Linux doesn't suck any more than any other OS that's out there. They all have problems--name it, and it has a problem. People tend to choose their OS based on which set of problems interferes the least with the work they are hoping to accomplish on their computer. (Or they choose it based on what the shiny-piece of plastic they bought at the local CompUSA has installed... But we're not talking about them now, are we?)
Win2k->Linux *IS* a much easier migration than Win95->Linux, because Win2k has more tools available, has a user paradigm closer to that of Linux (ie: actual security, user profiles that are not just "profiles", etc.) We're not saying that only Win2kers are "cool enough"--hell, I've seen a few WinME'ers migrate over to Linux more easily than Win2k'ers, we're just saying it's an *easier migration* because there's less to learn. (Assuming the migrating party bothered to learn Win2k in the first place)
There are REASONS why Linux advocates say what they say--often reasons that extend past the snottiness you sweepingly accuse them of.
As for your complaints about the distros--it's all a matter of personal preference. If you don't like it, you're not required to use it, you know? You do sound like you'd be far more happy on Windows, OS X, or even BeOS. Or are they more sucky, resulting in you staying on the Linux-side?
Yeah, the Linux community does tend to be a bit short tempered. They're more than happy to help you work out issues, but if you keep complaining about the OS they're also more than happy to tell you to go back to whatever OS you feel most comfortable with. There's plenty of newbies that aren't whining, are more likely to listen, and less likely to waste our time by complaining about how Linux can't do X, Y, and Z--completely forgetting that their "favored" operating system can't do X, Y, or Z reliably, either.
Anyone who's a negative little fucker is going to have a very negative experience with ANY community they venture into, and ANY OS they attempt to use.
However, "Some preparedness" has a much better chance at fixing the problem than "no preparedness". If an asteroid is on a collision course with the Earth and we have something to try to shoot it down with, even if the liklihood of success is 10%, it's 10% more than the chance of divine intervention.
Besides, at the very least it would ease the minds of people about to die. I don't think most people are afraid of death so much as they are of the idea of being aware of impending death and not being able to do anything about it, and knowing they can't do anything about it. Thinking something can be done is a terrific placebo drug that soothes the mind.
What do people do when someone's laying there dying of an obviously fatal wound? They shoot 'em up with morphine and tell them it's going to be okay. Not because they're going to live, but because there's really no point in upsetting the person. They're going to die either way--and might as well die without too much panic.
Actually, it's because the VW Bug is a common object in American culture, and probably elsewhere in the world as well. When you say "VW Bug", it doesn't take a whole lot of scrabbling around in ones memory to come up with an appropriate mental picture of how large the asteroid is. If someone said 'The size of a Toyota Camry', it would be a bit more difficult--and "The size of a small car" is a tad too open to interpretation. Because the design of the bug (size-wise) has remained consistent for a LONG time, the mental image people get will be consistent with the image astronomers/the media want people to get.
Most people can relate better to an image of "A meteor the size of a volkswagon bug impacted with the moon" rather than "A x ton meteor impacted with the moon". The relationship to a physical object that most people have encountered in their lifetime rather than an abstract measurement of weight, elicits the desired emotional response from people. Awe. If you say "A x-ton meteor", it won't be quite as impressive as saying "A meteor the size of the empire state building", no matter how many tons "x" is.
For abstract numbers, people need a sense of scale. "The new budget for executive toenail clippers is equivalent to the salaries of 1200 secretaries." It's more likely to bring about anger at the stupidity of the budget than a number is.
Okaaaayy.. I just finally got to read the actual text of the ad. (First time I tried the sever gave me a vb/asp error message.;) ) I misinterpreted the Slashdot snippet as saying that Microsoft's ad was future-tense "going to make", which technically couldn't be called fraud unless they gave a definitive timeline or product. Serves me right for thinking "Even Microsoft couldn't be that blatantly fraudulent".
I was wrong--it is blatant fraud. Its caption states: 'Microsoft software is carefully designed to keep your company's valuable information in, and unauthorised people and viruses out. Which means that your data couldn't really be safer, even if you kept it in a safe. Which is great news for the survival of your company. But tragic news for hackers.
Nothing future-tense, or even realistic about that!
Unless by "tragic" they mean a "tragic comedy of errors, which causes the hacker to double over laughing and results in severe stomach cramps."
The MS marketing people are their own worst enemies.
I suppose that claiming Microsoft is going to "make the hacker extinct" (future-tense, no definititve time span) isn't quite fraud, but it does walk the line, since the existance of Microsoft goads hackers, and claims that Microsoft is going to eliminate said hackers--it only further inflames an already passionately anti-MS crowd. Nothing that is that hated by a group as intelligent as hackers, or a group with as much free time as script kiddies, will ever be safe.
Microsoft needs to watch their advertising people more carefully, as they're excellent at making the 'folks in the know' hate MS even more than they did already.
However, the majority of humankind remains clueless. "Whaddayatalkin'about? Microsoft is THE ONLY OS!, it's secure as Fort Knox, and the only enterprise-ready solution!" Gah. They'll just look at an advertisement that says Microsoft is gonna make Hackers obsolete, and read it as though hackers *are* obsolete, spread the word, and keep on not bothering to patch their un-patched first-release of Win2k Server that comes complete with Nimda, Code Red, and other buggy little 'features'.
The 18" LCDs available for $500 are typically of markedly inferior quality. It's like the 19" CRT monitors that are available for $150-$200--sure, they're big and cheap, but what type of quality are you getting? Or the 17" monitors that sell for below $140--most of them are NOT worth the space they take up unless their sole purpose is to allow your mom to sign onto AOL at her preferred screen resolution of 640x480.
15" LCDs of good quality can be purchased for about $500, if you want an 18" or 19" you're looking at closer to $900 and up.
Depending on what you put into the computer, you actually can get a P4 3Ghz machine (albeit crippled by a low amount of/wrong type of RAM, a small/slow HDD, cruddy video, etc. Basically--the type of machine you'd buy in a consumer-oriented ie: Mhz rules store...) for $900.
So, $900 for a 19" LCD monitor, or for half of your new P4 system (non-crippled) Unless you've got a lot of money to spare, it's not that tough of a call. Particularly since the LCD still has pretty hefty limitations when it comes to graphics/gaming, and since the quality will not rival that of a $300 19" CRT. (Although you'd be less likely to pull every muscle in your back getting it from the car to your desk.)
*laughs* Well, if the money goes to the "other guy's" email server, then the spam problem wouldn't stop at all now, would it?:p
"Okay, I sent out 10,000 emails, that's $500 if it's 5 cents apiece, Self--would you mind if I paid you later?"
So, any number of organizations might want a piece of the pie: government, backbone providers, ISPs, the host of your domain, the host of your domain's mail server, and/or the reciepient.
There are issues with each of these.
Besides, in order to be effective, the cost would have to be prohibitive. In order for the cost to be prohibitive, then it would need to be somewhere in the neighborhood of the cost of traditional printing + postage in order to cut the amount of spam down to the amount of junk mail traditionally recieved via snail mail.
5 cents an email--something that I personally would not want to be paying, due to the volume of emails that I send out for a variety of purposes (technical support, reminding mentally disadvantaged family members not to buy penis-growth formulas or log into the newest AOL password stealing scheme, etc.) would not be overly cost-prohibitive to the spammer. Even if the spammer only charges 1 cent more per email than the 5 cent email fee, they still make a tremendous profit because the software they have automates everything, makes it possible to send out millions, they don't use their own servers or resources, etc.
Forgetting the price thing here for a moment, this would require a change of protocol, because the current smtp protocol barely allows for authentication, let alone transferral of funds. IP spoofing, etc. is also far easier than forging traditional stamps, as is hacking into someone's server and having it send out enough spam to bankrupt the owner if safety measures aren't in place to prevent Joe Smith from sending out a few million emails at 5 cents apiece.
Skinny fingers != ability. However, skinny fingers + ability do equal an advantage. Just like tall != natural talent in basketball, but tall+ natural talent == advantage.
It's nice to not have to use the parts retriever. =]
That's easily solved. If they come within 3 feet of you, assume a psychotic stance and say "If you come any closer, I'll kill it, I will", while gesturing at the vulnurable computer innards murderously with a screwdriver.
Seriously, I just remind them that if they could do it, they wouldn't need me. And that I'm doing them a major favor by waiving my usual hourly charge. And that if they don't just let me do my thing I'll let them finish it. "And by the way, you DO know that you can easily reattach certain connectors in a way that will cause rather sudden and large fires, don't you? I thought so. Now go outside and pace like an expectant father, but leave me alone."
My family, friends, and fuzzy family members (dog) have all learned that when I have a computer open I become a not-nice growly sarcastic twit and that it's much safer to just stay away from me until I'm myself again.
If you don't act scary, then they'll take advantage of you and take the opportunity to do something dumb and kill the computer, then blame its untimely death on your incompetence.
Of course, it's equally as fun to launch into an informative lecture on all the different parts, how things can go wrong when they're inserted improperly. Renders most people immobile with fear. Fear is good. Use the fear. If they were geeks, they'd already be doing something, no? (note that this does not apply to potential geeks. Encourage those, and someday we will be the majority.)
Nah. Once he saw me tear into a computer or two he started telling me "Do this for your brother, your brother really needs you to fix his computer so he can burn CDs." It wasn't my girlness, it was because I left home at 16 and had NEVER done anything more than put my chain back onto my bike when it fell off. It was always my brother who set the digital watches, and set up the family's computer (plugging in keyboard/mouse, etc. not doing anything INSIDE the computer), etc. So while my dad theoretically knew I did this stuff, he had never seen me in action, and only knew me as the awkward 12 year old who would hit her thumb with a hammer.
I'd freak out if I saw my brother doing the laundry or something like that--because my experience with him doing the laundry is that he shrinks things, colors run, and whites end up tie-dyed gray and pink. It's been six months since I saw him last, so who knows--maybe he can do it now, but my knowledge of him is dated and would need to be refreshed before my mental image of his capabilities would change.
Not everything that looks and smells like sexism is sexism. Although your comment on my lack of equipment might be construed as such.;) It's not THAT equipment that matters, dear. It's how you handle a screwdriver. >=] Besides, my long skinny flexible girl-hands can do more than anything YOU might have when it comes to computer equipment... Or other things for that matter.::evil grin::
Oh god. The "YOU'RE GOING TO BREAK IT!" thing. I can't even begin to count the times that I've heard that from distraught family members.;)
"No, I'm going to fix it. I do this every day at work with $3,000 systems, this one is worth $50. If I break it, I'll buy you a nice new shiny one. Now be a nice little daddy/mommy/brother/sister and go take your valium."
Even more, I love the "Nahh, I don't have anything I need on that computer. You can just delete everything." To that, I nod knowingly, and copy the entire HDD over to the new one, and surely enough they panic a few hours later, and I get to pull their files out of "no where" and save the day.:p I don't know why I bother asking.
People are funny.
Oh- and my dad always wants my brother to do it instead because my brother fixes cars.:p Somehow this makes sense to him, whereas having his daughter who works with computers do anything with the family's computer, does not.
-Sara
Re:What About Amazon?
on
An IMDb for Books
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Worse are the ill-informed and stupid reviews.. I've seen reviews that say stuff like "Ha-ha! I tricked you! I gave this book one star, but it's the best book I've ever read!" which brings a book's general rating down for no good reason at all... Or the book reviews that say "This book is not for beginners! This is a horrible book!", when the title is "Advanced Technology X", or "This book is not for professional/Advanced Users! It sucks!" for "Technology X for Beginners".
People are morons.
But this does not invalidate the review process. Readers of reviews-of-products-they're-searching-for (as opposed to "highest reviews" lists) can still glean SOME idea of what the book/movie is like by reading the reviews. They'll obviously gravitate towards the reviews that sound similar to their take on things--like if they're beginners they'll pay more attention to the reviews by beginners. If they like a certain book and someone mentions that book negatively in a review, they can usually say "Ok, this person's opinion is different from mine".
No process is perfect. I mean, we've all seen obvious trolls modded up to +5's. (Think the sexy-gal-boy-troll) and intelligent posts at -1.
But it's still fun, and we still get stuff from it.
By the way, calling people "stupid" when their opinions differ from yours doesn't demonstrate above-average intelligence.;) I happen to like Hitchhikers, although I agree with your opinion on the lord-of-the-rings books. (yucky) but don't bash the opinion of either lovers or haters of those books. The fact is, they're popular books, and a LOT of people like them--which means they have a good chance of being liked. Which means the reviews are accurate, which invalidates your argument.
Actually, WinXP is easier for the end-user. (Yeah, I know. Who woulda thought?)
My lesser-computer-inclined family folk love XP, and have finally started to be able to do things like make their printer work, remember where they saved their files, etc.
I think that the blue rounded-corners give the end-user the illusion they're playing with a toy, and puts them off their automatic defensive "I don't know how to DO ANYTHING! IT'S A COMPUTER FOR GOD'S SAKE! IT'S THE BRAIN-SURGERY OF 2003!" mode.
In addition, unless the user changes it, the default location to save things is *always* the user's home folder, and the user is logged out (Not logged off, if they re-click their icon at the login screen, they'll be returned to their applications just as they were. Although there seems to be an issue with another user being able to log in, re-run the application, and force the termination of that app under the other's user account.) after a short period of inactivity, which enforces users to log in as themselves instead of doing account sharing which was common under Win95-WinME. This forces users to save to their home folder most times, which drastically diminishes the number of "Oh my god, I lost my file that I just spent 10 weeks working on." incidents.
I don't seem to have any problem with overshooting rounded corners. But, I think I overcame that with Apple's Aqua interface, in which I was initially doing stupid things on a regular basis.;) (Clicking the little oblong button on the upper right thinking it would minimize the window, and instead turning the toolbars on and off repeatedly while laughing at myself comes to mind...)
Err. no. Everyone says "Yay" when Apple changes its GUI (I'll admit it's beautiful when it's on a 19+ inch monitor with good color output, and at a resolution of 12xx-xxx+. God, it is beautiful.) and "Nay" when MS changes it's GUI (Luna? *ACK* designed by color blind mentally defective lunatics.)
Most people who can figure out how to change the theme to Win98... Do.
It's one of the first browsers that I've actually liked either on the Mac or on Windows. It performs its job the way it's supposed to perform its job, and doesn't get in your way or interfere with the site it's displaying. And the tabs, ohh the tabs. =] Finally I can use a tabbed browser that's not resource-hogging enough to take over my entire system, and it won't scatter AOL icons near and far. Not quite "there" yet (duh, it's a beta) but I can definitely see it giving Explorer a run for its money. Especially if Apple were to decide to port it to Windows temporarily to gain some market share.
X is happening about 15 minutes after I first press the power button on my G3 keyboard, zap pram to make it stop giving me the "out of scan range" message because the zapping of pram never holds, finally finishes booting up, downloads all the updates that it needs to download, has me press "reboot", and reboots, waits for me to zap pram again, and boots.
Speedy. >=] I'd like to see a WINDOWS computer do that.
Yeah, better idea to register things like sex.com, sexywoman.com, porn.com, fuck.com, goatse.cx, sexyteens.com, amateurporn.com and the likes.:p Things with universal appeal.
You actually should never use a debit card. If the number is stolen and used fraudulently you don't have the best of chances getting your money back, whereas with a credit card you just deny that the charge is valid. Giving someone your debit information is like giving them temporary access to your bank account. They basically walk away with cash. Banks don't offer much protection against this.
1- A company that creates a lousy GUI is going through "hard times" with usability. Apple's GUI is a piece of crap.
Consistency. I illustrated this by the random placement of drives (or shortcuts, as you call them) wherever they might land. Also when dragging a file into a folder, it gets placed at random, and often BEHIND another bloody icon. Yes, "clean up" fixes this, but it shouldn't happen to begin with. The default should be to *be* cleaned up, and allow customization on a folder-to-folder basis if need be.
My eyes are fine. However I frequently have 20+ applications open, and don't like having to sort through 20+ tiny-assed icons on the bottom of my screen doing mouse-overs for icons that are exactly the same (some of my programs use the same icons) before I can figure out where it's gone. I also prefer not to have to look for icons at all. I'm in front of a computer for 12-20 hours a day, looking for icons is a piss-poor way to work, and results in headaches and eye stress.
As for drop shadows and transparency--I didn't say they always caused problems. I said when a program uses multiple windows, the transparency becomes annoying. ie: Eith Electric Image's elevation views, the windows start to overlap eachother because of the drop-shadows. I'd also prefer not to have them. My primary issue was that without them, the GUI can no longer be navigated comfortably. As for transparency, when the menus drop down over something, if there's text behind the area that's dropped down, sometimes the text gets muddled or hard to see.
I have not created my own usability problems. I make it a point to use a new OS AS-IS for the first 2 weeks or so of using it. After which I make any changes necessary to make life comfortable for me. Don't talk down to me like I'm a moron, I understand the "dangers" of customizing something before you fully understand it.
My complaint is this: Windows, Mac OS 9, Linux, and a variety of other OSes have GUIs that the end-user can use painlessly for a large number of hours a day. OS X has taken this and trashed it. I can't work on my Mac for more than a couple of hours without getting a headache. And quit blaming my "poor eyesight". It's a pussy's way out of things. "Oh, it doesn't work, you must be broken". A LOT of people have issues with OS X, we can't all have shitty eyes. I never heard this many complaints about the old Mac GUIs. And don't say it's just because it's a "departure from the norm", either. If you're 100% satisfied with OS X, you're mentally defective, easy to please, or you're at the command line more than 90% of the time. Or.. you're lying. No one is 100% satisfied with anything.
*laughs* One of the REASONS it's as popular as it is is because people decided to use it to make money. The web is not entirely built by good intentions.
Let's see. There's the ISP's and broadband providers... There's the online merchants who pay for banner advertising to support sites like Slashdot... There's the commercial companies who pay US to put them on the net and keep them on the net.
Granted, there's also blights-of-the-net like AOL, whom we'd all be better off without. But--if it weren't for the commercialization of the net, and the net's evolution into a commodity, then a lot of us wouldn't be here right now.
Cash was only ONE of the ways MS was considering having the sender "pay". Other things were listed, and one of them was a "Turing test".
I doubt Microsoft would be able to get people to pay for email--Maybe users of Microsoft products, but how would they propose to make users of open OSes and software pay? I mean-- there would be a totally new protocol out for email very quickly after that--and people who don't want to pay (everyone) would adopt it almost immediately.
People use WAY too much email to be content with paying Microsoft for each email they send out.
The ticket scheme involves creating a ticket service that would issue tickets, which can then be submitted with an email message. The recipient would then call the ticket service to validate and cancel the ticket.
I'm hoping that by "call" they don't mean a bloody phone call. It's bad enough to have to validate WinXP by phone.
Why not just allow us to email the ticket service?... Oh, wait.
Slashdot Mirror
Linux doesn't suck any more than any other OS that's out there. They all have problems--name it, and it has a problem. People tend to choose their OS based on which set of problems interferes the least with the work they are hoping to accomplish on their computer. (Or they choose it based on what the shiny-piece of plastic they bought at the local CompUSA has installed... But we're not talking about them now, are we?)
Win2k->Linux *IS* a much easier migration than Win95->Linux, because Win2k has more tools available, has a user paradigm closer to that of Linux (ie: actual security, user profiles that are not just "profiles", etc.) We're not saying that only Win2kers are "cool enough"--hell, I've seen a few WinME'ers migrate over to Linux more easily than Win2k'ers, we're just saying it's an *easier migration* because there's less to learn. (Assuming the migrating party bothered to learn Win2k in the first place)
There are REASONS why Linux advocates say what they say--often reasons that extend past the snottiness you sweepingly accuse them of.
As for your complaints about the distros--it's all a matter of personal preference. If you don't like it, you're not required to use it, you know? You do sound like you'd be far more happy on Windows, OS X, or even BeOS. Or are they more sucky, resulting in you staying on the Linux-side?
Yeah, the Linux community does tend to be a bit short tempered. They're more than happy to help you work out issues, but if you keep complaining about the OS they're also more than happy to tell you to go back to whatever OS you feel most comfortable with. There's plenty of newbies that aren't whining, are more likely to listen, and less likely to waste our time by complaining about how Linux can't do X, Y, and Z--completely forgetting that their "favored" operating system can't do X, Y, or Z reliably, either.
Anyone who's a negative little fucker is going to have a very negative experience with ANY community they venture into, and ANY OS they attempt to use.
-Sara
However, "Some preparedness" has a much better chance at fixing the problem than "no preparedness". If an asteroid is on a collision course with the Earth and we have something to try to shoot it down with, even if the liklihood of success is 10%, it's 10% more than the chance of divine intervention.
Besides, at the very least it would ease the minds of people about to die. I don't think most people are afraid of death so much as they are of the idea of being aware of impending death and not being able to do anything about it, and knowing they can't do anything about it. Thinking something can be done is a terrific placebo drug that soothes the mind.
What do people do when someone's laying there dying of an obviously fatal wound? They shoot 'em up with morphine and tell them it's going to be okay. Not because they're going to live, but because there's really no point in upsetting the person. They're going to die either way--and might as well die without too much panic.
-Sara
Actually, it's because the VW Bug is a common object in American culture, and probably elsewhere in the world as well. When you say "VW Bug", it doesn't take a whole lot of scrabbling around in ones memory to come up with an appropriate mental picture of how large the asteroid is. If someone said 'The size of a Toyota Camry', it would be a bit more difficult--and "The size of a small car" is a tad too open to interpretation. Because the design of the bug (size-wise) has remained consistent for a LONG time, the mental image people get will be consistent with the image astronomers/the media want people to get.
Most people can relate better to an image of "A meteor the size of a volkswagon bug impacted with the moon" rather than "A x ton meteor impacted with the moon". The relationship to a physical object that most people have encountered in their lifetime rather than an abstract measurement of weight, elicits the desired emotional response from people. Awe. If you say "A x-ton meteor", it won't be quite as impressive as saying "A meteor the size of the empire state building", no matter how many tons "x" is.
For abstract numbers, people need a sense of scale. "The new budget for executive toenail clippers is equivalent to the salaries of 1200 secretaries." It's more likely to bring about anger at the stupidity of the budget than a number is.
-Sara
Okaaaayy.. I just finally got to read the actual text of the ad. (First time I tried the sever gave me a vb/asp error message. ;) ) I misinterpreted the Slashdot snippet as saying that Microsoft's ad was future-tense "going to make", which technically couldn't be called fraud unless they gave a definitive timeline or product. Serves me right for thinking "Even Microsoft couldn't be that blatantly fraudulent".
I was wrong--it is blatant fraud. Its caption states: 'Microsoft software is carefully designed to keep your company's valuable information in, and unauthorised people and viruses out. Which means that your data couldn't really be safer, even if you kept it in a safe. Which is great news for the survival of your company. But tragic news for hackers.
Nothing future-tense, or even realistic about that!
Unless by "tragic" they mean a "tragic comedy of errors, which causes the hacker to double over laughing and results in severe stomach cramps."
The MS marketing people are their own worst enemies.
-Sara
I suppose that claiming Microsoft is going to "make the hacker extinct" (future-tense, no definititve time span) isn't quite fraud, but it does walk the line, since the existance of Microsoft goads hackers, and claims that Microsoft is going to eliminate said hackers--it only further inflames an already passionately anti-MS crowd. Nothing that is that hated by a group as intelligent as hackers, or a group with as much free time as script kiddies, will ever be safe.
Microsoft needs to watch their advertising people more carefully, as they're excellent at making the 'folks in the know' hate MS even more than they did already.
However, the majority of humankind remains clueless. "Whaddayatalkin'about? Microsoft is THE ONLY OS!, it's secure as Fort Knox, and the only enterprise-ready solution!" Gah. They'll just look at an advertisement that says Microsoft is gonna make Hackers obsolete, and read it as though hackers *are* obsolete, spread the word, and keep on not bothering to patch their un-patched first-release of Win2k Server that comes complete with Nimda, Code Red, and other buggy little 'features'.
-Sara
The 18" LCDs available for $500 are typically of markedly inferior quality. It's like the 19" CRT monitors that are available for $150-$200--sure, they're big and cheap, but what type of quality are you getting? Or the 17" monitors that sell for below $140--most of them are NOT worth the space they take up unless their sole purpose is to allow your mom to sign onto AOL at her preferred screen resolution of 640x480.
15" LCDs of good quality can be purchased for about $500, if you want an 18" or 19" you're looking at closer to $900 and up.
Depending on what you put into the computer, you actually can get a P4 3Ghz machine (albeit crippled by a low amount of/wrong type of RAM, a small/slow HDD, cruddy video, etc. Basically--the type of machine you'd buy in a consumer-oriented ie: Mhz rules store...) for $900.
So, $900 for a 19" LCD monitor, or for half of your new P4 system (non-crippled) Unless you've got a lot of money to spare, it's not that tough of a call. Particularly since the LCD still has pretty hefty limitations when it comes to graphics/gaming, and since the quality will not rival that of a $300 19" CRT. (Although you'd be less likely to pull every muscle in your back getting it from the car to your desk.)
-Sara
*laughs* Well, if the money goes to the "other guy's" email server, then the spam problem wouldn't stop at all now, would it? :p
"Okay, I sent out 10,000 emails, that's $500 if it's 5 cents apiece, Self--would you mind if I paid you later?"
So, any number of organizations might want a piece of the pie: government, backbone providers, ISPs, the host of your domain, the host of your domain's mail server, and/or the reciepient.
There are issues with each of these.
Besides, in order to be effective, the cost would have to be prohibitive. In order for the cost to be prohibitive, then it would need to be somewhere in the neighborhood of the cost of traditional printing + postage in order to cut the amount of spam down to the amount of junk mail traditionally recieved via snail mail.
5 cents an email--something that I personally would not want to be paying, due to the volume of emails that I send out for a variety of purposes (technical support, reminding mentally disadvantaged family members not to buy penis-growth formulas or log into the newest AOL password stealing scheme, etc.) would not be overly cost-prohibitive to the spammer. Even if the spammer only charges 1 cent more per email than the 5 cent email fee, they still make a tremendous profit because the software they have automates everything, makes it possible to send out millions, they don't use their own servers or resources, etc.
Forgetting the price thing here for a moment, this would require a change of protocol, because the current smtp protocol barely allows for authentication, let alone transferral of funds. IP spoofing, etc. is also far easier than forging traditional stamps, as is hacking into someone's server and having it send out enough spam to bankrupt the owner if safety measures aren't in place to prevent Joe Smith from sending out a few million emails at 5 cents apiece.
-Sara
Skinny fingers != ability. However, skinny fingers + ability do equal an advantage. Just like tall != natural talent in basketball, but tall+ natural talent == advantage.
It's nice to not have to use the parts retriever. =]
-Sara
That's easily solved. If they come within 3 feet of you, assume a psychotic stance and say "If you come any closer, I'll kill it, I will", while gesturing at the vulnurable computer innards murderously with a screwdriver.
Seriously, I just remind them that if they could do it, they wouldn't need me. And that I'm doing them a major favor by waiving my usual hourly charge. And that if they don't just let me do my thing I'll let them finish it. "And by the way, you DO know that you can easily reattach certain connectors in a way that will cause rather sudden and large fires, don't you? I thought so. Now go outside and pace like an expectant father, but leave me alone."
My family, friends, and fuzzy family members (dog) have all learned that when I have a computer open I become a not-nice growly sarcastic twit and that it's much safer to just stay away from me until I'm myself again.
If you don't act scary, then they'll take advantage of you and take the opportunity to do something dumb and kill the computer, then blame its untimely death on your incompetence.
Of course, it's equally as fun to launch into an informative lecture on all the different parts, how things can go wrong when they're inserted improperly. Renders most people immobile with fear. Fear is good. Use the fear. If they were geeks, they'd already be doing something, no? (note that this does not apply to potential geeks. Encourage those, and someday we will be the majority.)
-Sara
Nah. Once he saw me tear into a computer or two he started telling me "Do this for your brother, your brother really needs you to fix his computer so he can burn CDs." It wasn't my girlness, it was because I left home at 16 and had NEVER done anything more than put my chain back onto my bike when it fell off. It was always my brother who set the digital watches, and set up the family's computer (plugging in keyboard/mouse, etc. not doing anything INSIDE the computer), etc. So while my dad theoretically knew I did this stuff, he had never seen me in action, and only knew me as the awkward 12 year old who would hit her thumb with a hammer.
;) It's not THAT equipment that matters, dear. It's how you handle a screwdriver. >=] Besides, my long skinny flexible girl-hands can do more than anything YOU might have when it comes to computer equipment... Or other things for that matter. ::evil grin::
I'd freak out if I saw my brother doing the laundry or something like that--because my experience with him doing the laundry is that he shrinks things, colors run, and whites end up tie-dyed gray and pink. It's been six months since I saw him last, so who knows--maybe he can do it now, but my knowledge of him is dated and would need to be refreshed before my mental image of his capabilities would change.
Not everything that looks and smells like sexism is sexism. Although your comment on my lack of equipment might be construed as such.
-Sara
Oh god. The "YOU'RE GOING TO BREAK IT!" thing. I can't even begin to count the times that I've heard that from distraught family members. ;)
:p I don't know why I bother asking.
:p Somehow this makes sense to him, whereas having his daughter who works with computers do anything with the family's computer, does not.
"No, I'm going to fix it. I do this every day at work with $3,000 systems, this one is worth $50. If I break it, I'll buy you a nice new shiny one. Now be a nice little daddy/mommy/brother/sister and go take your valium."
Even more, I love the "Nahh, I don't have anything I need on that computer. You can just delete everything." To that, I nod knowingly, and copy the entire HDD over to the new one, and surely enough they panic a few hours later, and I get to pull their files out of "no where" and save the day.
People are funny.
Oh- and my dad always wants my brother to do it instead because my brother fixes cars.
-Sara
Worse are the ill-informed and stupid reviews.. I've seen reviews that say stuff like "Ha-ha! I tricked you! I gave this book one star, but it's the best book I've ever read!" which brings a book's general rating down for no good reason at all... Or the book reviews that say "This book is not for beginners! This is a horrible book!", when the title is "Advanced Technology X", or "This book is not for professional/Advanced Users! It sucks!" for "Technology X for Beginners".
;) I happen to like Hitchhikers, although I agree with your opinion on the lord-of-the-rings books. (yucky) but don't bash the opinion of either lovers or haters of those books. The fact is, they're popular books, and a LOT of people like them--which means they have a good chance of being liked. Which means the reviews are accurate, which invalidates your argument.
People are morons.
But this does not invalidate the review process. Readers of reviews-of-products-they're-searching-for (as opposed to "highest reviews" lists) can still glean SOME idea of what the book/movie is like by reading the reviews. They'll obviously gravitate towards the reviews that sound similar to their take on things--like if they're beginners they'll pay more attention to the reviews by beginners. If they like a certain book and someone mentions that book negatively in a review, they can usually say "Ok, this person's opinion is different from mine".
No process is perfect. I mean, we've all seen obvious trolls modded up to +5's. (Think the sexy-gal-boy-troll) and intelligent posts at -1.
But it's still fun, and we still get stuff from it.
By the way, calling people "stupid" when their opinions differ from yours doesn't demonstrate above-average intelligence.
-Sara
Gnutella? :p
-Sara
Actually, WinXP is easier for the end-user. (Yeah, I know. Who woulda thought?)
;) (Clicking the little oblong button on the upper right thinking it would minimize the window, and instead turning the toolbars on and off repeatedly while laughing at myself comes to mind...)
My lesser-computer-inclined family folk love XP, and have finally started to be able to do things like make their printer work, remember where they saved their files, etc.
I think that the blue rounded-corners give the end-user the illusion they're playing with a toy, and puts them off their automatic defensive "I don't know how to DO ANYTHING! IT'S A COMPUTER FOR GOD'S SAKE! IT'S THE BRAIN-SURGERY OF 2003!" mode.
In addition, unless the user changes it, the default location to save things is *always* the user's home folder, and the user is logged out (Not logged off, if they re-click their icon at the login screen, they'll be returned to their applications just as they were. Although there seems to be an issue with another user being able to log in, re-run the application, and force the termination of that app under the other's user account.) after a short period of inactivity, which enforces users to log in as themselves instead of doing account sharing which was common under Win95-WinME. This forces users to save to their home folder most times, which drastically diminishes the number of "Oh my god, I lost my file that I just spent 10 weeks working on." incidents.
I don't seem to have any problem with overshooting rounded corners. But, I think I overcame that with Apple's Aqua interface, in which I was initially doing stupid things on a regular basis.
-Sara
Actually, you just have to log on as administrator and shut off the service 'Themes', which will effectively revert you to the Win98 theme globally.
-Sara
Err. no. Everyone says "Yay" when Apple changes its GUI (I'll admit it's beautiful when it's on a 19+ inch monitor with good color output, and at a resolution of 12xx-xxx+. God, it is beautiful.) and "Nay" when MS changes it's GUI (Luna? *ACK* designed by color blind mentally defective lunatics.)
Most people who can figure out how to change the theme to Win98... Do.
-Sara
Ok, now THIS is sweet.
It's one of the first browsers that I've actually liked either on the Mac or on Windows. It performs its job the way it's supposed to perform its job, and doesn't get in your way or interfere with the site it's displaying. And the tabs, ohh the tabs. =] Finally I can use a tabbed browser that's not resource-hogging enough to take over my entire system, and it won't scatter AOL icons near and far. Not quite "there" yet (duh, it's a beta) but I can definitely see it giving Explorer a run for its money. Especially if Apple were to decide to port it to Windows temporarily to gain some market share.
*sigh* Bliss.
-Sara
X is happening about 15 minutes after I first press the power button on my G3 keyboard, zap pram to make it stop giving me the "out of scan range" message because the zapping of pram never holds, finally finishes booting up, downloads all the updates that it needs to download, has me press "reboot", and reboots, waits for me to zap pram again, and boots.
Speedy. >=] I'd like to see a WINDOWS computer do that.
-Sara
Silly me, I thought Apple released Safari to delete its users Home folders. =]
-Sara
Yeah, better idea to register things like sex.com, sexywoman.com, porn.com, fuck.com, goatse.cx, sexyteens.com, amateurporn.com and the likes. :p Things with universal appeal.
-Sara
You actually should never use a debit card. If the number is stolen and used fraudulently you don't have the best of chances getting your money back, whereas with a credit card you just deny that the charge is valid. Giving someone your debit information is like giving them temporary access to your bank account. They basically walk away with cash. Banks don't offer much protection against this.
-Sara
1- A company that creates a lousy GUI is going through "hard times" with usability. Apple's GUI is a piece of crap.
Consistency. I illustrated this by the random placement of drives (or shortcuts, as you call them) wherever they might land. Also when dragging a file into a folder, it gets placed at random, and often BEHIND another bloody icon. Yes, "clean up" fixes this, but it shouldn't happen to begin with. The default should be to *be* cleaned up, and allow customization on a folder-to-folder basis if need be.
My eyes are fine. However I frequently have 20+ applications open, and don't like having to sort through 20+ tiny-assed icons on the bottom of my screen doing mouse-overs for icons that are exactly the same (some of my programs use the same icons) before I can figure out where it's gone. I also prefer not to have to look for icons at all. I'm in front of a computer for 12-20 hours a day, looking for icons is a piss-poor way to work, and results in headaches and eye stress.
As for drop shadows and transparency--I didn't say they always caused problems. I said when a program uses multiple windows, the transparency becomes annoying. ie: Eith Electric Image's elevation views, the windows start to overlap eachother because of the drop-shadows. I'd also prefer not to have them. My primary issue was that without them, the GUI can no longer be navigated comfortably. As for transparency, when the menus drop down over something, if there's text behind the area that's dropped down, sometimes the text gets muddled or hard to see.
I have not created my own usability problems. I make it a point to use a new OS AS-IS for the first 2 weeks or so of using it. After which I make any changes necessary to make life comfortable for me. Don't talk down to me like I'm a moron, I understand the "dangers" of customizing something before you fully understand it.
My complaint is this: Windows, Mac OS 9, Linux, and a variety of other OSes have GUIs that the end-user can use painlessly for a large number of hours a day. OS X has taken this and trashed it. I can't work on my Mac for more than a couple of hours without getting a headache. And quit blaming my "poor eyesight". It's a pussy's way out of things. "Oh, it doesn't work, you must be broken". A LOT of people have issues with OS X, we can't all have shitty eyes. I never heard this many complaints about the old Mac GUIs. And don't say it's just because it's a "departure from the norm", either. If you're 100% satisfied with OS X, you're mentally defective, easy to please, or you're at the command line more than 90% of the time. Or.. you're lying. No one is 100% satisfied with anything.
-Sara
[ hoping that's sarcasm ]
*laughs* One of the REASONS it's as popular as it is is because people decided to use it to make money. The web is not entirely built by good intentions.
Let's see. There's the ISP's and broadband providers... There's the online merchants who pay for banner advertising to support sites like Slashdot... There's the commercial companies who pay US to put them on the net and keep them on the net.
Granted, there's also blights-of-the-net like AOL, whom we'd all be better off without. But--if it weren't for the commercialization of the net, and the net's evolution into a commodity, then a lot of us wouldn't be here right now.
-Sara
Cash was only ONE of the ways MS was considering having the sender "pay". Other things were listed, and one of them was a "Turing test".
I doubt Microsoft would be able to get people to pay for email--Maybe users of Microsoft products, but how would they propose to make users of open OSes and software pay? I mean-- there would be a totally new protocol out for email very quickly after that--and people who don't want to pay (everyone) would adopt it almost immediately.
People use WAY too much email to be content with paying Microsoft for each email they send out.
-Sara
The ticket scheme involves creating a ticket service that would issue tickets, which can then be submitted with an email message. The recipient would then call the ticket service to validate and cancel the ticket.
... Oh, wait.
I'm hoping that by "call" they don't mean a bloody phone call. It's bad enough to have to validate WinXP by phone.
Why not just allow us to email the ticket service?
-Sara