On the whole, when I first read the pdf on the microsoft site, I was actually rather impressed. For the most part, it was civil. Not what we'd all like, but relatively civil.
It was *almost* truthful for the most part... not entirely, but *almost*...... and it is probably the best advertising OO.o has had. With this established, there are a few key points I think I would make about this arguement.
In the #OpenOffice.org channel on IRC, I was asked what I thought about the article, and the impact it has on OpenOffice.org as a whole. All in all, I thought its great for OOo. As long as we don't get into a petty pissing fight with MS Office, that is. Then someone was throwing around the idea that we should have a pointer article tossed back as a response to Microsofts little publication. I only replied "Why bother?" No matter what route we took with a reply, I think it would do more harm than good. The only thing I could think of as a reply would be a nice polite response to some of the false comments in the article.
There are a few ways where this advertising could hurt OpenOffice.org, but that would realistically only effect the crowds that would never switch even if their existances depended on it. I know a few people like that that live and breath the harddrive space Microsoft uses.
In cases like that, OpenOffice.org just might not be the better alternative, as they would be very stuck in their ways. I would like to think we would rather have 10 very satisifed users than 20... 10 of which would do nothing but complain about this problem or that problem, and do little if anything to help resolve the issue.
But, OO.o still has quite a ways to go. While I love it and use it for all of my writing, there are still a few things that need fixed and improved upon. But, I've decided to join the project and help make it happen when I have a little more time.. which should be in about a month when my current projects settle down. But, that is what I find so beautiful about the OO.o project. If I don't like something, I can dig on in and help fix it.
If MS Office offered that flexibility, I would have been enticed in joining the team. But, as it did not and never will, I'll be stuck in my ways and keep supporting OO.o;)
I work professionally as a writer, and I have no problems giving individuals the required.doc or.xls files when they ask them of me. Most people hiring writers want.txt, as they wish to do most of the formatting on their own.
I couldn't do the work I do right now efficiently on MS Word even if I wanted to, really. I need the ability to read all file types and MS Office does not have that capability. My clients aren't restricted to just windows.
For the Canadians in the Montreal/Ottawa area, I started making a slew of phonecalls to various theaters.
In Montreal, the paramount is NOT playing the marathon, Cinema Guzzo is NOT playing the marathon, the AMC Old Forum Is NOT playing the marathon.
Players isn't I don't think either, but that is because the only line I got a hold of just mentioned they were a part of Paramount, which isn't holding the marathon.
In a few minutes, I'll be making calls to all of the Cinema Odeon owned theaters, and I'll be making a search for any Alliance Atlantis ones, but so far, it has been a needle in a haystack.
In Ottawa, I was only able to get a hold of Gatineua, and they hung up on me, so I don't know what is up with that theater, I'm currently trying to get a hold of the World Exchange. If I find out anymore, I'll drop some notes down. I don't have any plans to call Toronto at this moment, because I'm hoping one of the Ottawa or Montreal theaters will have it.:(
Or you could marry a canadian. Thats what I did. Though they'll probably catch you if you do it just to get into Canada (which I did not)
It is a royal pain in the tail though. I've been at it for about 2 years now. Blerg.
The easiest route is skilled workers, like mentioned above. But there is also other statuses you can get. I've been here under a visitors record for years, working for in-canada sponsership, there is other types of work permits, and study permits, as well as refugee status.
The list goes on and on and on. But there is a lot of paper work.
Also, avoid Quebec, if you want quick. Their laws are different from the other provinces!
You know, if it isn't one thing its another. First people are worried about their weight, so what do they do? Charge people to stop eating how they would like to... now Computers are "dangerous" and a "health risk". Why do I smell another way for manufacturers to make more money off of computer users? Yes, there are a lot of computer parts that go obsolete everyday. I have an apartment full of obsolete parts.
If the goverment is *that* worried about it, they should pay for it themselves. Its not as if this government doesn't have enough money to do so. Manufacturers are just doing what makes them money... and you can get cancer from just about anything too...
So heaven help us if we use computers too long! We might get tetnis or something.
I think people need to chill out a little bit. We only get one life to live. Why waste it worrying on a little bit of extra lead in the human body. Its not as if I couldn't walk outside and get hit by a car at any given point in the day.
(Hey! Lets charge car owners for scraping their cars when they buy them... (or maybe they already do.. Manufacturers would make a lot more money that way))
That looks like way too much fun to toy with. That way I could say something along the lines of "I want to beat up my big sister", go through all the frustrating physics behind it... then not really want to do it as I would have exhausted my poor brian trying to figure out higher math.
I think this is cool... good for the movie industry? Probably.. But eh, I also kinda like the actors that have the guts to do their own stunts. Shows they enjoy it and actually do the work they are getting paid to do.
bad thing is, actors might be goin' out of work quicker.
As far as I know, Linux wasn't really designed to be a mainframe anyway... so whats the big deal really? Linux is a web server/ server system, great for apache and the likes, stable and a life saver for small companies. So Sun has the better equipment and software for mainframe.
IF linux had been designed to do that then there would be a real contraversy in the situation anyway. Its an interesting article with lots of good points, but its like comparing tomatoes and oranges.
You know, this sounds way too familiar to my own life. Get up, slay horrible creatures that live on the computer (or in the bathroom, whichever decide to attack first) then return to a life of seeming normality.
*shudders* Either the comics are related to us, or we are related to the comics... and the sad thing is, it wouldn't surprise me if some of these comics are older than us/.'ers.
We must have been born a sketch then blown up like balloons and forced to roam the planet and get eaten by things that crawl under the bed.
Or maybe we just want to hide from our own realities so we emulate those from the comic books so that the real world ends up resembling the comic world.
Its about time they got together and agreed on something... though the only bad part about this is their only real big competition would be Microsoft... Hopefully more minds put together will bring on a good system and not bickering children. We'll have to see and find out I suppose.
... dare i ask whats next? It sounds like decent technology, but its a crying shame it isn't open source... but then again, I would far more trust those fans of open source to find something that much better...
However...If this "Corona" is freeware, then Real Players going to be in for a major run for its money, because afaik real player has gone from free ware to a 10 dollar purchase. (At least thats what the latest yelling and groaning match of my windows using friends has been)
..i think I'll stick to using mplayer, ogle and xmms, thanks.
.. Hmm... making a whole new language within an already established language which was formed from several already established languages... the english, as I've been told by other peoples of other languages, have no sense of language....
...sure we have language... we have open source (its a language durnit, you gotta live breathe and speak open source...)... we have sci fi, fantasy, romance... its enough to make my head spin.
Now... this new collaboration... it will be a *very* useful tool for hopeful writers... a new resource for more "language" as words get used, and reused. Heck, maybe we'll all be going around the galaxy with towels at improbable rates.
I say yah! Free fun for those who enjoy creativity.
... dare I commit a computer junkie sin, and ask what is *truly* the point in running dual processors, if when you are already running a decent (1 gig +) board and chipset... the difference is only in a few seconds? I haven't been using *nix systems for very long (I just started running Debian recently) but the first thing I noticed after switching from windows was that the sheer processing power from my 1 gig chipset (with my measly 128 ram) is already fast enough that compiling the kernel isn't a long wait at all... I'm almost afraid to know how fast it would have compiled if I had been running a dual chipset.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'd *love* to be able to use numerous copies of photoshop (if I had windows and if the version of windows I had been using even used both chips... afaik win 98 would get real cranky about 2 processing chips and just use the one), but I've never had the oppurtunity to put that to the test because I've never been able to afford a dual chipset. (so if you know how windows does with dual processors, I'd be delighted to find out.)
One thing I am wondering though, is during the test, they used the Duron chips verses the athlons... its downright obvious which chipsets going to win... If i am not mistaken, the Duron was AMD's reply to the Celeron... a "cheap" chip that lacks as much sheer power as the Athlons. (And if I'm not mistaken, the Duron gives the Celeron a good run for its money).
Now if I had the spare... howver much money it would cost for the chips and board (and some newram to go with it) I would probably buy it in a heartbeat, though I don't know what good it would *really* do a computer user like me... the most cpu intensive program I use is the gimp. (One thing I miss about windows is ps6.0...*sigh*)
What I would like to see is tests of the athlon verses intels latest prize... that would be a competition worth snickering at. I'd like to see intel get blown out of the water.
.... I'm still wanting a CD-RW, forget the DVD anythings! I have 2 cd rom drives (One being a DVD drive but anyway) and I still don't have a CD burner,..
Now, I'm still thinking that why don't we just stick with the poor buck a piece CDs which hold plenty of data, instead of trying out this newer technology just yet... I know I still have to be really careful with my DVD drive, as afaik, DVD drives have a tendancy to break after relatively short time spans, especially when you start using the cd rom AND dvd drive capabilities.
The fuss is simple, people just have big egos which they like to primp up using their computers. Well... well... fine then! I have a gig athlon with cd dvd and a ls120 drive! (
Seen it once seen it twice... if you want to have muscle matches boys (and girls!), get a 64-1/2 ford mustang all original parts... then you can boast. (or sell it and make 200k...)
I know its been said once, twice, 100 + times, but in all due respect for Education, its not the computers that make education good, and it is mostly teachers... but I think the MAIN factor is the kids. (and those who boss the poor teacherws around... but I'd consider them loud mouthed kids half of the time.)
Teachers aren't paid crap, and they teach because they really love to teach, but even the greatest teacher in the world won't do a grain of good if the students aren't movtivated enough to learn. Double edged sword. Good techer go to waste because of the bad students that waste their time. (I've been there and I've done that, i've been a good student AND a bad one)
So schools get win 95, on pI 166 machines. The outcome: Machines that are semi reliable for several years, cheap. If the schools anything like the one I went to, when it breaks they call in their better students and they fix it, everyones happy. And when the old 166 breaks, its broken. No *real* huge deal, 300 bucks to replace.
Now, all the computer companies want a piece of the education system. Why? Because the heads of education want to show off their buildings to the blue ribbon givers out there. So what do they do? They buy cheap equipment so they can say they have a lot of comptuers to use for education.
Maybe we should shoot those who lead the educators and let the teachers pick what the school system really needs, we may get somewhere then.
Don't get me wrong, I respect teachers dearly. They have had a big hand in making me who I am today... but I have a strong dislike for those who ruin those teachers I so admire... and it isn't what kind of computers the teachers and the students use. Microsoft is just using their brain to make more money in a greedy world. Congratulations, you found a weak point in the education system. Enjoy reaping your benefits, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
... in a can or a nutshell (if you like nutty spam, thats okay, the men in the white coats won't hurt you.) its become one of those "necessary" evils.
Necessary because we don't think that maybe, just maybe, if we don't use our real email addresses for anything other than say, slashdot and close friends, then we wouldn't have this problem.
What amuses me the most is that I don't get spam.. then again, I don't sign up for anything... now maybe thats our problem right there. Humans like to buy things, sign up for things, prod our noses in business that isn't ours (but we to think is ours)... and of *course* businessmen (and politicians) are going to take advantage of that fact! (They aren't quite as stupid as we'd like to think, or hope, situation dependig.)
So in theory if we never signed up for anything, then the internet would crumble away, vanish, and our spam problems would be solved...
and then as all things, the vicious cycle would start again from the beginning.
IF we had ever learned anything to begin with, in the famous words of Douglas Adams "we never would have left the oceans in the first place".
The human species always has a knack of doing more harm than good. I'm not sure who this "Kerry Packer" fellow really is, and if I met him I'd hit him upside the head with a frying pan. If we were lucky it would jar his brains back into place, and if we weren't, well, he'd probably die from brain damage... ("what a crying shame", says the kangaroo)
If we had learned anything, we also would have learned (from the ever so delightful Jurassic Park) fences don't keep in anything with teeth anyway.
Well, from a poor starving artist prospective, (and one who has had the terror/(privlidge?) of having to use numerous OS for graphics, the solution is quite simple.
Use paper. Saves time, saves hassle and pencils are only a buck a piece if you are going for the most expensive in the market... and Pencils don't need to be upgraded.
But seriously, I use a gig athlon machine with Debian installed, and I use the GIMP for most of my art stuff... and in all honesty, art takes patience... if you're modelling something and your machine is *that* slow, then go ahead, upgrade, but anything above 800 mhz is and 128 meg of ram can handle it... and the more ram the better. Maybe it isn't a processing problem afterall... ram helps too.
Any athlon would be a expensive paperweight without ram to back it anyway. (And cooling fans.. lots of them)
Slashdot Mirror
On the whole, when I first read the pdf on the microsoft site, I was actually rather impressed. For the most part, it was civil. Not what we'd all like, but relatively civil.
... and it is probably the best advertising OO.o has had. With this established, there are a few key points I think I would make about this arguement.
;)
It was *almost* truthful for the most part... not entirely, but *almost*...
In the #OpenOffice.org channel on IRC, I was asked what I thought about the article, and the impact it has on OpenOffice.org as a whole. All in all, I thought its great for OOo. As long as we don't get into a petty pissing fight with MS Office, that is. Then someone was throwing around the idea that we should have a pointer article tossed back as a response to Microsofts little publication. I only replied "Why bother?" No matter what route we took with a reply, I think it would do more harm than good. The only thing I could think of as a reply would be a nice polite response to some of the false comments in the article.
There are a few ways where this advertising could hurt OpenOffice.org, but that would realistically only effect the crowds that would never switch even if their existances depended on it. I know a few people like that that live and breath the harddrive space Microsoft uses.
In cases like that, OpenOffice.org just might not be the better alternative, as they would be very stuck in their ways. I would like to think we would rather have 10 very satisifed users than 20... 10 of which would do nothing but complain about this problem or that problem, and do little if anything to help resolve the issue.
But, OO.o still has quite a ways to go. While I love it and use it for all of my writing, there are still a few things that need fixed and improved upon. But, I've decided to join the project and help make it happen when I have a little more time.. which should be in about a month when my current projects settle down. But, that is what I find so beautiful about the OO.o project. If I don't like something, I can dig on in and help fix it.
If MS Office offered that flexibility, I would have been enticed in joining the team. But, as it did not and never will, I'll be stuck in my ways and keep supporting OO.o
I work professionally as a writer, and I have no problems giving individuals the required .doc or .xls files when they ask them of me. Most people hiring writers want .txt, as they wish to do most of the formatting on their own.
I couldn't do the work I do right now efficiently on MS Word even if I wanted to, really. I need the ability to read all file types and MS Office does not have that capability. My clients aren't restricted to just windows.
Just a thought.
For the Canadians in the Montreal/Ottawa area, I started making a slew of phonecalls to various theaters. In Montreal, the paramount is NOT playing the marathon, Cinema Guzzo is NOT playing the marathon, the AMC Old Forum Is NOT playing the marathon. Players isn't I don't think either, but that is because the only line I got a hold of just mentioned they were a part of Paramount, which isn't holding the marathon. In a few minutes, I'll be making calls to all of the Cinema Odeon owned theaters, and I'll be making a search for any Alliance Atlantis ones, but so far, it has been a needle in a haystack. In Ottawa, I was only able to get a hold of Gatineua, and they hung up on me, so I don't know what is up with that theater, I'm currently trying to get a hold of the World Exchange. If I find out anymore, I'll drop some notes down. I don't have any plans to call Toronto at this moment, because I'm hoping one of the Ottawa or Montreal theaters will have it. :(
Or you could marry a canadian. Thats what I did. Though they'll probably catch you if you do it just to get into Canada (which I did not) It is a royal pain in the tail though. I've been at it for about 2 years now. Blerg. The easiest route is skilled workers, like mentioned above. But there is also other statuses you can get. I've been here under a visitors record for years, working for in-canada sponsership, there is other types of work permits, and study permits, as well as refugee status. The list goes on and on and on. But there is a lot of paper work. Also, avoid Quebec, if you want quick. Their laws are different from the other provinces!
You know, if it isn't one thing its another. First people are worried about their weight, so what do they do? Charge people to stop eating how they would like to... now Computers are "dangerous" and a "health risk". Why do I smell another way for manufacturers to make more money off of computer users? Yes, there are a lot of computer parts that go obsolete everyday. I have an apartment full of obsolete parts.
If the goverment is *that* worried about it, they should pay for it themselves. Its not as if this government doesn't have enough money to do so. Manufacturers are just doing what makes them money... and you can get cancer from just about anything too...
So heaven help us if we use computers too long! We might get tetnis or something.
I think people need to chill out a little bit. We only get one life to live. Why waste it worrying on a little bit of extra lead in the human body. Its not as if I couldn't walk outside and get hit by a car at any given point in the day. (Hey! Lets charge car owners for scraping their cars when they buy them... (or maybe they already do.. Manufacturers would make a lot more money that way))
That looks like way too much fun to toy with. That way I could say something along the lines of "I want to beat up my big sister", go through all the frustrating physics behind it... then not really want to do it as I would have exhausted my poor brian trying to figure out higher math. I think this is cool... good for the movie industry? Probably.. But eh, I also kinda like the actors that have the guts to do their own stunts. Shows they enjoy it and actually do the work they are getting paid to do. bad thing is, actors might be goin' out of work quicker.
As far as I know, Linux wasn't really designed to be a mainframe anyway... so whats the big deal really? Linux is a web server/ server system, great for apache and the likes, stable and a life saver for small companies. So Sun has the better equipment and software for mainframe. IF linux had been designed to do that then there would be a real contraversy in the situation anyway. Its an interesting article with lots of good points, but its like comparing tomatoes and oranges.
You know, this sounds way too familiar to my own life. Get up, slay horrible creatures that live on the computer (or in the bathroom, whichever decide to attack first) then return to a life of seeming normality. *shudders* Either the comics are related to us, or we are related to the comics... and the sad thing is, it wouldn't surprise me if some of these comics are older than us /.'ers.
We must have been born a sketch then blown up like balloons and forced to roam the planet and get eaten by things that crawl under the bed.
Or maybe we just want to hide from our own realities so we emulate those from the comic books so that the real world ends up resembling the comic world.
Its about time they got together and agreed on something... though the only bad part about this is their only real big competition would be Microsoft... Hopefully more minds put together will bring on a good system and not bickering children. We'll have to see and find out I suppose.
... dare i ask whats next? It sounds like decent technology, but its a crying shame it isn't open source... but then again, I would far more trust those fans of open source to find something that much better...
..i think I'll stick to using mplayer, ogle and xmms, thanks.
However...If this "Corona" is freeware, then Real Players going to be in for a major run for its money, because afaik real player has gone from free ware to a 10 dollar purchase. (At least thats what the latest yelling and groaning match of my windows using friends has been)
.. Hmm... making a whole new language within an already established language which was formed from several already established languages... the english, as I've been told by other peoples of other languages, have no sense of language....
...sure we have language... we have open source (its a language durnit, you gotta live breathe and speak open source...)... we have sci fi, fantasy, romance... its enough to make my head spin.
Now... this new collaboration... it will be a *very* useful tool for hopeful writers... a new resource for more "language" as words get used, and reused. Heck, maybe we'll all be going around the galaxy with towels at improbable rates.
I say yah! Free fun for those who enjoy creativity.
... dare I commit a computer junkie sin, and ask what is *truly* the point in running dual processors, if when you are already running a decent (1 gig +) board and chipset... the difference is only in a few seconds? I haven't been using *nix systems for very long (I just started running Debian recently) but the first thing I noticed after switching from windows was that the sheer processing power from my 1 gig chipset (with my measly 128 ram) is already fast enough that compiling the kernel isn't a long wait at all... I'm almost afraid to know how fast it would have compiled if I had been running a dual chipset.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'd *love* to be able to use numerous copies of photoshop (if I had windows and if the version of windows I had been using even used both chips... afaik win 98 would get real cranky about 2 processing chips and just use the one), but I've never had the oppurtunity to put that to the test because I've never been able to afford a dual chipset. (so if you know how windows does with dual processors, I'd be delighted to find out.)
One thing I am wondering though, is during the test, they used the Duron chips verses the athlons... its downright obvious which chipsets going to win... If i am not mistaken, the Duron was AMD's reply to the Celeron... a "cheap" chip that lacks as much sheer power as the Athlons. (And if I'm not mistaken, the Duron gives the Celeron a good run for its money).
Now if I had the spare... howver much money it would cost for the chips and board (and some newram to go with it) I would probably buy it in a heartbeat, though I don't know what good it would *really* do a computer user like me... the most cpu intensive program I use is the gimp. (One thing I miss about windows is ps6.0...*sigh*)
What I would like to see is tests of the athlon verses intels latest prize... that would be a competition worth snickering at. I'd like to see intel get blown out of the water.
.... I'm still wanting a CD-RW, forget the DVD anythings! I have 2 cd rom drives (One being a DVD drive but anyway) and I still don't have a CD burner,..
Now, I'm still thinking that why don't we just stick with the poor buck a piece CDs which hold plenty of data, instead of trying out this newer technology just yet... I know I still have to be really careful with my DVD drive, as afaik, DVD drives have a tendancy to break after relatively short time spans, especially when you start using the cd rom AND dvd drive capabilities.
The fuss is simple, people just have big egos which they like to primp up using their computers. Well... well... fine then! I have a gig athlon with cd dvd and a ls120 drive! (
Seen it once seen it twice... if you want to have muscle matches boys (and girls!), get a 64-1/2 ford mustang all original parts... then you can boast. (or sell it and make 200k...)
I know its been said once, twice, 100 + times, but in all due respect for Education, its not the computers that make education good, and it is mostly teachers... but I think the MAIN factor is the kids. (and those who boss the poor teacherws around... but I'd consider them loud mouthed kids half of the time.)
Teachers aren't paid crap, and they teach because they really love to teach, but even the greatest teacher in the world won't do a grain of good if the students aren't movtivated enough to learn. Double edged sword. Good techer go to waste because of the bad students that waste their time. (I've been there and I've done that, i've been a good student AND a bad one)
So schools get win 95, on pI 166 machines. The outcome: Machines that are semi reliable for several years, cheap. If the schools anything like the one I went to, when it breaks they call in their better students and they fix it, everyones happy. And when the old 166 breaks, its broken. No *real* huge deal, 300 bucks to replace.
Now, all the computer companies want a piece of the education system. Why? Because the heads of education want to show off their buildings to the blue ribbon givers out there. So what do they do? They buy cheap equipment so they can say they have a lot of comptuers to use for education.
Maybe we should shoot those who lead the educators and let the teachers pick what the school system really needs, we may get somewhere then.
Don't get me wrong, I respect teachers dearly. They have had a big hand in making me who I am today... but I have a strong dislike for those who ruin those teachers I so admire... and it isn't what kind of computers the teachers and the students use. Microsoft is just using their brain to make more money in a greedy world. Congratulations, you found a weak point in the education system. Enjoy reaping your benefits, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
... in a can or a nutshell (if you like nutty spam, thats okay, the men in the white coats won't hurt you.) its become one of those "necessary" evils.
Necessary because we don't think that maybe, just maybe, if we don't use our real email addresses for anything other than say, slashdot and close friends, then we wouldn't have this problem.
What amuses me the most is that I don't get spam.. then again, I don't sign up for anything... now maybe thats our problem right there. Humans like to buy things, sign up for things, prod our noses in business that isn't ours (but we to think is ours)... and of *course* businessmen (and politicians) are going to take advantage of that fact! (They aren't quite as stupid as we'd like to think, or hope, situation dependig.)
So in theory if we never signed up for anything, then the internet would crumble away, vanish, and our spam problems would be solved... and then as all things, the vicious cycle would start again from the beginning.
IF we had ever learned anything to begin with, in the famous words of Douglas Adams "we never would have left the oceans in the first place".
The human species always has a knack of doing more harm than good. I'm not sure who this "Kerry Packer" fellow really is, and if I met him I'd hit him upside the head with a frying pan. If we were lucky it would jar his brains back into place, and if we weren't, well, he'd probably die from brain damage... ("what a crying shame", says the kangaroo)
If we had learned anything, we also would have learned (from the ever so delightful Jurassic Park) fences don't keep in anything with teeth anyway.
Well, from a poor starving artist prospective, (and one who has had the terror/(privlidge?) of having to use numerous OS for graphics, the solution is quite simple.
Use paper. Saves time, saves hassle and pencils are only a buck a piece if you are going for the most expensive in the market... and Pencils don't need to be upgraded.
But seriously, I use a gig athlon machine with Debian installed, and I use the GIMP for most of my art stuff... and in all honesty, art takes patience... if you're modelling something and your machine is *that* slow, then go ahead, upgrade, but anything above 800 mhz is and 128 meg of ram can handle it... and the more ram the better. Maybe it isn't a processing problem afterall... ram helps too.
Any athlon would be a expensive paperweight without ram to back it anyway. (And cooling fans.. lots of them)