Right this could be a good way to get companies to invest OSS projects for the time being, but getting people to simply click on or watch advertisements is not going to generate any profits for those companies. Once their analysts catch on that these ads are making them less money than how much their company spends on buying that ad space, they'll have the plug pulled.
Get to the point: companies don't want you to click on their ads; they want you to buy their products. If an OSS project sponsor sells something I need at a reasonable price, then I'll buy from them for sure, even if I can buy the same thing for a $5.00 less somewhere else. I think the best way for a company to make their products available in this context is to devise a practical organized isolated means for users to view their offering, maybe in a menu or panel devoted to shopping. In any case, annoying flashy ads that display on the desktop is not the way to go--even if you can turn them off.
Really the thing that makes this keyboard so great IS the Sun layout. Before when I was using a regular 104-key PC keyboard, I had to remap the keys all the time, and no matter how many different layouts I tried, I found that I'd always go back to Sun. Why:
The Esc key is in a place where you can reach it; how the heck are you gonna use Vi w/the Esc key way up in the corner of the keyboard?
The Control key is also in a more practical place; you have to use it all the time for Emacs and shell work.
Having the Backspace/Delete key right above the Enter key is actually more natural, since you don't have to move your hand out of the way to reach, and since it's one of the keys you use most frequently.
You also need the Backslash|Pipe and Grave|Tilde keys for coding and scripting, and on the Sun layout they're in reasonable locations
It's really difficult to perform Unix operations on a regular PC keyboard, because of the placement of the keys. Control and Esc are really not used all too much in a Windows environment, so moving those keys out of the way to make room for others makes sense--and since most Desktops are running Windows, it's obvious why standard keyboards have this layout.
Ever since I started using Linux I've thought that the keyboard layout is going to have a surprising lot to do with making Linux mainstream. Of course if you use GUI's full-time, the keyboard won't matter so much, but to get people to use the command-line--which I think needs to happen if Linux is going to make it--a layout like Sun's has to find its way into the mainstream too.
These cards are great, save for the fact that you can't pipe their output onto your monitor without using their vga pass-through cables. Real Magic cards simply lay the video image on top of the images your primary graphics card provides (that is, the image of your desktop, command line, etc), and for some reason they can't do this internally and instead use an unshielded vga cable--if anyone knows why I'd appreciate hearing about it.
The result is your video windows look great, but on a good monitor you see a lot of image degradation from the pass-through. Sigma Designs has used this poor design for a some time, at least since their first big dvd card.
Mozilla's never going to win the war with IE because:
(1) Microsoft can produce code faster than the Mozilla team, because they're capable of paying their developers to go at it 40+ hrs a week, whereas OSS developers need to spend most of their time making a living by doing something else. So although IE may be inferior now, that may not necessarily be the case in the next release.
(2) Moreover IE will probably not be inferior in the next release, because Mozilla is open-source, and that means anybody--including Microsoft--can analyze the software and find a similar if not better way to implement the features Mozilla has already.
(3) Most importantly, IE comes with Windows. If most people use Windows, why would most people take the time to download and install Mozilla when a pretty good browser already comes pre-installed?
Besides, despite how well Mozilla performs, it's going to have a hard time staying abreast of IE, as long as IE remains a fundamental always-on component of the operating system.
Believe me: I don't like Windows/IE at all. I own two computers, and they both run Linux/Mozilla 24/7. There's no doubt that Mozilla's a great browser, at the moment better than its competition.. But I think until Mozilla becomes the default browser of something that most users believe they need to use (like AOL, for instance), it'll have a hard time going mainstream.
Look, the best way to do this is to think about things before just spilling the news. If you just say to your boss, "Hey I'm leaving, because I found a better job," he's going to make a counter-offer, and you're basically gonna get played.
When you find a better offer from another company, then go to you boss and say, "I've been performing well as an employee, and I think it's time I had a raise." If he says no, then he either (1) doesn't value your worth as much as he ought to or (2) isn't willing to pay you for what your worth, and it's time to go for the better offer and definitively resign from your old company.
Of course, if your employer says yes, then you've achieved a raise and aroused no suspicion of disloyalty.
Columbia has a number of "ColumbiaNet Kiosk Stations," all of which run Linux, located in the lobbies of nearly every building. The information services department (AcIS) here provides a little bit of information about the kiosks online, but it's nothing to help you get your own set of stations started.
AcIS has some info on its site regarding what software the kiosks are running (Linux 2.2.2 with XFree86 3.3.3 and Window Maker 0.52), but the interface they have isn't just regular Window Maker. They run something that looks home-made; it runs a web browser (Netscape 4.x) and lets you print to any printer on the network, but it doesn't let you access the command line. It seems pretty secure (i.e. users can't tamper with the system, aside from unplugging it), but I recall that you can still get to the console with Ctrl+Alt+Fn.
These stations are easy to use and generally stable. Most of the problems that occur with them involve hardware failures.
If I choose to sell my hot dogs to passerbys for $5.00, while the cart around the corner (and out of sight) sells the same thing for $0.50, do I have an obligation to tell them that they can save $4.50 by walking 15 feet? No. Of course not. It is not the hot dog guy's fault if the consumers are dupes/idiots/uninformed.
That's a bad attitude that the vast majority of the world has. Suppose I offer to screw some guy over. Now let's say he accepts. Is it my problem if I proceed to screw him over?
To you unfortunate people who think, `No': you may own that hot dog stand, but during all the time you are not selling your food items, you are a consumer, just like all your customers, and you have to deal with all the nasties out there who pray that you represent one of the poor `dupes/idiots/uninformed'. You should help this poor guy without giving it a second thought. Unfortunately, the world doesn't think/work this way, but is that to say that it ought not to?
Being a money-maker does not preclude one's moral obligation to be an honorable individual. People mourn the end of the old HP, because we lose one of a few good honorable firms to a ruthless corporate world that has successfully legitimized commercial deception and contractual robbery through the power of material persuasion.
You had better reconsider the price of your hot dogs, because the intelligent moral crowd among mankind will refuse to do business with you, let alone have anything else to do with you.
how frequently you press the keys on your keyboard in relation to each other is to just look at your keys. The friction generated by the movements of your fingers against the keys wears away the surface of the keys so that (1) the printed symbols begin to fade away and (2) the surfaces of the keys becomes smoother and smoother.
There's a smooth shiny oval-shaped area about 2/3's the way across my space bar (starting from the left) where I'm evidently accustomed to tapping that particular key. =)
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Right this could be a good way to get companies to invest OSS projects for the time being, but getting people to simply click on or watch advertisements is not going to generate any profits for those companies. Once their analysts catch on that these ads are making them less money than how much their company spends on buying that ad space, they'll have the plug pulled.
Get to the point: companies don't want you to click on their ads; they want you to buy their products. If an OSS project sponsor sells something I need at a reasonable price, then I'll buy from them for sure, even if I can buy the same thing for a $5.00 less somewhere else. I think the best way for a company to make their products available in this context is to devise a practical organized isolated means for users to view their offering, maybe in a menu or panel devoted to shopping. In any case, annoying flashy ads that display on the desktop is not the way to go--even if you can turn them off.
Don't forget Terminator 2! It was amazing compared to the first. =)
- The Esc key is in a place where you can reach it; how the heck are you gonna use Vi w/the Esc key way up in the corner of the keyboard?
- The Control key is also in a more practical place; you have to use it all the time for Emacs and shell work.
- Having the Backspace/Delete key right above the Enter key is actually more natural, since you don't have to move your hand out of the way to reach, and since it's one of the keys you use most frequently.
- You also need the Backslash|Pipe and Grave|Tilde keys for coding and scripting, and on the Sun layout they're in reasonable locations
It's really difficult to perform Unix operations on a regular PC keyboard, because of the placement of the keys. Control and Esc are really not used all too much in a Windows environment, so moving those keys out of the way to make room for others makes sense--and since most Desktops are running Windows, it's obvious why standard keyboards have this layout.Ever since I started using Linux I've thought that the keyboard layout is going to have a surprising lot to do with making Linux mainstream. Of course if you use GUI's full-time, the keyboard won't matter so much, but to get people to use the command-line--which I think needs to happen if Linux is going to make it--a layout like Sun's has to find its way into the mainstream too.
These cards are great, save for the fact that you can't pipe their output onto your monitor without using their vga pass-through cables. Real Magic cards simply lay the video image on top of the images your primary graphics card provides (that is, the image of your desktop, command line, etc), and for some reason they can't do this internally and instead use an unshielded vga cable--if anyone knows why I'd appreciate hearing about it.
The result is your video windows look great, but on a good monitor you see a lot of image degradation from the pass-through. Sigma Designs has used this poor design for a some time, at least since their first big dvd card.
Find a lot of good and some unbelievable computer-parts deals at http://www.gotapex.com/deals.php.
Here's from an amateur analyst:
Mozilla's never going to win the war with IE because:
(1) Microsoft can produce code faster than the Mozilla team, because they're capable of paying their developers to go at it 40+ hrs a week, whereas OSS developers need to spend most of their time making a living by doing something else. So although IE may be inferior now, that may not necessarily be the case in the next release.
(2) Moreover IE will probably not be inferior in the next release, because Mozilla is open-source, and that means anybody--including Microsoft--can analyze the software and find a similar if not better way to implement the features Mozilla has already.
(3) Most importantly, IE comes with Windows. If most people use Windows, why would most people take the time to download and install Mozilla when a pretty good browser already comes pre-installed?
Besides, despite how well Mozilla performs, it's going to have a hard time staying abreast of IE, as long as IE remains a fundamental always-on component of the operating system.
Believe me: I don't like Windows/IE at all. I own two computers, and they both run Linux/Mozilla 24/7. There's no doubt that Mozilla's a great browser, at the moment better than its competition.. But I think until Mozilla becomes the default browser of something that most users believe they need to use (like AOL, for instance), it'll have a hard time going mainstream.
Look, the best way to do this is to think about things before just spilling the news. If you just say to your boss, "Hey I'm leaving, because I found a better job," he's going to make a counter-offer, and you're basically gonna get played.
When you find a better offer from another company, then go to you boss and say, "I've been performing well as an employee, and I think it's time I had a raise." If he says no, then he either (1) doesn't value your worth as much as he ought to or (2) isn't willing to pay you for what your worth, and it's time to go for the better offer and definitively resign from your old company.
Of course, if your employer says yes, then you've achieved a raise and aroused no suspicion of disloyalty.
Columbia has a number of "ColumbiaNet Kiosk Stations," all of which run Linux, located in the lobbies of nearly every building. The information services department (AcIS) here provides a little bit of information about the kiosks online, but it's nothing to help you get your own set of stations started.
AcIS has some info on its site regarding what software the kiosks are running (Linux 2.2.2 with XFree86 3.3.3 and Window Maker 0.52), but the interface they have isn't just regular Window Maker. They run something that looks home-made; it runs a web browser (Netscape 4.x) and lets you print to any printer on the network, but it doesn't let you access the command line. It seems pretty secure (i.e. users can't tamper with the system, aside from unplugging it), but I recall that you can still get to the console with Ctrl+Alt+Fn.
These stations are easy to use and generally stable. Most of the problems that occur with them involve hardware failures.
If I choose to sell my hot dogs to passerbys for $5.00, while the cart around the corner (and out of sight) sells the same thing for $0.50, do I have an obligation to tell them that they can save $4.50 by walking 15 feet? No. Of course not. It is not the hot dog guy's fault if the consumers are dupes/idiots/uninformed.
That's a bad attitude that the vast majority of the world has. Suppose I offer to screw some guy over. Now let's say he accepts. Is it my problem if I proceed to screw him over?
To you unfortunate people who think, `No': you may own that hot dog stand, but during all the time you are not selling your food items, you are a consumer, just like all your customers, and you have to deal with all the nasties out there who pray that you represent one of the poor `dupes/idiots/uninformed'. You should help this poor guy without giving it a second thought. Unfortunately, the world doesn't think/work this way, but is that to say that it ought not to?
Being a money-maker does not preclude one's moral obligation to be an honorable individual. People mourn the end of the old HP, because we lose one of a few good honorable firms to a ruthless corporate world that has successfully legitimized commercial deception and contractual robbery through the power of material persuasion.
You had better reconsider the price of your hot dogs, because the intelligent moral crowd among mankind will refuse to do business with you, let alone have anything else to do with you.
how frequently you press the keys on your keyboard in relation to each other is to just look at your keys. The friction generated by the movements of your fingers against the keys wears away the surface of the keys so that (1) the printed symbols begin to fade away and (2) the surfaces of the keys becomes smoother and smoother.
There's a smooth shiny oval-shaped area about 2/3's the way across my space bar (starting from the left) where I'm evidently accustomed to tapping that particular key. =)