Users can install and run alternate applications, but we should not present them with a system with more than one software per task installed, lest they get confused ? Do you see the irony here ?
No, I don't. As long as you see irony, you are not a go-to person for making Linux usable. You just don't understand how regular people use computers.
And you totally miss my point anyway. You have a conception of what "Linux" should be and how it should behave, and so do I. And the next guy. And the other one too. Now, sit all these people around and try to make them work a consensus about which browser, MUA, media player, etc should be the official Linux one. Then complain nothing get done.
Oh, I totally get your point, which is why I titled the thread "Sell out" in the first place. Put me in a room to discuss what browser to make standard and I will say "I don't give a fuck!" I'm absolutely willing to "sell out" my favorite browser because I'm not a selfish asshole that needs to have everything done my way. All I ask in return is that the system support being able to easily run my favorite browser. I don't want a dependency laden hell or special install directories or anything that requires me to be root to install or run. I'm a piss-ant user who just wants to run a browser. Make it happen or stop pretending any part of the Linux community cares about usability.
Do you get my point on what usability is yet? It's not a flood of options, all of the available by default! It's about picking KDE or Gnome (or, if you're really smart about the right direction to go, GNUstep) and calling it the "winner", even if it's not your pet environment. It's about putting up a unified front in order to push forward on the desktop. Until you're willing to do that, Linux will always be behind both Mac OS X and Windows in both usability and adoption.
Yeah, I did. You started talking about some mail server shit, and I pointed out that had nothing to do with usability, and that usability was had more to do with including useful software as standard as well as making it easy to install new software. Perhaps it is you who has trouble reading, or possibly understanding, what other people write.
I never said users should have to compile or anything.
Of course you didn't. Instead, as I noted, you went on about some mail server crap that was unrelated to usability, which happens to be the topic at hand.
I was saying that a baseline for "Linux" is counterproductive as "Linux" can range from embedded systems through headless servers to desktop workstations. You did nothing to refute that, in fact you don't even seem to have read that part of my post, despite quoting it.
Last time I'll explain this: this article was about usability, not fucking embedded systems. Why would you expect me to "refute" something that is totally off-topic? If anything, you make my case for me by showing that most current Linux users aren't even remotely interested in having a usable desktop. Stop talking your embedded mail server garbage and get on the same page as everyone else, or pick a different article discussion to participate in.
I'm advocating simpler documentation! (The word you are looking for is "pore", not "pour", by the way).
Your mistake is in suggesting documentation at all. You clearly don't see that, and the best evidence is your pour/pore "correction". You probably won't get it even when I make this direct point, but the reality is that people "pour through" documentation more than they "pore over" it.
Next time read a post before replying to it.
I not only read it, I thought about it before replying. I highly suggest you think about things more, too. Here a first thing to think about: if something is so cumbersome that its use needs to be documented, aren't efforts better spent improving the usability of the interface rather than adding to stacks and stacks of HOWTOs written by dweebs?
You'll bitch and moan in a way only a dweeb can, while someone who just wants to get work done will continue on with their lives. I mean, really, for all the technical expertise around here, why are so many fretting because a user-level system might not run their pet project? Mac OS X ships with Safari, but even my mom could figure out how to install and run Opera if she wanted to. Are you telling me having to do the same would trip you up? What does that say about Linux usability?
That's ridiculous. A mail server doesn't need a GUI, but I'm pretty sure you want a GUI for the desktop machines.
It's not ridiculous at all to package free software for the end user instead of expecting a geek will download and compile it, resolving dependencies along the way. A usability effort has nothing to do with running a mail server.
Instead of attempting to market "Linux" to end-users, "Mandrake", "Linspire", etc. should be marketed to end-users.
Continue that approach and you'll see continued difficulty in getting anyone interested in Linux. Users don't want to have to sort out differences between 20 different distributions. They know what Windows is, and they could similarly know what Linux is, but there is no way you're going to get them to understand all the variances in all the distributions. Something needs to be standardized; it doesn't matter much if it wears the sole label of Linux or you make up some other brand for what is a base desktop install. Until that happens, it won't get a lot of traction.
This isn't a problem in itself - different distributions are simply different - nobody complains that the way you set up a sound card in Windows is different to the way you set up a sound card in Mac OS X.
Nobody has to recompile either to add support for third-party drivers. That most definitely is a problem with many Linux distributions. The procedure is simple for other desktops: you hook up the device and if it isn't recognized automatically you insert a disk and it's working in 5 minutes. That doesn't happen with Linux and that is a huge problem.
What's easier? One single place for documentation where the documentation says "if you are using a static dev, use [foo]; if you use devfs, do [bar]; and if you use udev, do [baz]"? Or one single place for the distribution that you use that gives precise, simple instructions?
Ahhhhhhhh! Do you not work with real people at all?!? People don't want to pour through instructions, let alone detailed instructions. They clearly will pay for someone else to design a system that is usable. They don't want to sit down at a friend's computer and be totally confused by the system when they're both supposed to be running Linux. Everyone needs to take off their geek hat and put on their user hat and see that there needs to be a branding effort that reduces confusion in the general case without reducing choice in the specific case.
It's apparent what you want isn't Linux, but Windows.
No, what I want is Mac OS X, and I already have it. But if what you want is a Linux desktop for the masses, you need to "sell out" and make it for the masses instead of giving useless answers like "just use Windows" when someone really wants a change from the insecure mess that is probably already on their machine. Your answer supports my point; you are part of the problem.
There is no need for any new usability studies, there is only a need for Linux developers to give a damn about the ones that have already been done. The root of the problem is money. Without a large influx of money, open source developers are coding for themselves, not as part of a job to help others. They scratch their own itches and expect others to scratch their own. To do otherwise amounts to selling out, and for nothing at that. That seems to be the attitude, anyway, and it needs to change.
The solution isn't more documentation, it's quite plainly more money and more developers who are willing to "sell out" to actually make Linux useful to the general population. You need to start by discarding KDE and Gnome; the more you cry about the loss, the more you ensure Linux will never be ready for the desktop. Mac OS X makes a usable Unix desktop, and many of their lessons learned are available via GNUstep. Why so many open source developers ignore GNUstep is beyond me.
The solution is to stop putting out distributions that have packages for everything under the sun, often times with dozens of ways to do the same thing. It's about time we all picked a browser, just one, and ran with it. Yeah, a system should have multiple browsers available, but there should be one "official" Linux browser. As it stands, all the options being available all the time just confuses the hell out of users. There needs to be a base functionality that is available across all distributions, something that can be branded and advertised as the one true Linux Standard Installation. Right now, the name Linux doesn't really mean anything specific and useful to most non-geek people.
Jeez, man, that's pretty harsh. There's one area of Macs that I don't know much about, development, and you say that I'm a worthless human being?
No, I'm saying that you don't (or, in this case, she doesn't) get to say that the Mac lacks a version of some Linux app just because nobody bothered to try compiling it or installing from a fink package. It was a non-issue and putting it forward as a significant shortcoming reflect badly on you.
As it happens, I did know about porting Unix and Linux apps to OS X, but I had always been led to believe that it was a rather difficult process, so I never pursued it because I didn't think it was worth the effort. Now that I know otherwise, I intend to look into it further.
See this here is why you're a worthless human being. Well, even that is more harsh than I would normally go, but you said it and it's at the root of the problem I have with your attitude. You are easily "led to believe" things, and the result is that you moan about perceived problems to people around you. That gets real old, real quick; especially around people who know there isn't a real problem. If you were a co-worker, I'd avoid the hell out of you or fire you if I had the authority.
As to my experience... well, I've been an IT professional for years and have held various positions in systems administration and engineering, including one at the Pentagon (which I only lost because I was denied a security clearance).
There's another attitude problem I'll never understand: people who fail at one thing try to offset the mistake by bragging about an unrelated accomplishment. If anything, it puts you at a weaker position than if you hadn't brought it up in the first place. I mean, now you have left we wondering what kind of FUBAR situation is up at the Pentagon if they hire guys who can't seem to puzzle out simple Mac problems.
Regarding your comments about choosing a partner based on his technical abilities, that's beneath contempt, and I won't even dignify it with a response.
Like your girlfriend, you have a reading comprehension problem. Your attitude is the real issue. From all that has been written, you come across as someone who would rather bitch and moan than fix things. You may not actually be like that, but a lot of people are, so it wouldn't surprise me. If your girlfriend tolerates it, thats good enough, I guess. There's something to be said for people who deserve each other.
No, I am not trolling. I just had no interest in trying to remember the many different apps he's had me help him look for. You can check out his blog at http://sonic.net/mustang/zathras and see for yourself a couple of the apps he's reviewed.
All I see there is a lot of moaning over email clients. It's fucking email! Anyone who can't get the hang of email probably shouldn't be using computers at all.
We've also had no luck setting up video chat via the various protocols, finding any online multiplayer RPGs that both our computers can connect to, getting file transfers to function properly...it just seems like every time I turn around, he's telling me his Mac can't do stuff. If I'm not a troll, I'm a frustrated girlfriend in a long-distance relationship with somebody whose computer isn't being terribly friendly about connecting us.:-p
Sounds very one sided, as though he's one of those wussy guys that take the blame for every problem that happens. That is to say, you're half the problem and I see you naming zero solutions. File transfer? FTP is a standard and I don't know a modern system that doesn't support it. Games? Well what the hell systems are you trying to connect together? It's not the Mac's fault if a proprietary Windows developer locks out people on other systems. Why does his computer seemingly have to be the one that bends over backwards? Pick an open standard and run with it, or maybe get a Mac yourself and start using iChat AV in 5 minutes.
My partner is kind, intelligent, funny -- everything that really matters in a relationship.
If you say so. I personally find it to be rather shallow if those three things alone are all that keep you from running off with some other guy.
I'd say that if there's "nothing funny" about getting into a relationship with anybody, it would be somebody so obsessive and *shallow* as to reject an extremely good partner because he doesn't compile Linux apps.
I love the irony of you calling me shallow for merely alluding to a deal-breaking attitude problem when you admit to judging someone wholly based on 3 completely relative attributes. Regardless, you didn't read the target of my distain correctly. Specific technical skills are not the issue, which I'll detail in another reply.
It certainly sounds like you're reinforcing the stereotype that Mac geeks are a bunch of elitist jerks.
Could be. Does me liking this PA support or refute your hypothesis?
In which case they start asking you where to get certain utilities their Windows pals are using, and then you get to explain why they can't run it on the computer you suggested.
What "certain utilities" would I have to explain the lack of? Anti-virus software? Yeah, that'll be a tough one! Please name a particular productivity task (not a specific package name, and definitely not some anti-productive, time sapping maintenance hassle) that eludes Mac users.
spending hours/days finding an acceptable OS X alternative to some mainstream Windows/Linux program that lacks a Mac version
Here you give your troll away. Any Linux app he knew about he could recompile for the Mac, if a fink port didn't already exist. You again fail to mention specifics, too, which almost always means a claim is exaggerated. He doesn't sound very experienced at all. He sounds like a case of what a co-worker once said after an interview with a guy listing 10 years of experience: "It was more like 1 year of experience 10 times over." I'd add a smiley to that but, well, there's nothing funny about getting into a relationship with that kind of person.
Of course this solution won't help those techies who's friends always call them or those with family that do not want to learn because "it's too complicated" or "I'm not the technichal type".
The ace in your sleeve: a Mac. Any non-tech type comes up to me and asks me what computer to get, I tell them to get a Mac. If they ask for help on a PC they already own, I tell them to ask the person who recommended it how to fix it; I may end up fixing it anyway, but then I recommend a Mac. Anyone who has not followed my recommendation the next time they ask for help is cut off, cold. Anyone who has followed my recommendation either won't bug me with stupid problems so much, or they'll be so stupid that fixing them won't be such a chore like it is on Windows boxes.
I once had a friend I recommended a Mac to and he ignored me and got sold on some $2000 Windows setup at CompUSA. Then he tried to brag about his new $2000 PC, and I had to say, "Dude, if I thought you should have gotten a PC I would have said to get one, and if I thought this was the setup you needed I could have gotten you it for under a grand." Still he called me when he was having trouble connecting it to the net! My understanding is that CompUSA was willing to help him out for another $80 . . . moron!
It can still be found on DataFetish. If you can, uh, find it there in the first place.:-) There is absolutely no way Apple will be able to erase all traces of this code from the Internet. The harder they try, the more people will secret it away.
there are very sad people out there willing to pay for virtual EQ items.
Uh, like the virtual characters they're paying for in the first place? Or the virtual effort spent in game otherwise doing rote things because the game playability doesn't scale? What is more sad, paying your friend for his "manufactured" arrows or actually wasting time manually making them?
Long story short, it doesn't necessarily take being a [x person] to sell to [x people]... you just have to be [x]-smart.
Edited, because that is really true in the general sense in all markets. To sell to people, all you have to do is understand what they'll pay for and find a way to supply it for less money, pocketing the difference. That your friend was able to take advantage of assembly line production instead of making everything "hand crafted" isn't surprising from a profit perspective.
You don't use a parity setup, here. One places the document in the home folder where the other places it in a Documents folder. Then you just hand-wave the time for the steps taken. I could just as easily argue that a hunt and peck typist would take longer on a parity task. In reality, getting to a common directory should be little more than a click away (i.e., a parity example would have had the first two steps replaced with "click the home folder icon"). If you bothered to give a real example, I think you'd find that you don't get as much as you'd like to believe at the CLI unless you're working with multiple files.
resizing an image:
Sorry, not a common operation at all. I've wanted to resize an image (outside being in an editing app with it in the first place) maybe twice. And if it were something common for a particular user to do, they'd have a script or some other icon as a drop target to accomplish it. Additionally, again make it a non-parity task by having the image in the current directory "at the ready" for the CLI user but not the GUI user.
In these and most other situations, the CLI will be much much faster
Nope. All HCI testing shows different. That you do not do any testing or show any numbers to back up your claims to the contrary is telling. You're essentially echoing the findings that people thought the CLI was faster when it really wasn't. The main reason is that a CLI is a lot of busywork that keeps you occupied while GUI operations don't tie up the brain as much. Totally a matter of perception; next time use a stopwatch.
I have yet to try a true 3D desktop and will wait until I have to make judgements on whether the interface overhead is worth the benefit.
Given the state of 3D card, the overhead simply doesn't exist. That's why windowing systems are rushing to take advantage of the hardware acceleration they offer for even 2D operations. I'm not making any judgments of my own, save that there hasn't been a 3D desktop that actually makes things better. I see bells and whistles and people treating things like an FPS, but that is not what anyone will find useful in a 3D desktop. Like I said, people need to come up with a principle that is slow/cumbersome in 2D (I offered up document scrolling and menu selection) and find ways 3D could be used to either eliminate the delay or provide more information to the user in the time taken.
A 3D environment/interface doesn't have to eliminate added controller movement, (as it really can't), but it has to provide enough value to the interaction that the extra movement is justified/worth-while for the applications its being applied to.
It's not movement itself, but the time of the movement that I'm talking about. It would be acceptable to use a scroll wheel to do something in 3D because the act of scrolling already takes time, but you can't add interface elements that add time to getting things done. It's natural to use the CLI for things that are done faster there, but if it is quicker to use or switch to a mouse, it'll be a winner. A CLI allows you to do practically anything while a GUI allows you to do common things faster. I have yet to hear anybody put forward situations where 3D speeds interaction for common things, and then uses those situations to build an interface model for a new, more useful desktop.
I really don't think the 3d desktop will be feasable until we have some form of useful, cheap, and easy to use 3D input device.
Nope; that's a mistake far too may people make. What will make 3D useful is a 3D paradigm that does more than a 2D one. The 2D GUI took off not merely because of graphic hardware, but the introduction of WIMP as the basis for presenting information. That's simply not happing in 3D currently. We're getting all sorts of interfaces that use the extra dimension for useless information. All Sphere XP seemingly does is texture the the window bitmap on a square you can place/rotate in depth. Big yawn, there. You might as well call it "Exposé with Angles".
The killer issue is that 3D requires more movement with all these interfaces, and movement is slow compared to clicking. Running around rooms (or whatever) is fun enough for a game, but if I want to get to another folder I want it to be a click away, not a long run down a hallway. So to make use of 3D, you have to somehow do it in a way that "eliminates" what would already be additional movement in 2D. The most obvious things that come to mind are scrolling of window and menu content, but turning those operations into a WIMP-like principle that works in 3D is very, very difficult.
In this case, there really is: money. You can go on and on about theoreticals all you like, but whether you use 256 CPUs to get a #19 or 2200 to get #3, all systems have a cost associated with their resulting performance. Big Mac made news because they did so much with comparatively so little money. If Cray wants to make a hard number claim at bang-for-buck, let them. Until they do, or if they can't, their business will continue to dwindle in favor of cheaper clustering solutions.
Drop a grand or more for a halfway decent machine just to play games? Not gonna happen; I'd get a PS2 first. Games aren't that important to me. I can easily find other things to do if Vivendi doesn't want my $50.
Face it, I am a Linux supporter, but I realize that in most cases it isn't worth the time and money for some companies to port their games over to the Mac or Linux.
If they had written the game right in the first place it wouldn't be any great burden to release for other platforms. Companies like id will continue to get my business because they're smarter than to use Microsoft-specific technology.
If some Mac company did the same thing would you argue aginst it?
Yes. While it might seem nice to have it out there for free, from a business perspective it is still a support burden, especially if there is a system upgrade the might screw things up. There are a few games for the Mac Classic environment that the author decided to abandon and while it seems keen on the surface, they exhibit annoying traits (sound that no longer works, etc.) because of OS changes. If a game is worth playing at all, I'd rather pay for a version that is updated than get an old compile nobody cares about.
these kind of gimmicks always work, ALWAYS. i can say this with a high degree of certainty as someone who has spent more than 3 years playing first person shooters and delving into the modding scene of UT, UT2003, Q3 and espically HL.
Then how can you be so very wrong? All this does from my perspective is piss me off that they're giving away things to Windows users but they couldn't be bothered to make some more money by releasing Mac and Linux versions. From both a business and "gimmick" perspective, turning these games into what is essentially abandonware at this stage is a bad move.
Can't the merchants just require the 3-digit security code on the back of the credit cards , if they're losing money?
A "good" phishing site will ask for that information, along with your SSN, mother's maiden name, and any other information some organizations use to verify "you" for financial transactions. Anyone who is a target of identity theft isn't going to be saved by information you're expected to share with any merchant who asks for it.
Heh; you're right! The posted MD5 did match the source I got from another source, though. Doing a diff on the two, I see additional files (from loading it in an IDE, it looks) but no changes to actual source code. So still no conspiracy to report, darn it.:-(
That no matter how good/bad the encryption mechanism is, people can't break it.
I actually have no idea what you wrote because you used an encryption mechanism when posting, apparently encoding text as a sequence of bits, with certain groups of 7 representing individual characters. That's a total guess, based on my using a similar technique to encrypt my own text. I cannot be sure, of course, because I would be in violation of the DMCA if I were to attempt to decode your protection mechanism to get at the copyrighted material. I trust you'll likewise not break the law by decrypting my reply.
No, Intego is innocent. The assholes like Symantec and Mcafee who left users out with viruses claiming that virus isnt't in wild deserves flames.
So you say, yet provide no evidence of any real exploit that is propagating. I wager you are a shill for Intego, making their list of disreputable practices grow even further. Point me to a genuine CERT advisory or anything, really, that backs up your outlandish claims.
As a guy coming from Slackware to OSX, having passwords, reviewing every single file asks for my root pwd... I got infected.
Simply not possible. Or are you saying that Intego isn't just scamming for customers with a "proof of concept", but is actually releasing malicious trojans? If they are actually writing the exploits, then they've not only sunk lower, but have done so criminally. You should contact law enforcement officials. The alternative is that you did something else to hose your files. Since you give no details whatever, it's impossible to say.
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Users can install and run alternate applications, but we should not present them with a system with more than one software per task installed, lest they get confused ? Do you see the irony here ?
No, I don't. As long as you see irony, you are not a go-to person for making Linux usable. You just don't understand how regular people use computers.
And you totally miss my point anyway. You have a conception of what "Linux" should be and how it should behave, and so do I. And the next guy. And the other one too. Now, sit all these people around and try to make them work a consensus about which browser, MUA, media player, etc should be the official Linux one. Then complain nothing get done.
Oh, I totally get your point, which is why I titled the thread "Sell out" in the first place. Put me in a room to discuss what browser to make standard and I will say "I don't give a fuck!" I'm absolutely willing to "sell out" my favorite browser because I'm not a selfish asshole that needs to have everything done my way. All I ask in return is that the system support being able to easily run my favorite browser. I don't want a dependency laden hell or special install directories or anything that requires me to be root to install or run. I'm a piss-ant user who just wants to run a browser. Make it happen or stop pretending any part of the Linux community cares about usability.
Do you get my point on what usability is yet? It's not a flood of options, all of the available by default! It's about picking KDE or Gnome (or, if you're really smart about the right direction to go, GNUstep) and calling it the "winner", even if it's not your pet environment. It's about putting up a unified front in order to push forward on the desktop. Until you're willing to do that, Linux will always be behind both Mac OS X and Windows in both usability and adoption.
Did you read what I actually said?
Yeah, I did. You started talking about some mail server shit, and I pointed out that had nothing to do with usability, and that usability was had more to do with including useful software as standard as well as making it easy to install new software. Perhaps it is you who has trouble reading, or possibly understanding, what other people write.
I never said users should have to compile or anything.
Of course you didn't. Instead, as I noted, you went on about some mail server crap that was unrelated to usability, which happens to be the topic at hand.
I was saying that a baseline for "Linux" is counterproductive as "Linux" can range from embedded systems through headless servers to desktop workstations. You did nothing to refute that, in fact you don't even seem to have read that part of my post, despite quoting it.
Last time I'll explain this: this article was about usability, not fucking embedded systems. Why would you expect me to "refute" something that is totally off-topic? If anything, you make my case for me by showing that most current Linux users aren't even remotely interested in having a usable desktop. Stop talking your embedded mail server garbage and get on the same page as everyone else, or pick a different article discussion to participate in.
I'm advocating simpler documentation! (The word you are looking for is "pore", not "pour", by the way).
Your mistake is in suggesting documentation at all. You clearly don't see that, and the best evidence is your pour/pore "correction". You probably won't get it even when I make this direct point, but the reality is that people "pour through" documentation more than they "pore over" it.
Next time read a post before replying to it.
I not only read it, I thought about it before replying. I highly suggest you think about things more, too. Here a first thing to think about: if something is so cumbersome that its use needs to be documented, aren't efforts better spent improving the usability of the interface rather than adding to stacks and stacks of HOWTOs written by dweebs?
Which one ?
The one you can't stand, probably.
Who will decide ?
Your sworn enemy, probably.
What if I disagree ?
You'll bitch and moan in a way only a dweeb can, while someone who just wants to get work done will continue on with their lives. I mean, really, for all the technical expertise around here, why are so many fretting because a user-level system might not run their pet project? Mac OS X ships with Safari, but even my mom could figure out how to install and run Opera if she wanted to. Are you telling me having to do the same would trip you up? What does that say about Linux usability?
That's ridiculous. A mail server doesn't need a GUI, but I'm pretty sure you want a GUI for the desktop machines.
It's not ridiculous at all to package free software for the end user instead of expecting a geek will download and compile it, resolving dependencies along the way. A usability effort has nothing to do with running a mail server.
Instead of attempting to market "Linux" to end-users, "Mandrake", "Linspire", etc. should be marketed to end-users.
Continue that approach and you'll see continued difficulty in getting anyone interested in Linux. Users don't want to have to sort out differences between 20 different distributions. They know what Windows is, and they could similarly know what Linux is, but there is no way you're going to get them to understand all the variances in all the distributions. Something needs to be standardized; it doesn't matter much if it wears the sole label of Linux or you make up some other brand for what is a base desktop install. Until that happens, it won't get a lot of traction.
This isn't a problem in itself - different distributions are simply different - nobody complains that the way you set up a sound card in Windows is different to the way you set up a sound card in Mac OS X.
Nobody has to recompile either to add support for third-party drivers. That most definitely is a problem with many Linux distributions. The procedure is simple for other desktops: you hook up the device and if it isn't recognized automatically you insert a disk and it's working in 5 minutes. That doesn't happen with Linux and that is a huge problem.
What's easier? One single place for documentation where the documentation says "if you are using a static dev, use [foo]; if you use devfs, do [bar]; and if you use udev, do [baz]"? Or one single place for the distribution that you use that gives precise, simple instructions?
Ahhhhhhhh! Do you not work with real people at all?!? People don't want to pour through instructions, let alone detailed instructions. They clearly will pay for someone else to design a system that is usable. They don't want to sit down at a friend's computer and be totally confused by the system when they're both supposed to be running Linux. Everyone needs to take off their geek hat and put on their user hat and see that there needs to be a branding effort that reduces confusion in the general case without reducing choice in the specific case.
It's apparent what you want isn't Linux, but Windows.
No, what I want is Mac OS X, and I already have it. But if what you want is a Linux desktop for the masses, you need to "sell out" and make it for the masses instead of giving useless answers like "just use Windows" when someone really wants a change from the insecure mess that is probably already on their machine. Your answer supports my point; you are part of the problem.
There is no need for any new usability studies, there is only a need for Linux developers to give a damn about the ones that have already been done. The root of the problem is money. Without a large influx of money, open source developers are coding for themselves, not as part of a job to help others. They scratch their own itches and expect others to scratch their own. To do otherwise amounts to selling out, and for nothing at that. That seems to be the attitude, anyway, and it needs to change.
The solution isn't more documentation, it's quite plainly more money and more developers who are willing to "sell out" to actually make Linux useful to the general population. You need to start by discarding KDE and Gnome; the more you cry about the loss, the more you ensure Linux will never be ready for the desktop. Mac OS X makes a usable Unix desktop, and many of their lessons learned are available via GNUstep. Why so many open source developers ignore GNUstep is beyond me.
The solution is to stop putting out distributions that have packages for everything under the sun, often times with dozens of ways to do the same thing. It's about time we all picked a browser, just one, and ran with it. Yeah, a system should have multiple browsers available, but there should be one "official" Linux browser. As it stands, all the options being available all the time just confuses the hell out of users. There needs to be a base functionality that is available across all distributions, something that can be branded and advertised as the one true Linux Standard Installation. Right now, the name Linux doesn't really mean anything specific and useful to most non-geek people.
Jeez, man, that's pretty harsh. There's one area of Macs that I don't know much about, development, and you say that I'm a worthless human being?
No, I'm saying that you don't (or, in this case, she doesn't) get to say that the Mac lacks a version of some Linux app just because nobody bothered to try compiling it or installing from a fink package. It was a non-issue and putting it forward as a significant shortcoming reflect badly on you.
As it happens, I did know about porting Unix and Linux apps to OS X, but I had always been led to believe that it was a rather difficult process, so I never pursued it because I didn't think it was worth the effort. Now that I know otherwise, I intend to look into it further.
See this here is why you're a worthless human being. Well, even that is more harsh than I would normally go, but you said it and it's at the root of the problem I have with your attitude. You are easily "led to believe" things, and the result is that you moan about perceived problems to people around you. That gets real old, real quick; especially around people who know there isn't a real problem. If you were a co-worker, I'd avoid the hell out of you or fire you if I had the authority.
As to my experience... well, I've been an IT professional for years and have held various positions in systems administration and engineering, including one at the Pentagon (which I only lost because I was denied a security clearance).
There's another attitude problem I'll never understand: people who fail at one thing try to offset the mistake by bragging about an unrelated accomplishment. If anything, it puts you at a weaker position than if you hadn't brought it up in the first place. I mean, now you have left we wondering what kind of FUBAR situation is up at the Pentagon if they hire guys who can't seem to puzzle out simple Mac problems.
Regarding your comments about choosing a partner based on his technical abilities, that's beneath contempt, and I won't even dignify it with a response.
Like your girlfriend, you have a reading comprehension problem. Your attitude is the real issue. From all that has been written, you come across as someone who would rather bitch and moan than fix things. You may not actually be like that, but a lot of people are, so it wouldn't surprise me. If your girlfriend tolerates it, thats good enough, I guess. There's something to be said for people who deserve each other.
No, I am not trolling. I just had no interest in trying to remember the many different apps he's had me help him look for. You can check out his blog at http://sonic.net/mustang/zathras and see for yourself a couple of the apps he's reviewed.
All I see there is a lot of moaning over email clients. It's fucking email! Anyone who can't get the hang of email probably shouldn't be using computers at all.
We've also had no luck setting up video chat via the various protocols, finding any online multiplayer RPGs that both our computers can connect to, getting file transfers to function properly...it just seems like every time I turn around, he's telling me his Mac can't do stuff. If I'm not a troll, I'm a frustrated girlfriend in a long-distance relationship with somebody whose computer isn't being terribly friendly about connecting us. :-p
Sounds very one sided, as though he's one of those wussy guys that take the blame for every problem that happens. That is to say, you're half the problem and I see you naming zero solutions. File transfer? FTP is a standard and I don't know a modern system that doesn't support it. Games? Well what the hell systems are you trying to connect together? It's not the Mac's fault if a proprietary Windows developer locks out people on other systems. Why does his computer seemingly have to be the one that bends over backwards? Pick an open standard and run with it, or maybe get a Mac yourself and start using iChat AV in 5 minutes.
My partner is kind, intelligent, funny -- everything that really matters in a relationship.
If you say so. I personally find it to be rather shallow if those three things alone are all that keep you from running off with some other guy.
I'd say that if there's "nothing funny" about getting into a relationship with anybody, it would be somebody so obsessive and *shallow* as to reject an extremely good partner because he doesn't compile Linux apps.
I love the irony of you calling me shallow for merely alluding to a deal-breaking attitude problem when you admit to judging someone wholly based on 3 completely relative attributes. Regardless, you didn't read the target of my distain correctly. Specific technical skills are not the issue, which I'll detail in another reply.
It certainly sounds like you're reinforcing the stereotype that Mac geeks are a bunch of elitist jerks.
Could be. Does me liking this PA support or refute your hypothesis?
In which case they start asking you where to get certain utilities their Windows pals are using, and then you get to explain why they can't run it on the computer you suggested.
What "certain utilities" would I have to explain the lack of? Anti-virus software? Yeah, that'll be a tough one! Please name a particular productivity task (not a specific package name, and definitely not some anti-productive, time sapping maintenance hassle) that eludes Mac users.
spending hours/days finding an acceptable OS X alternative to some mainstream Windows/Linux program that lacks a Mac version
Here you give your troll away. Any Linux app he knew about he could recompile for the Mac, if a fink port didn't already exist. You again fail to mention specifics, too, which almost always means a claim is exaggerated. He doesn't sound very experienced at all. He sounds like a case of what a co-worker once said after an interview with a guy listing 10 years of experience: "It was more like 1 year of experience 10 times over." I'd add a smiley to that but, well, there's nothing funny about getting into a relationship with that kind of person.
Of course this solution won't help those techies who's friends always call them or those with family that do not want to learn because "it's too complicated" or "I'm not the technichal type".
The ace in your sleeve: a Mac. Any non-tech type comes up to me and asks me what computer to get, I tell them to get a Mac. If they ask for help on a PC they already own, I tell them to ask the person who recommended it how to fix it; I may end up fixing it anyway, but then I recommend a Mac. Anyone who has not followed my recommendation the next time they ask for help is cut off, cold. Anyone who has followed my recommendation either won't bug me with stupid problems so much, or they'll be so stupid that fixing them won't be such a chore like it is on Windows boxes.
I once had a friend I recommended a Mac to and he ignored me and got sold on some $2000 Windows setup at CompUSA. Then he tried to brag about his new $2000 PC, and I had to say, "Dude, if I thought you should have gotten a PC I would have said to get one, and if I thought this was the setup you needed I could have gotten you it for under a grand." Still he called me when he was having trouble connecting it to the net! My understanding is that CompUSA was willing to help him out for another $80 . . . moron!
It can still be found on DataFetish. If you can, uh, find it there in the first place. :-) There is absolutely no way Apple will be able to erase all traces of this code from the Internet. The harder they try, the more people will secret it away.
there are very sad people out there willing to pay for virtual EQ items.
Uh, like the virtual characters they're paying for in the first place? Or the virtual effort spent in game otherwise doing rote things because the game playability doesn't scale? What is more sad, paying your friend for his "manufactured" arrows or actually wasting time manually making them?
Long story short, it doesn't necessarily take being a [x person] to sell to [x people]... you just have to be [x]-smart.
Edited, because that is really true in the general sense in all markets. To sell to people, all you have to do is understand what they'll pay for and find a way to supply it for less money, pocketing the difference. That your friend was able to take advantage of assembly line production instead of making everything "hand crafted" isn't surprising from a profit perspective.
Copying a file:
You don't use a parity setup, here. One places the document in the home folder where the other places it in a Documents folder. Then you just hand-wave the time for the steps taken. I could just as easily argue that a hunt and peck typist would take longer on a parity task. In reality, getting to a common directory should be little more than a click away (i.e., a parity example would have had the first two steps replaced with "click the home folder icon"). If you bothered to give a real example, I think you'd find that you don't get as much as you'd like to believe at the CLI unless you're working with multiple files.
resizing an image:
Sorry, not a common operation at all. I've wanted to resize an image (outside being in an editing app with it in the first place) maybe twice. And if it were something common for a particular user to do, they'd have a script or some other icon as a drop target to accomplish it. Additionally, again make it a non-parity task by having the image in the current directory "at the ready" for the CLI user but not the GUI user.
In these and most other situations, the CLI will be much much faster
Nope. All HCI testing shows different. That you do not do any testing or show any numbers to back up your claims to the contrary is telling. You're essentially echoing the findings that people thought the CLI was faster when it really wasn't. The main reason is that a CLI is a lot of busywork that keeps you occupied while GUI operations don't tie up the brain as much. Totally a matter of perception; next time use a stopwatch.
I have yet to try a true 3D desktop and will wait until I have to make judgements on whether the interface overhead is worth the benefit.
Given the state of 3D card, the overhead simply doesn't exist. That's why windowing systems are rushing to take advantage of the hardware acceleration they offer for even 2D operations. I'm not making any judgments of my own, save that there hasn't been a 3D desktop that actually makes things better. I see bells and whistles and people treating things like an FPS, but that is not what anyone will find useful in a 3D desktop. Like I said, people need to come up with a principle that is slow/cumbersome in 2D (I offered up document scrolling and menu selection) and find ways 3D could be used to either eliminate the delay or provide more information to the user in the time taken.
A 3D environment/interface doesn't have to eliminate added controller movement, (as it really can't), but it has to provide enough value to the interaction that the extra movement is justified/worth-while for the applications its being applied to.
It's not movement itself, but the time of the movement that I'm talking about. It would be acceptable to use a scroll wheel to do something in 3D because the act of scrolling already takes time, but you can't add interface elements that add time to getting things done. It's natural to use the CLI for things that are done faster there, but if it is quicker to use or switch to a mouse, it'll be a winner. A CLI allows you to do practically anything while a GUI allows you to do common things faster. I have yet to hear anybody put forward situations where 3D speeds interaction for common things, and then uses those situations to build an interface model for a new, more useful desktop.
I really don't think the 3d desktop will be feasable until we have some form of useful, cheap, and easy to use 3D input device.
Nope; that's a mistake far too may people make. What will make 3D useful is a 3D paradigm that does more than a 2D one. The 2D GUI took off not merely because of graphic hardware, but the introduction of WIMP as the basis for presenting information. That's simply not happing in 3D currently. We're getting all sorts of interfaces that use the extra dimension for useless information. All Sphere XP seemingly does is texture the the window bitmap on a square you can place/rotate in depth. Big yawn, there. You might as well call it "Exposé with Angles".
The killer issue is that 3D requires more movement with all these interfaces, and movement is slow compared to clicking. Running around rooms (or whatever) is fun enough for a game, but if I want to get to another folder I want it to be a click away, not a long run down a hallway. So to make use of 3D, you have to somehow do it in a way that "eliminates" what would already be additional movement in 2D. The most obvious things that come to mind are scrolling of window and menu content, but turning those operations into a WIMP-like principle that works in 3D is very, very difficult.
There's no one solution for all problems.
In this case, there really is: money. You can go on and on about theoreticals all you like, but whether you use 256 CPUs to get a #19 or 2200 to get #3, all systems have a cost associated with their resulting performance. Big Mac made news because they did so much with comparatively so little money. If Cray wants to make a hard number claim at bang-for-buck, let them. Until they do, or if they can't, their business will continue to dwindle in favor of cheaper clustering solutions.
Why don't you just buy a windows gamming rig?
Drop a grand or more for a halfway decent machine just to play games? Not gonna happen; I'd get a PS2 first. Games aren't that important to me. I can easily find other things to do if Vivendi doesn't want my $50.
Face it, I am a Linux supporter, but I realize that in most cases it isn't worth the time and money for some companies to port their games over to the Mac or Linux.
If they had written the game right in the first place it wouldn't be any great burden to release for other platforms. Companies like id will continue to get my business because they're smarter than to use Microsoft-specific technology.
If some Mac company did the same thing would you argue aginst it?
Yes. While it might seem nice to have it out there for free, from a business perspective it is still a support burden, especially if there is a system upgrade the might screw things up. There are a few games for the Mac Classic environment that the author decided to abandon and while it seems keen on the surface, they exhibit annoying traits (sound that no longer works, etc.) because of OS changes. If a game is worth playing at all, I'd rather pay for a version that is updated than get an old compile nobody cares about.
these kind of gimmicks always work, ALWAYS. i can say this with a high degree of certainty as someone who has spent more than 3 years playing first person shooters and delving into the modding scene of UT, UT2003, Q3 and espically HL.
Then how can you be so very wrong? All this does from my perspective is piss me off that they're giving away things to Windows users but they couldn't be bothered to make some more money by releasing Mac and Linux versions. From both a business and "gimmick" perspective, turning these games into what is essentially abandonware at this stage is a bad move.
Can't the merchants just require the 3-digit security code on the back of the credit cards , if they're losing money?
A "good" phishing site will ask for that information, along with your SSN, mother's maiden name, and any other information some organizations use to verify "you" for financial transactions. Anyone who is a target of identity theft isn't going to be saved by information you're expected to share with any merchant who asks for it.
Because they don't match.
Heh; you're right! The posted MD5 did match the source I got from another source, though. Doing a diff on the two, I see additional files (from loading it in an IDE, it looks) but no changes to actual source code. So still no conspiracy to report, darn it. :-(
That no matter how good/bad the encryption mechanism is, people can't break it.
I actually have no idea what you wrote because you used an encryption mechanism when posting, apparently encoding text as a sequence of bits, with certain groups of 7 representing individual characters. That's a total guess, based on my using a similar technique to encrypt my own text. I cannot be sure, of course, because I would be in violation of the DMCA if I were to attempt to decode your protection mechanism to get at the copyrighted material. I trust you'll likewise not break the law by decrypting my reply.
4645fa4753a3fb50521fa8750e9932a2
And we are to believe you're not Saint Aardvark posting a compromised checksum because . . . ? Paranoia is fun! :-)
No, Intego is innocent. The assholes like Symantec and Mcafee who left users out with viruses claiming that virus isnt't in wild deserves flames.
So you say, yet provide no evidence of any real exploit that is propagating. I wager you are a shill for Intego, making their list of disreputable practices grow even further. Point me to a genuine CERT advisory or anything, really, that backs up your outlandish claims.
As a guy coming from Slackware to OSX, having passwords, reviewing every single file asks for my root pwd... I got infected.
Simply not possible. Or are you saying that Intego isn't just scamming for customers with a "proof of concept", but is actually releasing malicious trojans? If they are actually writing the exploits, then they've not only sunk lower, but have done so criminally. You should contact law enforcement officials. The alternative is that you did something else to hose your files. Since you give no details whatever, it's impossible to say.