Essentially, a 6 year old and a 96 year old need to be able to use the system.
Actually, those two demographics are the easiest to convert. While my mom isn't 96 by a long stretch, she uses Ubuntu and has no problems whatsoever. Her computer literacy is close to 0.
The problem users are those we call "power users". People that have used Windows for years and know the ins-and-outs, but do not know them deep enough. They can pretty much be found in the 20-65 demographics, also known as those of working age. My dad falls in the power-user demographic and he still uses WinXP. That said, he is very open to Linux and understands it well enough to use it.
Do note that you said "use". The system still has to be set up by someone who knows what he does.
It's hard to say... I use that magical feature called "preview". I know for example that µ doesn't work. HTML entities that are not known to slashdot simply do not show up. Most accentuated characters (like é, ü, etc...) seem to work.
She's still got XP now, around 16 months later, but it's starting to slow down quite a bit from "Windows drag"
If you correctly install a Windows XP machine, this really doesn't happen. My wifes machine was last reinstalled in 2005 and hasn't been ever since. (Incidentally, it was the first and only time I did reinstall her machine) Still running perfectly fine to this days. The "secret": run Limited User and don't install stuff unless you really know you need it.
Yes, it can be done apparently (and indeed, my Vista experience is limited). However, once again, like with all Microsoft products one has to change tons of settings everywhere just to make the thing usable.
Personally, I don't like being in the Administrators group. Being in the Administrators group is basically the same as being Administrator, and for day to day usage I want to be a Limited User, which is best security practice. It was already a pain to activate the "real" Administrator in XP. I don't expect that Vista will make it better.
What my problem with Vista is, is that it removes the real Administrator role. You know, the role where the user of that role knows what he's doing. If I setup a machine, I do not want my "Limited Users" to get a password box if they do something system-changing. I want them to get a nice dialog saying "Access Denied", and I want exactly no message when I do something as an Administrator. If a user gets presented with a password box, he invariably wants to know the password that he has to put there. (This is the behaviour of Limited User on Vista... Compare to a "user" in Linux where he just doesn't get the right at all... No option.)
Windows Vista puts you in a straitjacket, even as the guy who is supposed to know what he's doing. The machine doesn "trust" me anymore, and I take offense to that.
It wasn't until XP hit SP2 that it started getting any real traction, and people stopped hating on it.
Yes, but you're twisting the reasons. SP0 and SP1 were hated because connecting your computer to the Internet and doing nothing resulted in a owned machine within 10 minutes. SP2 largely fixed that, and that's why SP2 is the version of XP that got a solid reputation... despite needing much more resources. (SP0 or SP1 run comfortably on 256Meg RAM... SP2 not so much)
It's laughable as most people seem to have such short memories. Everyone HATED "XP" when it was released. I stayed on Win2000 for years after XP was released.
I have a good memory, and I do remember that. Actually, when people were hailing XP and dissing Vista, I said exactly the same thing on slashdot. I pretty much expected Vista to have a very high adoption rate (as a dumpster diver, I was looking forward to golden times, which never arrived). If you ask me, I'll still tell you that Windows 2000 was the best product Microsoft ever made. There are three things that make "XP" superior: Wireless (Win2000 needed 3rd party tools), Fast User Switching (useful in a family setting), Built-in Terminal Services (Pro only? Pretty much only useful in business setting). There would be absolutely no reason that these features couldn't be added to Win2000.
But that's just it... most people won't take that extra effort with XP.
Yes, even you, someone who should know better... didn't even bother. I agree, you need to be forced. I, however, want it the old way. The way where I am not relegated in "idiot corner".
And XP is so much less secure than Vista. Vista has proven to be remarkably stable and I haven't had ANY issues with viruses or trojans (not so, every XP install I've had over the same time period).
You know why? Because you never set up your machine to run Limited User. I always hear the slashbots scream that it can't be done. They're wrong: it's a few rules to follow. I've been using the same XP Pro installation on my wifes machine for 5 years now. We all, even me, run Limited User... Viruses? Spyware? Nope...
What Vista does is force you to run Limited User and allows you to escalate, and that in a very inelegant way. I personally, prefer the "Access Denied" message, and the put together my mind, think if I what I want to do is really what I want to do, log in as Administrator and then do it.
It's a bit more work, but people that say you can't run XP securely are wrong.
Puppet, LDAP, and your own apt-server should do . You hardware should be bought for the OS you run, not vice-versa. I have no solution for your "run Office X" correctly, as I don't understand the problem.
The transition from OS9 to OS10 was like the transition from Win95 to WinNT, i.e. from a co-operative multitasking unprotected 16-bit O/S to a preemptive multitasking protected 32-bit O/S.
Just that you know, Win95 was preemptive multitasked and was 32-bit (even though there were 16-bit remnants) It wasn't particulary good, but technologically, it was way ahead of OS 9.
I think its 7 points are still overly restrictive, but my definition is clearly not restrictive enough.
That's okay... The 7 ones are the ones I learnt back in the day, I didn't say they were correct. I appreciate that you give in that your definition is not restrictive enough, that's bonus points for you. As far as I understand, even biologists haven't a clear-cut definition of life and diverse definitions exists, especially in the context of viruses and prions as you say yourself.
Read the comment of the guy again: "Life requires self-replication... that's it.". That's a definition. He said that life only needs self-replication. Should have quoted the whole statement and not relying on people reading my comment alone.
According to your definition "fire" would qualify as life. When I was in highschool, the definition given to us was the 7 points in the wikipedia article.
I'm no biologist, but replication only isn't enough for life.
Very few people, actually. With the advent of streaming HD, every computer needs more speed.
I won't deny that streaming HD can eat up power like nothing.... However, I haven't seen any normal person doing HD on their computer. A few geeks do. Uncle Joe Sixpack doesn't stream HD on his computer, he pops in a Blu-ray disc in his home theatre. Grama Jane Knitalot looks youtube videos on knitting, at best....
who want's to wait even 30 minutes for a 2 hour video to transcode and transfer to a portable device?
Again, this is geek stuff. However, even then... Just let it run overnight. You can do 16 movies (according to your numbers) in a normal night of sleep.
I keep all my audio as FLAC, and have a program which will transcode on the fly for syncing to my portable. That's great, except that it takes 20X as long to transcode as it does to transfer so I end up keeping a second copy of the library pre-coded.
Yes, FLAC is an archiving format. You archive it, and keep the compressed coded-du-jour alongside. You want this real-time? Okay, I understand, but again, that's geek stuff. Nobody outside of slashdot readership actually uses FLAC or even knows about it.
don't even get me started on high end applications...[snip]... AutoCAD
I have no opinion on AutoCAD as I have never used it and I am a geek. Everyone knows Computer Aided Design applications can use all the power you throw at them. However, this is -again- completely outside of the scope for normal use.
In summary: you can use a faster machine. I completely agree, you need the horsepower and you should buy it if you can afford it. However, I seriously disagree with your premise that "every computer needs more speed". This entirely disregards the army of secretaries, managers and data-entry-specialists that do nothing more than use some office, email, a bit of surf and access a company-specific webapp. It entirely disregards the other army of medium home users who do their taxes, make their budget and surf a bit on their low-powered machines (with integrated graphics! How can they!?!). You need to take a look outside of your little nerd-world. You'll see, you're the exception. Keep that in mind.
It's only waste if he doesn't like doing it. For me it's a hobby: I take old computers out of the dumpster, see how I can fix them and refurbish them. I like doing it and it's free entertainment for me. So, depends... If I had to charge for my services, yes it would be uneconomical, that is true.
Read his comment again, it is clear that he did it for the challenge and fun (and perhaps even learned something, which is never wasted time).
The "could have been spent working" argument is bogus. It only works if you're self-employed (I don't get more money if I pull 10 hour days instead of 8 hour days) or if you're paid by the hour (unlikely in the slashdot demographic). Even in the self-employed case: you don't get to work for a client at 11pm, because he doesn't want you in his office at that moment.
Always glad to share my thought about this. I became a teacher because I thought I could share my knowlegde and expected that the kids would at least find computers exciting. Well, yes, in a sense they do.... myspace, facebook, flash games... The underpinnings, not so much. I was thoroughly disappointed. (I was a lousy teacher anyway, so it's better I went back to a normal job)
From my experience, the average 14-21 year old knows about as much about computers as they do about their car, which is almost nothing.
Count another one in with that opinion. I've also been a "High School Computer Teacher" for one and a half years and what I have seen makes me sad.
The difference? In our time, the time of XTs, C64s, etc... you had to learn how the damned thing worked or you couldn't do squat. This weeded out the uninterested ones, and left over the nerds like us. Now "computing knowledge" is a requirement and the now-oh-so-simple interfaces are often a real challenge for the non-nerds.
I think the proportion nerd/normal person has stayed the same, but the nerd is distracted too much by what you can do with the machine than with how it works.
A said state of affairs, but the days we grew up in will never come back...
A P4 is "good enough" for most people right now, and that's what, 6, 7 years old?
My home machine is a P-IV 2.6GHz HT and was bought in the fall of 2003 so it must be more than 6 or 7 years. According to wikipedia, they started shipping P-IVs in 2000 (Earliest I could find was November 2000. That's a more than 8 years ago!
A while ago, I found a P-IV 1.9GHz with 512Meg RAMBus memory in a dumpster. That thing runs Ubuntu just fine for classic daily tasks. That's a 2001 machine. We have reached this plateau for a long, long time. That said, there were two things that interfered: malware slowing down machines and the lack of "enough" memory in those times. A 512Meg machine was something quite exotic in 2001... Only in early 2004, 512Meg became something like the norm. The amount of memory did more to the plateauing than the CPU speed.
P-III class machines are usable too. I ran a P-III 600MHz second hand laptop for ages, but it did have 512Meg RAM and had no problem with Windows XP. Lower than P-III, I would most certainly not recommend.
I got a DFI AK76-SN with an Athlon XP 1800+, 512mb RAM, and an Nvidia Ti4200 (128mb) from my brother because I was bitching about not being able to get a stable system from ancient hardware...
I'm a dumpster diver. This is the kind of machines I find all the time. I refurbish them and give them to people with lesser income. I invariably put Ubuntu on them unless I'm lucky enough to have a XP Pro License sticker on it. (I have no XP Home installation CDs). This class of machines works wonderfully on Ubuntu Linux, especially with a friggin Ti4200! You can even enable compiz fully.
Now, as I am a dumpster diver, I can tell you that if the system is unstable, it usually has a cause and that cause is the hardware. You never know why this machine was thrown away. Software flaky behaviour is often indistinguishable from hardware flakyness for a normal user. My experience is: is it unstable on Ubuntu, it will be unstable on Windows and if you do the hardware tests, you'll find that some part is defective.
An AMD 1800+ with 512Meg is enough for most tasks and will run stable... provided the hardware is still okay.
For the record: our main home PC is was bought in 2003. I only upped the RAM from 512Meg to 2Gig and replaced the 160Gig harddisk with a 500Gig model and all that for peanuts. It's still going strong and I have no reason at all to replace it.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't that what built-in webcams are for?
Actually, those two demographics are the easiest to convert. While my mom isn't 96 by a long stretch, she uses Ubuntu and has no problems whatsoever. Her computer literacy is close to 0.
The problem users are those we call "power users". People that have used Windows for years and know the ins-and-outs, but do not know them deep enough. They can pretty much be found in the 20-65 demographics, also known as those of working age. My dad falls in the power-user demographic and he still uses WinXP. That said, he is very open to Linux and understands it well enough to use it.
Do note that you said "use". The system still has to be set up by someone who knows what he does.
It's hard to say... I use that magical feature called "preview". I know for example that µ doesn't work. HTML entities that are not known to slashdot simply do not show up. Most accentuated characters (like é, ü, etc...) seem to work.
HTML entities, learn them and love them. (Slashdot doesn't support all of them)
If you correctly install a Windows XP machine, this really doesn't happen. My wifes machine was last reinstalled in 2005 and hasn't been ever since. (Incidentally, it was the first and only time I did reinstall her machine) Still running perfectly fine to this days. The "secret": run Limited User and don't install stuff unless you really know you need it.
Just download SP3... SP3 includes SP2. That said, I prefer the slipstream technique.
Yes
Yes, it can be done apparently (and indeed, my Vista experience is limited). However, once again, like with all Microsoft products one has to change tons of settings everywhere just to make the thing usable.
Personally, I don't like being in the Administrators group. Being in the Administrators group is basically the same as being Administrator, and for day to day usage I want to be a Limited User, which is best security practice. It was already a pain to activate the "real" Administrator in XP. I don't expect that Vista will make it better.
Well, you still use the IE engine with IETab... So if you've got IE7 installed, it will render like IE7.
They're called "birds".... Duh! ;-)
So would XP/IE8, or XP/Firefox
What my problem with Vista is, is that it removes the real Administrator role. You know, the role where the user of that role knows what he's doing. If I setup a machine, I do not want my "Limited Users" to get a password box if they do something system-changing. I want them to get a nice dialog saying "Access Denied", and I want exactly no message when I do something as an Administrator. If a user gets presented with a password box, he invariably wants to know the password that he has to put there. (This is the behaviour of Limited User on Vista... Compare to a "user" in Linux where he just doesn't get the right at all... No option.)
Windows Vista puts you in a straitjacket, even as the guy who is supposed to know what he's doing. The machine doesn "trust" me anymore, and I take offense to that.
Yes, but you're twisting the reasons. SP0 and SP1 were hated because connecting your computer to the Internet and doing nothing resulted in a owned machine within 10 minutes. SP2 largely fixed that, and that's why SP2 is the version of XP that got a solid reputation... despite needing much more resources. (SP0 or SP1 run comfortably on 256Meg RAM... SP2 not so much)
I have a good memory, and I do remember that. Actually, when people were hailing XP and dissing Vista, I said exactly the same thing on slashdot. I pretty much expected Vista to have a very high adoption rate (as a dumpster diver, I was looking forward to golden times, which never arrived). If you ask me, I'll still tell you that Windows 2000 was the best product Microsoft ever made. There are three things that make "XP" superior: Wireless (Win2000 needed 3rd party tools), Fast User Switching (useful in a family setting), Built-in Terminal Services (Pro only? Pretty much only useful in business setting). There would be absolutely no reason that these features couldn't be added to Win2000.
Yes, even you, someone who should know better... didn't even bother. I agree, you need to be forced. I, however, want it the old way. The way where I am not relegated in "idiot corner".
You were most likely marked flamebait because of that error. That would be my guess.
You know why? Because you never set up your machine to run Limited User. I always hear the slashbots scream that it can't be done. They're wrong: it's a few rules to follow. I've been using the same XP Pro installation on my wifes machine for 5 years now. We all, even me, run Limited User... Viruses? Spyware? Nope...
What Vista does is force you to run Limited User and allows you to escalate, and that in a very inelegant way. I personally, prefer the "Access Denied" message, and the put together my mind, think if I what I want to do is really what I want to do, log in as Administrator and then do it.
It's a bit more work, but people that say you can't run XP securely are wrong.
Puppet, LDAP, and your own apt-server should do . You hardware should be bought for the OS you run, not vice-versa. I have no solution for your "run Office X" correctly, as I don't understand the problem.
Just that you know, Win95 was preemptive multitasked and was 32-bit (even though there were 16-bit remnants) It wasn't particulary good, but technologically, it was way ahead of OS 9.
That's okay... The 7 ones are the ones I learnt back in the day, I didn't say they were correct. I appreciate that you give in that your definition is not restrictive enough, that's bonus points for you. As far as I understand, even biologists haven't a clear-cut definition of life and diverse definitions exists, especially in the context of viruses and prions as you say yourself.
Read the comment of the guy again: "Life requires self-replication... that's it.". That's a definition. He said that life only needs self-replication. Should have quoted the whole statement and not relying on people reading my comment alone.
According to your definition "fire" would qualify as life. When I was in highschool, the definition given to us was the 7 points in the wikipedia article.
I'm no biologist, but replication only isn't enough for life.
I won't deny that streaming HD can eat up power like nothing.... However, I haven't seen any normal person doing HD on their computer. A few geeks do. Uncle Joe Sixpack doesn't stream HD on his computer, he pops in a Blu-ray disc in his home theatre. Grama Jane Knitalot looks youtube videos on knitting, at best....
Again, this is geek stuff. However, even then... Just let it run overnight. You can do 16 movies (according to your numbers) in a normal night of sleep.
Yes, FLAC is an archiving format. You archive it, and keep the compressed coded-du-jour alongside. You want this real-time? Okay, I understand, but again, that's geek stuff. Nobody outside of slashdot readership actually uses FLAC or even knows about it.
I have no opinion on AutoCAD as I have never used it and I am a geek. Everyone knows Computer Aided Design applications can use all the power you throw at them. However, this is -again- completely outside of the scope for normal use.
In summary: you can use a faster machine. I completely agree, you need the horsepower and you should buy it if you can afford it. However, I seriously disagree with your premise that "every computer needs more speed". This entirely disregards the army of secretaries, managers and data-entry-specialists that do nothing more than use some office, email, a bit of surf and access a company-specific webapp. It entirely disregards the other army of medium home users who do their taxes, make their budget and surf a bit on their low-powered machines (with integrated graphics! How can they!?!). You need to take a look outside of your little nerd-world. You'll see, you're the exception. Keep that in mind.
It's only waste if he doesn't like doing it. For me it's a hobby: I take old computers out of the dumpster, see how I can fix them and refurbish them. I like doing it and it's free entertainment for me. So, depends... If I had to charge for my services, yes it would be uneconomical, that is true.
Read his comment again, it is clear that he did it for the challenge and fun (and perhaps even learned something, which is never wasted time).
The "could have been spent working" argument is bogus. It only works if you're self-employed (I don't get more money if I pull 10 hour days instead of 8 hour days) or if you're paid by the hour (unlikely in the slashdot demographic). Even in the self-employed case: you don't get to work for a client at 11pm, because he doesn't want you in his office at that moment.
Always glad to share my thought about this. I became a teacher because I thought I could share my knowlegde and expected that the kids would at least find computers exciting. Well, yes, in a sense they do.... myspace, facebook, flash games... The underpinnings, not so much. I was thoroughly disappointed. (I was a lousy teacher anyway, so it's better I went back to a normal job)
Count another one in with that opinion. I've also been a "High School Computer Teacher" for one and a half years and what I have seen makes me sad.
The difference? In our time, the time of XTs, C64s, etc... you had to learn how the damned thing worked or you couldn't do squat. This weeded out the uninterested ones, and left over the nerds like us. Now "computing knowledge" is a requirement and the now-oh-so-simple interfaces are often a real challenge for the non-nerds.
I think the proportion nerd/normal person has stayed the same, but the nerd is distracted too much by what you can do with the machine than with how it works.
A said state of affairs, but the days we grew up in will never come back...
My home machine is a P-IV 2.6GHz HT and was bought in the fall of 2003 so it must be more than 6 or 7 years. According to wikipedia, they started shipping P-IVs in 2000 (Earliest I could find was November 2000. That's a more than 8 years ago!
A while ago, I found a P-IV 1.9GHz with 512Meg RAMBus memory in a dumpster. That thing runs Ubuntu just fine for classic daily tasks. That's a 2001 machine. We have reached this plateau for a long, long time. That said, there were two things that interfered: malware slowing down machines and the lack of "enough" memory in those times. A 512Meg machine was something quite exotic in 2001... Only in early 2004, 512Meg became something like the norm. The amount of memory did more to the plateauing than the CPU speed.
P-III class machines are usable too. I ran a P-III 600MHz second hand laptop for ages, but it did have 512Meg RAM and had no problem with Windows XP. Lower than P-III, I would most certainly not recommend.
For some people 300$ is a lot of money. I give computers refurbished from dumpsters to such people.
Even I don't spit on 300$... If I can avoid spending 300$, I will.
I'm a dumpster diver. This is the kind of machines I find all the time. I refurbish them and give them to people with lesser income. I invariably put Ubuntu on them unless I'm lucky enough to have a XP Pro License sticker on it. (I have no XP Home installation CDs). This class of machines works wonderfully on Ubuntu Linux, especially with a friggin Ti4200! You can even enable compiz fully.
Now, as I am a dumpster diver, I can tell you that if the system is unstable, it usually has a cause and that cause is the hardware. You never know why this machine was thrown away. Software flaky behaviour is often indistinguishable from hardware flakyness for a normal user. My experience is: is it unstable on Ubuntu, it will be unstable on Windows and if you do the hardware tests, you'll find that some part is defective.
An AMD 1800+ with 512Meg is enough for most tasks and will run stable... provided the hardware is still okay.
For the record: our main home PC is was bought in 2003. I only upped the RAM from 512Meg to 2Gig and replaced the 160Gig harddisk with a 500Gig model and all that for peanuts. It's still going strong and I have no reason at all to replace it.