I use the "Mom" test for consumer technology, and so far Linux can't pass it. My mom has no problem with Windows because she's had years to learn it. She has no problems with Mac because it's easier to learn and there are passionate people willing to help. But Linux offers non of the usage patterns she's familiar with, and worse no assistance to newbies. This is the real barrier to adoption. Can you imagine what kind of replies she'd get on forums asking for help? It's not enough to develop code if you're aiming for mass adoption. You need actually helpful help files, consistent use patterns and comprehensive usability engineering. I'm afraid that because no one in the Linux community has the money or apparent interest in non-code related development, that it won't every make it into the mainstream.
How did this article make it to the front page? Slow news day? Direct payment from the technical marketing folks at IBM? I'm not trying to be a troll, but we've had plenty of/. articles on the cell, game consoles and content developers, but this.. wow. No new content, just pure hype for IBM. Why not just import directly from the cell team bogging sites at IBM?
While we're at it, did you know that Windows Vista brings clarity to your world, so you can more safely and easily accomplish everyday tasks and instantly find what you want on your PC? You can now explore entertainment, such as TV and music, on your Windows Vista-based PC like never before. And with Windows Vista, you'll more conveniently stay connected to the people who are important to you, from home or while on the go.
It's actually an intriguing possibility, because it would enable a new range of PRM (Personal Rights Management) services for seamless integration with Microsoft Vista.
I was in China last year during the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Uprising, and it was interesting to watch the news and surf online. In a western hotel, (the Four Seasons), watching CNN or BBC, occasionally a story would begin to run on the anniversary, then the screen would go blank and silent for the duration of the story.
When I'd surf news sites, references to Tiananmen were missing, but when I switched to my corporate VPN, as expected they were all there.
It was also interesting that my normally digital phone connection had a new icon I'd never seen, indicating that the connection was unencrypted. So my advice would be to find someone to host a VPN endpoint for you from the west, email, surf and Skype though it.
This is a HUGE opportunity for Sun. They could drop Solaris 10 for x86 in there, and offer Dell two interesting pricing options: free and supported. The free option hits an impossibly low price point while getting Solaris 10 on the street (displacing Red Hat), and the supported option would allow Dell to white-label the license so that they could sell a single vendor corporate contract. Um, wait, Sun won't move on this in time, so never mind.
Perl (also love it or hate it) was almost synonymous with website programming. Arguably there are different choices for different needs in web development..
The IBMThinkPad (StinkPad) is the bomb. You do get a little bit more performance/$ with Dell, but the IBM is much better made and will last forever, especially if you're on the road all the time. I put 200,000 air miles on mine last year with plenty of knocks and it looks like new.
But regardless of whether SCO has already sued a user or is just running a little behind schedule, winning any Linux lawsuits may have just gotten a lot harder for SCO.
Yep that works. I found a tech in the boonies of Wisconsin who moved one of our remote sales guys onto 4 bonded modems. He configured a Linux gateway which had the modems and keeps the "four horsemen of the Apocalypse", as we came to call the solution, dialed in if they dropped off. He came close to continuous 256 up/down all the time for the 3 machines on his network.
Linux must run MS Office to sell to the masses
on
Linux in the Workplace
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I hear what you're saying, but the members of this technical forum are far more technical than the average Windows users, especially at the office. Joe Blow has 5 years of experience with MS Word, Excel and Power-Point and wants the same apps at home- that's all there is to it. To make that work he needs to be able to call Dell, order a new PC with Red-Hat and Office 10 for Linux. If it's anymore complicated than that he will go with Windows every time.
It's amazing how few people have switched to Mac's even with this capability. I bought a new iMac just for grins, and with 10.2 and the Cisco VPN client, I can dial up my office and fire up Outlook to the Exchange server no problem, as well as have CRUD access to the docs on the network.
Gotta get Office on Linux without any adapters, emulators or dual-boots. The average user, (who is keeping the lights on in Redmond), isn't as fast as this community.
You can use putty without having it modify the registry.
Use the plink.exe utility (separate download from the site) from any command line or.bat file. You pass all the tunneling info as command line parameters, and can even pass in login info (not the best practice), and a command to be executed once the login is complete (keep alive script).
The chief advantage to using the GUI is the telnet client which is *vastly* superior to the Win32 telnet client. I use it to talk to Solaris all day- "duplicate session" is a personal favorite and it property handles gls colors.
As always, another great O'Reilly book. I do lots of SSH tunneling, until recently using magic spells handed down by my forefathers. This book revealed the special sauce- now I know what I'm doing.
Another San Jose law firm has been suing major airlines world wide for the last five years, on the grounds that the use of barcodes in any industry violates their patent. The fact that their patent infringement case is without merit matters little, because they have used the same tactic to great success. Airlines are huge users of barcodes, and by going first after smaller carriers and offering "discount settlements" they have amassed a war chest large enough to go after the ten largest airlines in the world. Some estimate that the industry has quietly settled to the tune of about $500M. It's profitable enough that the original firm now sells lawsuit franchises for different industries to other firms, and with each settlement it becomes harder and harder for any sued company to resist.
There's a whole domain dedicated to the HHGttG, vogon.com. The site was built for Netscape so the online guide's JavaScript is flakey with IE, but there must be over a hundred pages on the series.
Slashdot Mirror
I use the "Mom" test for consumer technology, and so far Linux can't pass it. My mom has no problem with Windows because she's had years to learn it. She has no problems with Mac because it's easier to learn and there are passionate people willing to help. But Linux offers non of the usage patterns she's familiar with, and worse no assistance to newbies. This is the real barrier to adoption. Can you imagine what kind of replies she'd get on forums asking for help? It's not enough to develop code if you're aiming for mass adoption. You need actually helpful help files, consistent use patterns and comprehensive usability engineering. I'm afraid that because no one in the Linux community has the money or apparent interest in non-code related development, that it won't every make it into the mainstream.
How did this article make it to the front page? Slow news day? Direct payment from the technical marketing folks at IBM? I'm not trying to be a troll, but we've had plenty of /. articles on the cell, game consoles and content developers, but this.. wow. No new content, just pure hype for IBM. Why not just import directly from the cell team bogging sites at IBM?
While we're at it, did you know that Windows Vista brings clarity to your world, so you can more safely and easily accomplish everyday tasks and instantly find what you want on your PC? You can now explore entertainment, such as TV and music, on your Windows Vista-based PC like never before. And with Windows Vista, you'll more conveniently stay connected to the people who are important to you, from home or while on the go.
Wait, the Republicans are the party of the Anti-Christ??
It's actually an intriguing possibility, because it would enable a new range of PRM (Personal Rights Management) services for seamless integration with Microsoft Vista.
It was also interesting that my normally digital phone connection had a new icon I'd never seen, indicating that the connection was unencrypted. So my advice would be to find someone to host a VPN endpoint for you from the west, email, surf and Skype though it.
This is a HUGE opportunity for Sun. They could drop Solaris 10 for x86 in there, and offer Dell two interesting pricing options: free and supported. The free option hits an impossibly low price point while getting Solaris 10 on the street (displacing Red Hat), and the supported option would allow Dell to white-label the license so that they could sell a single vendor corporate contract. Um, wait, Sun won't move on this in time, so never mind.
Does this mean that we'll finally be able to see Lady Justice's Li'l Kim breast again at press conferences?
That Anonymous Coward guy posts a lot of stuff!
As long as he posted anonymously on /. and ships the box to himself he should be cool.
The IBM ThinkPad (StinkPad) is the bomb. You do get a little bit more performance/$ with Dell, but the IBM is much better made and will last forever, especially if you're on the road all the time. I put 200,000 air miles on mine last year with plenty of knocks and it looks like new.
But regardless of whether SCO has already sued a user or is just running a little behind schedule, winning any Linux lawsuits may have just gotten a lot harder for SCO.
Who said so? AT&T -- in 1985.
Check it out for the juce..
Yep that works. I found a tech in the boonies of Wisconsin who moved one of our remote sales guys onto 4 bonded modems. He configured a Linux gateway which had the modems and keeps the "four horsemen of the Apocalypse", as we came to call the solution, dialed in if they dropped off. He came close to continuous 256 up/down all the time for the 3 machines on his network.
I hear what you're saying, but the members of this technical forum are far more technical than the average Windows users, especially at the office. Joe Blow has 5 years of experience with MS Word, Excel and Power-Point and wants the same apps at home- that's all there is to it. To make that work he needs to be able to call Dell, order a new PC with Red-Hat and Office 10 for Linux. If it's anymore complicated than that he will go with Windows every time.
It's amazing how few people have switched to Mac's even with this capability. I bought a new iMac just for grins, and with 10.2 and the Cisco VPN client, I can dial up my office and fire up Outlook to the Exchange server no problem, as well as have CRUD access to the docs on the network.
Gotta get Office on Linux without any adapters, emulators or dual-boots. The average user, (who is keeping the lights on in Redmond), isn't as fast as this community.
You can use putty without having it modify the registry. Use the plink.exe utility (separate download from the site) from any command line or .bat file. You pass all the tunneling info as command line parameters, and can even pass in login info (not the best practice), and a command to be executed once the login is complete (keep alive script).
The chief advantage to using the GUI is the telnet client which is *vastly* superior to the Win32 telnet client. I use it to talk to Solaris all day- "duplicate session" is a personal favorite and it property handles gls colors.
As always, another great O'Reilly book. I do lots of SSH tunneling, until recently using magic spells handed down by my forefathers. This book revealed the special sauce- now I know what I'm doing.
Another San Jose law firm has been suing major airlines world wide for the last five years, on the grounds that the use of barcodes in any industry violates their patent. The fact that their patent infringement case is without merit matters little, because they have used the same tactic to great success. Airlines are huge users of barcodes, and by going first after smaller carriers and offering "discount settlements" they have amassed a war chest large enough to go after the ten largest airlines in the world. Some estimate that the industry has quietly settled to the tune of about $500M. It's profitable enough that the original firm now sells lawsuit franchises for different industries to other firms, and with each settlement it becomes harder and harder for any sued company to resist.
There's a whole domain dedicated to the HHGttG, vogon.com. The site was built for Netscape so the online guide's JavaScript is flakey with IE, but there must be over a hundred pages on the series.