The guy never said that only artsy people buy macs. Nor did he say that that artsy people don't know about computers. You are putting words in his mouth. The truth is that Macintosh comptuers and their operating system are extremely pretty. The one thing that macs do better than every other computer is 2d graphics and audio/video editing. Those are the things that artsy beatnik type people do with their computers. They buy macs not because they are stupid but because they know that this computer excels at the applications they use the most.
And the fact of the matter is that the mac is only still alive because it is really good at 2d graphics and audio/video editing. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't be around.
I currently use Manrake 8.1 and I use it for everything except multimedia and games. For which I use win2k. Of course most of everything I do is multimedia and games. Hopefully if this version of mandrake works well, and isn't an unstable piece of junk then I will only have to use windows for multimedia. I just wish it were free. I'm not willing to pay 70$, especially since I don't want the sims.
I think I might just keep trying to configure mandrake 8.1 to do all that stuff.
I've always had a computer configured with Linux and 98SE for games. Recently I saw how pretty XP was and heard it had compatability modes for playing old DOS games. So I think I might switch to XP and Linux. However for every good piece of news about XP there is a bad piece of news. First o all I avoid passport every step of the way. There was even a contest to win a Porsche, but it required me making a passport, so I didn't enter. If windows becomes a service like AOL, however, that would just be absolutely horrible. AOL is the most poorly written memory hog of a program ever. All AOL does is pull a shade over the internet so you are kept inside its little webby world. Still might get XP after I test its gaming performance on some other machines.
I want a cellphone, Pager, PalmPilot PDA, mp3 playing, linux running, wristwatch. I wont buy any of them until they are all incorporated into one device. It will happen soon.
You know Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi? You know what they had in common? They both thought that their respective governments had unjust laws, so they disobeyed those laws and accepted the punishments for them, and it worked.
This particular story is good news, because it means that representatives do think and can be convinced that they're not right. However there are still things like the SSSCA and the DMCA. I believe these laws are unjust myself. So I disobey them. If I get locked up in jail one day, so be it. But what good is their law if nobody obeys? Let them throw all the nerds in jail. See what happens then.
This is a little crazy, but imagine if all of slashdot turned off all of our servers at home and work. Then we refuse to turn them back on until the unjust laws are repealed.
Yeah, it's crazy, but I just ate a giant pixy stick, and I'm excited because my new computer is coming today.
I don't know about you, but I've found from personal experience that multimedia playback is on average very poor in Linux. I mean there isn't a decent Divx;-) player anywhere, even though you can get the codec.
As for audio I have a SbLive! and I have it correctly configured in every way in both windows and linux. Windows audio playback with the same speakers and extremely similar configurations is just far superior. In linux I get noise and distortion and just crappy sound. Even just playing directly off of a CD sounds crappier. I usually end up plugging headphones into the front of my PlexWriter to get better sound.
Clear Concise Explanation
on
Bert Is Evil
·
· Score: 4, Informative
There was a site, and still is a site called bert is evil. It basically was full of pictures with Bert photoshopped into them. And they were all evil situations like KKK rallies. The site even won some webby awards a while back. The site is also linked on www.memepool.com today.
Anyway apparently there were some people rallying in favor of Osama Bin Laden, and they made posters of him with pictures of him they found on the internet. Of course on the Bert is evil site there was a whole set of laden pics. So when you type bin laden pictures into google or whatever search engine. You end up at bert is evil. They used these pictures to make posters and their rally made the news. Now even moreso because they have the messed up posters. Oh so funny.
Maybe you people seem to forget there's a war going on.
Just as with the DMCA DCSS loopholes of turning the code into a prime number, and making songs out of the source code, there is a loophole in the SSSCA as well. If you previously owned non-secure electronic equipment then it's ok. Oh, look plextor has to re-design all of their plexwriters, I wonder what will happen to the old ones? ^_^
The big problem with the SSSCA is that newer faster computers will have to have built in security against copyright infringement, and it is illegal to break that security. It is also illegal to remove security stuffs from a copyrighted file, like one of those secure windows ones. What do we do about this? We write a java program that goes into your system and cracks all the security. Then we have it run off an obscure web server in another country. Visit website, java runs. You didn't do it. You thought the site was something else. It doesn't say anything about files that originally had no security. The SSSCA is all about making new stuff illegal, not already existing stuff. So you change the dates on all your files.
The real reason the government gets away with stuff like this is because we/.ers are the only people who understand what's going on, and pay attention to it. We have to bring this to the attention of the general public. Tell people that mp3s wont play correctly on a new computer with windowsxp. And that if this law is passed it will be illegal to download winamp. See what happens.
Yeah so buy up a bunch of hardware and download software now, that way it wont be illegal.
Well AOL the company isn't so hot because they didn't give away this information. However the main reason that AOL stinks as an ISP is because in order to connect you have to load this enourmous hog of a program into memory. With a normal dial up isp you use dial up networking, and with a NIC you load nothing. If we could write a very small program that simply connects to aol and establishes an internet connection, that would be fantastic. People could still use AOL, but it wont suck, as much.
I'm actually in the CS Lab at RIT right now, posting this comment on an Ultra 10. We do group projects here in CS at RIT as well, and we also have a very strict academic honesty policy. Recently I did the first part of my project with another student, as was directed in the project description. We only had to submit one program design, but we each had to submit a partner evaluation. (All our stuff is submitted electronically using a UNIX program called try). Basically you wrote a few lines about how you felt about your partner's work. If you did the whole project and they slept, you said so. And vice versa. The professors alter grades accordingly. Very rarely is someone so immature as to be disonhest on the evaluation.
What if you download the picture, then don't just display it on the screen. Or turn java/javascript or whatever this technology uses off.
Isn't their some kind of law about this stuff? I mean software like that is technically "hacking" my computer. It's trying to undermine software I have installed. I guess it's ok to hack other people's computers when it is in businesses best interest, and not other times.
The best way I know of to program games for consoles are the variants of codwarrior you can get. They make compilers for PSX, PS2, N64, Dreamcast, and I think (not sure) they even have versions of codewarrior for 8 and 16 bit systems. Of course, being codewarrior, you really don't have much of a language choice but C/C++.
As for CD-R go buy a DVD-R drive. That'll give you some room for quality audio and visual stuff.
We do it because the man sucks. Every thing that we buy we have to choose from what the man makes. When shopping for a tv you chose one of the options at circuit city and pay money for it. It isn't practical to manufacture your own television just for yourself. You pick which one you like best.
With software you CAN make your own. And with the help of others on the internet you can make software that is perfect for yourself. It doesn't cost money either, just time. Not only that, but because it's just an arrangement of bits on a computer you can let the whole world have it for free. And in return you get the free software from the other open source folk.
The man gets no money, and your computer is just the way you like it. If you get open source software from someone else and it doesn't meet your needs, change it. Analogy: I got this tv for free, but the screen is too small, I spent an hour working on it and it is now 56".
Open source programming is just like the kibbutzes in Israel. They all live in one community and do a job for the good of the community. They get three meals a day, a house, everything because someone else in the community provides it. That person gets the service you provide for free and everyone elses.
We make open source software so we can get software that is perfect for us, and whoever else wants it. To save money, because the time we spend programming is worth less than the money we would spend. And we program open source software so that other people will follow suit and make free software for us.
The reason it hasn't been done before is that nothing else in the world has the nature of software. It's perfectly copyable infinite times for free. And it's free to change and create. Only costs time. To build a car you have to buy parts. To build software you use gcc.
I don't really care what link looks like. As long as they keep the classic zelda gameplay. There should be an overworld with dungeons full of puzzles, rupees, towns, people, and all that. What makes zelda games so good is that they are practically the only real-time RPGs.
However when they said cartoon I though of paper mario or anime style art. The screenshots on IGN made link look like a picasso. But as long as the gameplay stays the same I wont be royally pissed. I'm still buying a gamecube, just for luigi's mansion and Samus. Oh the Metroids.
Every time there is a study we always are told that it was funded by company X. And when this happens the study is usually tilted in favor of company X.
Is this because analysts change the results of studies in favor of the company that is funding it? I was thinking that it was more likely that company X only releases the the information in the study to the public when the results are favorable to them so their stock will increase. How can we tell which studies to trust and which ones not to?
The Rochester Institute of Technology is the university I attend. CS majors and many other majors have to take CS classes. CS 1 2 and 3 all teach java. CS 4 switches to C++.
The university claims that someone who has never written code before can be a CS major. Of course the first 3 computer classes they will take are CS 1 2 and 3. What I've found is that those who have programmed in any language previously have a very easy time with these classes. They teach object oriented concepts and the java language very well. The people with experience have a very easy time learning or even relearning java.
However, most people who have never programmed before have a very difficult time in these classes. Some of them work hard, or are able to understand the concepts easily. The rest fail. There were still people taking CS1 when I was taking CS3. Those were the people who didn't switch to being IT majors.
The reason for this I think is because java is an object oriented language. It is my belief that object oriented languages are indeed a fad. However not a fad like beanie babies or pokemon, they are a fad that doesn't go away. It will always be trendy to program in an object oriented language, however the real programming will be done in stuff like C.
Now object oriented languages are easier to code in, why would coding in C first make any sense? The reason is this. The first thing they teach you in CS1 (after they teach you to use UNIX) is how to use the static methods of the MATH class. They never teach the very basics of programming. People who weren't capable of writing a hello world were using objects. You have to teach the fundamental tools of programming before teaching object oriented concepts.
The structure of a file of code. How to print text on the screen. If, while, for, switch, int, char, double, float, String. People have to understand how to write a regular method before writing a class method. They have to learn how to declare a variable before writing a class with instance variables. The most important thing that is missing however, is pointers. Java has no pointers. When people have to switch to C after only learning Java, pointers fudge them up real bad.
So in conclusion Java is not a good language to learn as your first language. C++ is because you can be tought how to write code before you are taught objects and you don't have to change languages. Java forces objects, and therefore you can't teach fundamentals of coding without teaching object oriented concepts.
I hate nazis. And I'm not crazy about Yahoo.
But I still think the whole world should have the same freedoms that the US people have. World Wide free speech.
As has been said many times before on Slashdot. Most servers that you buy come with Windows installed. Most computers you buy come with windows installed. However smart IT departments wipe the drives on all their servers as soon as they get them and change to some *nix. Sure some of them keep the Windows 2000 Server, but most don't.
Most servers are sold without a free operating system. Most are wiped. There's no way of getting the stats on that without a large survey of IT departments. That's the truth right there.
It is quite obvious that most viruses these days are transmitted by people opening e-mail attachments. These people, are morons. Obviously if there is someone you don't know and they want you to download something, it's not good!
I personally think we should take the attachments out of e-mail. I never use e-mail attachments. I have it set not to accept e-mails that have attachments in them. If I want to transfer files I use Hotline, FTP, ICQ, or something that is made for file transfer. E-mail attachments are good for sending jpgs, gifs, and office type documents. why send jpgs and gifs? Either your a perv, or you want to send pictures of your family to relatives. Why send office documents? You are a company. ICQ/AIM are better for sending these types of files anyway. E-mail attachments are obsolete and should be deprecated.
And if anyone says they have to attach code to their e-mail, how come you aren't using CVS? We really don't need e-mail attachments these days. They cause more trouble than good. Let's get rid of them.
First teach how a microprocessor works. Transistors and stuff, but don't get too technical. Then teach enough about hardware so they will be able to go out and build computers on their own. Once they can build computers from parts and understand how each part of the computer works everything else becomes much easier.
After they learn about all the different parts of the computer, what they do, etc. Teach them about the BIOS and operating system. You only have to teach to the level where they understand how and what these things do, and how to install/setup/use them. Then teach them about software how it works, how it's written. Have them write hello world in C and stuff.
From there start talking about networking and the internet and all that stuff. Once you get to this point you can go on until the end of class teaching all about different parts of the net, different protocols, etc. How to make web pages, clients, servers, all that stuff.
That's really all anyone needs to know about computers. Hardware, software, network. Remember not to go into too much detail. Just explain very generally how things work, what they do, and how to use them. That's the main problem is that many people with computers learn simple procedures like click here, then click here. And how to accomplish tasks. If they learned about the different parts of their computer they would understand it a whole heck of a lot more.
You know why Microsoft has a monopoly? For one thing, they dont' have a superior product. And in my opinion Microsoft software is just as easy to use as Mandrake 8 (which rox). And with guys like Loki software there really isn't a reason anymore to keep that windows dual boot. So how is microsoft controlling the net?
Marketing. Microsoft advertises their product. They have a big name that almost everyone in the world recognizes. Nobody but us nerds and geeks realize that we can get everything free. And the main thing that keeps open source down, is that in order to use it you need to understand source code. However taking microsoft out would be fairly simple. What do we need?
Television commercials. We know the world is full of stupid people. They are stupid because they do what the television tells them to. They do things because they are trendy and they want to fit in with the crowd. If everyone was intelligent and did things they actually liked instead of just trendy things, then no corporation would be able to make profit. If everyone listened to music they LIKED instead of music MTV told them to like, then the record industry would have to sell so many different bands and so many different CDs. And a fairly equal number of each would be bought. But the cost of producing all those different CDs would ruin them. So they make people like shitty Boy Bands by using TV, then They make a billion NSUCK Cds and make a zillion dollars.
In order to have Linux take over the world just make television commercials. YOu will have to have lots of commercials. Especially Super Bowl commercials. It will cost lots of money we don't have. But if we make them they will come. The commercials have to show flashy screenshots of different desktop environments showing that Linux is as easy to use as Windows. We will have to drive home the point of free software. We will have to show people they can do just as much with linux as with windows. We have to throw dirt at microsoft about invading privacy of users. We will have to tell people that there are a lot of people using Linux out there, and they aren't paying money for software, why are you? Then the idiots will switch to linux, because of money. The one thing everyone understands.
Windows - 100$
Linux - 0$
Microsoft Office - 500$
Star Office - 0$
Adobe Photoshop - G-d knows how many$
The Gimp - 0$
Borland C++ Builder - I don't want to know$
Visual Studio - 1000$ I think
gcc, JDK, KBasic - all 0$
Not having Microsoft invade my privacy - priceless.
Yeah the mastercard thing is old. But it really helps you drive home stuff.
I think the best way to start is if Sun put commercials saying this.
Microsoft Office XP just came out, and upgrading to it will cost you 100s of dollars. Instead go to sun.com and get Star Office for free. It is every bit as good, and did we mention that everyone in the world can download it for free, with no tricks whatsoever? Bill Gates doesn't need your money.
But your money isn't going to the artists. I personally, and I have the checks to prove it, have snail mailed checks directly to music artists paying them 50 cents for every mp3 of theirs I have. I give the RIAA none of my money. Of that small fee like.05% goes to the people who deserve it.
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The guy never said that only artsy people buy macs. Nor did he say that that artsy people don't know about computers. You are putting words in his mouth. The truth is that Macintosh comptuers and their operating system are extremely pretty. The one thing that macs do better than every other computer is 2d graphics and audio/video editing. Those are the things that artsy beatnik type people do with their computers. They buy macs not because they are stupid but because they know that this computer excels at the applications they use the most.
And the fact of the matter is that the mac is only still alive because it is really good at 2d graphics and audio/video editing. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't be around.
I currently use Manrake 8.1 and I use it for everything except multimedia and games. For which I use win2k. Of course most of everything I do is multimedia and games. Hopefully if this version of mandrake works well, and isn't an unstable piece of junk then I will only have to use windows for multimedia. I just wish it were free. I'm not willing to pay 70$, especially since I don't want the sims.
I think I might just keep trying to configure mandrake 8.1 to do all that stuff.
I've always had a computer configured with Linux and 98SE for games. Recently I saw how pretty XP was and heard it had compatability modes for playing old DOS games. So I think I might switch to XP and Linux. However for every good piece of news about XP there is a bad piece of news. First o all I avoid passport every step of the way. There was even a contest to win a Porsche, but it required me making a passport, so I didn't enter. If windows becomes a service like AOL, however, that would just be absolutely horrible. AOL is the most poorly written memory hog of a program ever. All AOL does is pull a shade over the internet so you are kept inside its little webby world. Still might get XP after I test its gaming performance on some other machines.
I want a cellphone, Pager, PalmPilot PDA, mp3 playing, linux running, wristwatch. I wont buy any of them until they are all incorporated into one device. It will happen soon.
You know Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi? You know what they had in common? They both thought that their respective governments had unjust laws, so they disobeyed those laws and accepted the punishments for them, and it worked.
This particular story is good news, because it means that representatives do think and can be convinced that they're not right. However there are still things like the SSSCA and the DMCA. I believe these laws are unjust myself. So I disobey them. If I get locked up in jail one day, so be it. But what good is their law if nobody obeys? Let them throw all the nerds in jail. See what happens then.
This is a little crazy, but imagine if all of slashdot turned off all of our servers at home and work. Then we refuse to turn them back on until the unjust laws are repealed.
Yeah, it's crazy, but I just ate a giant pixy stick, and I'm excited because my new computer is coming today.
I don't know about you, but I've found from personal experience that multimedia playback is on average very poor in Linux. I mean there isn't a decent Divx ;-) player anywhere, even though you can get the codec.
As for audio I have a SbLive! and I have it correctly configured in every way in both windows and linux. Windows audio playback with the same speakers and extremely similar configurations is just far superior. In linux I get noise and distortion and just crappy sound. Even just playing directly off of a CD sounds crappier. I usually end up plugging headphones into the front of my PlexWriter to get better sound.
There was a site, and still is a site called bert is evil. It basically was full of pictures with Bert photoshopped into them. And they were all evil situations like KKK rallies. The site even won some webby awards a while back. The site is also linked on www.memepool.com today.
Anyway apparently there were some people rallying in favor of Osama Bin Laden, and they made posters of him with pictures of him they found on the internet. Of course on the Bert is evil site there was a whole set of laden pics. So when you type bin laden pictures into google or whatever search engine. You end up at bert is evil. They used these pictures to make posters and their rally made the news. Now even moreso because they have the messed up posters. Oh so funny.
Maybe you people seem to forget there's a war going on.
Just as with the DMCA DCSS loopholes of turning the code into a prime number, and making songs out of the source code, there is a loophole in the SSSCA as well. If you previously owned non-secure electronic equipment then it's ok. Oh, look plextor has to re-design all of their plexwriters, I wonder what will happen to the old ones? ^_^
/.ers are the only people who understand what's going on, and pay attention to it. We have to bring this to the attention of the general public. Tell people that mp3s wont play correctly on a new computer with windowsxp. And that if this law is passed it will be illegal to download winamp. See what happens.
The big problem with the SSSCA is that newer faster computers will have to have built in security against copyright infringement, and it is illegal to break that security. It is also illegal to remove security stuffs from a copyrighted file, like one of those secure windows ones. What do we do about this? We write a java program that goes into your system and cracks all the security. Then we have it run off an obscure web server in another country. Visit website, java runs. You didn't do it. You thought the site was something else. It doesn't say anything about files that originally had no security. The SSSCA is all about making new stuff illegal, not already existing stuff. So you change the dates on all your files.
The real reason the government gets away with stuff like this is because we
Yeah so buy up a bunch of hardware and download software now, that way it wont be illegal.
Well AOL the company isn't so hot because they didn't give away this information. However the main reason that AOL stinks as an ISP is because in order to connect you have to load this enourmous hog of a program into memory. With a normal dial up isp you use dial up networking, and with a NIC you load nothing. If we could write a very small program that simply connects to aol and establishes an internet connection, that would be fantastic. People could still use AOL, but it wont suck, as much.
I'm actually in the CS Lab at RIT right now, posting this comment on an Ultra 10. We do group projects here in CS at RIT as well, and we also have a very strict academic honesty policy. Recently I did the first part of my project with another student, as was directed in the project description. We only had to submit one program design, but we each had to submit a partner evaluation. (All our stuff is submitted electronically using a UNIX program called try). Basically you wrote a few lines about how you felt about your partner's work. If you did the whole project and they slept, you said so. And vice versa. The professors alter grades accordingly. Very rarely is someone so immature as to be disonhest on the evaluation.
What if you download the picture, then don't just display it on the screen. Or turn java/javascript or whatever this technology uses off.
Isn't their some kind of law about this stuff? I mean software like that is technically "hacking" my computer. It's trying to undermine software I have installed. I guess it's ok to hack other people's computers when it is in businesses best interest, and not other times.
The best way I know of to program games for consoles are the variants of codwarrior you can get. They make compilers for PSX, PS2, N64, Dreamcast, and I think (not sure) they even have versions of codewarrior for 8 and 16 bit systems. Of course, being codewarrior, you really don't have much of a language choice but C/C++.
As for CD-R go buy a DVD-R drive. That'll give you some room for quality audio and visual stuff.
Buy N64s Gamecubes and GBAs. Then stock up on everything Mario. Fun for all ages.
Red Octane is awesome. They let you rent PSX games for a small fee, with free shipping. When you send back games they send you new ones.
We do it because the man sucks. Every thing that we buy we have to choose from what the man makes. When shopping for a tv you chose one of the options at circuit city and pay money for it. It isn't practical to manufacture your own television just for yourself. You pick which one you like best.
With software you CAN make your own. And with the help of others on the internet you can make software that is perfect for yourself. It doesn't cost money either, just time. Not only that, but because it's just an arrangement of bits on a computer you can let the whole world have it for free. And in return you get the free software from the other open source folk.
The man gets no money, and your computer is just the way you like it. If you get open source software from someone else and it doesn't meet your needs, change it. Analogy: I got this tv for free, but the screen is too small, I spent an hour working on it and it is now 56".
Open source programming is just like the kibbutzes in Israel. They all live in one community and do a job for the good of the community. They get three meals a day, a house, everything because someone else in the community provides it. That person gets the service you provide for free and everyone elses.
We make open source software so we can get software that is perfect for us, and whoever else wants it. To save money, because the time we spend programming is worth less than the money we would spend. And we program open source software so that other people will follow suit and make free software for us.
The reason it hasn't been done before is that nothing else in the world has the nature of software. It's perfectly copyable infinite times for free. And it's free to change and create. Only costs time. To build a car you have to buy parts. To build software you use gcc.
I don't really care what link looks like. As long as they keep the classic zelda gameplay. There should be an overworld with dungeons full of puzzles, rupees, towns, people, and all that. What makes zelda games so good is that they are practically the only real-time RPGs.
However when they said cartoon I though of paper mario or anime style art. The screenshots on IGN made link look like a picasso. But as long as the gameplay stays the same I wont be royally pissed. I'm still buying a gamecube, just for luigi's mansion and Samus. Oh the Metroids.
Yeah you. Stop writing programs that require 60 libraries, please!
Every time there is a study we always are told that it was funded by company X. And when this happens the study is usually tilted in favor of company X.
Is this because analysts change the results of studies in favor of the company that is funding it? I was thinking that it was more likely that company X only releases the the information in the study to the public when the results are favorable to them so their stock will increase. How can we tell which studies to trust and which ones not to?
The Rochester Institute of Technology is the university I attend. CS majors and many other majors have to take CS classes. CS 1 2 and 3 all teach java. CS 4 switches to C++.
The university claims that someone who has never written code before can be a CS major. Of course the first 3 computer classes they will take are CS 1 2 and 3. What I've found is that those who have programmed in any language previously have a very easy time with these classes. They teach object oriented concepts and the java language very well. The people with experience have a very easy time learning or even relearning java.
However, most people who have never programmed before have a very difficult time in these classes. Some of them work hard, or are able to understand the concepts easily. The rest fail. There were still people taking CS1 when I was taking CS3. Those were the people who didn't switch to being IT majors.
The reason for this I think is because java is an object oriented language. It is my belief that object oriented languages are indeed a fad. However not a fad like beanie babies or pokemon, they are a fad that doesn't go away. It will always be trendy to program in an object oriented language, however the real programming will be done in stuff like C.
Now object oriented languages are easier to code in, why would coding in C first make any sense? The reason is this. The first thing they teach you in CS1 (after they teach you to use UNIX) is how to use the static methods of the MATH class. They never teach the very basics of programming. People who weren't capable of writing a hello world were using objects. You have to teach the fundamental tools of programming before teaching object oriented concepts.
The structure of a file of code. How to print text on the screen. If, while, for, switch, int, char, double, float, String. People have to understand how to write a regular method before writing a class method. They have to learn how to declare a variable before writing a class with instance variables. The most important thing that is missing however, is pointers. Java has no pointers. When people have to switch to C after only learning Java, pointers fudge them up real bad.
So in conclusion Java is not a good language to learn as your first language. C++ is because you can be tought how to write code before you are taught objects and you don't have to change languages. Java forces objects, and therefore you can't teach fundamentals of coding without teaching object oriented concepts.
I hate nazis. And I'm not crazy about Yahoo.
But I still think the whole world should have the same freedoms that the US people have. World Wide free speech.
As has been said many times before on Slashdot. Most servers that you buy come with Windows installed. Most computers you buy come with windows installed. However smart IT departments wipe the drives on all their servers as soon as they get them and change to some *nix. Sure some of them keep the Windows 2000 Server, but most don't.
Most servers are sold without a free operating system. Most are wiped. There's no way of getting the stats on that without a large survey of IT departments. That's the truth right there.
It is quite obvious that most viruses these days are transmitted by people opening e-mail attachments. These people, are morons. Obviously if there is someone you don't know and they want you to download something, it's not good!
I personally think we should take the attachments out of e-mail. I never use e-mail attachments. I have it set not to accept e-mails that have attachments in them. If I want to transfer files I use Hotline, FTP, ICQ, or something that is made for file transfer. E-mail attachments are good for sending jpgs, gifs, and office type documents. why send jpgs and gifs? Either your a perv, or you want to send pictures of your family to relatives. Why send office documents? You are a company. ICQ/AIM are better for sending these types of files anyway. E-mail attachments are obsolete and should be deprecated.
And if anyone says they have to attach code to their e-mail, how come you aren't using CVS? We really don't need e-mail attachments these days. They cause more trouble than good. Let's get rid of them.
First teach how a microprocessor works. Transistors and stuff, but don't get too technical. Then teach enough about hardware so they will be able to go out and build computers on their own. Once they can build computers from parts and understand how each part of the computer works everything else becomes much easier.
After they learn about all the different parts of the computer, what they do, etc. Teach them about the BIOS and operating system. You only have to teach to the level where they understand how and what these things do, and how to install/setup/use them. Then teach them about software how it works, how it's written. Have them write hello world in C and stuff.
From there start talking about networking and the internet and all that stuff. Once you get to this point you can go on until the end of class teaching all about different parts of the net, different protocols, etc. How to make web pages, clients, servers, all that stuff.
That's really all anyone needs to know about computers. Hardware, software, network. Remember not to go into too much detail. Just explain very generally how things work, what they do, and how to use them. That's the main problem is that many people with computers learn simple procedures like click here, then click here. And how to accomplish tasks. If they learned about the different parts of their computer they would understand it a whole heck of a lot more.
You know why Microsoft has a monopoly? For one thing, they dont' have a superior product. And in my opinion Microsoft software is just as easy to use as Mandrake 8 (which rox). And with guys like Loki software there really isn't a reason anymore to keep that windows dual boot. So how is microsoft controlling the net?
Marketing. Microsoft advertises their product. They have a big name that almost everyone in the world recognizes. Nobody but us nerds and geeks realize that we can get everything free. And the main thing that keeps open source down, is that in order to use it you need to understand source code. However taking microsoft out would be fairly simple. What do we need?
Television commercials. We know the world is full of stupid people. They are stupid because they do what the television tells them to. They do things because they are trendy and they want to fit in with the crowd. If everyone was intelligent and did things they actually liked instead of just trendy things, then no corporation would be able to make profit. If everyone listened to music they LIKED instead of music MTV told them to like, then the record industry would have to sell so many different bands and so many different CDs. And a fairly equal number of each would be bought. But the cost of producing all those different CDs would ruin them. So they make people like shitty Boy Bands by using TV, then They make a billion NSUCK Cds and make a zillion dollars.
In order to have Linux take over the world just make television commercials. YOu will have to have lots of commercials. Especially Super Bowl commercials. It will cost lots of money we don't have. But if we make them they will come. The commercials have to show flashy screenshots of different desktop environments showing that Linux is as easy to use as Windows. We will have to drive home the point of free software. We will have to show people they can do just as much with linux as with windows. We have to throw dirt at microsoft about invading privacy of users. We will have to tell people that there are a lot of people using Linux out there, and they aren't paying money for software, why are you? Then the idiots will switch to linux, because of money. The one thing everyone understands.
Windows - 100$
Linux - 0$
Microsoft Office - 500$
Star Office - 0$
Adobe Photoshop - G-d knows how many$
The Gimp - 0$
Borland C++ Builder - I don't want to know$
Visual Studio - 1000$ I think
gcc, JDK, KBasic - all 0$
Not having Microsoft invade my privacy - priceless.
Yeah the mastercard thing is old. But it really helps you drive home stuff.
I think the best way to start is if Sun put commercials saying this.
Microsoft Office XP just came out, and upgrading to it will cost you 100s of dollars. Instead go to sun.com and get Star Office for free. It is every bit as good, and did we mention that everyone in the world can download it for free, with no tricks whatsoever? Bill Gates doesn't need your money.
But your money isn't going to the artists. I personally, and I have the checks to prove it, have snail mailed checks directly to music artists paying them 50 cents for every mp3 of theirs I have. I give the RIAA none of my money. Of that small fee like .05% goes to the people who deserve it.