I listen almost exclusively to classical music, have an iPod nano with 4GB and I have not filled it up.
4GB is roughly 60 CDs, that is more than enough for a sizeable amount of music. Only if you are a paranoid loner you will get around that amount of music in 6 months or one year (I am talking about listening, not to put something as background noise all your waking hours).
No sane person needs the complete works of Bach or Mozart at all times. "Music collections" are synonymous with consumerism, where people filling GBs and GBs with music they never will hear, claim that they "need" a bigger device to host all this "vital" collection.
Any person that actually *listens* to its music, will have more than enough with one of the devices with lowest memory specs and a bit of housekeeping every couple of months.
IBM and SUN (of course) amongst many others are behind Java.
So which mysterious mainframes could not handle Java (give me a fucking break frankly, Java is running in many guises in medium powered servers to support heavy applications), and which big iron developers are going back to C (I will give this as plausible) or COBOL (you are fucking trolling now).
Your last sentence is telling, if Java is tomorrow's legacy language, that surely means it is today's language, and since one one can live on the present, well, wake me up when all those feasibility.Net studies are completed ( when was.Net, the MS rip off of Java, launched? Not enough time for feasibility studies?)
I will let you believe Sun doesn't count anymore. Since most likely you work in a place or industry where this is true, dislodging you from your lack of understanding of where Sun is king will not help you much.
There are things that are a matter of principle (what you , disingenuously call "zealotry", that old, beaten to death horse).
If others do not have principles, principled people don't get jealous or angry about them, people with principles do not uphold them as part of a popularity contest or a drive for market share.
You don't believe in those principles? Fine. But to wish that our accessibility to better, open software, could be hindered just to please your revengeful sentiments (what people supporting FOSS have done to you apart of ensuring you gain access to software that doesn't put you at the mercy of your providers?) speaks volumes about the kind of individual you are.
Solaris is solid enough that if Sun is now committed to x86 I have no hesitation to try it in a Production situation.
The noises Sun has been making in this regards are the correct ones, and me being familiar with Solaris rather than Linux in a datacentre (I use Linux at home, but that is clearly not the same) I wil be more willing to try SOlaris than to introduce more Linux.
Having one OS less to support has many advantages, so one ship may have left, but that does not mean there are no others leaving port soon.
You can do the same with yours (I don't recommend it, but you can). So save us this bullshit about companies being at the mercy of their client no matter what, this is not the case, it has never been.
Simply explaining that you can't read that format will be enough (the immense majority of information shared between companies in Word documents could be exchanged in plain text, RTF or HTML) People have no shame in informing that they can read and older (or newer) version of Word and other people will try to accommodate to that. Why it should be any different in regards to not using Word at all beats me (hint: tell them you can't read the new version of word and ask for the format of your choice).
Unless the service you are providing is of the shittiest quality, most clients will be happy to oblige in order to keep a good commercial relationship.
The individual actions of each consumer determine the future of companies, even if they are monopolies.
The defeatist "oh I am so small, then I better do nothing" is a dereliction of duty as a consumer frankly.
For the market to be as perfect as possible, in spite of monopolistic forces, one must act in a rational way when it comes to purchases and who do you favour with your costum. In extreme case boycotts can be organized, which although may not dent the profits of the offending party, it may damage their image, if you think that is not bad ask McDonalds about Mclibels.
Today maybe as little as 1% of desktops run Linux. That is 1% less of money for MS. Not much? Perhaps, but big enough for them to threaten with patent litigation, so it must be hurting them somewhere.
I will continue to avoid MS products, as I have done for 12 years, because I don't deal with companies that are unethical. Difficult? Perhaps, but I know is the correct decision, and if anything, the OSI fiasco just confirms this.
Many governments are waking up to the fact that a foreign company holds the keys to vast sways of pubic information. Heck, the US governments at all levels should wake up to the fact that a private combine has them by the proverbial little ones.
It is just a matter of time before governments begin to mandate the use of open formats. It is simply illogic to allow such a situation to continue for long.
If MS was so certain as you are that everybody will continue to use their format, they surely would not be exhibiting themselves as the immoral, unethical bunch of bastards we all know they are paying princely sums of money to their partners and associates in so many different localities.
And if that means leaving a minority to fend for themselves, so bad.
It logistically impossible for a public system to cater for all individuals. Now, if countries would realign their budgets towards education instead of other expenditures (like killing Iraqis for example) perhaps this lofty ideal of one-to-one classes for all could be achieved.
All human societies are ordered in hierarchies, most human organizations and institutions are set up in the same way.
So if belonging to a hierarchy, were it is evident beyond the obvious that some people will give orders while others take them, is a fact of life, a very important one I would argue, what is wrong with teaching people to learn how to behave in such environment?
When you enter a hierarchy (work , club, political party, sports team) you are expected to pay respect to certain individuals, and that respect is completely and utterly asymmetric and may not be reciprocated.
All this talk about teaching people to think is great and all, but it is not actually what you are advocating. You are defending an anarchic system in which somebody that has earned a position of power or respect should no longer be respected or obeyed by people that have not earned their stripes on the organization.
Unless you can present us with a different, working way to organize human communities, all this talk about "thinking for yourself" and lack of respect for figures of authority is all bland nonsense. Even the anarchists have a bloody pegging order, they are primates as well after all, and we primates like to have a Dear Leader.
You can think for yourself perfectly while recognizing that you have a place in each organization to which you belong, this place will come with expectations about how you treat your superiors.
Basically you are criticizing an institution (the school, the public school in particular) that has nurtured people to fit in society and better themselves, deriding the skill of obeying order graciously as something of a hindrance rather that what it is: a necessary skill of civilized life.
They were threatening with their patent portfolio just weeks ago.
Nothing short of an apology about that and then opening formats and APIs would convince me that they have any genuine interest in going open (and that is only for starters).
A GPLed Windows would be the wisest decision MS could take. They just are so tremendously stubborn and short sighted that they will never realize this.
I also try to avoid people that constantly are trying to take advantage of me, specially those offering shinny nice things with leonine conditions attached.
If you are a fool for punishment that is your prerogative, but all that stuff that you call primitive is bringing lots of dosh to MS's table (most competent Windows SAs and Webmasters use on or more of the tools in the name of which you want to immolate your innocent eyeball).
Finally, if you have no ideals that is well and good, that does not mean that ideals are ridiculous just because you somehow think they must be.
You can speculate about the infighting inside MS regarding FOSS as much as you want, the reality is that Ballmer has been brandishing their patents against Linux and that Ballmer has badmouthed Linux as often as possible.
We can't say we have not been warned, any movements MS do should be judged keeping the outbursts of Ballmer in mind (he is the one calling the shots, for bunnies sakes, he could have at least paid lip service to working with Linux and increasing interoperability, in which case talking about patents would be unfriendly and rude).
Novell signed an agreement with MS regarding software patents.
Now tell us, how Miguel's opinions regarding MS (a business partner, I hasten to add again) may be seen as impartial or unbiased?
And this is before we forget about his efforts to promote technology that presents a real threat to Linux by muddling the murky waters of software patents in the US (or what, do you think that trying to emulate several MS technologies will not infringe in a patent?).
Miguel should continue coding and leave the political aspects to other people, he lacks credibility regarding MS because he clearly has tons of vetted interests there.
... please refrain to share your opinions about it.
You only need to compile stuff nowadays if you are installing some niche application, for most stuff (and here keep in mind that popular Linux distros count applications in supported package repositories by the thousands) you use a graphic package manager.
For most mundane tasks you can do all clicking buttons (like if that was intrinsically better than a clear configuration file, as a person with user interface background I can tell you categorically that GUIs are not better). This nonsense about having to fix configuration files all the times is getting quite tired frankly.
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I listen almost exclusively to classical music, have an iPod nano with 4GB and I have not filled it up.
4GB is roughly 60 CDs, that is more than enough for a sizeable amount of music. Only if you are a paranoid loner you will get around that amount of music in 6 months or one year (I am talking about listening, not to put something as background noise all your waking hours).
No sane person needs the complete works of Bach or Mozart at all times. "Music collections" are synonymous with consumerism, where people filling GBs and GBs with music they never will hear, claim that they "need" a bigger device to host all this "vital" collection.
Any person that actually *listens* to its music, will have more than enough with one of the devices with lowest memory specs and a bit of housekeeping every couple of months.
Otherwise you would not say something so uninformed about it.
IBM and SUN (of course) amongst many others are behind Java.
.Net studies are completed ( when was .Net, the MS rip off of Java, launched? Not enough time for feasibility studies?)
So which mysterious mainframes could not handle Java (give me a fucking break frankly, Java is running in many guises in medium powered servers to support heavy applications), and which big iron developers are going back to C (I will give this as plausible) or COBOL (you are fucking trolling now).
Your last sentence is telling, if Java is tomorrow's legacy language, that surely means it is today's language, and since one one can live on the present, well, wake me up when all those feasibility
I will let you believe Sun doesn't count anymore. Since most likely you work in a place or industry where this is true, dislodging you from your lack of understanding of where Sun is king will not help you much.
I will just utter two words: Finance, Oil.
Enough said frankly.
There are things that are a matter of principle (what you , disingenuously call "zealotry", that old, beaten to death horse).
If others do not have principles, principled people don't get jealous or angry about them, people with principles do not uphold them as part of a popularity contest or a drive for market share.
You don't believe in those principles? Fine. But to wish that our accessibility to better, open software, could be hindered just to please your revengeful sentiments (what people supporting FOSS have done to you apart of ensuring you gain access to software that doesn't put you at the mercy of your providers?) speaks volumes about the kind of individual you are.
Solaris is solid enough that if Sun is now committed to x86 I have no hesitation to try it in a Production situation.
The noises Sun has been making in this regards are the correct ones, and me being familiar with Solaris rather than Linux in a datacentre (I use Linux at home, but that is clearly not the same) I wil be more willing to try SOlaris than to introduce more Linux.
Having one OS less to support has many advantages, so one ship may have left, but that does not mean there are no others leaving port soon.
MS treats their clients with utter contempt.
You can do the same with yours (I don't recommend it, but you can). So save us this bullshit about companies being at the mercy of their client no matter what, this is not the case, it has never been.
Simply explaining that you can't read that format will be enough (the immense majority of information shared between companies in Word documents could be exchanged in plain text, RTF or HTML) People have no shame in informing that they can read and older (or newer) version of Word and other people will try to accommodate to that. Why it should be any different in regards to not using Word at all beats me (hint: tell them you can't read the new version of word and ask for the format of your choice).
Unless the service you are providing is of the shittiest quality, most clients will be happy to oblige in order to keep a good commercial relationship.
The individual actions of each consumer determine the future of companies, even if they are monopolies.
The defeatist "oh I am so small, then I better do nothing" is a dereliction of duty as a consumer frankly.
For the market to be as perfect as possible, in spite of monopolistic forces, one must act in a rational way when it comes to purchases and who do you favour with your costum. In extreme case boycotts can be organized, which although may not dent the profits of the offending party, it may damage their image, if you think that is not bad ask McDonalds about Mclibels.
Today maybe as little as 1% of desktops run Linux. That is 1% less of money for MS. Not much? Perhaps, but big enough for them to threaten with patent litigation, so it must be hurting them somewhere.
I will continue to avoid MS products, as I have done for 12 years, because I don't deal with companies that are unethical. Difficult? Perhaps, but I know is the correct decision, and if anything, the OSI fiasco just confirms this.
You gave them your money. You are part of the problem, so do not preach from a moral high ground in which you are not standing.
This merciless bully is beating us to death, but it is all right because he is giving us candies.
Honestly, what will it take for people to stop doing business with this company?
How much are you paying for MS Office? Is that a fair price? Do you have any bargaining power as a costumer?
Could you access all your information if you don't continue using MS's software?
These questions are the crux of the matter.
Many governments are waking up to the fact that a foreign company holds the keys to vast sways of pubic information. Heck, the US governments at all levels should wake up to the fact that a private combine has them by the proverbial little ones.
It is just a matter of time before governments begin to mandate the use of open formats. It is simply illogic to allow such a situation to continue for long.
If MS was so certain as you are that everybody will continue to use their format, they surely would not be exhibiting themselves as the immoral, unethical bunch of bastards we all know they are paying princely sums of money to their partners and associates in so many different localities.
.... why there is such bias against MS on this site.
I am confident on saying no further comment is needed from me at this point, the facts speak for themselves.
And if that means leaving a minority to fend for themselves, so bad.
It logistically impossible for a public system to cater for all individuals. Now, if countries would realign their budgets towards education instead of other expenditures (like killing Iraqis for example) perhaps this lofty ideal of one-to-one classes for all could be achieved.
All human societies are ordered in hierarchies, most human organizations and institutions are set up in the same way.
So if belonging to a hierarchy, were it is evident beyond the obvious that some people will give orders while others take them, is a fact of life, a very important one I would argue, what is wrong with teaching people to learn how to behave in such environment?
When you enter a hierarchy (work , club, political party, sports team) you are expected to pay respect to certain individuals, and that respect is completely and utterly asymmetric and may not be reciprocated.
All this talk about teaching people to think is great and all, but it is not actually what you are advocating. You are defending an anarchic system in which somebody that has earned a position of power or respect should no longer be respected or obeyed by people that have not earned their stripes on the organization.
Unless you can present us with a different, working way to organize human communities, all this talk about "thinking for yourself" and lack of respect for figures of authority is all bland nonsense. Even the anarchists have a bloody pegging order, they are primates as well after all, and we primates like to have a Dear Leader.
You can think for yourself perfectly while recognizing that you have a place in each organization to which you belong, this place will come with expectations about how you treat your superiors.
Basically you are criticizing an institution (the school, the public school in particular) that has nurtured people to fit in society and better themselves, deriding the skill of obeying order graciously as something of a hindrance rather that what it is: a necessary skill of civilized life.
They are adults.
They are not children.
Let them do whatever they want with those computers, use a decent OS (i.e. Linux, Solaris) and wipe out the disk with a fresh install every night.
Let them play with the computer, get stuck, and ask them to help each other. Solve one problem at the time, they will learn to do so themselves.
For people severely limited you can use a kiosk mode install....
Shortcuts for specific tasks are no inherently better or worst, it is not like they are ingrained in our genes or something.
For any good reason you think a certain keyboard shortcut is great I can come with 10 reasons why it isn't.
OK, I am an expert in user interface design, but you should not feel intimidated and retreat into your monumental ignorance just for this reason.
My company (thousands of employees worldwide) use Thinkpads only.
There is a reason for that.
But yeah sure, if 3 people you know were unlucky, well, whatever.
Giving that feature is a child's game, others do it, why they fail to do so is incomprehensible.
When one is ready, such a decision should not arrive by surprise ....
They were threatening with their patent portfolio just weeks ago.
Nothing short of an apology about that and then opening formats and APIs would convince me that they have any genuine interest in going open (and that is only for starters).
A GPLed Windows would be the wisest decision MS could take. They just are so tremendously stubborn and short sighted that they will never realize this.
I try to avoid it, if humanely possible.
I also try to avoid people that constantly are trying to take advantage of me, specially those offering shinny nice things with leonine conditions attached.
If you are a fool for punishment that is your prerogative, but all that stuff that you call primitive is bringing lots of dosh to MS's table (most competent Windows SAs and Webmasters use on or more of the tools in the name of which you want to immolate your innocent eyeball).
Finally, if you have no ideals that is well and good, that does not mean that ideals are ridiculous just because you somehow think they must be.
You can speculate about the infighting inside MS regarding FOSS as much as you want, the reality is that Ballmer has been brandishing their patents against Linux and that Ballmer has badmouthed Linux as often as possible.
We can't say we have not been warned, any movements MS do should be judged keeping the outbursts of Ballmer in mind (he is the one calling the shots, for bunnies sakes, he could have at least paid lip service to working with Linux and increasing interoperability, in which case talking about patents would be unfriendly and rude).
Novell signed an agreement with MS regarding software patents.
Now tell us, how Miguel's opinions regarding MS (a business partner, I hasten to add again) may be seen as impartial or unbiased?
And this is before we forget about his efforts to promote technology that presents a real threat to Linux by muddling the murky waters of software patents in the US (or what, do you think that trying to emulate several MS technologies will not infringe in a patent?).
Miguel should continue coding and leave the political aspects to other people, he lacks credibility regarding MS because he clearly has tons of vetted interests there.
... please refrain to share your opinions about it.
You only need to compile stuff nowadays if you are installing some niche application, for most stuff (and here keep in mind that popular Linux distros count applications in supported package repositories by the thousands) you use a graphic package manager.
For most mundane tasks you can do all clicking buttons (like if that was intrinsically better than a clear configuration file, as a person with user interface background I can tell you categorically that GUIs are not better). This nonsense about having to fix configuration files all the times is getting quite tired frankly.