"That is so 2000 of you. Everything you say used to be true..."
Well, let's see what the coming year has to offer and revisit the conversation this time next year? Since you suggest that I am out-of-date and thus out-of-touch with the sentiment of the PC using public, let's see what the coming year's results say is the reality of the matter.
Microsoft is indeed offering up an alternative to their own mess this coming year, perhaps people will adopt the new/old Vista/XP in mega-droves of crazed PC users looking for solutions to the Microsoft mess in which they currently subsist. After all, everyone knows nothing works like the hair of the dog that bit you, eh?
I would suggest you be careful extropolating from your own experience as concerns the general public's experiences. I'm not just whistling Daisy when I say I've spent the last year talking with a broad spectrum of computer users, and I'm not "extending the truth" when I say folks are sick of their PCs continously singing Daisy when using Microsoft's products.
Let's call it the Year of the Measure. Who knows, perhaps Microsoft can buy a solution some where, some way, some how. Perhaps.
Hard to tell from the hyper "This is all _so_ cool" attitude of the writer, but every indicator I've seen in the past year says that more and more Americans (not sure about the Europeans) have wised up to the MS process of whipping up some alpha-level code, throwing it on the market all the while marketing said code as the greatest thing since sex. The experience of the consumer after she gets her pretty new Dell does not match the picture presented by Microsoft and Dell as to what the experience will be.
I talk with a lot of folks from grandmas to IT people and the one constant across the board is that people are sick of Microsoft's junk because of unreliability problems, whether due to security or stability or scalibility, etc, etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseaum.
The only reason Microsoft has managed to get away with pushing their junk on the market is because most of these folks were coming into the PC realm for the first time and didn't know any better. Well, they sure as hell know better now: They've been burned repeatedly by lousy MS junk since the middle of the 1980's and they are actively looking for alternatives.
"All public corporations in the US are owned by citizens. Everything from Wal-Mart to Haliburton (in which Moore owns stock) to MS to whatever boogie man you fantasize about."
Any person on the planet can own stock in publicly traded corporations as I understand it, so saying corporations are "owned by citizens" is not technically correct.
What the original poster suggested and the others following refer to is the apparent ability of corporations, particularly multi-national corporations, to avoid the repercussions of responsibility for their behavior. Such responsibility avoidance is, in essence, a variation on the old con known as the "shell game." It plays out in corporate and governance thusly: One concentrates authority in a small group (corporate board and their purchased politicians) whilst diluting responsibility over as large a group as possible (stock holders.) With this manner of construct, the authority can pretty much do as it pleases and, when things get nasty, the authority points to the responsible body, stock holders. But the catch is that only the very biggest of the stock holding groups have a voice that will garner a response from the corporate board. Funny how these stock holding groups and corporate boards seem to all blend together into a rather small group of the same folks.
As a test of your "responsible citizens" theory of corporate ownership, please go buy what shares you can afford of a corporate stock, complain about what and how they do, and let us know the result.
That our governments allow corporations under current law is proof simple that the politicians are in their pockets: The entire corporate law/structure is a responsibility avoidance device. Companies, whether incorporated or not, are run by humans who make decisions with consequences and should be held fully accountable and would be if our political systems weren't so very corrupt. Take a look at where your congress critter's re-election money comes from for an eye-opener than only the willfully ignorant (another definition for the word "stupid") can pretend away.
Those of us with an active hybernation gene are known to want to sleep a lot and be grumpy if disturbed when the days are short, the temperature cold and the light low. Does this mean we are depressed? No, it doesn't. Perhaps it means that some humans experience a metabolism slowing in the Winter.
I suspect the problem is with those humans who expect everyone to be their cheery Summer's best during late December. The metabolism of some people changes as a survival mechanism during Winter, so quit calling it SAD or depression or whatever else: People with real depression have different behaviors.
Perhaps mine might best be called GASP, Grumpy Ass Seasonal Personality. I'll return to normal when the air doesn't smell like diesel and the women are wearing light, pretty dresses. Don't bug me about it or I'll have your 'ead on me platter.
These are DTRs: Desk Top Replacements. They aren't meant to replace the light and mobile laptops. Think a full-powered desktop equivalent you can shove in your backpack and take to the LAN party or back and forth to work.
Comparing these to light and mobile laptops is a false comparison as that is not what these machines are made to be or do.
Yes, love my new Buffalo, very capable little box which solves any number of needs with low power and great flexibility.
Thanks for the link to the Linkstation community hacking site, wasn't aware that even existed. Looks like my little Buffalo has more capability and potential than I realized.
Ooh, deja woo: This reminds me of the days when you could find useful information on Slashdot and not just links to press releases and stupid quasi-tech related items for gossipy posters pushing jebus-in-the-sky, George of the Bungle and a bazillion variations on a few stock jokes.
...a culture of rat brain cells which can detect year-old dupes on/. Now that would be both news _and_ considerable progress over the current method, which is most likely a culture of Cowboy Neal's brain cells in dire need of a vacation, a blonde and a bottle of diet Coke.
Wow, very cool too see Linux/Firefox listed on their page next to Windows and Macintosh as a supported OS/Browser: Surely did take a lot of time and work to get this type of recognition and acceptance from the mainstream world.
Silly and snide asides aside, here's a big *hurray* for all the GNU/Linux/*NIX folks along with a great big *cheer* for the Mozilla and Google people who are greatly contributing to accelerated acceptance for the F/OSSy ones.
This is really too cool! *beam* That I'm a long-time Merriam-Webster customer makes it even better: Thanks!
"...why can't Microsoft -- with its massive army of programmers and massive budget -- patch all of its vulnerabilities?"
Why can't you -- with the "massive" amounts of Microsoft history available -- understand that Microsoft products have always been over-priced, mediocre, mass-market junk? If your computing is valuable to you, you use quality products -- that has never been Microsoft.
You are complaining about water being wet. The only thing amusing about this is that you have _so_ much company.
Buffalo technologies makes some really nice products, including RAID storage devices.
I recently bought a single drive NAS unit with a 300 GB hard drive, use it for backup/storage for both Linux and WinXP (uh oh.) I also has additional tricks like built-in Gigabit ethernet, ftp server, printer server, backup of itself to attached USB 2.0 drive and misc. other tricks. Very nice device.
The main advantage of doing your backups onto a device such as this is the power savings -- this thing uses very little power compared to running an additional PC/server. Doesn't make much noise and generates very little heat. You can get up to 1.5 TB of storage out of one of these for a pretty price.
Yes, just provide the tarball, a list of required libs, perhaps a gentle hint on using ldd, and the three or four step process to config/make/make install/change perms. Ye gads man, it's not hard to do either on your end or the users'. Granted, there are exceptions: Xnotes++ is a harsh mistress I've not yet been able to tame, but then it's hardly your standard build process.
And if Joe Noobie hoses his libc, qt _and_ gtk libs in an attempt to play a cheesey version of Hearts, well then the lesson is more valuable than the game, eh? I remember soundly trashing my first few Slackware systems doing stupid things all the while learning what is whereis and when not to do whatis and why wget won't and when wish will, etc. (And perhaps somewhere a grammar/usage Nazi just fainted.)
In summation: Don't expect "linux" to act like Windows because it most certainly is not, and, with much continued good work and good fortune, it never will be.
Oops, sorry Baadger, this response is talking to the submitter, but you inspired it so here it was put.
Yes, some of the Sager line of laptops have metal lids. They're made by Clevo out of Taiwan, but Sager is the OEM as I understand the heirarchy. Mine is a 9860 model and has the top lid made of what is most likely a lightly brushed aluminum. It's pretty, but bland: I'd love to have the Slackware logo burned into the top.
Yes, I looked at the site from the previous link to it, but thanks.
They don't mention anything about doing other laptops though, and I don't own an outdated, under-powered, over-priced Macintoy. Perhaps I should send them an email....
I'm most interested in having my laptop etched. Where do I order from, how much is it, and what are the terms/conditions for getting my machine to you and back again.
Most Sincerely,
James D. Geek aka eyepeepackets aka Marspoet
Seriously though, I will buy this service for my Sager laptop in a fraction of a mouse's heartbeat, so bring it on!
Let me repeat: Monocultures are bad. Doesn't matter what the core is, say it again, monocultures are bad.
A wise person might look at the plague Microsoft has cursed us with and see the obvious truth; this fool would repeat the same curse but with a different chant.
Verily, this pundit needs to get himself a clue. Unfortunately, he's not bright enough to see the obvious one so I doubt _any_ clue would do.
What every wise man and half the fools already know: Advertisers are bad for advertisers.
You'd think advertisers would get take a hint from the amount of time, energy and money people spend avoiding their annoying "messages." It has gotten so bad that anything advertised with traditional advertising methods is immediately suspect of being either a con or a cover for shoddy garbage.
The only "messages" trustworthy these days are word-of-mouth testimonials from informed humans you personally know or can talk with, anything else is suspect.
Manipulating truth via sleazy language usage can cost a great deal of hard-earned, easily lost credibility: Marketers, advertisers and politicians take heed.
"More and more tv tries to appeal to everyone and ends up appealing to noone."
It's called the "Least Common Denominator Effect" or LCD-E and you've described the phenom perfectly. It's what happens when marketing people are allowed to design product, the result of which is usually a very short period of success followed by a long period of failure.
Letting marketing folks do product design is like letting children do meal design: What they do is immediately self-serving but isn't good for them or anyone else around them.
Famous marketing-driven disasters of late:
- Intel with the Pentium 4 fiasco where speed is placed over performance;
- Microsoft with their ignoring of security concerns until way too late;
- Fast food providers in general, MacDonalds in particular;
- Radio/Television/Movie/Music industries;
There are many more examples, but the point is made: Focus on the largest possible market at the design stage results in a "grey goo" product which only idiots will find appealing: I suppose it's fair to say that corporations and companies which do this think their product market is comprised of idiots.
The solution is to not use their products. Look for and use alternatives whilst these corporate clowns figure out that the bottom line consists of more than just the bottom line.
"My company has recently moved from Solaris workstations to Windows workstations..."
Didn't check it first to see if critical work could be done?
Okay, here's what you do:
1. Send the person who made this decision to Singapore to be caned; 2. Send his boss to Singapore to be caned and send the boss' dog for caning too as the dog may be the true decision-maker here; 3. Get yourselves someone who has more than a two digit I.Q. to be your boss; 4. Profit!
I suspect IBM is bailing out at just the right time and, of course, they're the ones to know when to go. Indeed, who would know better than they?
That IBM is doing this should make your ears perk, your eyes focus and your wits sharpen: It's soon to be sea-change time in the PC world and IBM doesn't want to be holding old technology which has an obvious and rapidly approaching date with history.
Remember that IBM targets and markets primarily to business customers, they don't much care about Jack and Jill consumer beyond how they perceive IBM in general, hence the big image advertising budget.
Should prove to be a very interesting next five years.
Slashdot Mirror
"That is so 2000 of you. Everything you say used to be true..."
Well, let's see what the coming year has to offer and revisit the conversation
this time next year? Since you suggest that I am out-of-date and thus
out-of-touch with the sentiment of the PC using public, let's see what the coming
year's results say is the reality of the matter.
Microsoft is indeed offering up an alternative to their own mess this coming
year, perhaps people will adopt the new/old Vista/XP in mega-droves of crazed PC
users looking for solutions to the Microsoft mess in which they currently
subsist. After all, everyone knows nothing works like the hair of the dog that
bit you, eh?
I would suggest you be careful extropolating from your own experience as
concerns the general public's experiences. I'm not just whistling Daisy when I
say I've spent the last year talking with a broad spectrum of computer users,
and I'm not "extending the truth" when I say folks are sick of their PCs
continously singing Daisy when using Microsoft's products.
Let's call it the Year of the Measure. Who knows, perhaps Microsoft can buy a solution some where, some way, some how. Perhaps.
Happy New Year
Hard to tell from the hyper "This is all _so_ cool" attitude of the writer, but
every indicator I've seen in the past year says that more and more Americans
(not sure about the Europeans) have wised up to the MS process of whipping up
some alpha-level code, throwing it on the market all the while marketing said
code as the greatest thing since sex. The experience of the consumer after she
gets her pretty new Dell does not match the picture presented by Microsoft and
Dell as to what the experience will be.
I talk with a lot of folks from grandmas to IT people and the one constant across
the board is that people are sick of Microsoft's junk because of unreliability
problems, whether due to security or stability or scalibility, etc, etc. ad
infinitum, ad nauseaum.
The only reason Microsoft has managed to get away with pushing their junk on the
market is because most of these folks were coming into the PC realm for the
first time and didn't know any better. Well, they sure as hell know better now:
They've been burned repeatedly by lousy MS junk since the middle of the
1980's and they are actively looking for alternatives.
Look for Apple and F/OSS to have a banner year.
Cheers.
"All public corporations in the US are owned by citizens. Everything from
Wal-Mart to Haliburton (in which Moore owns stock) to MS to whatever boogie man
you fantasize about."
Any person on the planet can own stock in publicly traded corporations as I
understand it, so saying corporations are "owned by citizens" is not technically
correct.
What the original poster suggested and the others following refer to is the apparent
ability of corporations, particularly multi-national corporations, to avoid the
repercussions of responsibility for their behavior. Such responsibility
avoidance is, in essence, a variation on the old con known as the "shell game."
It plays out in corporate and governance thusly: One concentrates authority in a
small group (corporate board and their purchased politicians) whilst diluting
responsibility over as large a group as possible (stock holders.) With this
manner of construct, the authority can pretty much do as it pleases and, when
things get nasty, the authority points to the responsible body, stock holders.
But the catch is that only the very biggest of the stock holding groups have a
voice that will garner a response from the corporate board. Funny how these
stock holding groups and corporate boards seem to all blend together into a
rather small group of the same folks.
As a test of your "responsible citizens" theory of corporate ownership,
please go buy what shares you can afford of a corporate stock, complain about
what and how they do, and let us know the result.
That our governments allow corporations under current law is proof simple that
the politicians are in their pockets: The entire corporate law/structure is a
responsibility avoidance device. Companies, whether incorporated or not, are run
by humans who make decisions with consequences and should be held fully
accountable and would be if our political systems weren't so very corrupt. Take
a look at where your congress critter's re-election money comes from for an
eye-opener than only the willfully ignorant (another definition for the word
"stupid") can pretend away.
Caio.
It's grammar, not grammer. You one of the monkeys?
Those of us with an active hybernation gene are known to want to sleep a lot and be grumpy if disturbed when the days are short, the temperature cold and the light low. Does this mean we are depressed? No, it doesn't. Perhaps it means that some humans experience a metabolism slowing in the Winter.
I suspect the problem is with those humans who expect everyone to be their cheery Summer's best during late December. The metabolism of some people changes as a survival mechanism during Winter, so quit calling it SAD or depression or whatever else: People with real depression have different behaviors.
Perhaps mine might best be called GASP, Grumpy Ass Seasonal Personality. I'll return to normal when the air doesn't smell like diesel and the women are wearing light, pretty dresses. Don't bug me about it or I'll have your 'ead on me platter.
Ciao.
You tell 'em, Shimmer! *pat*
These are DTRs: Desk Top Replacements. They aren't meant to replace the light and mobile laptops. Think a full-powered desktop equivalent you can shove in your backpack and take to the LAN party or back and forth to work.
Comparing these to light and mobile laptops is a false comparison as that is not what these machines are made to be or do.
Cheers
At Sager:
t ml
a ker02.html
http://www.sagernotebook.com/pages/web_specials.h
At PCTorque:
http://www.pctorque.com/sager-laptops.php
A sample desktop screenshot, wsxga:
http://public.fotki.com/Marspoet/desktops/windowm
Place where people talk about them:
http://www.notebookforums.com/
Yes, love my new Buffalo, very capable little box which solves any number of needs with low power and great flexibility.
Thanks for the link to the Linkstation community hacking site, wasn't aware that even existed. Looks like my little Buffalo has more capability and potential than I realized.
Ooh, deja woo: This reminds me of the days when you could find useful information on Slashdot and not just links to press releases and stupid quasi-tech related items for gossipy posters pushing jebus-in-the-sky, George of the Bungle and a bazillion variations on a few stock jokes.
Thanks again.
...a culture of rat brain cells which can detect year-old dupes on /. Now that would be both news _and_ considerable progress over the current method, which is most likely a culture of Cowboy Neal's brain cells in dire need of a vacation, a blonde and a bottle of diet Coke.
Wow, very cool too see Linux/Firefox listed on their page next to Windows and Macintosh as a supported OS/Browser: Surely did take a lot of time and work to get this type of recognition and acceptance from the mainstream world.
Silly and snide asides aside, here's a big *hurray* for all the GNU/Linux/*NIX folks along with a great big *cheer* for the Mozilla and Google people who are greatly contributing to accelerated acceptance for the F/OSSy ones.
This is really too cool! *beam* That I'm a long-time Merriam-Webster customer makes it even better: Thanks!
Hey, imagine that: A quick Google search turned up this handy program called SystemImager and a whole bunch of other links.
Search on the strings:
systemimager linux
jumpstart linux
kickstart linux
ghost linux
Happy reading. Gotta love dose Google guys!
"...why can't Microsoft -- with its massive army of programmers and massive budget -- patch all of its vulnerabilities?"
Why can't you -- with the "massive" amounts of Microsoft history available -- understand that Microsoft products have always been over-priced, mediocre, mass-market junk? If your computing is valuable to you, you use quality products -- that has never been Microsoft.
You are complaining about water being wet. The only thing amusing about this is that you have _so_ much company.
Buffalo technologies makes some really nice products, including RAID storage devices.
I recently bought a single drive NAS unit with a 300 GB hard drive, use it for backup/storage for both Linux and WinXP (uh oh.) I also has additional tricks like built-in Gigabit ethernet, ftp server, printer server, backup of itself to attached USB 2.0 drive and misc. other tricks. Very nice device.
The main advantage of doing your backups onto a device such as this is the power savings -- this thing uses very little power compared to running an additional PC/server. Doesn't make much noise and generates very little heat. You can get up to 1.5 TB of storage out of one of these for a pretty price.
Check out the handsome little Buffalos at:
http://www.buffalotech.com/
Yes, just provide the tarball, a list of required libs, perhaps a gentle hint on using ldd, and the three or four step process to config/make/make install/change perms. Ye gads man, it's not hard to do either on your end or the users'. Granted, there are exceptions: Xnotes++ is a harsh mistress I've not yet been able to tame, but then it's hardly your standard build process.
And if Joe Noobie hoses his libc, qt _and_ gtk libs in an attempt to play a cheesey version of Hearts, well then the lesson is more valuable than the game, eh? I remember soundly trashing my first few Slackware systems doing stupid things all the while learning what is whereis and when not to do whatis and why wget won't and when wish will, etc. (And perhaps somewhere a grammar/usage Nazi just fainted.)
In summation: Don't expect "linux" to act like Windows because it most certainly is not, and, with much continued good work and good fortune, it never will be.
Oops, sorry Baadger, this response is talking to the submitter, but you inspired it so here it was put.
No, Windows _is_ the plague.
Yes, some of the Sager line of laptops have metal lids. They're made by Clevo out of Taiwan, but Sager is the OEM as I understand the heirarchy. Mine is a 9860 model and has the top lid made of what is most likely a lightly brushed aluminum. It's pretty, but bland: I'd love to have the Slackware logo burned into the top.
Yes, I looked at the site from the previous link to it, but thanks.
They don't mention anything about doing other laptops though, and I don't own an outdated, under-powered, over-priced Macintoy. Perhaps I should send them an email....
The internet has been a giant game machine from the beginning, you are limited by how you define the word, "game."
Expand your definitions and behold the universe, grasshoppa.
Dear Sirs,
I'm most interested in having my laptop etched. Where do I order from, how much is it, and what are the terms/conditions for getting my machine to you and back again.
Most Sincerely,
James D. Geek aka eyepeepackets aka Marspoet
Seriously though, I will buy this service for my Sager laptop in a fraction of a mouse's heartbeat, so bring it on!
Let me repeat: Monocultures are bad. Doesn't matter what the core is, say it again, monocultures are bad.
A wise person might look at the plague Microsoft has cursed us with and see the obvious truth; this fool would repeat the same curse but with a different chant.
Verily, this pundit needs to get himself a clue. Unfortunately, he's not bright enough to see the obvious one so I doubt _any_ clue would do.
What every wise man and half the fools already know: Advertisers are bad for advertisers.
You'd think advertisers would get take a hint from the amount of time, energy and money people spend avoiding their annoying "messages." It has gotten so bad that anything advertised with traditional advertising methods is immediately suspect of being either a con or a cover for shoddy garbage.
The only "messages" trustworthy these days are word-of-mouth testimonials from informed humans you personally know or can talk with, anything else is suspect.
Manipulating truth via sleazy language usage can cost a great deal of hard-earned, easily lost credibility: Marketers, advertisers and politicians take heed.
Cheers!
"More and more tv tries to appeal to everyone and ends up appealing to noone."
It's called the "Least Common Denominator Effect" or LCD-E and you've described the phenom perfectly. It's what happens when marketing people are allowed to design product, the result of which is usually a very short period of success followed by a long period of failure.
Letting marketing folks do product design is like letting children do meal design: What they do is immediately self-serving but isn't good for them or anyone else around them.
Famous marketing-driven disasters of late:
- Intel with the Pentium 4 fiasco where speed is placed over performance;
- Microsoft with their ignoring of security concerns until way too late;
- Fast food providers in general, MacDonalds in particular;
- Radio/Television/Movie/Music industries;
There are many more examples, but the point is made: Focus on the largest possible market at the design stage results in a "grey goo" product which only idiots will find appealing: I suppose it's fair to say that corporations and companies which do this think their product market is comprised of idiots.
The solution is to not use their products. Look for and use alternatives whilst these corporate clowns figure out that the bottom line consists of more than just the bottom line.
Cheers and ciao.
"My company has recently moved from Solaris workstations to Windows workstations..."
Didn't check it first to see if critical work could be done?
Okay, here's what you do:
1. Send the person who made this decision to Singapore to be caned;
2. Send his boss to Singapore to be caned and send the boss' dog for caning too as the dog may be the true decision-maker here;
3. Get yourselves someone who has more than a two digit I.Q. to be your boss;
4. Profit!
Ciao.
I suspect IBM is bailing out at just the right time and, of course, they're the ones to know when to go. Indeed, who would know better than they?
That IBM is doing this should make your ears perk, your eyes focus and your wits sharpen: It's soon to be sea-change time in the PC world and IBM doesn't want to be holding old technology which has an obvious and rapidly approaching date with history.
Remember that IBM targets and markets primarily to business customers, they don't much care about Jack and Jill consumer beyond how they perceive IBM in general, hence the big image advertising budget.
Should prove to be a very interesting next five years.
Ciao.