Google Docs is horrendous. Vanilla plain features, horrible display and formatting, poorly thought out UI... Google needs to invest some time and innovation into Google Docs, it really makes them look bad.
Mod parent up, exponentially. I'm so sick of hearing on Slashdot how great Google Apps/Docs and Gmail is. I can only imagine that the people who think Google Apps is a suitable office suite for business use must have been using vi or notepad.exe all their lives. Google Apps is great for a goofy little spreadsheet with minimal functionality or writing a letter to Aunt Sally, but it's incredibly painful to run a real business on it. Gmail is fine for personal email, but it doesn't come close to Exchange and Outlook (warts and all) with its integrated scheduling and groupware functionality. Believe me, I'd love for Google Apps to overtake Microsoft. The problem is Google needs to think like Microsoft and how real businesses are run, not Google where you get one day a week to goof off and organizing data is throwing it all in one big bucket and letting search sort it all out.
Bad analogy. "Peak nuclear" is merely due to a lack of construction of nuclear power plants, not lack a lack of nuclear fuel. Peak oil is due a dwindling amount of oil that can be economically extracted.
There was a study on tobacco use in the 60s that found an anomaly like this for pipe smoking. Smokers who smoked one bowl a day actually lived slightly longer than non-smokers. Smokers smoking more than one bowl a day had a worse mortality rate than non-smokers, producing a similar J curve.
The reality of insurance is that you have to have a pool of healthy people to support it. Naturally, if it's all sick people, the model will fail. All people, even those who are perfectly healthy right now, get sick sooner or later and need care.
You're a liability to the system because you cancelled your health insurance. Now if you get a severe illness, hospitals have to treat you. If you don't pay out of pocket, people like me who pay for health insurance have to subsidize your care.
That all sounds great on paper until you get some devastating and expensive to treat disease like cancer or have a car accident that puts you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Most people don't have $100K-$1M lying around. The end result: only the wealthy will survive bad illnesses or be rehabilitated after accidents. Instead of showing your insurance card when going to the hospital, you can bring your bank statements and credit report.
Before healthcare reform conservatives/right wingers were bitching and moaning about "poor/cheap/unemployed/lazy" uninsured people bringing down the system and raising costs for insured citizens because they can always get healthcare, insured or not. This bill forces them to get insurance.
If complaining right wingers really want to fix the problem, they should propose a law banning all healthcare for uninsured citizens who can't pay out of pocket. See how well that goes over.
We had 8 months of winter in Europe, with record snow down to Spain and temperatures lower than they were in the last 30 years. Were constantly reminded that it was a seasonal event, weather, that had nothing to do with climate.
After a mere 3 weeks of summer, with record hot temperatures, the media is already reviving the global warming mantra.
Here in the US, the conservative pundits declared global warming a hoax this past winter when we had record snowfalls. Now we're having record heat this summer and the conservative pundits haven't said a word.
Media stupidity about global climate change goes both ways.
It would be great if we could do that in the US. However if anyone proposed it, the ultra right wing asshat minority that is running the country right now with fear of gun laws, terrorism, and Obama birth certificate BS would have it shot down as "socialist".
I'm building a WISP, too. Do you think I should get a T-1 or a DS-3 for Internet? I haven't been able to decide between BSD and Linux for my router operating system. I think I'm going to go with Linux because I think the penguin mascot is cuter than that Satan mascot, but it's easier to get BSD to run on a 486 these days.
Your POTS phone will stop working if your local switching station is digital and the power goes out there for a longer period of time than their backup power lasts.
Analog switches don't run on gas or gerbils; they needed power as well. Furthermore, I don't think there's an analog switch in operation in the US today, or least not any town with more than ten houses.
With what we currently know, the Google Chrome OS is as much a competitor to Windows as Google Docs and Gmail is to Microsoft Office and Outlook/Exchange.
I use both Outlook/Exchange and Gmail on a daily basis and I admin an Exchange server (and used to admin Sendmail and Qmail). It's not news to me that you can migrate from Outlook/Exchange to Gmail; I've investigated it. Gmail provides a fresh interface and much faster searching, however the calendar functionality doesn't come close to Outlook. I won't rehash all the cloud computing issues and how a web app is often clumsy when compared to a native application, but the issues are still there.
Your link doesn't address Google Docs versus M$ Office. I use both as well. Google Docs is sufficient for only the most basic word processing and spreadsheets. If one tries to do multipage spreadsheets with formulas, graphs, lookups, macros (Business 101 stuff), Google Docs spreadsheets are painful to use and just doesn't have much of the functionality needed.
You might be able to replace my coffee with Folger's crystals, but not the gas in my car. The same goes with open source/web apps/cloud computing apps and my business applications.
Oh, please. Google OS is a glorified web browser tailored to netbooks. It won't even make a scratch on Windows' entrenchment in the desktop market.
Considering the huge number of users who know nothing but how to use a web browser, I think you're quite mistaken. I think it's very likely that Chrome OS will replace Windows for most non-geek consumers -- and because it's going to be open source, a lot of geeks will probably adopt it too.
And the same huge number of users when asked "what OS do you want on your new PC, Windows or Google Chrome?", will say "Windows" because they don't have a clue what an OS is and "Windows" sounds vaguely familiar. The only way the clueless masses will use it is if it's the only choice on a cool-looking netbook or laptop and they're hooked on the color of it.
As far as I can tell, Google Chrome is a glorified web dumb terminal that some people will happen to run Linux apps on. Businesses won't flock to it because it will lack Windows application compatibility. Clueful home users won't use it for the same reason ("Hey, why can't I use iTunes on this laptop or pull pictures from my Kodak camera using their Windows application???")
I like open source just as much as the next guy here and I'd love to see a competitor to Windows, but my need to get work done supersedes my desire to make a statement about open software. With what we currently know, the Google Chrome OS is as much a competitor to Windows as Google Docs and Gmail is to Microsoft Office and Outlook/Exchange.
I assure you that there is a difference between what you perceive as an American reality and a global one. I live in Europe and the difference between the elite and ordinary people, although sizable, is much less radical.
P.S. I never quite understood why "liberal" has such different meanings over the two sides of the Atlantic. A liberal party here is actually right wing as it promotes deregulation and basically more trust in the market's self-regulation mechanisms.
The reason for the difference in the definition here in the US is Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. They've been working for the past 10 or 15 years to develop the so-called "liberal" into the enemy of all that is good and wholesome. It's so bad that often you'll see conservatives blame just about anything from traffic jams to lousy pizza on liberals and anyone they disagree with are labeled with the liberal pejorative, even if the disagreement has nothing to do with politics. The Republican Party is no longer the party that embraces conservatism or libertarianism, it's the party that hates liberals.
Most Americans don't know the true meaning of the word liberal. The same goes for the terms socialist, fascist, or communist. But I digress. I've often thought Libertarians are actually right wing liberals. But if you call someone a right wing liberal here in the US, their head will explode or they'll probably get really violent.
Google's apps are interesting, but for the most part they are toys. Google Earth could be considered a GIS tool, but it lacks a lot of features found in common programs like MapInfo and Esri. Sketchup could be considered CAD, but it's just not an AutoCAD replacement. The spreadsheet application and word processor in Google Apps is sufficient for simple documents, but they just don't have the features of M$ Office or OpenOffice (though I would think Google will package OO with their OS).
If Google wants to take this "let them eat cake" attitude towards established Windows applications thinking web apps or even open source applications are fine, they're not going to compete with Windows.
OK, so every business and home user that currently runs Windows applications to do things other than browse the web will drop their applications and flock to this new OS? Banks will use web based financial applications. Architects will drop AutoCAD and use web based CAD systems. GIS users will migrate to Google Earth. I don't think so. It's unrealistic to think anyone can compete with Windows without application support, because the OS is nothing without applications and many of the applications can't be easily recreated in browser applications.
If they have zero interest in enabling users to run Windows applications, this will simply be a yet another Linux distro or a web browser and email OS, nothing more...and it won't compete with Windows.
I haven't seen any mention of Windows application compatibility. This OS is going to need that if Google really intends for it to compete with Windows, otherwise it's going to be just another Linux distribution (Ubuntu on steroids with a big company behind it) or a niche Netbook/cheap laptop OS that can just check email and surf the web (ummm....Android on steroids?). To do the level of Windows application compatibility and integration they'll need to compete, I think they'll need to fork Wine and make development move faster than it has over the years and integrate it tightly to the OS.
You're asking this on Slashdot rather than seeking professional help, so that tells us something immediately. Sell out to the big company now, ride it as long as you can and leave when it's no longer fun. You don't have the business know-how to run this company on your own and have it survive.
...to this question, you're probably not capable of designing and prototyping this product and bringing it to market. Not to be rude and blunt, but it's the truth. Find someone who can or quietly write your idea in a notebook and store it away.
It's called sampling. Many artists have done it, but one you should check out is DJ Shadow. He takes old 45s, samples the smallest components and assembles them into songs. He admits that copyright laws haven't caught up with it yet, but they will someday.
Slashdot Mirror
Google Docs is horrendous. Vanilla plain features, horrible display and formatting, poorly thought out UI... Google needs to invest some time and innovation into Google Docs, it really makes them look bad.
Mod parent up, exponentially. I'm so sick of hearing on Slashdot how great Google Apps/Docs and Gmail is. I can only imagine that the people who think Google Apps is a suitable office suite for business use must have been using vi or notepad.exe all their lives. Google Apps is great for a goofy little spreadsheet with minimal functionality or writing a letter to Aunt Sally, but it's incredibly painful to run a real business on it. Gmail is fine for personal email, but it doesn't come close to Exchange and Outlook (warts and all) with its integrated scheduling and groupware functionality. Believe me, I'd love for Google Apps to overtake Microsoft. The problem is Google needs to think like Microsoft and how real businesses are run, not Google where you get one day a week to goof off and organizing data is throwing it all in one big bucket and letting search sort it all out.
Bad analogy. "Peak nuclear" is merely due to a lack of construction of nuclear power plants, not lack a lack of nuclear fuel. Peak oil is due a dwindling amount of oil that can be economically extracted.
Bill Ayers worked on the CD-R standard, so he's involved in the conspiracy. (Fox News, you can report on this without verifying....)
But, most surprisingly, the giant penguin's feathers were brown and gray, distinct from the black 'tuxedo
Why is that surprising? It was 36 million years ago. There were big furry elephants and lizards the size of houses in prehistoric times.
There was a study on tobacco use in the 60s that found an anomaly like this for pipe smoking. Smokers who smoked one bowl a day actually lived slightly longer than non-smokers. Smokers smoking more than one bowl a day had a worse mortality rate than non-smokers, producing a similar J curve.
The reality of insurance is that you have to have a pool of healthy people to support it. Naturally, if it's all sick people, the model will fail. All people, even those who are perfectly healthy right now, get sick sooner or later and need care. You're a liability to the system because you cancelled your health insurance. Now if you get a severe illness, hospitals have to treat you. If you don't pay out of pocket, people like me who pay for health insurance have to subsidize your care.
That all sounds great on paper until you get some devastating and expensive to treat disease like cancer or have a car accident that puts you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Most people don't have $100K-$1M lying around. The end result: only the wealthy will survive bad illnesses or be rehabilitated after accidents. Instead of showing your insurance card when going to the hospital, you can bring your bank statements and credit report.
That's the kicker. You are providing for them already with higher healthcare costs to subsidize those who can't pay.
Before healthcare reform conservatives/right wingers were bitching and moaning about "poor/cheap/unemployed/lazy" uninsured people bringing down the system and raising costs for insured citizens because they can always get healthcare, insured or not. This bill forces them to get insurance. If complaining right wingers really want to fix the problem, they should propose a law banning all healthcare for uninsured citizens who can't pay out of pocket. See how well that goes over.
We had 8 months of winter in Europe, with record snow down to Spain and temperatures lower than they were in the last 30 years. Were constantly reminded that it was a seasonal event, weather, that had nothing to do with climate.
After a mere 3 weeks of summer, with record hot temperatures, the media is already reviving the global warming mantra.
Here in the US, the conservative pundits declared global warming a hoax this past winter when we had record snowfalls. Now we're having record heat this summer and the conservative pundits haven't said a word. Media stupidity about global climate change goes both ways.
It would be great if we could do that in the US. However if anyone proposed it, the ultra right wing asshat minority that is running the country right now with fear of gun laws, terrorism, and Obama birth certificate BS would have it shot down as "socialist".
I'm building a WISP, too. Do you think I should get a T-1 or a DS-3 for Internet? I haven't been able to decide between BSD and Linux for my router operating system. I think I'm going to go with Linux because I think the penguin mascot is cuter than that Satan mascot, but it's easier to get BSD to run on a 486 these days.
Indeed, and we still use wooden poles and there are people with phone service over fiber, but it all still requires power to work.
Your POTS phone will stop working if your local switching station is digital and the power goes out there for a longer period of time than their backup power lasts.
Analog switches don't run on gas or gerbils; they needed power as well. Furthermore, I don't think there's an analog switch in operation in the US today, or least not any town with more than ten houses.
You burn the plastic as fuel to power the boat.
You seem to be a bit behind the times on this issue.
I use both Outlook/Exchange and Gmail on a daily basis and I admin an Exchange server (and used to admin Sendmail and Qmail). It's not news to me that you can migrate from Outlook/Exchange to Gmail; I've investigated it. Gmail provides a fresh interface and much faster searching, however the calendar functionality doesn't come close to Outlook. I won't rehash all the cloud computing issues and how a web app is often clumsy when compared to a native application, but the issues are still there.
Your link doesn't address Google Docs versus M$ Office. I use both as well. Google Docs is sufficient for only the most basic word processing and spreadsheets. If one tries to do multipage spreadsheets with formulas, graphs, lookups, macros (Business 101 stuff), Google Docs spreadsheets are painful to use and just doesn't have much of the functionality needed.
You might be able to replace my coffee with Folger's crystals, but not the gas in my car. The same goes with open source/web apps/cloud computing apps and my business applications.
Considering the huge number of users who know nothing but how to use a web browser, I think you're quite mistaken. I think it's very likely that Chrome OS will replace Windows for most non-geek consumers -- and because it's going to be open source, a lot of geeks will probably adopt it too.
And the same huge number of users when asked "what OS do you want on your new PC, Windows or Google Chrome?", will say "Windows" because they don't have a clue what an OS is and "Windows" sounds vaguely familiar. The only way the clueless masses will use it is if it's the only choice on a cool-looking netbook or laptop and they're hooked on the color of it.
As far as I can tell, Google Chrome is a glorified web dumb terminal that some people will happen to run Linux apps on. Businesses won't flock to it because it will lack Windows application compatibility. Clueful home users won't use it for the same reason ("Hey, why can't I use iTunes on this laptop or pull pictures from my Kodak camera using their Windows application???")
I like open source just as much as the next guy here and I'd love to see a competitor to Windows, but my need to get work done supersedes my desire to make a statement about open software. With what we currently know, the Google Chrome OS is as much a competitor to Windows as Google Docs and Gmail is to Microsoft Office and Outlook/Exchange.
I love how you guys' "critical thinking" seems to sum up to mindlessly running through a checklist of such phrases.
You must be new here! I for one welcome our new phrase checklist critical-thinking overloads. In Soviet Russia, the phrase critically thinks you!
I assure you that there is a difference between what you perceive as an American reality and a global one. I live in Europe and the difference between the elite and ordinary people, although sizable, is much less radical. P.S. I never quite understood why "liberal" has such different meanings over the two sides of the Atlantic. A liberal party here is actually right wing as it promotes deregulation and basically more trust in the market's self-regulation mechanisms.
The reason for the difference in the definition here in the US is Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. They've been working for the past 10 or 15 years to develop the so-called "liberal" into the enemy of all that is good and wholesome. It's so bad that often you'll see conservatives blame just about anything from traffic jams to lousy pizza on liberals and anyone they disagree with are labeled with the liberal pejorative, even if the disagreement has nothing to do with politics. The Republican Party is no longer the party that embraces conservatism or libertarianism, it's the party that hates liberals.
Most Americans don't know the true meaning of the word liberal. The same goes for the terms socialist, fascist, or communist. But I digress. I've often thought Libertarians are actually right wing liberals. But if you call someone a right wing liberal here in the US, their head will explode or they'll probably get really violent.
Google's apps are interesting, but for the most part they are toys. Google Earth could be considered a GIS tool, but it lacks a lot of features found in common programs like MapInfo and Esri. Sketchup could be considered CAD, but it's just not an AutoCAD replacement. The spreadsheet application and word processor in Google Apps is sufficient for simple documents, but they just don't have the features of M$ Office or OpenOffice (though I would think Google will package OO with their OS). If Google wants to take this "let them eat cake" attitude towards established Windows applications thinking web apps or even open source applications are fine, they're not going to compete with Windows.
OK, so every business and home user that currently runs Windows applications to do things other than browse the web will drop their applications and flock to this new OS? Banks will use web based financial applications. Architects will drop AutoCAD and use web based CAD systems. GIS users will migrate to Google Earth. I don't think so. It's unrealistic to think anyone can compete with Windows without application support, because the OS is nothing without applications and many of the applications can't be easily recreated in browser applications. If they have zero interest in enabling users to run Windows applications, this will simply be a yet another Linux distro or a web browser and email OS, nothing more...and it won't compete with Windows.
I haven't seen any mention of Windows application compatibility. This OS is going to need that if Google really intends for it to compete with Windows, otherwise it's going to be just another Linux distribution (Ubuntu on steroids with a big company behind it) or a niche Netbook/cheap laptop OS that can just check email and surf the web (ummm....Android on steroids?). To do the level of Windows application compatibility and integration they'll need to compete, I think they'll need to fork Wine and make development move faster than it has over the years and integrate it tightly to the OS.
You're asking this on Slashdot rather than seeking professional help, so that tells us something immediately. Sell out to the big company now, ride it as long as you can and leave when it's no longer fun. You don't have the business know-how to run this company on your own and have it survive.
...to this question, you're probably not capable of designing and prototyping this product and bringing it to market. Not to be rude and blunt, but it's the truth. Find someone who can or quietly write your idea in a notebook and store it away.
It's called sampling. Many artists have done it, but one you should check out is DJ Shadow. He takes old 45s, samples the smallest components and assembles them into songs. He admits that copyright laws haven't caught up with it yet, but they will someday.