I can't argue with that. I'd love to see the Microsoft Office lock loosened up. But your right, while Open Office developers are trying to achieve the noble goal of compatability Microsoft is busy focusing on features. But its a real tough situation.
I understand your rumblings about Nader. But I think calling it a game might be a little unfair (although I don't know your friends).
As someone who did vote for Nader I can tell you exactly what I did vote for: 1) Ralph Nader 2) A third party.
I think we have a couple of problems right now contributing toward voter apathy. One of those problems is the Republican and Democratic parties middling tendencies.
I didn't throw away a vote, I supported an alternative platform. Again I understand where the democrats where coming from, but I had to side with what I felt was 'the greater good'.
Actually I disagree, sort of. I believe it really depends on how easy it is. Just because you can do something online (or by mail) doesn't necessarily make it easy. In fact sometime doing things online can be amazingly cumbersome. What *is* easy is going to the polls and voting, but its can also be inconvenient (especially to the lazy or politically conflicted, both of which I am).
Take online tax filing as an example. I usually file the 1040 EZ yearly, one year I decided to file online (heck, I do most every thing else here so why not, right?). It was a mess. I am possibly one of the easiest filings you can expect, but the number of screens I had to go through *after* getting set up to do it in the first place guaranteed that I wouldn't attempt to do it again for a good long while.
Of course then there is the fears about security. Even the non technically inclined people I know view the internet as a sort of new wild west.
I think this sort of thing *would work*, but the ease of use is a huge factor. And of course there is the ease of use vs. security issue. If it where as easy to do as checking your Hotmail account I'm willing to bet even most die hard "my vote doesn't matter anyway" would end up tuning in and logging on. But really, how far away is that?
I think Jurassic Park would be a better example, I left the theater feeling like a fool. I mean of couse the story sucked, what did I expect?
Of course what's important is that your right. I wasn't trying to take that from you. Marketing has taken a life of it's own. I'm not sure some marketing departments actually talk to the people who create the products they are marketing anymore (much less listen).
I just thought I'd write in my feelings regarding your companies recent (and threatened) legal actions against respected members of the open source community.
I am a technically inclined person and in fact make almost all major decisions regarding technologies at my place of work (non-profit company, 20+ employees, two websites, 10 workstations).
Because of your companies recent litigious behavior you can be certain that I will never recommend a product produced by your outfit.
In fact I would go one further and actively dissuade any persons that cross my path whom I might think would be looking in your direction and I will carry this decision with me for the rest of my career.
This is a bad business move and while I realize that sales member are not responsible for these types of decisions I also know that you are the first in line to see and hear their repercussion.
Please pass my message on to the appropriate persons.
I just thought I'd write in my feelings regarding your companies recent (and threatened) legal actions against respected members of the open source community.
I am a technically inclined person and in fact make almost all major decisions regarding technologies at my place of work (non-profit company, 20+ employees, two websites, 10 workstations).
Because of your companies recent litigious behavior you can be certain that I will never recommend a product produced by your outfit.
In fact I would go one further and actively dissuade any persons that cross my path whom I might think would be looking in your direction and I will carry this decision with me for the rest of my career.
This is a bad business move and while I realize that sales member are not responsible for these types of decisions I also know that you are the first in line to see and hear their repercussion.
Please pass my message on to the appropriate persons.
Thanks for your time.
Zach ****
San Diego, CA 92101
Ignorant would be right. I work for a company that considered a 'direct marketing campaign' a little under a year ago. A very friendly motivated manager from one of our locations put together a proposal and our director was ready to go with it.
You see, they don't sell spam. They sell things that sound legitate to your average person like direct marketing or opt-in mailing. Thats how they stay in business. They will keep doing what they do and continue to present a palpable face.
FWIW, I did convince our director that this *was* spam and would generate bad will. We are a non-profit and these people had the best intentions.
You should curtail your condescending tone. Its not productive and lends itself to less productive conversation.
My point is that Open Office isn't reliably compatible. And before you start making presumptions, I have and do use it. Just not for the spreadsheets that it cannot import or read.
Microsoft Office is a good product and while Open Office is nice, its not nearly as complete a solution and berating me won't make it any better.
When I was 20 I might have thought that I'd never bring work home with me, but now I do.
If you only need your computer for non work related tasks or non MS Office created documents, more power to you. But to presume that because those are your needs that they are the needs of a fraction of the people outside your sphere is just short sighted.
Remember, a lot of people still use computers *for work*. Open Office is a nice product, but its not Microsoft Office. And its not on par yet.
More to the point, its not reliably compatible (not to fault the developers) and that makes it pretty close to useless in a business world that is dependant on Microsoft Office.
I get the feeling that a lot of 'geeks' who shout about how great the free open source alternative is have never really used Microsoft Office for anything beyond term papers and letters home. Sure, it'll open the MS equivalent of a RTF but throw complicated formatting at it and it bombs. My company uses Excel *a lot* and we have some pretty complicated formulas which we *depend on* to get what we do done. Open Office isn't an alternative. Period.
And its got an up hill battle, because Microsoft Office is actually a good product and businesses expect to pay for this sort of thing just like they expect the service and support that comes with it. A free alternative is just a questionable business decision and one that wont support the way they have done business for the past 6 or 7 years is simply not realistic.
I wish it weren't the case.
I know OSS people tend to be pretty passionate about this sort of issue, but business tends to be pragmatic and conservative. Free doesn't really fit neatly into the capitalistic lexicon. Everything has a cost and uncertainty is one of the worst.
I can think of a good reason. OpenBSD isn't for everyone.
What I mean is so far of the *nix like systems Linux is the closest to the desktop for an "average" user. These systems are sometimes more and sometimes less secure then their Microsoft counterparts and I think attempting to make them more secure would be an excellent thing.
Next is a little bit of an issue, but its important to a lot of people and the more likely reason (IMHO): the license. OpenBSD isn't GNU/OpenBSD. Functionally OpenBSD has a huge head start, but philosophically it isn't Linux.
I dunno, seems like a fine name and a nice idea. I wouldn't get so royally worked up about this, save your strength for politics or something. I notice oss people spend a lot of energy complaining, while the developers are doing the work? Yuck.
I *like* the rebate scheme. I am cheap (read: poor) enough that I *do* send in my rebates. Rebates tend to be (at least the ones that catch my attention) pretty great deals. I'd imagine a strait price discount would be lower, but with rebates they can count on only a percentage actually being returned.
I can afford that 20" monitor because of the lazy/forgetful or those who can't be bothered. I salute you!
Sure, and I'm not trying to argue with you. I just happen to disagree.:-)
Of course the cool thing about Linux based desktops is all the choice you've got! I'll install this and try it out myself. If I don't like it *then* I'll go back to my Blackbox/Kicker setup. Kudos to the developer though!
Its kind of funny, I'm reading a lot of comments like yours. Which is fine, of course. But there is a sort of big push right now for just this sort of thing on Linux desktops. Eye candy, it seems is underrated here?
As a user who has been using the Linux desktop for about 4 years now I'd have to say this is a very exciting project. You should take a look at kde-look to get an idea what types of eye candies are being kicked around. I've been using translucent aterms, Convectivea crystal icons and the Mosfet's KDE liquid module for quite a while now, I love it.
Btw, check out Karamba, its a new KDE extention that suports (fake) transparency, lots of fancy do-dads and themes. Beefs up the candy factor (and some functionality!). Might as well look good if your going to have to use it.
Last one! Check out Slicker. Its a collection of utilities which provide an alternative to KDE's kicker, and looks good. I don't know about you, but I got tired of looking at screen shots of OSX.
My problem is our entertainment center is near the front window (in a ground floor apartment) and I have to try to hide the box because I'm worried it'll get lifted.:-)
I gotta agree with the above poster. Besides, I think this is one particular case where (in my opinion) Linux does what other don't.
My box uses MythTV, Vobcopy, Ogle and Mplayer together with getgui and cdde. If you insert a dvd into my box you get a pop-up menu asking if you'd like to View or Copy the dvd. Same with music cds (athough I've thrown in mp3 or lossless encoding), vcds or just about anything else.
This beats the pants off anything I've seen in the Windows, etc world. My media center is cdrom aware and fully scriptable. The best part of it is it means my girl friend doesn't even have to think about it, she just pops in the media and it works!
I notice you've accidentally started a small freevo/mythtv war!
Well, I'm not hear to flame. I think they are both great projects and I respect the efforts of their maintainer a lot.
That said I just wanted to point out that Mythtv doesn't *just* pause live tv. It lets you rewind, fast forward, pause and most importantly it lets you skip through commercials! You never *actually* watch "live" tv, you always watch the "live" video which is a tiny bit behind (enough to start the recording which it reads from) and can move around as if you where watching a video (up to the point that you've recorded to).
Pretty darn neet project IMHO. Not painless to install, but its getting there and keeps getting better!
Sounds like someone's got a bit of a case of sour grapes this morning! The reason this IS news is because this happens to be the next-big-thing. That's not to say its a brand new idea, just that we've been using PC's long enough in the DEN to do this sort of thing and its starting to occur to more and more of us that this would be perfect for the entertainment center! Wow! (ok, maybe your right its not revolutionary, but its current and I like seeing the different solutions to a reasonably new problem).
A keyboard and mouse? This is the main stumbling block. A true MediaPC needs to be controlled through a simple interface with a remote control.
Hmmm, "A true MediaPC". I'd have to disagree with you there too. You see, I've built one of these silly things. Using a remote is probably the best thing some of the time, but you'd never really be able to take advantage of EVERYTHING if you limited yourself to just one particular input device. I've found a better answer, this wireless keyboard/mouse combo. It works great and feels like it was built for the project.
Anyhow, most of your suggestions are pretty good, so I'll drop my little diatribe..;-)
Slashdot Mirror
I can't argue with that. I'd love to see the Microsoft Office lock loosened up. But your right, while Open Office developers are trying to achieve the noble goal of compatability Microsoft is busy focusing on features. But its a real tough situation.
I understand your rumblings about Nader. But I think calling it a game might be a little unfair (although I don't know your friends).
As someone who did vote for Nader I can tell you exactly what I did vote for: 1) Ralph Nader 2) A third party.
I think we have a couple of problems right now contributing toward voter apathy. One of those problems is the Republican and Democratic parties middling tendencies.
I didn't throw away a vote, I supported an alternative platform. Again I understand where the democrats where coming from, but I had to side with what I felt was 'the greater good'.
Actually I disagree, sort of. I believe it really depends on how easy it is. Just because you can do something online (or by mail) doesn't necessarily make it easy. In fact sometime doing things online can be amazingly cumbersome. What *is* easy is going to the polls and voting, but its can also be inconvenient (especially to the lazy or politically conflicted, both of which I am).
Take online tax filing as an example. I usually file the 1040 EZ yearly, one year I decided to file online (heck, I do most every thing else here so why not, right?). It was a mess. I am possibly one of the easiest filings you can expect, but the number of screens I had to go through *after* getting set up to do it in the first place guaranteed that I wouldn't attempt to do it again for a good long while.
Of course then there is the fears about security. Even the non technically inclined people I know view the internet as a sort of new wild west.
I think this sort of thing *would work*, but the ease of use is a huge factor. And of course there is the ease of use vs. security issue. If it where as easy to do as checking your Hotmail account I'm willing to bet even most die hard "my vote doesn't matter anyway" would end up tuning in and logging on. But really, how far away is that?
Semantics. I understand what your saying.
I think Jurassic Park would be a better example, I left the theater feeling like a fool. I mean of couse the story sucked, what did I expect?
Of course what's important is that your right. I wasn't trying to take that from you. Marketing has taken a life of it's own. I'm not sure some marketing departments actually talk to the people who create the products they are marketing anymore (much less listen).
IYHO. Sorry, didn't mean to offend. ;-)
I think if the past decade has taught us anything, its that gross (or awards) doesn't mean good.
I've just got to chime in here for the sake of all the younger Slashdot readers.
Everyone who had told you not to judge the book by the cover has lied. Its like 80% accurate. Go for it.
There have got to be better examples then that!
I just thought I'd write in my feelings regarding your companies recent (and threatened) legal actions against respected members of the open source community.
I am a technically inclined person and in fact make almost all major decisions regarding technologies at my place of work (non-profit company, 20+ employees, two websites, 10 workstations).
Because of your companies recent litigious behavior you can be certain that I will never recommend a product produced by your outfit.
In fact I would go one further and actively dissuade any persons that cross my path whom I might think would be looking in your direction and I will carry this decision with me for the rest of my career.
This is a bad business move and while I realize that sales member are not responsible for these types of decisions I also know that you are the first in line to see and hear their repercussion.
Please pass my message on to the appropriate persons.
Thanks for your time.
Zach ****
San Diego, CA 92101
I just thought I'd write in my feelings regarding your companies recent (and threatened) legal actions against respected members of the open source community. I am a technically inclined person and in fact make almost all major decisions regarding technologies at my place of work (non-profit company, 20+ employees, two websites, 10 workstations). Because of your companies recent litigious behavior you can be certain that I will never recommend a product produced by your outfit. In fact I would go one further and actively dissuade any persons that cross my path whom I might think would be looking in your direction and I will carry this decision with me for the rest of my career. This is a bad business move and while I realize that sales member are not responsible for these types of decisions I also know that you are the first in line to see and hear their repercussion. Please pass my message on to the appropriate persons. Thanks for your time. Zach **** San Diego, CA 92101
Ignorant would be right. I work for a company that considered a 'direct marketing campaign' a little under a year ago. A very friendly motivated manager from one of our locations put together a proposal and our director was ready to go with it.
You see, they don't sell spam. They sell things that sound legitate to your average person like direct marketing or opt-in mailing. Thats how they stay in business. They will keep doing what they do and continue to present a palpable face.
FWIW, I did convince our director that this *was* spam and would generate bad will. We are a non-profit and these people had the best intentions.
Good. So you work from home.
You should curtail your condescending tone. Its not productive and lends itself to less productive conversation.
My point is that Open Office isn't reliably compatible. And before you start making presumptions, I have and do use it. Just not for the spreadsheets that it cannot import or read.
Microsoft Office is a good product and while Open Office is nice, its not nearly as complete a solution and berating me won't make it any better.
Contend?
When I was 20 I might have thought that I'd never bring work home with me, but now I do.
If you only need your computer for non work related tasks or non MS Office created documents, more power to you. But to presume that because those are your needs that they are the needs of a fraction of the people outside your sphere is just short sighted.
Don't be a smart ass.
My work computer runs Windows 98. My home computer runs Office under Win4Lin on top of Mandrake 9.1.
I use Linux exclusively on my home network and running Office with Wine is a nicer solution then Office under Windows under Win4lin.
Remember, a lot of people still use computers *for work*. Open Office is a nice product, but its not Microsoft Office. And its not on par yet.
More to the point, its not reliably compatible (not to fault the developers) and that makes it pretty close to useless in a business world that is dependant on Microsoft Office.
I get the feeling that a lot of 'geeks' who shout about how great the free open source alternative is have never really used Microsoft Office for anything beyond term papers and letters home. Sure, it'll open the MS equivalent of a RTF but throw complicated formatting at it and it bombs. My company uses Excel *a lot* and we have some pretty complicated formulas which we *depend on* to get what we do done. Open Office isn't an alternative. Period.
And its got an up hill battle, because Microsoft Office is actually a good product and businesses expect to pay for this sort of thing just like they expect the service and support that comes with it. A free alternative is just a questionable business decision and one that wont support the way they have done business for the past 6 or 7 years is simply not realistic.
I wish it weren't the case.
I know OSS people tend to be pretty passionate about this sort of issue, but business tends to be pragmatic and conservative. Free doesn't really fit neatly into the capitalistic lexicon. Everything has a cost and uncertainty is one of the worst.
Nice try.
FWIW, I like the GPL but I give the BSD license my respect. Freedom is in the eye of the...
I can think of a good reason. OpenBSD isn't for everyone.
What I mean is so far of the *nix like systems Linux is the closest to the desktop for an "average" user. These systems are sometimes more and sometimes less secure then their Microsoft counterparts and I think attempting to make them more secure would be an excellent thing.
Next is a little bit of an issue, but its important to a lot of people and the more likely reason (IMHO): the license. OpenBSD isn't GNU/OpenBSD. Functionally OpenBSD has a huge head start, but philosophically it isn't Linux.
I dunno, seems like a fine name and a nice idea. I wouldn't get so royally worked up about this, save your strength for politics or something. I notice oss people spend a lot of energy complaining, while the developers are doing the work? Yuck.
I *like* the rebate scheme. I am cheap (read: poor) enough that I *do* send in my rebates. Rebates tend to be (at least the ones that catch my attention) pretty great deals. I'd imagine a strait price discount would be lower, but with rebates they can count on only a percentage actually being returned.
I can afford that 20" monitor because of the lazy/forgetful or those who can't be bothered. I salute you!
Sure, and I'm not trying to argue with you. I just happen to disagree. :-)
Of course the cool thing about Linux based desktops is all the choice you've got! I'll install this and try it out myself. If I don't like it *then* I'll go back to my Blackbox/Kicker setup. Kudos to the developer though!
Its kind of funny, I'm reading a lot of comments like yours. Which is fine, of course. But there is a sort of big push right now for just this sort of thing on Linux desktops. Eye candy, it seems is underrated here?
As a user who has been using the Linux desktop for about 4 years now I'd have to say this is a very exciting project. You should take a look at kde-look to get an idea what types of eye candies are being kicked around. I've been using translucent aterms, Convectivea crystal icons and the Mosfet's KDE liquid module for quite a while now, I love it.
Btw, check out Karamba, its a new KDE extention that suports (fake) transparency, lots of fancy do-dads and themes. Beefs up the candy factor (and some functionality!). Might as well look good if your going to have to use it.
Last one! Check out Slicker. Its a collection of utilities which provide an alternative to KDE's kicker, and looks good. I don't know about you, but I got tired of looking at screen shots of OSX.
Looks great!
:-)
My problem is our entertainment center is near the front window (in a ground floor apartment) and I have to try to hide the box because I'm worried it'll get lifted.
I gotta agree with the above poster. Besides, I think this is one particular case where (in my opinion) Linux does what other don't.
My box uses MythTV, Vobcopy, Ogle and Mplayer together with getgui and cdde. If you insert a dvd into my box you get a pop-up menu asking if you'd like to View or Copy the dvd. Same with music cds (athough I've thrown in mp3 or lossless encoding), vcds or just about anything else.
This beats the pants off anything I've seen in the Windows, etc world. My media center is cdrom aware and fully scriptable. The best part of it is it means my girl friend doesn't even have to think about it, she just pops in the media and it works!
I notice you've accidentally started a small freevo/mythtv war!
Well, I'm not hear to flame. I think they are both great projects and I respect the efforts of their maintainer a lot.
That said I just wanted to point out that Mythtv doesn't *just* pause live tv. It lets you rewind, fast forward, pause and most importantly it lets you skip through commercials! You never *actually* watch "live" tv, you always watch the "live" video which is a tiny bit behind (enough to start the recording which it reads from) and can move around as if you where watching a video (up to the point that you've recorded to).
Pretty darn neet project IMHO. Not painless to install, but its getting there and keeps getting better!
Pffft! Forget mini cases! ;-)
Make it PROUD! This is the perfect project to combine two geek past-times into one glorious project: case modding and the entertainment center!
I'm using the full atx clear case with lights. The possibilities are endless!
Oh, right! And quiet, fan and power supply! (if it looks good but pisses off your family, well...)
Sounds like someone's got a bit of a case of sour grapes this morning! The reason this IS news is because this happens to be the next-big-thing. That's not to say its a brand new idea, just that we've been using PC's long enough in the DEN to do this sort of thing and its starting to occur to more and more of us that this would be perfect for the entertainment center! Wow! (ok, maybe your right its not revolutionary, but its current and I like seeing the different solutions to a reasonably new problem).
;-)
A keyboard and mouse? This is the main stumbling block. A true MediaPC needs to be controlled through a simple interface with a remote control.
Hmmm, "A true MediaPC". I'd have to disagree with you there too. You see, I've built one of these silly things. Using a remote is probably the best thing some of the time, but you'd never really be able to take advantage of EVERYTHING if you limited yourself to just one particular input device. I've found a better answer, this wireless keyboard/mouse combo. It works great and feels like it was built for the project.
Anyhow, most of your suggestions are pretty good, so I'll drop my little diatribe..