The opposing idea would have been that a company is in dire straits and needs to crunch a budget big-time in order to break even.
Maybe like a pseudo start-up company that just happened to start up on the bad side of the economic cycle. Money is running low, people aren't buying your product in the quantities you expected, and you have to pay bills. Then you start thinking of ways to cut cost.
You know, the strangest thing that struck me about outsourcing is that a lot of the companies doing so are doing well BEFORE outsourcing. They do so in order to save money and increase profits. In turn, that translates to "growth" and better eyecandy for investors.
Not a lot of these companies are hurting for cash. They outsource for more money. I wonder if people would support such companies if they knew where the workers were from. I mean sure, the consumer saves a buck or so because of the cheaper labor...but will they be willing to pay that extra buck knowing they're supporting a competing but an absolutely "Made in the (insert country here)" product?
This is different from full-disclosure of software vulnerabilities because this is more a human error than anything else. It's not like there's software to be patched...it's a matter of educating the user as to what they're doing wrong.
The only real problem here is the public disclosure of personal information -- if I were one of the names shown, I'd probably be upset. (of course if this is going on in a widespread fashion, I'd be upset anyway) In the end we can only hope that the "shock value" of presenting these to the public will create enough awareness to minimize the problem.
Otherwise we can all watch as the spinsters pull another argument for their "p2p is evil" campaign.
I believe I treat people fairly -- if they have a question, it gets answered. If they need a deeper explanation, I'll go into details or use analogies if I have to.
I do find myself as an undeserving target of their frustration, though. That's where MY frustration stems from. Occasionally, when someone comes in not knowing how to operate a computer or save some file to disk, they get frustrated...and by the time they ask for help, they're so agitated that they direct their anger towards me.
What I posted was a lot of internalized frustration. You know, the type you'd like to discuss with comrades after work...with people who've been there and understand. Of course in the land of frist psots and goatse, I should've known better that what I meant to be funny would strike a nerve with some. Apparently enough of a nerve to get myself called a few names.:)
Quite a few of us live them...daily. Multiple reports of how an entire computer doesn't work -- because they failed to enable num lock and the keypad wasn't "working." People whose machines freeze so they turn the monitor off and on. I've seen an occasion where a patron jams a floppy into the drive...backwards and THEN demands that we give him his floppy back.
Then there are those who know the URL but insist on searching for that address in google. Ever heard of an address bar? Guess not. Oh, and when the connection is down, they ask why -- and then proceed to give me a blank "Dummy Mode On" stare when I explain that the proxy server wasn't working. Like I should've said something like "the hamster stopped running."
Not to mention people who ask how to spell "solitary" (instead of solitaire) and those who ask how to get to "yoohoo" or "googles."
Time travel -- as the OS gets postponed further into the future, efforts are underway to have built in time-travel.
Space travel -- care of Paul Allen. Everyone who can afford to purchase a copy of Longhorn will get vouchers for a free ride on SpaceShip-ME.
OogaBoogle will be built in. This is Microsoft's next generation search engine. Incorporating Yukon into the filesystem, folks will be able to wade through all the metadata they could ever want, and more!
Plug and Play support for the USB 5.0 matter transmogrifier. We don't have a prototype yet, but um...by the time Longhorn is stable, I'm sure we'll have the transmogrifier supported.
IE will be fully xhtml 1.0 and CSS1 compliant.
Lastly, each package will be bundled with Duke Nukem Forever.
First off, I'll go ahead and acknowledge that this is a release candidate. However, the type of surgery that people had to do in order to recover from that BSOD is way more than what Joe Sixpack will be capable of.
Reading the details of their methods, the rollback took out hardware drivers. Though they were able to recover all but one after a reboot, it probably would have been easier to just re-image the drive instead of having to jump hoops with rollback, registry edits, etc.
Wonder if this is Windows trying to make itself more secure...in a Darwinian fashion. If this is the case, I'm not so sure I'm too much opposed to it.
Is there a Flash Animation editor for Linux yet? I don't mean stuff that'll save to SWF like the drawing tool for OpenOffice or sodipodi. I'm talking about stuff that'll make animations, deal with actionscripting, and support embedded sounds.
It seems a natural progression from the projects that are creating libraries to be able to do such things. Is it ming? I don't remember.
I know the whole "Flash Sucks" thing and the "Macromedia is evil" thing but there are uses for it in one form or another..especially for artsy/multimedia-based projects. Are there any Open Source projects out there that can substitute for Flash MX or will WINE still be the only way to get through?
It would seem a bit strange when the bookmobile prints your books for you. Imagine doing research or a book report and having to cite your sources. Do you cite that it was published a couple of days ago at the back of someone's tour bus?
The idea of print-on-demand does seem attractive, though. No real inventory to keep track of. No shelf space, no warehouse needed, and no unsold books. A similar promise brought out by e-books, except that you actually get a tangible book in the end. It can't be all bad.
So they're keeping a close eye on Longhorn, eh? The problem with any of these "enforcement" deals is that usually they're reactive. The product will come out, people will cry foul, then Microsoft spends a few years dancing with the justice department all the while the product has already done its corporate damage.
The only real way to keep an eye on them is to have someone actually be involved from the groundwork. Will such and such feature be anti-competition? If so, scrap it before anyone works on it. Otherwise it'll just be IE'ed into the OS and a teary-eyed Ballmer will have to explain to us that taking it out will kill Windows.
Things to watch out for: DRM and the integration of Media Player, the bundled firewall, an MS Anti-virus, and the Dancing Ballmer doing the "Welcome To Windows" tour.
As the demographic moves from teenyboppers to more mature folks in their 20's, are they even really focusing on the right people? Yes, I understand that it's not exactly wholesome material when 47 fiber-wires the local law enforcement officials. I also understand that I'm playing a video game.
For the younger crowd, there's a rating system in place. If mommy buys Hitman: Contracts or Vice City for little johnny (even after reading the rating for it) -- and continues to let the PS2/TV/Internet babysit the child, I believe no law can help that "family."
It's a strange society that looks to everyone else for responsibility in raising children. When all else fails, I suppose we can always blame Canada. Until then, spend time with your children. Make sure they know the difference between reality and fantasy. Give them a sense of morality. Lead by example and for fsck's sake, let them know they matter. I bet that'll work much better than any legislation could.
A good reworking of the PHP object model was definitely in order. Inheritance was a bit weird, destructors were odd to work with, and there weren't ways to declare stuff private.
The bigger question is compatibility. Will older code be ok? When will mainstream hosts migrate to the newer version? It'll be scary to find systems borken because of version updates.
As for a compiler, I'm not sure I'm comfy with the idea. Always figured if you wanted to write code for native compilation, you'd hack in C or maybe C++. Not that PHP wouldn't have its uses...as PHP is really handy and greatly increases the speed of development.
To paraphrase Lewis Black (referring to airport security) -- slower doesn't necessarily mean safer. Promises that don't get delivered don't mean much. Maybe they're perfecting it, or maybe they're sneaking features in...we don't really know.
How hard Microsoft is trying when it comes to security is strictly implied. Unfortunately, most should have EXPECTED it of them to begin with. "Trustworthy Computing" is primarily a marketing response...with technical consequences.
I've always replied to anyone who wanted to communicate over the telephone that I'm lost without a modem hooked up to the phone line. "You mean that's not just for hooking up a modem to?"
In a related story, I forget what the program was -- something that you can pop AT commands to directly...but a long time ago, my sister refused to relinquish the line so I did ATA while she was on. Kept the beeeeeeeeep on long enough for her to hang up. And thus began the great phone wars.
As far as real phone manners go, there should be a true syn-ack handshake for it. syn-> phone rings. "Hello, my name is..." terminating with the fin "um...I'm sorry, so in so does not live here anymore" [No Carrier]
Anyone that doesn't follow the protocol shouldn't be allowed to communicate.:)
Ok, that WAS an incredibly ignorant stab. The mandrakemove version comes with a bootable CD -- the memory stick is there to save personal files with. Not exactly what you're looking for, I suppose.
Not sure how all this is supposed to work and all, so anything I'm spouting off is strictly theoretical.
Couldn't someone float to a web-based proxy, get the stuff there, and pass it through the filters? If it's keyword-based, you could even probably parse it through a "translator" to get rid of those particular words.
It mentioned pushing traffic through the proxy -- does this mean that it'll be strictly on port 80? No FTP, no NNTP, no SMTP/POP, no Realplayer streams? Sounds lovely already.
I work at a place that does content filtering -- all MS-based with the proxy/filter hardwired to IE (this implies a few things, but I'll leave that as an exercise). Though this stops most folks from getting to certain places, the filter doesn't do too well taking out the IP-based addresses that some porn popups are made of. Even better, it won't stop anyone from receiving valid web-based e-mails that may contain "objectionable content" either in text or as attachments.
I believe filters are made to comply with rules. Otherwise, totalitarian dictator admins would simply restrict access to every port but 80...and even then, subject that to some heavy filtering and logging.
It's news like this that would make ESR drool. Imagine computing and gun-control laws coming together as computers become weapons. I don't think anything would get that dude quite as animated. Well, that or having trouble setting up a printer or whatnot.
I suppose having a P4 could help, but it sure as heck would be a lot easier with software...and we know there's already propaganda out there that OSS supports terrorists. I wonder how far such legislation (if any have been concocted) could go.
Again, my faith in the voting public waivers a tad more. I've seen stranger things pass.
I must admit, I never had the itch to make labels in linux. Not that big of a fan, really, but I do see the need for it. (labels, that is)
People will dismiss this project as a pointless waste of time, but I do believe it has its merits. If nothing else, think of it as something shiny to attract new users...or at least give them more of a cushion when they switch OS. (you don't usually switch because of apps as much as you DON'T switch because of a lack of apps)
We've seen lots of craptastic freeware/shareware stuff for Windows. Heck, back when I watched TechTV more, they had free files featured to do anything you didn't want to do to begin with. All I'm saying here is that it's a Good Thing(TM) to have apps created for linux.
Give us a GUI that does a batch mogrify on a folder of images. Give us more cute little penguins dancing on the screen. Give us something that does random "at" jobs to play random soundbytes to annoy others. Give us Elf Bowling. Give us whatever you fancy to write.
In the end, hack away to your heart's content. Write code, give code, learn from code. I can't look any of you coders in the eyes and say "you're wasting your time." Instead I say keep up the good work and keep churning good code.
If I can get this device armed with an M80, I'll be set!
Heading off the GPLed Genes
on
Open Source Life?
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Alright, folks, if your genes were GPLed, then all the derrivative works from those genes have to be released to the public. There would be no one single "ownership" of those genes.
Consequentially, that means there is no obligation to wait until said product is 18yrs old before it reaches EOL with the current maintainer. Since the product is GPLed, it theoretically can be picked up and maintained by anyone and everyone that wishes to do so. If anyone should profit from publicly reselling the product, they are required to um...release the genetic material along with all the enhancements and alterations to the bastard's DNA.
Do not act suspicious enough to be asked to identify yourself. It's disheartening but accepted policy that anonymity isn't much of an option when the authorities get involved. The more information you obstruct, the more irate they'd get...and the more inconvenienced you will be in the end.
The lesson here is to be clean enough or not be suspicious enough to get into such predicaments.
I work at a place where people occasionally use stolen ID numbers to gain computer access. People tend to betray themselves with their actions when they're guilty of something, and it's often easy enough to find out who isn't logged on legitimately just by making eye contact. It's a matter of being mindful of your non-verbal communication.
About a year and a half ago, I bought me one of those linksys wireless cards for an older (400MHz PC) running RH7.3 or something like that. For the fun of it, I decided I'd ask the salesfolk at Best Buy whether it was compatible with Linux. The answer I got was that it would be difficult to find drivers for it, and that to save me the grief, he recommended I get a LAN-Bridge instead.
I ignored the advice and bought the card anyway. (Of course I had done some research beforehand...enough to know it possibly worked, anyway) I got it running with the wlan-ng drivers.
Later on when I had more money, I decided to get me a laptop. Again, did my homework to see what would and wouldn't work. Again, a trip to best buy encountered a tech/sales guy -- whom I asked the question "will it run Linux?" After spouting off a few acronyms of certifications he has, he proceeds to tell me that Bill Gates has bought Linux and that we won't even be talking about it a year from now (he's got about 2 months left of that year...better act fast!) Then if I wanted to run a linux server on a laptop (no I don't want to run a server...just a desktop -- 'um, same thing') -- that it would be really slow. The only hope I have of running it comfortably would be on an Alienware system.
"So why don't you want to run XP?" "It's got a large system requirement, it has serious security issues, and overall I can't say I like it." "Have you looked into using XP Pro?" "Um, I already don't want to pay for the OS, you're recommending I pay MORE instead?" "Well, XP Pro isn't going to cost you that much more..." "Thank you for your time. I think I'm going to go home and rethink my strategy."
Went home thinking "jackass" and proceeded to get a Dell...which I'm using to write this post...now on a machine running Mandrake 10CE...with all the functionality I need.
Zealotry or ignorance? I'm not sure. To this day I smile whenever I go into a Best Buy -- thinking I should pick up a piece of hardware and ask whether it works with Linux just for the stories they may give me.
Slashdot Mirror
The opposing idea would have been that a company is in dire straits and needs to crunch a budget big-time in order to break even.
Maybe like a pseudo start-up company that just happened to start up on the bad side of the economic cycle. Money is running low, people aren't buying your product in the quantities you expected, and you have to pay bills. Then you start thinking of ways to cut cost.
Then again I wouldn't know. I'm no economist.
You know, the strangest thing that struck me about outsourcing is that a lot of the companies doing so are doing well BEFORE outsourcing. They do so in order to save money and increase profits. In turn, that translates to "growth" and better eyecandy for investors.
Not a lot of these companies are hurting for cash. They outsource for more money. I wonder if people would support such companies if they knew where the workers were from. I mean sure, the consumer saves a buck or so because of the cheaper labor...but will they be willing to pay that extra buck knowing they're supporting a competing but an absolutely "Made in the (insert country here)" product?
This is different from full-disclosure of software vulnerabilities because this is more a human error than anything else. It's not like there's software to be patched...it's a matter of educating the user as to what they're doing wrong.
The only real problem here is the public disclosure of personal information -- if I were one of the names shown, I'd probably be upset. (of course if this is going on in a widespread fashion, I'd be upset anyway) In the end we can only hope that the "shock value" of presenting these to the public will create enough awareness to minimize the problem.
Otherwise we can all watch as the spinsters pull another argument for their "p2p is evil" campaign.
I believe I treat people fairly -- if they have a question, it gets answered. If they need a deeper explanation, I'll go into details or use analogies if I have to.
:)
I do find myself as an undeserving target of their frustration, though. That's where MY frustration stems from. Occasionally, when someone comes in not knowing how to operate a computer or save some file to disk, they get frustrated...and by the time they ask for help, they're so agitated that they direct their anger towards me.
What I posted was a lot of internalized frustration. You know, the type you'd like to discuss with comrades after work...with people who've been there and understand. Of course in the land of frist psots and goatse, I should've known better that what I meant to be funny would strike a nerve with some. Apparently enough of a nerve to get myself called a few names.
Quite a few of us live them...daily. Multiple reports of how an entire computer doesn't work -- because they failed to enable num lock and the keypad wasn't "working." People whose machines freeze so they turn the monitor off and on. I've seen an occasion where a patron jams a floppy into the drive...backwards and THEN demands that we give him his floppy back.
Then there are those who know the URL but insist on searching for that address in google. Ever heard of an address bar? Guess not. Oh, and when the connection is down, they ask why -- and then proceed to give me a blank "Dummy Mode On" stare when I explain that the proxy server wasn't working. Like I should've said something like "the hamster stopped running."
Not to mention people who ask how to spell "solitary" (instead of solitaire) and those who ask how to get to "yoohoo" or "googles."
And by the way...You're Welcome!!!
Time travel -- as the OS gets postponed further into the future, efforts are underway to have built in time-travel.
Space travel -- care of Paul Allen. Everyone who can afford to purchase a copy of Longhorn will get vouchers for a free ride on SpaceShip-ME.
OogaBoogle will be built in. This is Microsoft's next generation search engine. Incorporating Yukon into the filesystem, folks will be able to wade through all the metadata they could ever want, and more!
Plug and Play support for the USB 5.0 matter transmogrifier. We don't have a prototype yet, but um...by the time Longhorn is stable, I'm sure we'll have the transmogrifier supported.
IE will be fully xhtml 1.0 and CSS1 compliant.
Lastly, each package will be bundled with Duke Nukem Forever.
First off, I'll go ahead and acknowledge that this is a release candidate. However, the type of surgery that people had to do in order to recover from that BSOD is way more than what Joe Sixpack will be capable of.
Reading the details of their methods, the rollback took out hardware drivers. Though they were able to recover all but one after a reboot, it probably would have been easier to just re-image the drive instead of having to jump hoops with rollback, registry edits, etc.
Wonder if this is Windows trying to make itself more secure...in a Darwinian fashion. If this is the case, I'm not so sure I'm too much opposed to it.
Is there a Flash Animation editor for Linux yet? I don't mean stuff that'll save to SWF like the drawing tool for OpenOffice or sodipodi. I'm talking about stuff that'll make animations, deal with actionscripting, and support embedded sounds.
It seems a natural progression from the projects that are creating libraries to be able to do such things. Is it ming? I don't remember.
I know the whole "Flash Sucks" thing and the "Macromedia is evil" thing but there are uses for it in one form or another..especially for artsy/multimedia-based projects. Are there any Open Source projects out there that can substitute for Flash MX or will WINE still be the only way to get through?
It would seem a bit strange when the bookmobile prints your books for you. Imagine doing research or a book report and having to cite your sources. Do you cite that it was published a couple of days ago at the back of someone's tour bus?
The idea of print-on-demand does seem attractive, though. No real inventory to keep track of. No shelf space, no warehouse needed, and no unsold books. A similar promise brought out by e-books, except that you actually get a tangible book in the end. It can't be all bad.
So they're keeping a close eye on Longhorn, eh? The problem with any of these "enforcement" deals is that usually they're reactive. The product will come out, people will cry foul, then Microsoft spends a few years dancing with the justice department all the while the product has already done its corporate damage.
The only real way to keep an eye on them is to have someone actually be involved from the groundwork. Will such and such feature be anti-competition? If so, scrap it before anyone works on it. Otherwise it'll just be IE'ed into the OS and a teary-eyed Ballmer will have to explain to us that taking it out will kill Windows.
Things to watch out for: DRM and the integration of Media Player, the bundled firewall, an MS Anti-virus, and the Dancing Ballmer doing the "Welcome To Windows" tour.
As the demographic moves from teenyboppers to more mature folks in their 20's, are they even really focusing on the right people? Yes, I understand that it's not exactly wholesome material when 47 fiber-wires the local law enforcement officials. I also understand that I'm playing a video game.
For the younger crowd, there's a rating system in place. If mommy buys Hitman: Contracts or Vice City for little johnny (even after reading the rating for it) -- and continues to let the PS2/TV/Internet babysit the child, I believe no law can help that "family."
It's a strange society that looks to everyone else for responsibility in raising children. When all else fails, I suppose we can always blame Canada. Until then, spend time with your children. Make sure they know the difference between reality and fantasy. Give them a sense of morality. Lead by example and for fsck's sake, let them know they matter. I bet that'll work much better than any legislation could.
A good reworking of the PHP object model was definitely in order. Inheritance was a bit weird, destructors were odd to work with, and there weren't ways to declare stuff private.
The bigger question is compatibility. Will older code be ok? When will mainstream hosts migrate to the newer version? It'll be scary to find systems borken because of version updates.
As for a compiler, I'm not sure I'm comfy with the idea. Always figured if you wanted to write code for native compilation, you'd hack in C or maybe C++. Not that PHP wouldn't have its uses...as PHP is really handy and greatly increases the speed of development.
To paraphrase Lewis Black (referring to airport security) -- slower doesn't necessarily mean safer. Promises that don't get delivered don't mean much. Maybe they're perfecting it, or maybe they're sneaking features in...we don't really know.
How hard Microsoft is trying when it comes to security is strictly implied. Unfortunately, most should have EXPECTED it of them to begin with. "Trustworthy Computing" is primarily a marketing response...with technical consequences.
I've always replied to anyone who wanted to communicate over the telephone that I'm lost without a modem hooked up to the phone line. "You mean that's not just for hooking up a modem to?"
:)
In a related story, I forget what the program was -- something that you can pop AT commands to directly...but a long time ago, my sister refused to relinquish the line so I did ATA while she was on. Kept the beeeeeeeeep on long enough for her to hang up. And thus began the great phone wars.
As far as real phone manners go, there should be a true syn-ack handshake for it. syn-> phone rings. "Hello, my name is..." terminating with the fin "um...I'm sorry, so in so does not live here anymore" [No Carrier]
Anyone that doesn't follow the protocol shouldn't be allowed to communicate.
Kudos to KDE for Kuality Komputing!!! Koding and Kompiling have never been Kuicker! Konsole kreates a kompelling kommand-line-interface.
Such a kollection of kompatible kontraptions kan only be konceived by a konglomeration of kompassionate koders kontributing to a valiant kause.
KDE is kosher as far as I'm koncerned.
Ok, that WAS an incredibly ignorant stab. The mandrakemove version comes with a bootable CD -- the memory stick is there to save personal files with. Not exactly what you're looking for, I suppose.
Sounds like something those mandrakemove memory sticks are good for. But that's a knee-jerk reaction without any research whatsoever.
Not sure how all this is supposed to work and all, so anything I'm spouting off is strictly theoretical.
Couldn't someone float to a web-based proxy, get the stuff there, and pass it through the filters? If it's keyword-based, you could even probably parse it through a "translator" to get rid of those particular words.
It mentioned pushing traffic through the proxy -- does this mean that it'll be strictly on port 80? No FTP, no NNTP, no SMTP/POP, no Realplayer streams? Sounds lovely already.
I work at a place that does content filtering -- all MS-based with the proxy/filter hardwired to IE (this implies a few things, but I'll leave that as an exercise). Though this stops most folks from getting to certain places, the filter doesn't do too well taking out the IP-based addresses that some porn popups are made of. Even better, it won't stop anyone from receiving valid web-based e-mails that may contain "objectionable content" either in text or as attachments.
I believe filters are made to comply with rules. Otherwise, totalitarian dictator admins would simply restrict access to every port but 80...and even then, subject that to some heavy filtering and logging.
It's news like this that would make ESR drool. Imagine computing and gun-control laws coming together as computers become weapons. I don't think anything would get that dude quite as animated. Well, that or having trouble setting up a printer or whatnot.
I suppose having a P4 could help, but it sure as heck would be a lot easier with software...and we know there's already propaganda out there that OSS supports terrorists. I wonder how far such legislation (if any have been concocted) could go.
Again, my faith in the voting public waivers a tad more. I've seen stranger things pass.
I must admit, I never had the itch to make labels in linux. Not that big of a fan, really, but I do see the need for it. (labels, that is)
People will dismiss this project as a pointless waste of time, but I do believe it has its merits. If nothing else, think of it as something shiny to attract new users...or at least give them more of a cushion when they switch OS. (you don't usually switch because of apps as much as you DON'T switch because of a lack of apps)
We've seen lots of craptastic freeware/shareware stuff for Windows. Heck, back when I watched TechTV more, they had free files featured to do anything you didn't want to do to begin with. All I'm saying here is that it's a Good Thing(TM) to have apps created for linux.
Give us a GUI that does a batch mogrify on a folder of images. Give us more cute little penguins dancing on the screen. Give us something that does random "at" jobs to play random soundbytes to annoy others. Give us Elf Bowling. Give us whatever you fancy to write.
In the end, hack away to your heart's content. Write code, give code, learn from code. I can't look any of you coders in the eyes and say "you're wasting your time." Instead I say keep up the good work and keep churning good code.
They need a new design because currently, All Your Base Are Belong To Ice.
If I can get this device armed with an M80, I'll be set!
Alright, folks, if your genes were GPLed, then all the derrivative works from those genes have to be released to the public. There would be no one single "ownership" of those genes.
Consequentially, that means there is no obligation to wait until said product is 18yrs old before it reaches EOL with the current maintainer. Since the product is GPLed, it theoretically can be picked up and maintained by anyone and everyone that wishes to do so. If anyone should profit from publicly reselling the product, they are required to um...release the genetic material along with all the enhancements and alterations to the bastard's DNA.
Do not act suspicious enough to be asked to identify yourself. It's disheartening but accepted policy that anonymity isn't much of an option when the authorities get involved. The more information you obstruct, the more irate they'd get...and the more inconvenienced you will be in the end.
The lesson here is to be clean enough or not be suspicious enough to get into such predicaments.
I work at a place where people occasionally use stolen ID numbers to gain computer access. People tend to betray themselves with their actions when they're guilty of something, and it's often easy enough to find out who isn't logged on legitimately just by making eye contact. It's a matter of being mindful of your non-verbal communication.
About a year and a half ago, I bought me one of those linksys wireless cards for an older (400MHz PC) running RH7.3 or something like that. For the fun of it, I decided I'd ask the salesfolk at Best Buy whether it was compatible with Linux. The answer I got was that it would be difficult to find drivers for it, and that to save me the grief, he recommended I get a LAN-Bridge instead.
I ignored the advice and bought the card anyway. (Of course I had done some research beforehand...enough to know it possibly worked, anyway) I got it running with the wlan-ng drivers.
Later on when I had more money, I decided to get me a laptop. Again, did my homework to see what would and wouldn't work. Again, a trip to best buy encountered a tech/sales guy -- whom I asked the question "will it run Linux?" After spouting off a few acronyms of certifications he has, he proceeds to tell me that Bill Gates has bought Linux and that we won't even be talking about it a year from now (he's got about 2 months left of that year...better act fast!) Then if I wanted to run a linux server on a laptop (no I don't want to run a server...just a desktop -- 'um, same thing') -- that it would be really slow. The only hope I have of running it comfortably would be on an Alienware system.
"So why don't you want to run XP?" "It's got a large system requirement, it has serious security issues, and overall I can't say I like it." "Have you looked into using XP Pro?" "Um, I already don't want to pay for the OS, you're recommending I pay MORE instead?" "Well, XP Pro isn't going to cost you that much more..." "Thank you for your time. I think I'm going to go home and rethink my strategy."
Went home thinking "jackass" and proceeded to get a Dell...which I'm using to write this post...now on a machine running Mandrake 10CE...with all the functionality I need.
Zealotry or ignorance? I'm not sure. To this day I smile whenever I go into a Best Buy -- thinking I should pick up a piece of hardware and ask whether it works with Linux just for the stories they may give me.