Well, the article does say that if you don't do development work on KDE, gnome, blackbox, and some other WM.. that your efforts have been wasted. If I was a developer for Yet Another Windows Manager, I would be pissed off.
I think it is obvious to the readers of this site that choice is a big problem for mass adoption of linux-based desktop operating systems. But so what? linux-based desktop systems do not have to be adopted by the general population. Putting this article on freshmeat seems a little strange to me because freshmeat has always been a site that encourages developers to upload their small programs and utilities for others to use. People develop most of those because they think they will be useful and for fun, there is no call for demeaning the developers who write these things in their free time. Maybe if the article had been written with a better tone it would have been better.
heh, how about creative uses for those designed for XP stickers that angry IT guys peel off of their new Windows 2000 computers they are buying? I put one on my wastebasket, not very creative but I figure my wastebasket could hold XP too:)
Not true.. Windows 95 all the way up to XP all have the same basic user interface. Not that it really matters though, the big training cost comes from application-level interface changes, and not from OS-level changes. If you are migrating from Netscape 4 to Netscape 7, then you will need to retrain. If you are moving from Office 2000 to Office XP, you would probably want a quick training session too.. but not for something like the Operating system. The only people you might have to retrain are the technicians/help desk staff.. and they will learn quickly and represent a minority of your company's human resources.
The market isn't willing to pay more for drives that undergo more testing. It was mentioned previously here that SCSI discs are so much more expensive not because of superior technology or manufacturing cost vs. ATA, but because of the testing that they go through. If you want reliability, buy SCSI.. what do you expect for an $80.00 ATA hard drive anyway? The sensitive manufacturing process can probably crank out a few bad hard drives that are very prone to failure as you mention.. and because the manufacturer has to test ATA batches with samples the bad ones can get missed.
Two separate feeds doesn't work for email, most ISPs will opt for a user-configurable filter (like none, sensitive, very sensitive). It looks like spam filtering is finally catching on at ISPs, they have even figured out that customers will pay extra for this feature. Mail clients are starting to implement this for home users. Mozilla, for example, will includes spam killing support in 1.3. I'm sure most ISPs will offer this in a year or so at the server level, making spam illegal seems impossible with the international nature of the Internet.
There are a number of problems with this article, general TCO reports like this usually don't apply to larger businesses. Obviously if you can't use unix terminals then Windows PCs or terminals are your best option. Which brings me to another problem in that.. why would they choose to compare Unix terminal services/thin clients with traditional Windows PCs at every desk? There are too many variables to make any kind of informed decision if you ask me, why not start with comparing Sun architectures with that of Citrix/Windows 2000 if you are interested in Unix vs. Windows cost differences? On the other hand, if you want to do traditional PCs at every desk comparisons of Unix vs. Windows, take Redhat vs. Windows 2000 Pro.
Also, where are they getting prices on Dell GX260s? Working for an academic institution that adopts the Windows PC model, we buy GX260s with CRT monitors and no printer for about $1,000.00, their cost should only be a couple hundred dollars over that per unit. And if they buy in bulk it will go down quite a bit. I don't think I would want 510 Canon bubblejet printers to feed/support either.
Not necesarily with notebook fans. Those are not always user servicable. Most internal laptop fans are accessible only after you take the keyboard and screen off. It's best to leave that to the vendor's service people usually, you might void the warranty accessing that part of the system too.
Software is different than hardware or a suit or a toaster. It's really just the license that you own, you can not do whatever you want with the software. If you buy a copy of Windows in the store, you would get a license and media that the software is contained on. The license grants you the right to install it on one or two computers, probably.. but no more and only if you are the primary user. You can't put that copy on every machine in your organization, you only have one license. Likewise, I can't make changes to linux and market it as a closed-source product called linux-X without providing the sourcecode.
I think that because of the unusual nature of software, a lot of people just do not understand what kind of documentation is required to prove ownership of software. The most logical solution is to just keep some kind of license key or paper license that came with the software. But.. not all software has paper documentation, you could buy software over the Internet and only receive an email receipt. Also, some OEMs place the Windows license key on the chassis of the computer.. bad idea. These are known for being lifted from public areas like computer labs and libraries. Documentation like that should be kept in filing cabinets, how else could you prove ownership easily?
I agree, we will continue to buy Dell optiplexes with cd-rw drives and floppy drives for several more years I imagine. Until the cd-rw drive is as ubiquitous as the floppy drive.. I'll still buy them for the average office computer user. It's not like they take up any additional space, cost a significant amount, or add any significant support burden. CDs are great, but the most important aspect of removable, digital media is compatibility between devices.. floppy discs are still probably the best, with CDs trailing slightly for personal computers.
Exactly, this works very well with NS4.. our company's current email/browser. I think it took about 5 minutes to set up too, you just start with a clean profile, set up the bookmarks, prefs, LDAP directories, homepage, etc. the way you want them to look on the client end. The only part that I tailor to a particular user is the email settings. What I did was to replace the email system userid, full name, and first part of the email address with the token default_user. Then, after you deploy the profile image to a computer, you do a search/replace on prefs.js and substitue the correct name. It's difficult to automate that part, but it only takes about 20 seconds to do.
I disagree, when done correctly.. something like newdocms should hook into the OS and replace the existing save/save as.. dialogs with something like what is shown on the website. So, when the user goes to save the document for the first time, instead of navigating through folders and finally deciding on a final filename, the user simply tells the machine what the file is about. That's a lot easier than navigating through folders and choosing a filename. But, designing both the metadata entry and file retrieval interfaces is probably very difficult. What is the best way for a human to tell the computer what the file (which could be a letter, image, database, movie, mp3, etc.) is about?
nah, iMacs are targeted towards the email/internet/word processing type user. But, the LCD panel iMacs are a little too expensive IMHO. I don't follow Apple products, but my guess would be that they are keeping their classic CRT iMacs around as they would be significantly cheaper. Those people don't have much interest in upgrading their computer or monitor, ever. To them, it's basically just another appliance like the TV and the microwave. That type of user differs from, say, your hard core gamer that upgrades their video card twice a year..
MP3 is just a file format.. it won't go away because of DRM. DRM has to start at a much lower level, like the hardware you have in your computer/cd player and the CDs and movies that you buy in the stores. Even if all of that took place, mp3 would still be available to you, but it would be very difficult to encode the latest CD that you purchased into an MP3 file.
The gripe that most people have around here with mp3 is more of a legal problem rather than DRM.. the mp3 encoding/decoding technology is still owned by a single corporation and that means royalties I imagine. MP3 won't go away anytime soon, but it will probably die a very slow death like GIF.
they have listed windows software for a while.. ntrawrite, for example? It may not have its own section, but the database and software allow you to filter by OS..
I think that database-driven interfaces to filesystems will be the next big thing too. I see it everyday, where people have folders filled with hundreds of documents and spreadsheets that they are currently organizing with the classic folders/subfolders and descriptive filenames. Watching people try to retrieve certain files especially something that is used infrequently does make you aware of the current problem with direct filesystem access. Some clever person will eventually think of some way of abstracting the filesystem and improving organization of user data within the current, very popular, window-driven interface.
This is nothing new, I tend to take peer reviews in a forum setting with a grain of salt.. it is too easy for a company to post positive information about their products or negative reviews of the competition.
I still like google to find more professional reviews of computer hardware and consumer electronics like PDAs. I was looking up information on the palm m130 vs. the m515 today, for example, and found google invaluable. After reading about four reviews on different sites, I feel that I have a good understanding of both products. The highest ranked reviews were actually very professional and well written too, something that is harder and harder to find now..
There has been a bug in the turbo feature for a while. If you close the last mozilla window, mozilla will basically restart which will cause thrashing on lower memory systems. The workaround seems to be not closing the last window..
He's probably referring to the old Netscape 4 shortcut of CTRL+O to open a new URL, which is exactly what CTRL+SHIFT+L does in mozilla. Relearning keyboard shortcuts isn't much fun:( But, after you press CTRL+O a few dozen times in mozilla and get the File open dialog when you really wanted the open URL dialog.. you'll start learning CTRL+L pretty quickly.
I fail to see what Internet Explorer has to do with the latest rash of Messenger Service spam coming in from the Internet. Instead, it is just a general Windows problem that will affect you no matter which browser you use. The only solutions are to disable the messenger service and/or block incoming connections to udp/tcp 135, 137, 139, and 445. I think that even XP has this service turned on by default if you have a network adapter. But, maybe I am way off base and they are talking about some other kind of spam??
I agree, Linux distros have always seemed like "Frankenstein" operating systems to me. I think the philosophy is good, but taking a piece of software here and there from coders all over the world has some very serious UI drawbacks. Unifying some of the UIs of various programs is a very big step forward towards consumer acceptance, but in the interview even those guys were saying it isn't ready for Joe Blow user yet.. they mention a couple of times that RH 8 is intended for users who have a sysadmin available to set the thing up.
I think that is what makes this so impressive.. people saying that this could be easily done are out of their minds. From the article, he mentions getting the hardware to work in each operating system as well, which is quite an accomplishment for such a broad range of systems. And.. of course they all boot which takes quite a bit of planning (sector limitations, partition sizes, swap or no swap?, etc). From the MaxPC article, he says that the project took about a year for him to complete.
Well, I'd say this should be the nail in the coffin. The site was basically unusable about 30 minutes ago and they had to shut down the forums completely. I'm guessing this story making the front page of slashdot isn't going to help too much. oh well, Ghost doesn't sound that great anyway, a metalgear-like game from Blizzard?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the article does say that if you don't do development work on KDE, gnome, blackbox, and some other WM.. that your efforts have been wasted. If I was a developer for Yet Another Windows Manager, I would be pissed off.
I think it is obvious to the readers of this site that choice is a big problem for mass adoption of linux-based desktop operating systems. But so what? linux-based desktop systems do not have to be adopted by the general population. Putting this article on freshmeat seems a little strange to me because freshmeat has always been a site that encourages developers to upload their small programs and utilities for others to use. People develop most of those because they think they will be useful and for fun, there is no call for demeaning the developers who write these things in their free time. Maybe if the article had been written with a better tone it would have been better.
Great documentary and soundtrack.. a must for anyone interested in the Seattle rock scene in the late 80s.
heh, how about creative uses for those designed for XP stickers that angry IT guys peel off of their new Windows 2000 computers they are buying? I put one on my wastebasket, not very creative but I figure my wastebasket could hold XP too :)
They mention why on their website, there is no practical way to get the data out of the Windows InstallShield cabinet files under linux.
Not true.. Windows 95 all the way up to XP all have the same basic user interface. Not that it really matters though, the big training cost comes from application-level interface changes, and not from OS-level changes. If you are migrating from Netscape 4 to Netscape 7, then you will need to retrain. If you are moving from Office 2000 to Office XP, you would probably want a quick training session too.. but not for something like the Operating system. The only people you might have to retrain are the technicians/help desk staff.. and they will learn quickly and represent a minority of your company's human resources.
The market isn't willing to pay more for drives that undergo more testing. It was mentioned previously here that SCSI discs are so much more expensive not because of superior technology or manufacturing cost vs. ATA, but because of the testing that they go through. If you want reliability, buy SCSI.. what do you expect for an $80.00 ATA hard drive anyway? The sensitive manufacturing process can probably crank out a few bad hard drives that are very prone to failure as you mention.. and because the manufacturer has to test ATA batches with samples the bad ones can get missed.
Two separate feeds doesn't work for email, most ISPs will opt for a user-configurable filter (like none, sensitive, very sensitive). It looks like spam filtering is finally catching on at ISPs, they have even figured out that customers will pay extra for this feature. Mail clients are starting to implement this for home users. Mozilla, for example, will includes spam killing support in 1.3. I'm sure most ISPs will offer this in a year or so at the server level, making spam illegal seems impossible with the international nature of the Internet.
There are a number of problems with this article, general TCO reports like this usually don't apply to larger businesses. Obviously if you can't use unix terminals then Windows PCs or terminals are your best option. Which brings me to another problem in that.. why would they choose to compare Unix terminal services/thin clients with traditional Windows PCs at every desk? There are too many variables to make any kind of informed decision if you ask me, why not start with comparing Sun architectures with that of Citrix/Windows 2000 if you are interested in Unix vs. Windows cost differences? On the other hand, if you want to do traditional PCs at every desk comparisons of Unix vs. Windows, take Redhat vs. Windows 2000 Pro.
Also, where are they getting prices on Dell GX260s? Working for an academic institution that adopts the Windows PC model, we buy GX260s with CRT monitors and no printer for about $1,000.00, their cost should only be a couple hundred dollars over that per unit. And if they buy in bulk it will go down quite a bit. I don't think I would want 510 Canon bubblejet printers to feed/support either.
Not necesarily with notebook fans. Those are not always user servicable. Most internal laptop fans are accessible only after you take the keyboard and screen off. It's best to leave that to the vendor's service people usually, you might void the warranty accessing that part of the system too.
Software is different than hardware or a suit or a toaster. It's really just the license that you own, you can not do whatever you want with the software. If you buy a copy of Windows in the store, you would get a license and media that the software is contained on. The license grants you the right to install it on one or two computers, probably.. but no more and only if you are the primary user. You can't put that copy on every machine in your organization, you only have one license. Likewise, I can't make changes to linux and market it as a closed-source product called linux-X without providing the sourcecode.
I think that because of the unusual nature of software, a lot of people just do not understand what kind of documentation is required to prove ownership of software. The most logical solution is to just keep some kind of license key or paper license that came with the software. But.. not all software has paper documentation, you could buy software over the Internet and only receive an email receipt. Also, some OEMs place the Windows license key on the chassis of the computer.. bad idea. These are known for being lifted from public areas like computer labs and libraries. Documentation like that should be kept in filing cabinets, how else could you prove ownership easily?
I agree, we will continue to buy Dell optiplexes with cd-rw drives and floppy drives for several more years I imagine. Until the cd-rw drive is as ubiquitous as the floppy drive.. I'll still buy them for the average office computer user. It's not like they take up any additional space, cost a significant amount, or add any significant support burden. CDs are great, but the most important aspect of removable, digital media is compatibility between devices.. floppy discs are still probably the best, with CDs trailing slightly for personal computers.
Every modern computer can boot off of a CD, a floppy disc is not needed.
Exactly, this works very well with NS4.. our company's current email/browser. I think it took about 5 minutes to set up too, you just start with a clean profile, set up the bookmarks, prefs, LDAP directories, homepage, etc. the way you want them to look on the client end. The only part that I tailor to a particular user is the email settings. What I did was to replace the email system userid, full name, and first part of the email address with the token default_user. Then, after you deploy the profile image to a computer, you do a search/replace on prefs.js and substitue the correct name. It's difficult to automate that part, but it only takes about 20 seconds to do.
I disagree, when done correctly.. something like newdocms should hook into the OS and replace the existing save/save as.. dialogs with something like what is shown on the website. So, when the user goes to save the document for the first time, instead of navigating through folders and finally deciding on a final filename, the user simply tells the machine what the file is about. That's a lot easier than navigating through folders and choosing a filename. But, designing both the metadata entry and file retrieval interfaces is probably very difficult. What is the best way for a human to tell the computer what the file (which could be a letter, image, database, movie, mp3, etc.) is about?
nah, iMacs are targeted towards the email/internet/word processing type user. But, the LCD panel iMacs are a little too expensive IMHO. I don't follow Apple products, but my guess would be that they are keeping their classic CRT iMacs around as they would be significantly cheaper. Those people don't have much interest in upgrading their computer or monitor, ever. To them, it's basically just another appliance like the TV and the microwave. That type of user differs from, say, your hard core gamer that upgrades their video card twice a year..
MP3 is just a file format.. it won't go away because of DRM. DRM has to start at a much lower level, like the hardware you have in your computer/cd player and the CDs and movies that you buy in the stores. Even if all of that took place, mp3 would still be available to you, but it would be very difficult to encode the latest CD that you purchased into an MP3 file.
The gripe that most people have around here with mp3 is more of a legal problem rather than DRM.. the mp3 encoding/decoding technology is still owned by a single corporation and that means royalties I imagine. MP3 won't go away anytime soon, but it will probably die a very slow death like GIF.
they have listed windows software for a while.. ntrawrite, for example? It may not have its own section, but the database and software allow you to filter by OS..
I think that database-driven interfaces to filesystems will be the next big thing too. I see it everyday, where people have folders filled with hundreds of documents and spreadsheets that they are currently organizing with the classic folders/subfolders and descriptive filenames. Watching people try to retrieve certain files especially something that is used infrequently does make you aware of the current problem with direct filesystem access. Some clever person will eventually think of some way of abstracting the filesystem and improving organization of user data within the current, very popular, window-driven interface.
This is nothing new, I tend to take peer reviews in a forum setting with a grain of salt.. it is too easy for a company to post positive information about their products or negative reviews of the competition.
I still like google to find more professional reviews of computer hardware and consumer electronics like PDAs. I was looking up information on the palm m130 vs. the m515 today, for example, and found google invaluable. After reading about four reviews on different sites, I feel that I have a good understanding of both products. The highest ranked reviews were actually very professional and well written too, something that is harder and harder to find now..
There has been a bug in the turbo feature for a while. If you close the last mozilla window, mozilla will basically restart which will cause thrashing on lower memory systems. The workaround seems to be not closing the last window..
He's probably referring to the old Netscape 4 shortcut of CTRL+O to open a new URL, which is exactly what CTRL+SHIFT+L does in mozilla. Relearning keyboard shortcuts isn't much fun :( But, after you press CTRL+O a few dozen times in mozilla and get the File open dialog when you really wanted the open URL dialog.. you'll start learning CTRL+L pretty quickly.
I fail to see what Internet Explorer has to do with the latest rash of Messenger Service spam coming in from the Internet. Instead, it is just a general Windows problem that will affect you no matter which browser you use. The only solutions are to disable the messenger service and/or block incoming connections to udp/tcp 135, 137, 139, and 445. I think that even XP has this service turned on by default if you have a network adapter. But, maybe I am way off base and they are talking about some other kind of spam??
I agree, Linux distros have always seemed like "Frankenstein" operating systems to me. I think the philosophy is good, but taking a piece of software here and there from coders all over the world has some very serious UI drawbacks. Unifying some of the UIs of various programs is a very big step forward towards consumer acceptance, but in the interview even those guys were saying it isn't ready for Joe Blow user yet.. they mention a couple of times that RH 8 is intended for users who have a sysadmin available to set the thing up.
I think that is what makes this so impressive.. people saying that this could be easily done are out of their minds. From the article, he mentions getting the hardware to work in each operating system as well, which is quite an accomplishment for such a broad range of systems. And.. of course they all boot which takes quite a bit of planning (sector limitations, partition sizes, swap or no swap?, etc). From the MaxPC article, he says that the project took about a year for him to complete.
Well, I'd say this should be the nail in the coffin. The site was basically unusable about 30 minutes ago and they had to shut down the forums completely. I'm guessing this story making the front page of slashdot isn't going to help too much. oh well, Ghost doesn't sound that great anyway, a metalgear-like game from Blizzard?