You make a good point but think about it for a second - companies (MMM MS, Adobe, Macromedia) already make big money out of closed source.
Transmitting software on the internet is only of marginal cost if you live in western europe and the united states - the rest of the world pays big bucks for bandwidth and on an overall basis 56k modems are still the standard way to connect to the internet - this is useless for software distribution, and thats not even discussing viruses, corrupted downloads, dropped linbes, insecure payment systems.
People are not replacing pirated windows with linux, windows XP is the most pirated software on the planet right now and in fact people are replacing linux with it.
MS are actually having no major issues with XP licensing (despite what the register and certain sites tell you) they had a few glitches but so does anyone.
The simple fact is this. Microsoft can afford to make their OSes public domain. The company makes money off applications and if they wanted to they could give away the OS for free (and they can do it and still have it closed source)(the very thought of them doing that is chilling).
In fact MS have never prosecuted a home user for running a pirated windows (and i deal with MS daily - they are well aware of it and dont care as its another user of their product) - they are going more after business and they are looking mainly for breaches in licensing of applications not OSes. The fact is they can give do a cheap upgrade of Office and your software distrbution on the internet model makes it more cost effective thus meaning they could easily do it - and most people dont consider a couple hundred bucks every few years to be a lot of money (shock)
The thing about your post that makes me laugh is the last line - The danger is that the thing that costs money - software development will die because the companies cannot make any profit from which to finance it. - thus shooting yourself in the foot as the reality is Development costs money and preaching about it to people who think software costs nothing is a waste of time.
BTW - a defention of "Pretentious" is quoting 2 communist/socialist tracts and then shooting yourself in the foot with your closing line, uber Pretentious is quoting carl marx and uber leet Pretentious is mispelling Pretentious in the first place. (to be uber uber leet Pretentious you would have needed to quote Stallman (who makes marx look like a moderate)
Linux is another OS - its not a wonder drug, a miracle cure, a religion or a fabric softener - its an operating system for computer hardware.
Corporates are the only way for open source to survive - it might make you feel dirty but reality is like that - software costs money to develop and linux costs money to make, companies like Ximian have to employ programmers, advertise and all other costs with software, this needs money and unlike college or high school where you can code all night and mommy and daddy, the government or that part time job will cover the costs when you talk about real world solutions your talking real world money.
No corporate will ever put their trust in the hands of a few evangelists or guys who are 'artists' - these people deal with companies with proffesional images, sales plans, documentation and support (yeah and i know what im talking about - i work as an IT manager for a muli national) - they want reliability and a trusted name - its why they buy RedHat instead of using slakware, why they trust compaq and dell and not bobs linux services and why they stay with MS when it costs money.
Linux is dying slowly again - the "artists" out there are one of the reasons why there is no such thing as a simpe all in one install of linux that works fully with all apps and without resorting to console windows and make files - in short a simple easy to roll out corporate desktop.
Vision is great ! its a way to move to the future, but whos paying the bills?
And a comment on the selling IP - companies pay to develop IP and in the case of linux they even develope their own docmentation and training courses - thus the IP is theirs to sell - not everything in the world is free whether you like it or not.
Reality is harsh but thats the way it is.
PS yeah yeah im gonna get modded down - damn it i dont really know if i care or not - i have given up on free software in most ways - all my home equipment has gone back to MS software and ive stopped recommeding it to people - the fact is theres not one distro. out there that works properly out of the box - dont believe me think like a newbie and bung in Mandrake or Redhat and install it without any idea of what it means - then play an MPEG or AVI movie (NO changing compilers or libraries and NO console) You cant do it can you.
Open source is a wonderful thing but making this into a religion turns people off not on.
Windows installs take me less than 40 minutes and thats with all sofwtare installed and running, my mother can do it in less than 1 hour and shes 56 and has Multiple Sclerosis.
Want more than 1 partiton - run fdisk and make the then tell the os where to install by CHOOSING the partition.
No a windows install from virgin is not as complex as linux, even mandrake requires user knowledge windows never ever needs and just wait until you hit a problem with Xfree86. My notebook here is a Dell LS400GT and on windows it automatically finds the drivers (on NT i needed to install them but thats easy) - in Mandrake it wont work with the right drivers and redhat causes strange glitches - the card is a standard NeoMagic 128- installed in millions in notebooks across the world and its considered a standard- XP just works no worries and even sets 1024x768 native.
I have never had a hardware issue with windows 98 - never - im an IT manager and support over 300 staff and i havce installed 98 and NT4, 2000 and XP countless times and never seen it with any STANDARD hardware (yeah you get it with NON compliant and legacy stuff which MS state CLEARLY they dont support anymore)
NT4.0 had a whole pile of quirks and issues but it was always designed as a business OS and as DOS and 16 bit software was prevented from direcly accessing the OS it was a pain but was never an os for the home user
The less said about OS2 the better (i supported it for 18 months)
The fact is linux has always been my choice for home and personal use and i have pushed many many users towards it - but i wont anymore and emails like your badly thought out and plain innacurate and misleading statements only prove to make my point.
this is an OS people and not a religion
Re:[OT] Re:Way to go! - THIS IS THE END FOR ME
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Loki Games Closing?
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· Score: 2
no its people without the balls to put their names to the comments they make
The ONLY thing you need is for the systems to be used on the desktop at the current level of windows and MAC os
The geek saturation market is sending companies to the wall and unless linux moves to the desktop it will die - this is a fact.
As long as you persist in calling other OS'es dumb and sit on your moral high horse the Open Source movement will go downhill - the point of linux is an os for the common man, not some geek genius
Please note i am not trolling but i really cannot understand the Warez analogy - you all support something called the free software movement - some of you out there resent paying anything for your software and think all source code should be free.
How do companies make money in this ideal world of yours ? Or is it simply that everything belongs to the people? Didnt communism fail once already?
Facts as i see them
-Companies need to sell product to survive.
-Linux as a community frowns on anyone who sells product.
-GPL discourages people from developing product only to have their source ripped off
-Linux is dying slowly on the desktop and it should be getting stronger
-The concept of open source is dying
-MS have done a far better job with XP than any of us ever thought possible
-This hurts us as users more than ever see linux as an OS for 'geeks'
And you are all arguing about warez doodz and esoterica like this ? Arguing about he color of the doors whilst the wheels fall off?
How about a desktop OS that makes it almost impossible for the average windows user to install and use a sound card, video card, play a DIV-x movie, open a document or in most cases even in some cases to simply install the damn OS next to impossible for anyone non geeky.
EVERY single time a user resorts to a console command to get something running you have lost.
-Every Make/config they have to run you have lost
-Every incompatible version of GCC or a library you have lost
-Suggesting users give up their simple to use OS and software like outlook for pine (another thread on this post) is another nail in open source - users want simple to configure and use software.
Windows games sell for $90 in australia and they sell well.
Linux games sell for about $50 and dont sell well
People want to install a game and play it not hunt for the latest drivers for their video card or that library version they need to get sound - simply they want to bung it in and use it.
If a windows user can pay $90 why cant you guys pay half that ?
Just my thoughts and i really care - i dont want to see Open Source die i want to see it grow into an alternative operating system for all users - but i cant stand the holy wars or meaningless bitch fights anymore, im off to format the notebook and server and install XP and 2000 server on them - im sorry but ive spent years trying to get users to use linux and years apologising beacuse the implementation of it they chose sucked or wont work etc and i spend hours fixing it and showing them how it works and then they want to watch a movie or something and give up in disgust.
I cant do it anymore.
Im sorry
I mourn LOKI, i mourn many other companies. They wont be the last i fear and i mourn that.
I know im getting modded down for this - it will be offtopic or flamebait - the maturity of the moderators never changed - and i worked hard and posted intelligently to get to 50, but hell i can't watch it anymore, i cant see a community tear itself apart like this anymore
Well im in brisbane and i have hads optus over 12 months - no outages longer than 60 mins and speeds up to 1.5mb down , i have never exceeded the AUP and i average 650mb a day (and often more) - the service is excellent if you can get it - my brother has ADSL thru bigpond and he has refused to pay for 4 months as it wont work for him, they keep promising it will get better.
if you can get Optus Cable do it - if not look around for an alterative vendor, companies like Powerlan have laid their own cable lines and can now deliver ADSL as well - remember that the lines may be telstras but the service and server infrastructure of these companies isnt.
Actually i can tell you from the spam i have followed up and complained about 90% of our spam (my company) - comes from the US and the overwhleming majority comes from 3 ISP's
AT&T
Worldcom
@ home (used to be but replaced now by)
earthlink
oh and of course there are a lot from yahoo, hotmail etc.
Now that might just mean it's routed thru the US so im not neccesarily attacking that country
Call Ersnt Young, Anderson etc - you dont buy a system like this off the shelf it is built for your from the ground up.
Alternatives
JD Edwards
Peoplesoft
Jade
Oracle Financials
All have fleas and all cost a shitload and all are serious big time scaleable systems - not toys and not small business tools - a basic SAP is 10-15 Million $US and thats REALLY basic.
No im not forgetting it - its just not an accounting or HR system its an open source database intiative and wont ever end up as part of a real world ERP environment - ERP is an area in which companies spend up to 100 million and as such SAPDB and competing products are not on the radar - and IMHO its an initiative SAP GMBH created just to get some open source publicity - show me one real world customer making full use or it - of course you could use it like MY SQL or similar products to build an ERP from scratch but who would - lets not take the simple approach that cash ledger and governeance and compliance are seperate - they are not in large organisations they are fully integrated and this is covered in depth by securities and taxation laws - this is one area where a minor mistake can have huge consequences and as such any serious open source solution would need to be proven to be 100% complaint and fucntional .
Yes thats correct but you CANNOT compare SAP to open source - it runs on linux because they promote it as multi platform but it is so commercially protected and copyrighted that never in a million years could it be open source.
We are in phase 2 of an SAP Enterprise Implementations and FI, HR and CRM modules live, it's cost us approx $21million AU to get to this point and we run everything on SCO UNIX for stability - im sorry guys never in a million years would a company spend 17-20 million and then put it all on Linux to save some money.
HR / Corp Finance are governance and control systems and as such they are not the sort of thing a large corporate would ever consider replacing with open source products - even less likely when you consider the fights, schisms and almost religious wars fought amongst the cogniscenti. Companies need legally to have stable systems that work in these areas and a clear and responsible vendor who owns the system (someone to sue if it all goes down).
The area open source can thrive in is Small Business/ Home office - but i warn you that it means developing open source software for a windows platform as well as linux as you cannot simply expect everyone to use linux (lets be realistic here ok !)
Ye
One of my nt4 file servers here provides file and login for 200 staff and has an uptime of 267 days solid
Uptime discussions are invalid when comparing file app and print servers, availability is how we measure this and that means an uptime is bull - you have to reboot servers of ANY ilk for hotfixes and general maintenance.
Look, as someone who likes slashdot and comes here several times a day i dont like to be seem as critical, but this story is an indication of whats happening on/.
A few minutes web work would have shown that this group doesnt exist, the person mentioned doesnt exist and the email address doesnt exist, thus this is a hoax which worked very well i would think.
The most depressing part of this is that is see posts with people arguing authoritatively about what is wrong with this OS etc etc when discussing an OS that doesnt exist ?
All im asking is that the editors actually check out stories they post before they do so - its a matter of respect for the people who come here.
NOTE - im posting this under my user name in the full awerness that someone brave and wise (enter sarcasm mode)will likely mark me down for being offtopic etc etc - but as this topic is a load of bull how can anything be off topic ?
The problem i have with linux lies in the exact same area - the mistaken impression that GUI tools in Windows dont work properly is a myth and belies the fact that i can tell a user over the phone to open this window, click on that icon, type that box and click ok - try that under many linux installs - open a terminal, now type... no no its... you hit enter ? ok lets try again.
The issue is that i think linux kernel and applicaiton developers should wire their testicles to a 240v power supply. Every time they need a console, a make file or a configure command to install a simple piece of software they get a shock - simple and i can bet that pretty soon we would actually have installers that work properly every time.(although there is always the danger that some of the developers might enjoy the electric shocks !)
I love linux and would love to see it a useable system for all but at the moment the only people who are using it fully are tecnhincally competent, their is a HUGE difference between them and the average joe schmoe at home.
Linux games are a case in point, i have installed many games and then discopvered after downloading, configuring, makefileing and such like that it needs this library or that etc etc (and the next person who says read the documentation gets a punch in the nose - have you SEEN what linux developers call documnentation and manuals ? )
The average user wants to pop in a cd, run the setup, have it install the files and then play the game / use the app - Period. They dont give a fuck about anything else and the windows direct x installation is as simple and easy to do as falling off a log - we need to stop arguing about crap like whats the best emulator and get out there and make a viable alternative OS for every man that is easy to use and add software to
Thats actually because someone with no id is most assuredly not going to be a terrorist as the very lack of it draws unwanted attention to them - and you were lucky - the slightest suspicion you would either have been refused entry immediately or interviewed very very comprehensively, but im guessing youre a white guy who has a college degree and you werent alone at the time and thus had people WITH id who vouched for you.
Maybe its a programming glitch ? who knows ? i can think of countless other sites that dont work properly on different browsers including some that wont work properly on IE - i would think (and not to be an MS apologist here BUT) we should wait for a few hours and see what happens.
Any of us should know that a move or change in any architecture can cause problems even for MS - the fact that it is MS is what leads people to claim conspiracy theories and proclaim death to Bill Gates, honestly if everyone stopped worrying about what MS is doing and started worrying about getting Linux and other open souurce stuff to a totally stable basis where we can roll it out on the desktop then we would all be better off and MS would be hurting a lot more.
I wonder if there was a similar problem at sourceforge if we would see the same violent protests an attacks on the company - i dont think so.
Lets all stop looking over our shoulder and start lookin at the future
I just cant find anything that offers the full range of hardware and software support with ease of implementation and user acceptance - im not locked in i could start changing toomorrow but i cant go down that path yet.
We run a telnet app here that is heavily used as well - to a VAX - the users can use it because they have cheat sheets to tell them which button to press, the minute they get 1 millionth of a step outside the system they freeze - and please dont compare that to a console - its an app thats all.
Yep you have worked with unusual secretaries.
I dont feel locked in by a vendor i simple havent found a solution that offers the stability and useability the MS product does for ALL users (the keyword there is ALL - my techs could handle Linux (our webservers and firewalls are all Slackware) but i cant give any of the current stuff to a user as a desktop replacment yet.
And all of the people who post comments about star office being adequate are missing the point - youre programmers or people who are comfortable with systems and to you adequate is good enough, not to a corporate on a multi national stage - it has to be perfectly compatible (dont get me started on the WordPC VS WordMac Issues) and near enough isnt good enough
I cant wait for the day linux is ready for all user levels and desktops - but its not there yet and articles like this wont get it there any faster
People say 'crap' like this because in file/print and application servers uptime is no basis for measuring performance - in a web server its important but even in our massive ERP (SAP) systems we can take a system down and reboot it if needs be. More accurate measures would be system outages due to errors and or application faults - so lets see my main file print on this site - 200 users - win2000 - Xeon850 with 512mb ram handling file and print as a BDC has gone 8 months without an error or crash.
You build it right you dont have problems - you fuck it up you do - same for linux and windows.
Oh and if you dont reboot for pathches then what is a kernel update ?
Fine and i see your point so lets compare apples with apples - 1 1500 staff and 1 server - WRONG - you need at least 4 in a farm to cope with the load and you need to rate up the network for the Sunrays (do a bit of research on the bandwdith usage) also lets not compare PC's lets compare Winterms for the same effect - guess what they are cheaper than Sunrays - and they can work on a routed network - you run Windows 2000 terminal server and metaframe XPE and get a secure and scaleable solution that is easy to manage and less ram and bandwidth intensive - the licensing is still an issue but the servers dont need to be as grunty as the 4800 and you dont need as much ram and the seperate network the Sunrays need (they arent routable) - the windows terminal server 2000 is stable (and we run 18 servers on it supporting over 300 users in over 50 sites using every connection method from dial in to frame with an uptime of 99.9% (REAL WORLD machines need reboots for patches etc) The costs are misrepesented in this article and thats why. You would not need 4 support people in a windows environment on Winterms either as all admin is from the desktop and to take the site im based at i have 50 users in 2 sites alone and we average 1 support call a month (and then its mainly a locked document or forgotten password)
Lets compare apples with apples - Winterms on XP Vs Sunrays - you would find they are a lot closer than you think.
When will we see a real world example of this sort of comparison we can actually use to get open source up and running in our environments ?
I agree - i worked for an advertising agency before this job and i rediscovered Macs, i miss my old desk where i had a PC and a G3 on it !
I have seen many IT managers as bad as you pointed out and some worse - you dont need to apologise, the should be the ones apologising - and if the Manager at the company you talk about is stupid enough to buy something without asking or talking the the users he should be out of a job
There are lots of us out here who are like me - the thing is we do our jobs and no one heres about us - only the idiots get publicity (the wrong sort but)
I think thats a good point but you have to rememebr that your environment obviously has skilled users and you also have to take into account the applications running on each platform. Also you are ALL assuming solaris which is not a free OS - the assumption everyone else is talking about is a Linux Distro - they are i put to you birds of 2 very different feathers.
I supoprt Windows and i would not say it is perfect But under 2000 we have a lot lot less crashes than NT - its stable to fault - and this box runs XP - has done since the first test release and i have NEVER chrashed it.
And MS does end of life software - the same as Lunix kernels are replaced and as Solaris stop actively supoprting older versions - its called progress and its a good thing otherwise we wouls all still be time sharing in a PDP or an IBM RS.
My point is you need to be aware of the follwing
-Training
-Ease of use
-User Acceptance
-Interconnecatbility
A secretary doesnt want to mess around - she wants to logon, read her email, type a letter a print it out, she knows windows and has been using it for years and can use explorer to find a file, she understands macros and has customised templates and auto texts - you take away here machine she had better be able to immediately pick up the new OS and use it the same (and NO console windows - shes never SEEN DOS) and follow the same file and tree layout - KDE is almost there but i still cant give it to a secretary.
lets understand the realities - on windows desktops here my users use Outlook, Word, Excel, IE5.5, Powerpoint, SAP and some of them have apps like photshop, they know their sysytems and i doubt 1 in 50 have ever seen a command line.
I cannot replace my OS (and i would love to BTW) with linux until all of those products can work (and dont point out star office etc - ive trialled them and the KOffice is very good but we still need to interoperate with people outside and Koffice lacks a lot of things (including the macros we use for out templates)
The average user isnt ready for linux - but if we keep working on it soon they might be - lets not just try and confuse the fight with statistice lets make is a CLEAR advantage.
OK well im an IT manager and i work 70+ hours a week - i have a small team (6) supporting just over 500 users on a Windows 2000 AD domain with 2000 Desktops - and i would comment on the overpaid but im laughing so hard i can't
You know everyone thinks they can do this job better than whoevers doing it - Budgets are a prime example. I worked my way up throught the levels to get here - ive worked Helpdesk, Desktop Support, Server and Infrastructre support and Porject work, and budgets still get me. Its no as easy as you think - you start out with planning what you want to do, then you work out what you can afford to do then you budget and extra 20-50% if you can to cover the 300000 other projects and things that the business wants to do but forgot about - the money has to come from somewhere - you have to plan for PC turnover (corporates DONT buy clones - i turn my machines over every 3 years (Leased Dell Environment) and that needs planning (you ever rolled out 100 machines in one hit ?). We use a standard environment and because we buy Dell we get a guranteed product lifecyle (same components etc) which means we only update that when the product changes - it makes things simpler (we also use RIS for builds - pisses on ghost BTW)
Now say we budget $1 Million next year for hardware purchases including upgrades - i work this by looking at my replacement schedules, estimated staff numbers, expansion etc - then when i get that figure i add 2 machines for each business group to give us a bit of room to manouver - if we run short we can simply re allocate funds to another account code. This is a lot easier than under estimating a budget and then having to beg for money to buy needed equipment, and i havent even begun to discuss training, staffing, travel, entertainment (yeah we do a little of it) stationary, rent, furniture and the myriad of other things - in all Budgeting takes my staff and i approx 2 months of hard work and we invariably miss things. And if you dont spend the budget next year you DO get less - its a fact of corporate life.
as for the example about Macs - the IT manager in that case fucked up - thats all i can say - but think about this - How much pressure did he get from above ?
We have recently implemented SAP over the objections of all of the IT Management team from our regiona - the business bought the product to replace a fucntional and effective Financial system and improve other areas - they had no firm reason to do it and the mess its created has cost us all huge hours and what was left of my budget. The reason we bought it ?
The CEO had used it at another company and all his friends who ran companies used it and the consultants convinced him and the board it would help them - they believe the budgets and didnt allocate enough money.
This is from a team of highly skilled and successful managers who produce results in their chosen areas but they dont know IT. I wonder if in this solution the manager was forced to do it by those above him who liked windows. ? (or he might just be a tool !)
My staff could quit, they could walk away but we dont - we dig in an work the time - we get the systems running because we are pros - and we hope we have enough money in the budget to give them a bit of ovetrtime (we dont BTW because they spent it all)
I think that you comment on overpaid is a little bit insulting but i will let it pass - i dont know a collegue in this industry who works under 60 hours a week and the stress levels are huge.
I also wonder if theres a little bias in your love of Macs? (i love em too but this doesnt cloud my judgement)
The point im making is that things are NEVER black and white - thats what annoys me a little about this article - simply saying that UNIX is cheaper and requires less support without empirical evidence is not a conclusive argument. I would love to be able to go open source but I also think that simply saying linux is better wont win - XP is much much much better than you think guys (oh and Windows 2000 crashes almost never - can we get past this mistaken impression please (im talking business here with a stable environment - what happens on your home PC which you play with is not a meaningfull statistic)
In short Being a manager is not all gravy - its the hardest you will EVER work and the least thankful role their is - on a good day only 50% of the company will be pissed at you for whatever thing they percieve your staff did wrong or didnt do today.
I think this article has some excellent points but i do question a couple of things about the figures - i disagree with the assertion that The windows support job is full time and the Unix is not - thats a wishfull thinking idea - If you are smar about this you run a Standard Environment on a RIS build for all the workstations and your support costs crash to the floor on windows - i would know that in a system of this type 4 staff will be busy but adequate.
I also agree that the UNIX servers will likely be more robust but i think its optomistic to state that the suport on desktops will be lower - the fact is theres not a lot of pre existing information to support this.
I think they are actually about the same in support costs and that works the costs out the same - having said that i can see a lot of advantages to the UNIX solution with open source giving access to a much wider range of tools at a lower cost - i would point out that MS dont force you to move up and i would also point out that on 500 machines the license costs and upgrade coss are lower as you would choose a volume licensing or select agreement basis (you would NEVER pay retail prices)
Good article but and well worth a read - i do have a slight question on bias - that is if a writer who supports open source working on an open source publicatiopn would ever make a reccomendation for closed source - i personally think that the Lonux desktop is closer than it was and almost there - and i also think everyone should have a choice in what they use-stuff like this can be a good start in helping people choose.
your point i take it is that the media just reports the news - what an idealistic mindset.
Media spins the news and slants it to what they like (umm YEAH i actually started out my worklife as a journalist - i still hold my C Grading so i know what im on about)
We were tauught to look at a story and work out the possible angles and spin offs on it - a controversial stroy or one that affects public safety is a big story (big in that it can sell newspapers and get viewers for TV)
The fact is that the media have helped tie up the western world in knots of fear over the last month - in Australia we had scenes of people being evacuated from building after building due to anthrax hoaxes and the media headline screamed things like "Anthrax in australia - the truth about it all" and such crap - yet not one anthrax spore has been found ? Only lots of baby powder and flour - this has or course stopped after the governments of most states announced 10 year jail terms for anyone found to have done this shit.
The media is to blame for so much panic and fear across the world - they hype up events that have no meaning and are not averse to ignoring the facts (EXAMPLE - the photograph of the Saudi Airlines pilot who was questioned after the WTC attacks - and his brother (dead for over 12 months) on the front page of a paper here with the tagline THE FACE OF TERROR - of course neither man was found to be involved)
If you think the media dont do this then you are fooling yourselves
Its NOT my sig and i defy you to prove it to be a lie - once you give up a freedom you never get it back in the same form - you cant just hand over your rights and then say 'oh i didnt want to do that'
You state thaT 8% of the time its been broken yet you think dell should replace it - if it was 80% id agree with you but i dont think any company would replace it on those grounds.
I would also like to make a point on the Dell notbooks and the inspron 7000 in partuicular - we are a Dell house (Dell desktops, notebooks and servers) and i have some 25 Inspiron 7000's we bought for pur field staff - they were a departure from our normal purchases of Latitude laptops and were for a specific need. I have to take task to the bad hinges comment - in 2 years we have had exaclty 2 failures in hinges and both of them were related to usage - the users were being way too rough on the screens.
Im not Defending Dell - i have had my share of problems with the gear but i would point out that in an evironment of approx 1500 machines or varying ages our failure rate is less than 5% for entire life of warranty and the MOST common fauilure is keyboards (replaced next day under warrant no questions asked) and HDD's in the final year of their 3 year lifecycle (Quautum particularly) The gear in general is well built and designed.
Ive supported sites with Compaq, HP, IBM and Gateway equipment - here are some of my opinions on their service from this experience.
Compaq - Great servers - lousy desktops - forget the notebooks - they give lousy service unless you buy everything from them and the Armada series laptops failed by just looking at them - their tech support sucks as well BTW
HP - Great servers, OK Desktops - never used laptops - good service but a little slow - the gear is generally well built but they dont guarantee product lines for more than 6 months (VERY important when building a standard evironment)
IBM - Ok servers, OK desktops, Generally Good Laptops - the service is fairly good and rapid to respons, the gear is nothing special (generic 3 com, IBM hdd etc) but its ok
Gateway - YUCK dont even touch them - our failure rate on delivery was huge, their warranty sucked, 2 machines of the same model bought on the same day could have 2 different network cards or vidoe cards - all in all im not surprised they are going broke.
I like Dell despite the frustrations - i'm writing this on a Dell Latitude C800 and i have a CSR400 at home which i own, they arent perfect but compared to others they are not bad
DISCLAIMER : this is CORPORATE service i'm talking about - i build my own home stuff so i have no idea that they are like for home users
Slashdot Mirror
You make a good point but think about it for a second - companies (MMM MS, Adobe, Macromedia) already make big money out of closed source.
Transmitting software on the internet is only of marginal cost if you live in western europe and the united states - the rest of the world pays big bucks for bandwidth and on an overall basis 56k modems are still the standard way to connect to the internet - this is useless for software distribution, and thats not even discussing viruses, corrupted downloads, dropped linbes, insecure payment systems.
People are not replacing pirated windows with linux, windows XP is the most pirated software on the planet right now and in fact people are replacing linux with it.
MS are actually having no major issues with XP licensing (despite what the register and certain sites tell you) they had a few glitches but so does anyone.
The simple fact is this. Microsoft can afford to make their OSes public domain. The company makes money off applications and if they wanted to they could give away the OS for free (and they can do it and still have it closed source)(the very thought of them doing that is chilling).
In fact MS have never prosecuted a home user for running a pirated windows (and i deal with MS daily - they are well aware of it and dont care as its another user of their product) - they are going more after business and they are looking mainly for breaches in licensing of applications not OSes. The fact is they can give do a cheap upgrade of Office and your software distrbution on the internet model makes it more cost effective thus meaning they could easily do it - and most people dont consider a couple hundred bucks every few years to be a lot of money (shock)
The thing about your post that makes me laugh is the last line - The danger is that the thing that costs money - software development will die because the companies cannot make any profit from which to finance it. - thus shooting yourself in the foot as the reality is Development costs money and preaching about it to people who think software costs nothing is a waste of time.
BTW - a defention of "Pretentious" is quoting 2 communist/socialist tracts and then shooting yourself in the foot with your closing line, uber Pretentious is quoting carl marx and uber leet Pretentious is mispelling Pretentious in the first place. (to be uber uber leet Pretentious you would have needed to quote Stallman (who makes marx look like a moderate)
acting like Linux was just another platform
Yep and you know what - shock for you IT IS
Linux is another OS - its not a wonder drug, a miracle cure, a religion or a fabric softener - its an operating system for computer hardware.
Corporates are the only way for open source to survive - it might make you feel dirty but reality is like that - software costs money to develop and linux costs money to make, companies like Ximian have to employ programmers, advertise and all other costs with software, this needs money and unlike college or high school where you can code all night and mommy and daddy, the government or that part time job will cover the costs when you talk about real world solutions your talking real world money.
No corporate will ever put their trust in the hands of a few evangelists or guys who are 'artists' - these people deal with companies with proffesional images, sales plans, documentation and support (yeah and i know what im talking about - i work as an IT manager for a muli national) - they want reliability and a trusted name - its why they buy RedHat instead of using slakware, why they trust compaq and dell and not bobs linux services and why they stay with MS when it costs money.
Linux is dying slowly again - the "artists" out there are one of the reasons why there is no such thing as a simpe all in one install of linux that works fully with all apps and without resorting to console windows and make files - in short a simple easy to roll out corporate desktop.
Vision is great ! its a way to move to the future, but whos paying the bills?
And a comment on the selling IP - companies pay to develop IP and in the case of linux they even develope their own docmentation and training courses - thus the IP is theirs to sell - not everything in the world is free whether you like it or not.
Reality is harsh but thats the way it is.
PS yeah yeah im gonna get modded down - damn it i dont really know if i care or not - i have given up on free software in most ways - all my home equipment has gone back to MS software and ive stopped recommeding it to people - the fact is theres not one distro. out there that works properly out of the box - dont believe me think like a newbie and bung in Mandrake or Redhat and install it without any idea of what it means - then play an MPEG or AVI movie (NO changing compilers or libraries and NO console) You cant do it can you.
Open source is a wonderful thing but making this into a religion turns people off not on.
LINUX IS JUST ANOTHER PLATFORM - WAKE UP
Normally i dont respond but i will
This is such bullshit
Windows installs take me less than 40 minutes and thats with all sofwtare installed and running, my mother can do it in less than 1 hour and shes 56 and has Multiple Sclerosis.
Want more than 1 partiton - run fdisk and make the then tell the os where to install by CHOOSING the partition.
No a windows install from virgin is not as complex as linux, even mandrake requires user knowledge windows never ever needs and just wait until you hit a problem with Xfree86. My notebook here is a Dell LS400GT and on windows it automatically finds the drivers (on NT i needed to install them but thats easy) - in Mandrake it wont work with the right drivers and redhat causes strange glitches - the card is a standard NeoMagic 128- installed in millions in notebooks across the world and its considered a standard- XP just works no worries and even sets 1024x768 native.
I have never had a hardware issue with windows 98 - never - im an IT manager and support over 300 staff and i havce installed 98 and NT4, 2000 and XP countless times and never seen it with any STANDARD hardware (yeah you get it with NON compliant and legacy stuff which MS state CLEARLY they dont support anymore)
NT4.0 had a whole pile of quirks and issues but it was always designed as a business OS and as DOS and 16 bit software was prevented from direcly accessing the OS it was a pain but was never an os for the home user
The less said about OS2 the better (i supported it for 18 months)
The fact is linux has always been my choice for home and personal use and i have pushed many many users towards it - but i wont anymore and emails like your badly thought out and plain innacurate and misleading statements only prove to make my point.
this is an OS people and not a religion
no its people without the balls to put their names to the comments they make
The ONLY thing you need is for the systems to be used on the desktop at the current level of windows and MAC os
The geek saturation market is sending companies to the wall and unless linux moves to the desktop it will die - this is a fact.
As long as you persist in calling other OS'es dumb and sit on your moral high horse the Open Source movement will go downhill - the point of linux is an os for the common man, not some geek genius
Please note i am not trolling but i really cannot understand the Warez analogy - you all support something called the free software movement - some of you out there resent paying anything for your software and think all source code should be free.
How do companies make money in this ideal world of yours ? Or is it simply that everything belongs to the people? Didnt communism fail once already?
Facts as i see them
-Companies need to sell product to survive.
-Linux as a community frowns on anyone who sells product.
-GPL discourages people from developing product only to have their source ripped off
-Linux is dying slowly on the desktop and it should be getting stronger
-The concept of open source is dying
-MS have done a far better job with XP than any of us ever thought possible
-This hurts us as users more than ever see linux as an OS for 'geeks'
And you are all arguing about warez doodz and esoterica like this ? Arguing about he color of the doors whilst the wheels fall off?
How about a desktop OS that makes it almost impossible for the average windows user to install and use a sound card, video card, play a DIV-x movie, open a document or in most cases even in some cases to simply install the damn OS next to impossible for anyone non geeky.
EVERY single time a user resorts to a console command to get something running you have lost.
-Every Make/config they have to run you have lost
-Every incompatible version of GCC or a library you have lost
-Suggesting users give up their simple to use OS and software like outlook for pine (another thread on this post) is another nail in open source - users want simple to configure and use software.
Windows games sell for $90 in australia and they sell well.
Linux games sell for about $50 and dont sell well
People want to install a game and play it not hunt for the latest drivers for their video card or that library version they need to get sound - simply they want to bung it in and use it.
If a windows user can pay $90 why cant you guys pay half that ?
Just my thoughts and i really care - i dont want to see Open Source die i want to see it grow into an alternative operating system for all users - but i cant stand the holy wars or meaningless bitch fights anymore, im off to format the notebook and server and install XP and 2000 server on them - im sorry but ive spent years trying to get users to use linux and years apologising beacuse the implementation of it they chose sucked or wont work etc and i spend hours fixing it and showing them how it works and then they want to watch a movie or something and give up in disgust.
I cant do it anymore.
Im sorry
I mourn LOKI, i mourn many other companies. They wont be the last i fear and i mourn that.
I know im getting modded down for this - it will be offtopic or flamebait - the maturity of the moderators never changed - and i worked hard and posted intelligently to get to 50, but hell i can't watch it anymore, i cant see a community tear itself apart like this anymore
Well im in brisbane and i have hads optus over 12 months - no outages longer than 60 mins and speeds up to 1.5mb down , i have never exceeded the AUP and i average 650mb a day (and often more) - the service is excellent if you can get it - my brother has ADSL thru bigpond and he has refused to pay for 4 months as it wont work for him, they keep promising it will get better.
if you can get Optus Cable do it - if not look around for an alterative vendor, companies like Powerlan have laid their own cable lines and can now deliver ADSL as well - remember that the lines may be telstras but the service and server infrastructure of these companies isnt.
Actually i can tell you from the spam i have followed up and complained about 90% of our spam (my company) - comes from the US and the overwhleming majority comes from 3 ISP's
AT&T
Worldcom
@ home (used to be but replaced now by)
earthlink
oh and of course there are a lot from yahoo, hotmail etc.
Now that might just mean it's routed thru the US so im not neccesarily attacking that country
Sure
Call Ersnt Young, Anderson etc - you dont buy a system like this off the shelf it is built for your from the ground up.
Alternatives
JD Edwards
Peoplesoft
Jade
Oracle Financials
All have fleas and all cost a shitload and all are serious big time scaleable systems - not toys and not small business tools - a basic SAP is 10-15 Million $US and thats REALLY basic.
No im not forgetting it - its just not an accounting or HR system its an open source database intiative and wont ever end up as part of a real world ERP environment - ERP is an area in which companies spend up to 100 million and as such SAPDB and competing products are not on the radar - and IMHO its an initiative SAP GMBH created just to get some open source publicity - show me one real world customer making full use or it - of course you could use it like MY SQL or similar products to build an ERP from scratch but who would - lets not take the simple approach that cash ledger and governeance and compliance are seperate - they are not in large organisations they are fully integrated and this is covered in depth by securities and taxation laws - this is one area where a minor mistake can have huge consequences and as such any serious open source solution would need to be proven to be 100% complaint and fucntional .
Yes thats correct but you CANNOT compare SAP to open source - it runs on linux because they promote it as multi platform but it is so commercially protected and copyrighted that never in a million years could it be open source.
We are in phase 2 of an SAP Enterprise Implementations and FI, HR and CRM modules live, it's cost us approx $21million AU to get to this point and we run everything on SCO UNIX for stability - im sorry guys never in a million years would a company spend 17-20 million and then put it all on Linux to save some money.
HR / Corp Finance are governance and control systems and as such they are not the sort of thing a large corporate would ever consider replacing with open source products - even less likely when you consider the fights, schisms and almost religious wars fought amongst the cogniscenti. Companies need legally to have stable systems that work in these areas and a clear and responsible vendor who owns the system (someone to sue if it all goes down).
The area open source can thrive in is Small Business/ Home office - but i warn you that it means developing open source software for a windows platform as well as linux as you cannot simply expect everyone to use linux (lets be realistic here ok !)
Ye
One of my nt4 file servers here provides file and login for 200 staff and has an uptime of 267 days solid
Uptime discussions are invalid when comparing file app and print servers, availability is how we measure this and that means an uptime is bull - you have to reboot servers of ANY ilk for hotfixes and general maintenance.
Look, as someone who likes slashdot and comes here several times a day i dont like to be seem as critical, but this story is an indication of whats happening on /.
A few minutes web work would have shown that this group doesnt exist, the person mentioned doesnt exist and the email address doesnt exist, thus this is a hoax which worked very well i would think.
The most depressing part of this is that is see posts with people arguing authoritatively about what is wrong with this OS etc etc when discussing an OS that doesnt exist ?
All im asking is that the editors actually check out stories they post before they do so - its a matter of respect for the people who come here.
NOTE - im posting this under my user name in the full awerness that someone brave and wise (enter sarcasm mode)will likely mark me down for being offtopic etc etc - but as this topic is a load of bull how can anything be off topic ?
i agree
The problem i have with linux lies in the exact same area - the mistaken impression that GUI tools in Windows dont work properly is a myth and belies the fact that i can tell a user over the phone to open this window, click on that icon, type that box and click ok - try that under many linux installs - open a terminal, now type... no no its... you hit enter ? ok lets try again.
The issue is that i think linux kernel and applicaiton developers should wire their testicles to a 240v power supply. Every time they need a console, a make file or a configure command to install a simple piece of software they get a shock - simple and i can bet that pretty soon we would actually have installers that work properly every time.(although there is always the danger that some of the developers might enjoy the electric shocks !)
I love linux and would love to see it a useable system for all but at the moment the only people who are using it fully are tecnhincally competent, their is a HUGE difference between them and the average joe schmoe at home.
Linux games are a case in point, i have installed many games and then discopvered after downloading, configuring, makefileing and such like that it needs this library or that etc etc (and the next person who says read the documentation gets a punch in the nose - have you SEEN what linux developers call documnentation and manuals ? )
The average user wants to pop in a cd, run the setup, have it install the files and then play the game / use the app - Period. They dont give a fuck about anything else and the windows direct x installation is as simple and easy to do as falling off a log - we need to stop arguing about crap like whats the best emulator and get out there and make a viable alternative OS for every man that is easy to use and add software to
Thats actually because someone with no id is most assuredly not going to be a terrorist as the very lack of it draws unwanted attention to them - and you were lucky - the slightest suspicion you would either have been refused entry immediately or interviewed very very comprehensively, but im guessing youre a white guy who has a college degree and you werent alone at the time and thus had people WITH id who vouched for you.
Maybe its a programming glitch ? who knows ? i can think of countless other sites that dont work properly on different browsers including some that wont work properly on IE - i would think (and not to be an MS apologist here BUT) we should wait for a few hours and see what happens.
Any of us should know that a move or change in any architecture can cause problems even for MS - the fact that it is MS is what leads people to claim conspiracy theories and proclaim death to Bill Gates, honestly if everyone stopped worrying about what MS is doing and started worrying about getting Linux and other open souurce stuff to a totally stable basis where we can roll it out on the desktop then we would all be better off and MS would be hurting a lot more.
I wonder if there was a similar problem at sourceforge if we would see the same violent protests an attacks on the company - i dont think so.
Lets all stop looking over our shoulder and start lookin at the future
vendor lock in ? nope
I just cant find anything that offers the full range of hardware and software support with ease of implementation and user acceptance - im not locked in i could start changing toomorrow but i cant go down that path yet.
We run a telnet app here that is heavily used as well - to a VAX - the users can use it because they have cheat sheets to tell them which button to press, the minute they get 1 millionth of a step outside the system they freeze - and please dont compare that to a console - its an app thats all.
Yep you have worked with unusual secretaries.
I dont feel locked in by a vendor i simple havent found a solution that offers the stability and useability the MS product does for ALL users (the keyword there is ALL - my techs could handle Linux (our webservers and firewalls are all Slackware) but i cant give any of the current stuff to a user as a desktop replacment yet.
And all of the people who post comments about star office being adequate are missing the point - youre programmers or people who are comfortable with systems and to you adequate is good enough, not to a corporate on a multi national stage - it has to be perfectly compatible (dont get me started on the WordPC VS WordMac Issues) and near enough isnt good enough
I cant wait for the day linux is ready for all user levels and desktops - but its not there yet and articles like this wont get it there any faster
People say 'crap' like this because in file/print and application servers uptime is no basis for measuring performance - in a web server its important but even in our massive ERP (SAP) systems we can take a system down and reboot it if needs be. More accurate measures would be system outages due to errors and or application faults - so lets see my main file print on this site - 200 users - win2000 - Xeon850 with 512mb ram handling file and print as a BDC has gone 8 months without an error or crash.
You build it right you dont have problems - you fuck it up you do - same for linux and windows.
Oh and if you dont reboot for pathches then what is a kernel update ?
Fine and i see your point so lets compare apples with apples - 1 1500 staff and 1 server - WRONG - you need at least 4 in a farm to cope with the load and you need to rate up the network for the Sunrays (do a bit of research on the bandwdith usage) also lets not compare PC's lets compare Winterms for the same effect - guess what they are cheaper than Sunrays - and they can work on a routed network - you run Windows 2000 terminal server and metaframe XPE and get a secure and scaleable solution that is easy to manage and less ram and bandwidth intensive - the licensing is still an issue but the servers dont need to be as grunty as the 4800 and you dont need as much ram and the seperate network the Sunrays need (they arent routable) - the windows terminal server 2000 is stable (and we run 18 servers on it supporting over 300 users in over 50 sites using every connection method from dial in to frame with an uptime of 99.9% (REAL WORLD machines need reboots for patches etc) The costs are misrepesented in this article and thats why. You would not need 4 support people in a windows environment on Winterms either as all admin is from the desktop and to take the site im based at i have 50 users in 2 sites alone and we average 1 support call a month (and then its mainly a locked document or forgotten password)
Lets compare apples with apples - Winterms on XP Vs Sunrays - you would find they are a lot closer than you think.
When will we see a real world example of this sort of comparison we can actually use to get open source up and running in our environments ?
I agree - i worked for an advertising agency before this job and i rediscovered Macs, i miss my old desk where i had a PC and a G3 on it !
I have seen many IT managers as bad as you pointed out and some worse - you dont need to apologise, the should be the ones apologising - and if the Manager at the company you talk about is stupid enough to buy something without asking or talking the the users he should be out of a job
There are lots of us out here who are like me - the thing is we do our jobs and no one heres about us - only the idiots get publicity (the wrong sort but)
Nice talking to you - long live apple
I think thats a good point but you have to rememebr that your environment obviously has skilled users and you also have to take into account the applications running on each platform. Also you are ALL assuming solaris which is not a free OS - the assumption everyone else is talking about is a Linux Distro - they are i put to you birds of 2 very different feathers.
I supoprt Windows and i would not say it is perfect But under 2000 we have a lot lot less crashes than NT - its stable to fault - and this box runs XP - has done since the first test release and i have NEVER chrashed it.
And MS does end of life software - the same as Lunix kernels are replaced and as Solaris stop actively supoprting older versions - its called progress and its a good thing otherwise we wouls all still be time sharing in a PDP or an IBM RS.
My point is you need to be aware of the follwing
-Training
-Ease of use
-User Acceptance
-Interconnecatbility
A secretary doesnt want to mess around - she wants to logon, read her email, type a letter a print it out, she knows windows and has been using it for years and can use explorer to find a file, she understands macros and has customised templates and auto texts - you take away here machine she had better be able to immediately pick up the new OS and use it the same (and NO console windows - shes never SEEN DOS) and follow the same file and tree layout - KDE is almost there but i still cant give it to a secretary.
lets understand the realities - on windows desktops here my users use Outlook, Word, Excel, IE5.5, Powerpoint, SAP and some of them have apps like photshop, they know their sysytems and i doubt 1 in 50 have ever seen a command line.
I cannot replace my OS (and i would love to BTW) with linux until all of those products can work (and dont point out star office etc - ive trialled them and the KOffice is very good but we still need to interoperate with people outside and Koffice lacks a lot of things (including the macros we use for out templates)
The average user isnt ready for linux - but if we keep working on it soon they might be - lets not just try and confuse the fight with statistice lets make is a CLEAR advantage.
OK well im an IT manager and i work 70+ hours a week - i have a small team (6) supporting just over 500 users on a Windows 2000 AD domain with 2000 Desktops - and i would comment on the overpaid but im laughing so hard i can't
You know everyone thinks they can do this job better than whoevers doing it - Budgets are a prime example. I worked my way up throught the levels to get here - ive worked Helpdesk, Desktop Support, Server and Infrastructre support and Porject work, and budgets still get me. Its no as easy as you think - you start out with planning what you want to do, then you work out what you can afford to do then you budget and extra 20-50% if you can to cover the 300000 other projects and things that the business wants to do but forgot about - the money has to come from somewhere - you have to plan for PC turnover (corporates DONT buy clones - i turn my machines over every 3 years (Leased Dell Environment) and that needs planning (you ever rolled out 100 machines in one hit ?). We use a standard environment and because we buy Dell we get a guranteed product lifecyle (same components etc) which means we only update that when the product changes - it makes things simpler (we also use RIS for builds - pisses on ghost BTW)
Now say we budget $1 Million next year for hardware purchases including upgrades - i work this by looking at my replacement schedules, estimated staff numbers, expansion etc - then when i get that figure i add 2 machines for each business group to give us a bit of room to manouver - if we run short we can simply re allocate funds to another account code. This is a lot easier than under estimating a budget and then having to beg for money to buy needed equipment, and i havent even begun to discuss training, staffing, travel, entertainment (yeah we do a little of it) stationary, rent, furniture and the myriad of other things - in all Budgeting takes my staff and i approx 2 months of hard work and we invariably miss things. And if you dont spend the budget next year you DO get less - its a fact of corporate life.
as for the example about Macs - the IT manager in that case fucked up - thats all i can say - but think about this - How much pressure did he get from above ?
We have recently implemented SAP over the objections of all of the IT Management team from our regiona - the business bought the product to replace a fucntional and effective Financial system and improve other areas - they had no firm reason to do it and the mess its created has cost us all huge hours and what was left of my budget. The reason we bought it ?
The CEO had used it at another company and all his friends who ran companies used it and the consultants convinced him and the board it would help them - they believe the budgets and didnt allocate enough money.
This is from a team of highly skilled and successful managers who produce results in their chosen areas but they dont know IT. I wonder if in this solution the manager was forced to do it by those above him who liked windows. ? (or he might just be a tool !)
My staff could quit, they could walk away but we dont - we dig in an work the time - we get the systems running because we are pros - and we hope we have enough money in the budget to give them a bit of ovetrtime (we dont BTW because they spent it all)
I think that you comment on overpaid is a little bit insulting but i will let it pass - i dont know a collegue in this industry who works under 60 hours a week and the stress levels are huge.
I also wonder if theres a little bias in your love of Macs? (i love em too but this doesnt cloud my judgement)
The point im making is that things are NEVER black and white - thats what annoys me a little about this article - simply saying that UNIX is cheaper and requires less support without empirical evidence is not a conclusive argument. I would love to be able to go open source but I also think that simply saying linux is better wont win - XP is much much much better than you think guys (oh and Windows 2000 crashes almost never - can we get past this mistaken impression please (im talking business here with a stable environment - what happens on your home PC which you play with is not a meaningfull statistic)
In short Being a manager is not all gravy - its the hardest you will EVER work and the least thankful role their is - on a good day only 50% of the company will be pissed at you for whatever thing they percieve your staff did wrong or didnt do today.
I think this article has some excellent points but i do question a couple of things about the figures - i disagree with the assertion that The windows support job is full time and the Unix is not - thats a wishfull thinking idea - If you are smar about this you run a Standard Environment on a RIS build for all the workstations and your support costs crash to the floor on windows - i would know that in a system of this type 4 staff will be busy but adequate.
I also agree that the UNIX servers will likely be more robust but i think its optomistic to state that the suport on desktops will be lower - the fact is theres not a lot of pre existing information to support this.
I think they are actually about the same in support costs and that works the costs out the same - having said that i can see a lot of advantages to the UNIX solution with open source giving access to a much wider range of tools at a lower cost - i would point out that MS dont force you to move up and i would also point out that on 500 machines the license costs and upgrade coss are lower as you would choose a volume licensing or select agreement basis (you would NEVER pay retail prices)
Good article but and well worth a read - i do have a slight question on bias - that is if a writer who supports open source working on an open source publicatiopn would ever make a reccomendation for closed source - i personally think that the Lonux desktop is closer than it was and almost there - and i also think everyone should have a choice in what they use-stuff like this can be a good start in helping people choose.
Gee that insightful ?
your point i take it is that the media just reports the news - what an idealistic mindset.
Media spins the news and slants it to what they like (umm YEAH i actually started out my worklife as a journalist - i still hold my C Grading so i know what im on about)
We were tauught to look at a story and work out the possible angles and spin offs on it - a controversial stroy or one that affects public safety is a big story (big in that it can sell newspapers and get viewers for TV)
The fact is that the media have helped tie up the western world in knots of fear over the last month - in Australia we had scenes of people being evacuated from building after building due to anthrax hoaxes and the media headline screamed things like "Anthrax in australia - the truth about it all" and such crap - yet not one anthrax spore has been found ? Only lots of baby powder and flour - this has or course stopped after the governments of most states announced 10 year jail terms for anyone found to have done this shit.
The media is to blame for so much panic and fear across the world - they hype up events that have no meaning and are not averse to ignoring the facts (EXAMPLE - the photograph of the Saudi Airlines pilot who was questioned after the WTC attacks - and his brother (dead for over 12 months) on the front page of a paper here with the tagline THE FACE OF TERROR - of course neither man was found to be involved)
If you think the media dont do this then you are fooling yourselves
UMM
Its NOT my sig and i defy you to prove it to be a lie - once you give up a freedom you never get it back in the same form - you cant just hand over your rights and then say 'oh i didnt want to do that'
You state thaT 8% of the time its been broken yet you think dell should replace it - if it was 80% id agree with you but i dont think any company would replace it on those grounds.
I would also like to make a point on the Dell notbooks and the inspron 7000 in partuicular - we are a Dell house (Dell desktops, notebooks and servers) and i have some 25 Inspiron 7000's we bought for pur field staff - they were a departure from our normal purchases of Latitude laptops and were for a specific need. I have to take task to the bad hinges comment - in 2 years we have had exaclty 2 failures in hinges and both of them were related to usage - the users were being way too rough on the screens.
Im not Defending Dell - i have had my share of problems with the gear but i would point out that in an evironment of approx 1500 machines or varying ages our failure rate is less than 5% for entire life of warranty and the MOST common fauilure is keyboards (replaced next day under warrant no questions asked) and HDD's in the final year of their 3 year lifecycle (Quautum particularly) The gear in general is well built and designed.
Ive supported sites with Compaq, HP, IBM and Gateway equipment - here are some of my opinions on their service from this experience.
Compaq - Great servers - lousy desktops - forget the notebooks - they give lousy service unless you buy everything from them and the Armada series laptops failed by just looking at them - their tech support sucks as well BTW
HP - Great servers, OK Desktops - never used laptops - good service but a little slow - the gear is generally well built but they dont guarantee product lines for more than 6 months (VERY important when building a standard evironment)
IBM - Ok servers, OK desktops, Generally Good Laptops - the service is fairly good and rapid to respons, the gear is nothing special (generic 3 com, IBM hdd etc) but its ok
Gateway - YUCK dont even touch them - our failure rate on delivery was huge, their warranty sucked, 2 machines of the same model bought on the same day could have 2 different network cards or vidoe cards - all in all im not surprised they are going broke.
I like Dell despite the frustrations - i'm writing this on a Dell Latitude C800 and i have a CSR400 at home which i own, they arent perfect but compared to others they are not bad
DISCLAIMER : this is CORPORATE service i'm talking about - i build my own home stuff so i have no idea that they are like for home users