That's easy. Just force every whatever-user to use Emacs, and force them to insert at least three M-x spook commands into whatever they create. And of course we need someone to update the spook.el database with current `bad words', since no matter how much I use the command, it never inserts `kosovo' or `UCK' or `Milosevic'.
Cheers//Frank
/* and now, especially for the good folks at NSA * et al: * * colonel Clinton North Korea assassination SDI * Kennedy CIA Craig Livingstone quiche Ruby Ridge * genetic radar Qaddafi Kibo nuclear AK-47 * Cocaine Clinton Delta Force World Trade Center * security Nazi Legion of Doom Ortega genetic * North Korea Soviet CIA Uzi munitions * * thank you for you attention */
This information is my information. I paid for it to be entered into this database. As did many others. Meanwhile, the folks at NSI have been buying a new Lexus each year instead of improving their service. They've gotten fat and ugly on the spoils of their monopoly or so it seems.
#undef RANT_MODE
So I think I want to have this information `at my fingertips' without these silly ever-changing lawyertalk-addendums. So I'll just create a modified whois-client which filters out the crud and gives me what I paid for... Anyone interested just mail me...
Looking at the plethora of wizards and similar `serialized configuration assistants' (for lack of a better word) I'm beginning to wonder if the event-driven, free choice model which most GUI's are based on is to difficult for inexperienced users.
That may not be a new observation. Choice is nice for experienced users, but it only serves to confuse those who are new to the field.
So what do most software developers come up with to help those users? The often despised, but still somewhat useful `Wizard'. Which in essence is nothing more than a `block mode terminal (1) application in a GUI disguise'. Just replace the `Next' button for the `Send' key on a block mode terminal, leave the `Back button for what it is and there you are, block mode application in GUI disguise.
Some characteristics of such an application are that it is serialized (the computer tells you what to do, not the other way around) and it implements a transaction (the configuration change is either completed in full, or not completed at all).
Now weren't GUI's invented to get rid of those `antiquated interface paradigms'? If so, they seem to miss their target for at least the less experienced part of the user community.
Of course, several `configuration assistants' already provide some form of transaction management for system administration (Linuxconf and COAS come to mind).
I think we need some standardized transaction management protocol to get all these tools to interoperate, so that transaction from one environment can trigger transactions in the other. As en example, a user adds an extra interface to the system and assigns a name to it. Inexperienced users often forget to configure the mail subsystem to accept mail for that new name (some MTA's (2) need this, other MTA's accept mail for every local interface). If that user used the management interface, such errors would not happen as often as they do now.
If somebody wants a GUI interface to their systems management service, no problem. But the same service can be used through a command line interface, a web interface or whatever. Yes you could create a CORBA interface and have the entire configuration management system represented by a series of GNOME menus. Even a `control panel' is you really want to imitate Windows. And mor experienced users can always vi directly to the config files, so there's no reason to complain:-)
Some parts of this have already been implemented in Linuxconf and COAS. Some remain to be implemented. Some (interoperability between the lot) haven't shown up on the scope yet. Maybe they will in time? I think it would greatly enhance the useability of these tools (even though I still prefer the vi way, but still...)
(1) what? Don't know what block mode terminals are? They are the original interface to mainframe and mini systems. Heavily used by banks, airlines, insurance companies, etc. The server sends a screen template (a form) which the user has to fill out. The whole screen gets returned to the server on the press of the `enter' (or `send' or `submit' or whatever) key.
(2) Mail Transfer Agent, that part of the mail system which only deals with mail routing. Sendmail is an MTA, as is qmail and Exim. Pine and mutt are mail user agents (MUA's).
I'm the original author of the grammatical riddle which got posted to/.
It's the content, not the container which counts in this case. As some readers have noticed, the English language is not my native tongue. I'm from the Netherlands, so Dutch is my native tongue. I also speak German and a bit of French, as well as a few lines of Russian. Now I know I make mistakes, and I know my spelling checker does not catch them, but I can live with that. If this were a book or a serious dissertation, I'd have someone else read it before publication. Since it is `just' a email to a misguided soul, getting the last remaining nits out of it was not my most important goal.
Oh and by the way, I did send this message yo Jack. It is only afterwards that I sent it to/., one of my stated reasons for that being that I'd let some others have a go at finding fault in my reasoning. Since most of you only found some spelling and grammatical problems, I think I passed my own test:-)
And I was a journalist, but I wrote in the Dutch language. How's your Dutch today, folks? Not so good? Well, then maybe you'll excuse me for not speaking Oxford English by the book... A lot of native English speakers who post to these fora (since forum is a latin word, the plural should be fora, right?) mistreat their own language in a much worse way than I do, so there...
Cheers//Frank
[Oh, and there may be errors in this piece as well. Sorry 'bout that...;^]
It seems Microsoft has done a nice job with yheir optical mousethingy. But one problem remains, it is still a mouse. It still needs deskspace and a free arm to operate it.
Now underneath my keyboard lies a small pad with the word `glidepoint' on it. It has been worn down by years of continuous use, but it still funcitons like the day I got it (and even then it had been used as a demonstration model for moere than a year...). It is in fact onw of those trackpad/glidepad/whateverpad things which correlate pointer movement with the movement of a finger over the surface. It seems to be rather RSI-free, it works like a charm, and it takes up only 9 square inch of deskspace to operate. If you want my humble opinion on the non-plus-ultra of mouse-alternatives, this is it. Next step: make my whole desk movement-sensitive.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey,
That's easy. Just force every whatever-user to use Emacs, and force them to insert at least three M-x spook commands into whatever they create. And of course we need someone to update the spook.el database with current `bad words', since no matter how much I use the command, it never inserts `kosovo' or `UCK' or `Milosevic'.
Cheers//Frank
/* and now, especially for the good folks at NSA
* et al:
*
* colonel Clinton North Korea assassination SDI
* Kennedy CIA Craig Livingstone quiche Ruby Ridge
* genetic radar Qaddafi Kibo nuclear AK-47
* Cocaine Clinton Delta Force World Trade Center
* security Nazi Legion of Doom Ortega genetic
* North Korea Soviet CIA Uzi munitions
*
* thank you for you attention
*/
[that's two M-x spook commands' worth of crud]
#define RANT_MODE
This information is my information. I paid for it to be entered into this database. As did many others. Meanwhile, the folks at NSI have been buying a new Lexus each year instead of improving their service. They've gotten fat and ugly on the spoils of their monopoly or so it seems.
#undef RANT_MODE
So I think I want to have this information `at my fingertips' without these silly ever-changing lawyertalk-addendums. So I'll just create a modified whois-client which filters out the crud and gives me what I paid for... Anyone interested just mail me...
Cheers//Frank
Looking at the plethora of wizards and similar `serialized configuration assistants' (for lack of a better word) I'm beginning to wonder if the event-driven, free choice model which most GUI's are based on is to difficult for inexperienced users.
That may not be a new observation. Choice is nice for experienced users, but it only serves to confuse those who are new to the field.
So what do most software developers come up with to help those users? The often despised, but still somewhat useful `Wizard'. Which in essence is nothing more than a `block mode terminal (1) application in a GUI disguise'. Just replace the `Next' button for the `Send' key on a block mode terminal, leave the `Back button for what it is and there you are, block mode application in GUI disguise.
Some characteristics of such an application are that it is serialized (the computer tells you what to do, not the other way around) and it implements a transaction (the configuration change is either completed in full, or not completed at all).
Now weren't GUI's invented to get rid of those `antiquated interface paradigms'? If so, they seem to miss their target for at least the less experienced part of the user community.
Of course, several `configuration assistants' already provide some form of transaction management for system administration (Linuxconf and COAS come to mind).
I think we need some standardized transaction management protocol to get all these tools to interoperate, so that transaction from one environment can trigger transactions in the other. As en example, a user adds an extra interface to the system and assigns a name to it. Inexperienced users often forget to configure the mail subsystem to accept mail for that new name (some MTA's (2) need this, other MTA's accept mail for every local interface). If that user used the management interface, such errors would not happen as often as they do now.
If somebody wants a GUI interface to their systems management service, no problem. But the same service can be used through a command line interface, a web interface or whatever. Yes you could create a CORBA interface and have the entire configuration management system represented by a series of GNOME menus. Even a `control panel' is you really want to imitate Windows. And mor experienced users can always vi directly to the config files, so there's no reason to complain :-)
Some parts of this have already been implemented in Linuxconf and COAS. Some remain to be implemented. Some (interoperability between the lot) haven't shown up on the scope yet. Maybe they will in time? I think it would greatly enhance the useability of these tools (even though I still prefer the vi way, but still...)
(1) what? Don't know what block mode terminals are? They are the original interface to mainframe and mini systems. Heavily used by banks, airlines, insurance companies, etc. The server sends a screen template (a form) which the user has to fill out. The whole screen gets returned to the server on the press of the `enter' (or `send' or `submit' or whatever) key.
(2) Mail Transfer Agent, that part of the mail system which only deals with mail routing. Sendmail is an MTA, as is qmail and Exim. Pine and mutt are mail user agents (MUA's).
Hey folks,
I'm the original author of the grammatical riddle which got posted to /.
It's the content, not the container which counts in this case. As some readers have noticed, the English language is not my native tongue. I'm from the Netherlands, so Dutch is my native tongue. I also speak German and a bit of French, as well as a few lines of Russian. Now I know I make mistakes, and I know my spelling checker does not catch them, but I can live with that. If this were a book or a serious dissertation, I'd have someone else read it before publication. Since it is `just' a email to a misguided soul, getting the last remaining nits out of it was not my most important goal.
Oh and by the way, I did send this message yo Jack. It is only afterwards that I sent it to /., one of my stated reasons for that being that I'd let some others have a go at finding fault in my reasoning. Since most of you only found some spelling and grammatical problems, I think I passed my own test :-)
And I was a journalist, but I wrote in the Dutch language. How's your Dutch today, folks? Not so good? Well, then maybe you'll excuse me for not speaking Oxford English by the book... A lot of native English speakers who post to these fora (since forum is a latin word, the plural should be fora, right?) mistreat their own language in a much worse way than I do, so there...
Cheers//Frank
[Oh, and there may be errors in this piece as well. Sorry 'bout that... ;^]
Well,
It seems Microsoft has done a nice job with yheir optical mousethingy. But one problem remains, it is still a mouse. It still needs deskspace and a free arm to operate it.
Now underneath my keyboard lies a small pad with the word `glidepoint' on it. It has been worn down by years of continuous use, but it still funcitons like the day I got it (and even then it had been used as a demonstration model for moere than a year...). It is in fact onw of those trackpad/glidepad/whateverpad things which correlate pointer movement with the movement of a finger over the surface. It seems to be rather RSI-free, it works like a charm, and it takes up only 9 square inch of deskspace to operate. If you want my humble opinion on the non-plus-ultra of mouse-alternatives, this is it. Next step: make my whole desk movement-sensitive.