdf-files). It even indexes your mp3's if you should happen to have some on your local net.
Free (at least as in beer) for Unix. Binaries for Windows costs between $99 and $699.
Just copy all your local Outlook-folders to the mail-server.
Connect with Evolution, and copy them back.
I think you can mail all your contacts to yourself, but I didnt get vCard to work with the last beta. Haven't tried the last release.
What will the kids run?
Wolfenstein! Thats what I was running during my computer classes 10 years ago, and now it runs under Linux as well...
Seriously.. any computer in schools will mostly (My guess is at least 95 percent) be used for simple word processing and surfing. That you can do perfectly well under Linux.
The trick with publicly accessible computers in schools (with no support personell), is to get them to work most of the time. The standard configuration you use on your personal computer isnt really such an good idea. Take a look at projects like Linux Terminal Server Project for Schools.Its not perfect yet, but it is a much better aproach to the problem than simply installing WindowsXP on all the computers.
If RedHat was allowed to put their software in such a number of computer (of course, nobody seriously believes they ever will), I think they could come up with something OK.
I agree. And you could probably have added five more meanings.
But the author is not alone in not defining globalism. Look at the Slashdot-replies!
Globalism discussions is usually as meaningful as discussing if hackers are good or bad. When the participants define the words totally different, you usually get - as you say - total gibberish.
For more funny bug reports, check out bug 59921 - which is a tracking bug for "interesting" bug reports.
The answer is "because it does the job".
Most small projects does not need transactions, subqueries or locking. And to really take advantages of such features you need to have some good understanding of databases.
With mySQL you can actually make fearly decent, fearly fast and fearly stable application without using hours trying to design things optimal, (and actually without not really understanding what you are doing.)
If you worry about +2-4 percent performance, how to handle peeks of hundreds of hits a second... then you have several good databases to choose from.
If you should store a few thousand posts, and are hoping for a few hundred hits a day, and your web-application had deadline yesterday, and you are aout to start developing (90% of the web-application of today).... mySQL is a killer!
(You can use it for other things as well. And it does scale fairly well (so Im told)... but then you should consider several other good databases..like PostreSQL)
There is a very good article in Wired (1998) about Podkletnov. Check out:v it y.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.03/antigra
It states that his first article had passed peer-review and was about to be published in British Journal of Physics-D, when things started to happen...
The way he was threated explains why this new article is not peer-reviewed..
You can have access to both drives if you like. What this does is just switch the slave/master-jumbers ... nothing else.
On drive1 it does switch between master and slave.
On drive2 it does the same.
Set up you bios to one harddisk.. no slaves...
Voila...you can switch between the disks, and make the other disk inaccsessible.
Set you bios to one master and one slave.. well, wouldn't be to complicated to guess.
VR have some fundamental drawbacks, that will limits its uses significantly:
* Its almost impossible for any machine (at least until AI makes a significant step forward) to understand the context of a message. When you say "remove it": do you want to write it in the application, remove the last part to wrote, or are you talking to someone who just entered the room? Yes, of cource there are solutions to this, but they are all ackward.
* Unless you are working alone in an office, most people will prefer using a keyboard than speaking everything out load. Are you ever in a situation where you would feel comfortable using VR on your laptop?
* Most people type just as fast as they will ever be able to dictate it.
Of cource there are advantages for people not being able to use a keyboard, and fancy stuff for controlling you mp3-player with shouting to it, but will we sometime in the future drop the keyboard and start talking to the PC? Never!
TTS, however. Ever found your Palm insuitable for reading a manual? Ever wanted to read some documents while you where bicycling to work?
VR is fancy technology, but what I would really use is a good TTS-engine together with a portable computer.
(IBM's ViaVoice TTS is not really there yet, but its a good start.)
-pere
Since you are mentioning dual head, Im guessing Matrox G400. There is a known problem with G400, XFree 4.02 and the 2.4.0 kernel at the moment. (my main reason for not upgrading). Looks like Matrox is working to fix this.
pere
No system for protecting the data thats already on an laptop will ever be 100% safe.
So why not save all the data on the net instead? Because no transfer will be 100% safe either..
Then do neither. Make an encryption system where half of the information is saved locally and half is saved on the laptop.. That will be 100% safe from decryption (without having both the server and the laptop), because no individual parts contains enough info.
The drawback is of cource that the laptop have to be online all the time, and you will still loose all info when the laptop is stolen...