A lot of people are focused on making Linux the best Windows replacement it can be, and this is horribly wrong! All we do is complain about how bad Windows is, and there are huge efforts underway to emulate it.
It's like, "this sucks, let's copy it!"
The 'community' itself should be focused on pushing usability forward. The technical excellence is there, what is needed is people working on making things on the front end better so that it attracts the normal people who just want to do every day tasks in a fun, usable, and attractive environment. That doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, mean ripping off the ungodly Windows UI.
Spending 10+ years working on an alternative operating system, just to slap a f***ing start menu on the user interface so that you can claim it's just as good as Windows, is goofy. Sun has made this mistake, and so have most frontends under Linux.
So the community shouldn't be trying to kill Windows, it should be ignoring the Windows UI entirely and focusing on good interface practices instead. People are quicker to adapt than we give them credit for.
Just like anything else, you've got a dozen guys who fell out of some 3 day course who are advertising themselves as the new Turing, and you've got maybe one out of that dozen who actually cares enough to be competent. They can all come from the same course, and know the same stuff, but the difference is in what is delivered and how.
The problem isn't completely with technical incompetence, the problem can just as easily and will more probably be with care and respect for the customer.
It's a service issue, not a knowledge issue most times when you run into a computer tech who seems to be bumbling something up. Did they check to see what the problem actually was? Do they care enough if they're only making $7-10 an hour from their employer to save your enterprise business plan or presentation? Probably not.
Actually the whole thing is a lot like having a car. You can go through a bunch of different mechaniacs who are either dishonest or lazy, but once and a while you find that one shop where they're commited to service. I don't know about you, but I end up holding on to that shop's business card like it's solid gold. And that's an industry where there are standards to meet. I pay more for better, and I'm always happy with the result.
So WE as computer techies are to blame for this attitude in non computer techies in two ways; way #1, we undervalue ourselves and in turn make the work we do less valuable. #2 we don't do the work properly because we don't respect it ourselves.
Actually come to think of it, as a freelancer, I'm not competing with these low-balling stained-shirt wearing Linksys cablemodem router admins anymore, I'm going to set my rates accordingly.//more of a rant than I wanted that to be.
I think Shatner is by far, by far, my favorite Trekker. He's got a sense of humor about himself and his work, yet he's not even remotely afraid to take chances.
For all the obvious reasons. This is the future of generating interest in new series(es?). Look at the bold move by Battlestar Galactica. There's going to come a time when you're not going to NOT see this. How do you generate interest in your new series if none of the eyeballs look first to the Television for entertainment anymore?
With platforms like THIS, what you're thinking can't be too far off. A keychain computer. Wouldn't have to be too powerful, it'd just need a small, projectable display and a virtual keyboard.
I've got an eMac and an iBook that I love, and I happily use the one-button option Apple provides, but when I get bored of that I plug in the 5 button + scroll-wheel Microsoft branded monstrosity trackball. It all works perfectly. I'm assuming this move is to get people to impulse upgrade while they're buying a new system, and to quell the usual hand-wringing from the PC fanboys. I don't think it's going to be the default option.
Of the more savvy consumer. I don't think anyone's blind to advertising revenues, and the idea of paying to see ads is getting more and more insulting as time marches on.
Consumerism by itself isn't particularly bad. Add in some of the other factors and suddenly consumerism is a reason to kill other people to get their stuff, or simply because they have stuff that others don't.
In fact I don't think any of these factors alone, or in some specific combinations, are particularly harmful to society (save for the abuse which is always bad).
But together in the right doses they can really create some screwed up people who would probably go out and kill regardless of wether any version of GTA had ever been pressed to disc.
And the last incident that was blamed on the GTA series, where the kids had a rifle? Oh, I guess I should find a clue.
I also cited all sorts of other things, but thanks for gleefully ignoring those. Can you put your "Smith & Wessen Compensator" back in it's holster now? kthx.
Finally, we can lay off the easy access to guns, apathetic education, parental neglect / abuse, drugs, low self-esteem, and a rampant culture of violence and consumerism...
The real culprit here was a video game.
I guess... just like roaches and plagues. I just realized that a large part of my job is figuring out how to keep email going and meaningful despite the deluge of crap that comes in every day. It's not what I was hired for, but here it is as a major part of my role and a justification for my continued payment.
Would I prefer that Spam be stopped dead in it's tracks? Regardless of this, yes, because it also occours to me how much time I've wasted on this problem that I could have used doing other more productive things.
*sigh* ok, let me clue you nerds in. I have to get this out because it's an endless debate between some of the most myopic people on the Internet claiming to be the most informed.
I know we're probably a good 300 posts into this thread already and this posting of mine will be lost, but I feel the need to intervene anyway;
Some thoughts, from what I see here:
1) Normal joe/jill average users don't want to, and shouldn't have to, make checking e-mail and surfing the web a second job. So keeping up with every latest turn in the spyware/adware/spam drama is not an option. Your "it's that simple" solution isn't that simple to people who aren't immersed in computer culture 24 hours a day. Drop the faux-Darwinism routine and join us in what I like to call "real life". We're over here, in the sun.
2) Normal joe/jill average users WILL NOT run more than one computer for seperate tasks. This is insanity to begin with. Don't take your desk as an example of a normal computer user. You may have a room dedicated to your four boxes with various chips and OSes, but no normal human wants to do that. They want A box, with A monitor, and A device to interact with that box. They want a TV with a keyboard, but one that won't force them to download porn or send and recieve spam. The solution isn't a NeXT box for checking e-mail and a Sparc for web surfing, with a Windows NT 4 box off network for accounting, or some other absurd scenario.
3) Normal joe/jill users will want to run some fairly mainstream programs. If you're running AutoCAD, or MSSQL, or Cybertrader, you're a professional so the rules above no longer apply. Normal joe/jill average users want e-mail, fun web pages, The Sims maybe, Quicken. They want to buy a CD or a book online maybe, if they're feeling fancy. No crazy NASA shit. Don't hold them to your twisted standards of what normal people do with computers.
Where am I going with this? The only logical recourse at the moment is to get an Apple Macintosh for these users who are not computer dependant or who are not computer experts.
I know you all hate to hear it (other than the Mac fanboys who love to hear it, but let's just tolerate them for a moment). It's the only mainstream path for people who are trying to make joe/jill average user's computer experience workable. I've done it. I've set people up on Apples. I don't get calls about computers! They talk to me about them, but only to say how much they want to hug the damn things.
Regarding the proposition of a Linux desktop for these people. If you want to inflict frustration or dependancy on the normal joe/jill average user you're trying to help, if controlling them through reliance on your godlike technical abilities is your bag, by all means set them up with a Linux desktop. You can claim to have grandma set up on linux, and all your friends will pat you on the back for being such a wise advocate. Your grandma will use her computer all of the one time she can remember he login and password. Then when her $2000 investment in technology is worthless to her, and she calls for help to get some sort of value out of it, you can sigh call her dumb under your breath for not knowing how to operate an expert level OS. Hope you feel big...
Uhhh, how about no. See how easy that was? Now I don't have to spend the next quarter century in jail. And I'm sure all it would take would be a powerful pointer and a monocular. So maybe $150 maximum investment and some determination to be dumb.
You don't have to put anyone's eye out, all you have to do is illuminate the eyes enough that a visual distraction is created.
The intent of this jackhole was as I see it not to permenantly blind the pilot, but simply distract them long enough to make them react. Shits and giggles.
The jet, a chartered Cessna Citation, was coming in for a landing last Wednesday with six people aboard when a green light beam struck the windshield three times at about 3,000 feet, according to court documents. The flash temporarily blinded both the pilot and co-pilot, but they were later able to land the plane safely, authorities said. ...
Then, on Friday, a helicopter carrying Port Authority detectives was hit by a laser beam as its crew surveyed the area to try to pinpoint the origin of the original beam.
Oopsie daisy!
kfg: Imagine trying to "bring down" a car with a laser pointer. I'll be you couldn't do it in a Godzillion years.
I imagine it would be much easier than you imagine. A sustained laser at a drivers eyes would make them swerve if not stop dead on the road. A pilot of a passenger plane does not have that luxury.
The guy that did this is a 38 year old asshole, not an innocently playing child, and I'm glad he's going away. If he didn't know this was going to lead to trouble he's also one of the dumbest men in the U.S.
Maybe I'm weird, but I really like mine. I've got an 80GB HDD in it and a Superdrive and it's all the computer I could rationally ask for. And for the price point I couldn't build a similar system with as good an interface.
I'm not just being a Mac fanboy here, I really don't get that entry.
Is this the Canadian government deliberately being contrary?
For later referece, Canada is a sovereign country seperate from the U.S., so what we do up here isn't always a reaction to what is happening down south. As a liberal[1] country, we often make decisions based on general fairness to all of our citizens.
[1] - And no I don't mean Liberal, as in the U.S. swear word. I mean it in the classic sense.
Well, maybe not a dollar short, but late? For sure. Hell there are even spyware toolbars that do this stuff.
It's the future I guess
on
The Other VoIP
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Using iChatAV for some time now, the only trouble is sometimes you don't want to SEE who you're talking to, and you don't want them to see you (if you're sick, or too lazy to put on a shirt). A funny thing I've found is a question of etiquette; when is it polite to cover the cam?
Steve Jobs could easily say;
"The OS wars have come down to three; Microsoft Windows, Red Hat's Linux, and MacOS X."
Also, I think what he meant was Red Hat's distribution of Linux, not that Red Hat owns Linux or anything.
The GNU/Linux community (that's a lot of us) should be somewhat dismissive of statements like this, even. Does it really impact me that he thinks Red Hat's distro is the best? No. Is it? Maybe, but not to me. Is Debian dead now that it's been marginalized by a COO of a company that is busy getting marginalized?
Well let me check, apt still seems to work. Debian.org still resolves. Fhew.
Well, if everyone's using C/R, how do users who challenge get through to users who need to respond if those users won't get the challenge until their challenge is met?
Also, wouldn't this just create a rash of false challenges that lead to spamming type material or websites?
Like snap buying a pack of 5 Bruce Lee bobblehead dolls or something. Gotcha. I'll stick with mulling over purchases and deciding wether it's worth enough trouble to even sign in:)
Is it me or is selling to 20 or 30 of anything in a year or so really, really lackluster? How much are these licenses that they can proudly announce having 20 or 30 customers? I mean even if they cost as much as a Mercedes CLK each I wouldn't get too hyped about it considering this is a publicly traded company.
Slashdot Mirror
It's like, "this sucks, let's copy it!"
The 'community' itself should be focused on pushing usability forward. The technical excellence is there, what is needed is people working on making things on the front end better so that it attracts the normal people who just want to do every day tasks in a fun, usable, and attractive environment. That doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, mean ripping off the ungodly Windows UI.
Spending 10+ years working on an alternative operating system, just to slap a f***ing start menu on the user interface so that you can claim it's just as good as Windows, is goofy. Sun has made this mistake, and so have most frontends under Linux.
So the community shouldn't be trying to kill Windows, it should be ignoring the Windows UI entirely and focusing on good interface practices instead. People are quicker to adapt than we give them credit for.
The problem isn't completely with technical incompetence, the problem can just as easily and will more probably be with care and respect for the customer.
It's a service issue, not a knowledge issue most times when you run into a computer tech who seems to be bumbling something up. Did they check to see what the problem actually was? Do they care enough if they're only making $7-10 an hour from their employer to save your enterprise business plan or presentation? Probably not.
Actually the whole thing is a lot like having a car. You can go through a bunch of different mechaniacs who are either dishonest or lazy, but once and a while you find that one shop where they're commited to service. I don't know about you, but I end up holding on to that shop's business card like it's solid gold. And that's an industry where there are standards to meet. I pay more for better, and I'm always happy with the result.
So WE as computer techies are to blame for this attitude in non computer techies in two ways; way #1, we undervalue ourselves and in turn make the work we do less valuable. #2 we don't do the work properly because we don't respect it ourselves.
Actually come to think of it, as a freelancer, I'm not competing with these low-balling stained-shirt wearing Linksys cablemodem router admins anymore, I'm going to set my rates accordingly. //more of a rant than I wanted that to be.
I think Shatner is by far, by far, my favorite Trekker. He's got a sense of humor about himself and his work, yet he's not even remotely afraid to take chances.
For all the obvious reasons. This is the future of generating interest in new series(es?). Look at the bold move by Battlestar Galactica. There's going to come a time when you're not going to NOT see this. How do you generate interest in your new series if none of the eyeballs look first to the Television for entertainment anymore?
Why do people from reputable organizations even float ideas like this? Attacking the minions doesn't do anything, "you have to kill the head vampire!"
Gumstix
With platforms like THIS, what you're thinking can't be too far off. A keychain computer. Wouldn't have to be too powerful, it'd just need a small, projectable display and a virtual keyboard.
I've got an eMac and an iBook that I love, and I happily use the one-button option Apple provides, but when I get bored of that I plug in the 5 button + scroll-wheel Microsoft branded monstrosity trackball. It all works perfectly. I'm assuming this move is to get people to impulse upgrade while they're buying a new system, and to quell the usual hand-wringing from the PC fanboys. I don't think it's going to be the default option.
Of the more savvy consumer. I don't think anyone's blind to advertising revenues, and the idea of paying to see ads is getting more and more insulting as time marches on.
Where can I find a copy of your new book; How to collect restraining orders.
In fact I don't think any of these factors alone, or in some specific combinations, are particularly harmful to society (save for the abuse which is always bad).
But together in the right doses they can really create some screwed up people who would probably go out and kill regardless of wether any version of GTA had ever been pressed to disc.
And the last incident that was blamed on the GTA series, where the kids had a rifle? Oh, I guess I should find a clue. I also cited all sorts of other things, but thanks for gleefully ignoring those. Can you put your "Smith & Wessen Compensator" back in it's holster now? kthx.
Finally, we can lay off the easy access to guns, apathetic education, parental neglect / abuse, drugs, low self-esteem, and a rampant culture of violence and consumerism... The real culprit here was a video game.
Would I prefer that Spam be stopped dead in it's tracks? Regardless of this, yes, because it also occours to me how much time I've wasted on this problem that I could have used doing other more productive things.
[BIG RANT]
*sigh* ok, let me clue you nerds in. I have to get this out because it's an endless debate between some of the most myopic people on the Internet claiming to be the most informed.
I know we're probably a good 300 posts into this thread already and this posting of mine will be lost, but I feel the need to intervene anyway;
Some thoughts, from what I see here:
1) Normal joe/jill average users don't want to, and shouldn't have to, make checking e-mail and surfing the web a second job. So keeping up with every latest turn in the spyware/adware/spam drama is not an option. Your "it's that simple" solution isn't that simple to people who aren't immersed in computer culture 24 hours a day. Drop the faux-Darwinism routine and join us in what I like to call "real life". We're over here, in the sun.
2) Normal joe/jill average users WILL NOT run more than one computer for seperate tasks. This is insanity to begin with. Don't take your desk as an example of a normal computer user. You may have a room dedicated to your four boxes with various chips and OSes, but no normal human wants to do that. They want A box, with A monitor, and A device to interact with that box. They want a TV with a keyboard, but one that won't force them to download porn or send and recieve spam. The solution isn't a NeXT box for checking e-mail and a Sparc for web surfing, with a Windows NT 4 box off network for accounting, or some other absurd scenario.
3) Normal joe/jill users will want to run some fairly mainstream programs. If you're running AutoCAD, or MSSQL, or Cybertrader, you're a professional so the rules above no longer apply. Normal joe/jill average users want e-mail, fun web pages, The Sims maybe, Quicken. They want to buy a CD or a book online maybe, if they're feeling fancy. No crazy NASA shit. Don't hold them to your twisted standards of what normal people do with computers.
Where am I going with this? The only logical recourse at the moment is to get an Apple Macintosh for these users who are not computer dependant or who are not computer experts.
I know you all hate to hear it (other than the Mac fanboys who love to hear it, but let's just tolerate them for a moment). It's the only mainstream path for people who are trying to make joe/jill average user's computer experience workable. I've done it. I've set people up on Apples. I don't get calls about computers! They talk to me about them, but only to say how much they want to hug the damn things.
Regarding the proposition of a Linux desktop for these people. If you want to inflict frustration or dependancy on the normal joe/jill average user you're trying to help, if controlling them through reliance on your godlike technical abilities is your bag, by all means set them up with a Linux desktop. You can claim to have grandma set up on linux, and all your friends will pat you on the back for being such a wise advocate. Your grandma will use her computer all of the one time she can remember he login and password. Then when her $2000 investment in technology is worthless to her, and she calls for help to get some sort of value out of it, you can sigh call her dumb under your breath for not knowing how to operate an expert level OS. Hope you feel big...
You people frustrate me beyond words sometimes.
Uhhh, how about no. See how easy that was? Now I don't have to spend the next quarter century in jail. And I'm sure all it would take would be a powerful pointer and a monocular. So maybe $150 maximum investment and some determination to be dumb.
You don't have to put anyone's eye out, all you have to do is illuminate the eyes enough that a visual distraction is created.
The intent of this jackhole was as I see it not to permenantly blind the pilot, but simply distract them long enough to make them react. Shits and giggles.
The jet, a chartered Cessna Citation, was coming in for a landing last Wednesday with six people aboard when a green light beam struck the windshield three times at about 3,000 feet, according to court documents. The flash temporarily blinded both the pilot and co-pilot, but they were later able to land the plane safely, authorities said.
...
Then, on Friday, a helicopter carrying Port Authority detectives was hit by a laser beam as its crew surveyed the area to try to pinpoint the origin of the original beam.
Oopsie daisy!
kfg: Imagine trying to "bring down" a car with a laser pointer. I'll be you couldn't do it in a Godzillion years.
I imagine it would be much easier than you imagine. A sustained laser at a drivers eyes would make them swerve if not stop dead on the road. A pilot of a passenger plane does not have that luxury.
The guy that did this is a 38 year old asshole, not an innocently playing child, and I'm glad he's going away. If he didn't know this was going to lead to trouble he's also one of the dumbest men in the U.S.
I'm not just being a Mac fanboy here, I really don't get that entry.
Very glad to hear it. I think a lot of us have a genuine concern for a fellow geek, especially an Alpha like Patrick :)
For later referece, Canada is a sovereign country seperate from the U.S., so what we do up here isn't always a reaction to what is happening down south. As a liberal[1] country, we often make decisions based on general fairness to all of our citizens.
[1] - And no I don't mean Liberal, as in the U.S. swear word. I mean it in the classic sense.
Well, maybe not a dollar short, but late? For sure. Hell there are even spyware toolbars that do this stuff.
Using iChatAV for some time now, the only trouble is sometimes you don't want to SEE who you're talking to, and you don't want them to see you (if you're sick, or too lazy to put on a shirt). A funny thing I've found is a question of etiquette; when is it polite to cover the cam?
Steve Jobs could easily say; "The OS wars have come down to three; Microsoft Windows, Red Hat's Linux, and MacOS X." Also, I think what he meant was Red Hat's distribution of Linux, not that Red Hat owns Linux or anything. The GNU/Linux community (that's a lot of us) should be somewhat dismissive of statements like this, even. Does it really impact me that he thinks Red Hat's distro is the best? No. Is it? Maybe, but not to me. Is Debian dead now that it's been marginalized by a COO of a company that is busy getting marginalized? Well let me check, apt still seems to work. Debian.org still resolves. Fhew.
Also, wouldn't this just create a rash of false challenges that lead to spamming type material or websites?
Like snap buying a pack of 5 Bruce Lee bobblehead dolls or something. Gotcha. I'll stick with mulling over purchases and deciding wether it's worth enough trouble to even sign in :)
Depressing.