... that's because you're using Ubuntu. Ubuntu has LOADS of major issues on every computer I run it on. I've never had a "usable" Ubuntu install on my laptops - not even with the latest due to an endless shopping list of issues that I could not solve. Sure it installed, sure it worked, but not well by any means of measuring. I swapped my laptops over to the latest openSUSE - which also has some issues, but after an update, things started working, and dang if it isn't very very usable. No more death by 100000 papercuts.
And I counter you (valid) point with a question - just how many people actually use a multi-user setup with Windows? Home users I mean... VERY VERY few. Statistically, that number is so small that it may as well be zero. In all my years of working in IT (since the late 80s) I've only met one person who had set up his home computer for multiuser... the rest simply used the computer with whatever user it comes up with on boot.
If you tell these people that they can set up Windows to have separate accounts for each family member, they will look at you blankly, and then go out to the local computer store to buy a second computer - this is EASIER for them than trying to understand multi-user logins on Windows.
A significant portion of Desura's target market is made up of people of a similar mindset. They don't care to have multi users... one is fine, and if Desura only installs locally.... they don't even notice.
It would be nice if Desura would partner up with the major Linux distros.. say... at least Ubuntu and openSUSE to get their product dropped into the standards repos... then.. then it'd be set up "right" and no one would have to bother with asking.. is it in/opt? Is it multi user?
Exactly. They have an IP address that was linked, according to logs they have acquired from my ISP at the time, to my account at a specific time. They claim, again according to logs they have, that at that specific time - down to the second - apparently that IP that was assigned to me, was downloading the movie they are suing everyone and their grandma for downloading.
This is their evidence... I've seen it... it (printouts of the logs) was in the initial letter I received from the lawyer.
How do you defend that? I can't see how other than challenging them on their claims which my lawyer has done. The claims are very one sided... I can't prove I didn't do it... there's no way, and the lawyers sending out the letter know this. They are counting on the fact that most people will simply pay the 800 Euro fine they are levying to make it go away.
Tell that to the lawyers who are suing people. I received a letter from a law firm claiming to represent a movie studio. They stated that they had "proof" that my IP address was being used to download a movie called Split - I had never even heard of the movie prior to the letter. I took it to a lawyer and they are handling it.. it's been almost 18 months now... they challenged the idiots who are trying to sue me, and it turns out they blitzed out 10,000 letters in the city I live in... all claiming infringement on the same movie based on the IP addresses collected via torrent clients they were monitoring.
Proof? How do you prove it wasn't you? They say it was, and they have an IP address that may or may not have been yours at the time... they say that the IP address was at the time, involved in downloading said copyrighted material. Where's your defense? How do you prove it wasn't me (or anyone else) that was downloading the file. I can't prove it. All I can do is say.. I didn't do it, and if it goes to court... it's my word against theirs, and they have ISP records that appear to "prove" that I did download the movie.
Exactly... it's not a multi user application. 30 seconds looking at how it works tells you right off the bat that Desura is designed as a single user application. You do not have to run it from/home though... I run mine on a secondary drive dedicated to extra stuff. Works fine.
If you know enough about your system to want to fiddle with manually installing things in/opt, and understand what noexec is, then you can probably manage getting the games to work without Desura.
Most of the games on the previous Humble Bundles are available via Desura now, and I'd expect that the latest one will get Desura keys as well at some point (the Desura keys seem to lag behind a bit). Install Desura, grab your HB key from the HB site.. add key to Desura.. and it takes care of making your games work in whatever distro you use. I had loads of fiddly missing lib issues getting some of the games working (especially Crayon Physics) in Linux prior to doing it this way... now.. it's like using Steam... click.. install... click play... no drama.
Everyone here seems to be focused on SE Asia and US warzones. Why not look a little closer at Africa?
Africa as a continent is huge... with well over 1 billion people living there. There are loads of expat job opportunities around in various countries... although, the competition for the jobs is intense. A LOT of people want to live there... and take advantage of high expat salaries and often tax free income.
Where to look though is the challenge. Try the UN. The UN is always hiring skilled people to work in Nairobi (one of the biggest UN centres in Africa). AMREF often has IT related jobs available (again, mostly Nairobi). I see loads of jobs popping up for Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia etc. Just take a poke at http://www.careerjet.com/ and pick a country... search on Ghana for example, or Kenya... and you'll get an idea of what's available just from a simple search... you have loads of options if you are not locked into one specific country.
I've lived in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda while on job postings there for a non-African based company I worked for at the time. I loved it. Great weather, awesome people, amazing food. I had to leave in 2009 - but am definitely going back... this time to stay (I hope). I've also had the opportunity to live/work in China, and while it was interesting, Africa wins out by a huge margin.
There's nothing to turn off on my Android... CarrierIQ isn't even installed... wasn't installed from the beginning. So.. who has the spyware riddle device now? The iPhone which actually has the software installed, or the Android where it isn't?
Hmmmmm
I have a similar experience. I telecommuted for 6 years, and had zero problems with recognition. I was never forgotten, because I was also the go-to guy. When things would go crazy, everyone knew that either I'd already noticed because I was monitoring things or someone had tipped me off and I was jumping on the problem. The beauty of this was I could and did work from anywhere as long as I was sure to arrange internet access in advance and I was disciplined in being available/at work during regular working hours.
I worked with development teams in the US, India, UK and Australia... some in the same company, others not. Weekly meetings were not a problem either. I received several promotions during that telecommuting part of my career... my manager, and even right up to the Director all were aware of my contributions. As long as emails/IMs had quick replies (smartphones are a lifesaver) and targets were met, my manager didn't care if I was taking a 2 hour timeout to play a computer game, or I was shopping all morning.
The ONLY reason I'm not still working in that position is... my employer was acquired by a larger company, and the larger company dutifully mined all the tech and then fired the entire staff. Gotta love hostile takeovers.:-(
The only way I can see a telecommuter being "forgotten" is if they aren't really a part of the team and not really contributing to the deliverables.
It's a chicken meet egg syndrome. Game developers won't make Linux games because there is no centralized distribution platform, and there is no centralized distribution platform because there are no game developers making games. Ubuntu is trying with the Ubuntu store.... but it's Ubuntu only. Something like Desura is a HUGE step in the right direction. If even one major game developer starts releasing top tier games through Desura, the rest will feel pressure to do the same.
Activities were broken until the end of the 4.6 release cycle. They work quite well now in 4.7 and up... and the speed issue.. yup, they were there in 4.5, but.. basically gone in 4.7 now. I use openSUSE 12.1 on my low end EEE netbook, and it performs VERY well there.. so do not assume that KDE4 was stuck in the mess it was at the 4.5 release... ask anyone who uses KDE4 right now if they would want to go back to 4.5 after using 4.7 and they'll throw rocks at you:-)
So... give it a whirl again, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Fire it up in VirtualBox. That's a great way to testdrive whatever distro flavor of the day is without leaving the comfort of whatever distro and DE you are comfortable with.
So... you go back... there is navigation for that, and it has been tweaked a bit in 4.7.3, but... I fail to see your point. You woudl rather have the screen taken up by endlessly cascading menus? Then use a DE that provides that like Fluxbox
So... why not try KDE4? The latest KDE4.7.3 is pretty good - I would not recommend the Kubuntu spin on it... I've yet to see a "good" Kubuntu. It's not bad, but there are better choices - in particular I'm thinking of the upcoming openSUSE 12.1 (out in a few days). The KDe build there is pretty rock solid.
Regardless... Ubuntu is not just Unity... or Gnome
That would be about as successful as the pay-to-view computer problem solutions websites - a few fools would pay because they are too inept to realize there are other options... the rest of us would go use whatever popped up to replace the rapidly insignificant YouTube.
It's been a looooong time since I was living in the US, and the last library I used there was the University one. Outside the US though - Europe for example, you pay for a Library membership in most libraries I've lived in, even if you are resident in the city. The last card I had (in western Europe) was 50 Euro for a year. To get a card in the city I lived in up until 2 years ago, you have to pay a minimum of 40 Euro per year, more if you want to check out multimedia (DVDs etc): http://www.buecherhallen.de/aw/home/ausleihen/~qm/gebuehren/
I haven't looked at the library fees where I live now, but I expect it to be similar.... yup, they are: http://www.oba.nl/index.cfm/t/Tarieven_/vid/C87294CF-0870-E3EC-0B11D727C2DCBAF1
Several libraries I've used in Africa (mostly work related) were all fee based membership - again, the fee wasn't high, and I paid a fee more than likely because I wasn't a "local", but I still had to pay out of pocket to take books out of the library.
Some libraries in Canada are "free" to residents of the respective city - mainly because local taxes pay for them... but it's not the case for all cities... take Calgary for example, where you pay a yearly fee ("registration fee") for a card: http://blog.calgarypubliclibrary.com/blogs/about_cpl/pages/get-a-library-card.aspx
I've been to those buildings, and while you can enter for free, and read for free if you remain in the building, if you want to take a book home to read later, you've got to pay. Library memberships cost money in every city I've been in, across multiple countries.
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... that's because you're using Ubuntu. Ubuntu has LOADS of major issues on every computer I run it on. I've never had a "usable" Ubuntu install on my laptops - not even with the latest due to an endless shopping list of issues that I could not solve. Sure it installed, sure it worked, but not well by any means of measuring. I swapped my laptops over to the latest openSUSE - which also has some issues, but after an update, things started working, and dang if it isn't very very usable. No more death by 100000 papercuts.
And I counter you (valid) point with a question - just how many people actually use a multi-user setup with Windows? Home users I mean... VERY VERY few. Statistically, that number is so small that it may as well be zero. In all my years of working in IT (since the late 80s) I've only met one person who had set up his home computer for multiuser... the rest simply used the computer with whatever user it comes up with on boot.
If you tell these people that they can set up Windows to have separate accounts for each family member, they will look at you blankly, and then go out to the local computer store to buy a second computer - this is EASIER for them than trying to understand multi-user logins on Windows.
A significant portion of Desura's target market is made up of people of a similar mindset. They don't care to have multi users... one is fine, and if Desura only installs locally.... they don't even notice.
It would be nice if Desura would partner up with the major Linux distros.. say... at least Ubuntu and openSUSE to get their product dropped into the standards repos... then.. then it'd be set up "right" and no one would have to bother with asking.. is it in /opt? Is it multi user?
Exactly. They have an IP address that was linked, according to logs they have acquired from my ISP at the time, to my account at a specific time. They claim, again according to logs they have, that at that specific time - down to the second - apparently that IP that was assigned to me, was downloading the movie they are suing everyone and their grandma for downloading.
This is their evidence... I've seen it... it (printouts of the logs) was in the initial letter I received from the lawyer.
How do you defend that? I can't see how other than challenging them on their claims which my lawyer has done. The claims are very one sided... I can't prove I didn't do it... there's no way, and the lawyers sending out the letter know this. They are counting on the fact that most people will simply pay the 800 Euro fine they are levying to make it go away.
Tell that to the lawyers who are suing people. I received a letter from a law firm claiming to represent a movie studio. They stated that they had "proof" that my IP address was being used to download a movie called Split - I had never even heard of the movie prior to the letter. I took it to a lawyer and they are handling it.. it's been almost 18 months now... they challenged the idiots who are trying to sue me, and it turns out they blitzed out 10,000 letters in the city I live in... all claiming infringement on the same movie based on the IP addresses collected via torrent clients they were monitoring.
Proof? How do you prove it wasn't you? They say it was, and they have an IP address that may or may not have been yours at the time... they say that the IP address was at the time, involved in downloading said copyrighted material. Where's your defense? How do you prove it wasn't me (or anyone else) that was downloading the file. I can't prove it. All I can do is say.. I didn't do it, and if it goes to court... it's my word against theirs, and they have ISP records that appear to "prove" that I did download the movie.
Exactly... it's not a multi user application. 30 seconds looking at how it works tells you right off the bat that Desura is designed as a single user application. You do not have to run it from /home though... I run mine on a secondary drive dedicated to extra stuff. Works fine.
If you know enough about your system to want to fiddle with manually installing things in /opt, and understand what noexec is, then you can probably manage getting the games to work without Desura.
Most of the games on the previous Humble Bundles are available via Desura now, and I'd expect that the latest one will get Desura keys as well at some point (the Desura keys seem to lag behind a bit). Install Desura, grab your HB key from the HB site.. add key to Desura.. and it takes care of making your games work in whatever distro you use. I had loads of fiddly missing lib issues getting some of the games working (especially Crayon Physics) in Linux prior to doing it this way... now.. it's like using Steam... click.. install... click play... no drama.
Everyone here seems to be focused on SE Asia and US warzones. Why not look a little closer at Africa?
Africa as a continent is huge... with well over 1 billion people living there. There are loads of expat job opportunities around in various countries... although, the competition for the jobs is intense. A LOT of people want to live there... and take advantage of high expat salaries and often tax free income.
Where to look though is the challenge. Try the UN. The UN is always hiring skilled people to work in Nairobi (one of the biggest UN centres in Africa). AMREF often has IT related jobs available (again, mostly Nairobi). I see loads of jobs popping up for Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia etc. Just take a poke at http://www.careerjet.com/ and pick a country... search on Ghana for example, or Kenya... and you'll get an idea of what's available just from a simple search... you have loads of options if you are not locked into one specific country.
I've lived in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda while on job postings there for a non-African based company I worked for at the time. I loved it. Great weather, awesome people, amazing food. I had to leave in 2009 - but am definitely going back... this time to stay (I hope). I've also had the opportunity to live/work in China, and while it was interesting, Africa wins out by a huge margin.
There's nothing to turn off on my Android... CarrierIQ isn't even installed... wasn't installed from the beginning. So.. who has the spyware riddle device now? The iPhone which actually has the software installed, or the Android where it isn't? Hmmmmm
I have a similar experience. I telecommuted for 6 years, and had zero problems with recognition. I was never forgotten, because I was also the go-to guy. When things would go crazy, everyone knew that either I'd already noticed because I was monitoring things or someone had tipped me off and I was jumping on the problem. The beauty of this was I could and did work from anywhere as long as I was sure to arrange internet access in advance and I was disciplined in being available/at work during regular working hours. I worked with development teams in the US, India, UK and Australia... some in the same company, others not. Weekly meetings were not a problem either. I received several promotions during that telecommuting part of my career... my manager, and even right up to the Director all were aware of my contributions. As long as emails/IMs had quick replies (smartphones are a lifesaver) and targets were met, my manager didn't care if I was taking a 2 hour timeout to play a computer game, or I was shopping all morning. The ONLY reason I'm not still working in that position is... my employer was acquired by a larger company, and the larger company dutifully mined all the tech and then fired the entire staff. Gotta love hostile takeovers. :-(
The only way I can see a telecommuter being "forgotten" is if they aren't really a part of the team and not really contributing to the deliverables.
It's a chicken meet egg syndrome. Game developers won't make Linux games because there is no centralized distribution platform, and there is no centralized distribution platform because there are no game developers making games. Ubuntu is trying with the Ubuntu store.... but it's Ubuntu only. Something like Desura is a HUGE step in the right direction. If even one major game developer starts releasing top tier games through Desura, the rest will feel pressure to do the same.
Activities were broken until the end of the 4.6 release cycle. They work quite well now in 4.7 and up... and the speed issue.. yup, they were there in 4.5, but.. basically gone in 4.7 now. I use openSUSE 12.1 on my low end EEE netbook, and it performs VERY well there.. so do not assume that KDE4 was stuck in the mess it was at the 4.5 release... ask anyone who uses KDE4 right now if they would want to go back to 4.5 after using 4.7 and they'll throw rocks at you :-)
So... give it a whirl again, you might be pleasantly surprised.
openSUSE isn't Novell anymore... it's its own thing now that is community run, not managed/directed by Novell/Attachmate.
Fire it up in VirtualBox. That's a great way to testdrive whatever distro flavor of the day is without leaving the comfort of whatever distro and DE you are comfortable with.
So... you go back... there is navigation for that, and it has been tweaked a bit in 4.7.3, but... I fail to see your point. You woudl rather have the screen taken up by endlessly cascading menus? Then use a DE that provides that like Fluxbox
So... why not try KDE4? The latest KDE4.7.3 is pretty good - I would not recommend the Kubuntu spin on it... I've yet to see a "good" Kubuntu. It's not bad, but there are better choices - in particular I'm thinking of the upcoming openSUSE 12.1 (out in a few days). The KDe build there is pretty rock solid. Regardless... Ubuntu is not just Unity... or Gnome
That would be about as successful as the pay-to-view computer problem solutions websites - a few fools would pay because they are too inept to realize there are other options... the rest of us would go use whatever popped up to replace the rapidly insignificant YouTube.
It's been a looooong time since I was living in the US, and the last library I used there was the University one. Outside the US though - Europe for example, you pay for a Library membership in most libraries I've lived in, even if you are resident in the city. The last card I had (in western Europe) was 50 Euro for a year. To get a card in the city I lived in up until 2 years ago, you have to pay a minimum of 40 Euro per year, more if you want to check out multimedia (DVDs etc): http://www.buecherhallen.de/aw/home/ausleihen/~qm/gebuehren/ I haven't looked at the library fees where I live now, but I expect it to be similar.... yup, they are: http://www.oba.nl/index.cfm/t/Tarieven_/vid/C87294CF-0870-E3EC-0B11D727C2DCBAF1 Several libraries I've used in Africa (mostly work related) were all fee based membership - again, the fee wasn't high, and I paid a fee more than likely because I wasn't a "local", but I still had to pay out of pocket to take books out of the library. Some libraries in Canada are "free" to residents of the respective city - mainly because local taxes pay for them... but it's not the case for all cities... take Calgary for example, where you pay a yearly fee ("registration fee") for a card: http://blog.calgarypubliclibrary.com/blogs/about_cpl/pages/get-a-library-card.aspx
I've been to those buildings, and while you can enter for free, and read for free if you remain in the building, if you want to take a book home to read later, you've got to pay. Library memberships cost money in every city I've been in, across multiple countries.