sure, most desktop holes go unexploited. it's not the personal desktop that crackers go after. let's face it, compromise one desktop, get one CC#. compromise a server, get hundreds, thousands, etc. the cost of windows server holes, glitches, etc., is untold millions. how many extra hours have been spent (and charged!!) to patch and then reconfigure, then repatch and reconfigure, update and reupdate, install, reinstall, because some gaping hole in IIS, Exchange, etc. plus, how about the downtime, and all the other problems that windows servers have cost businesses. and really, desktop exploits go untapped. gee, really. and how mny problems were caused by some worker bee opening up that j-lo.exe file in Outlook? this if FUD.
since i am a classroom teacher, seventh grade in fact, let me add some points that are important.
technology decisions are made by the people least able to make them. district administrators get there by seniority, whatever, not on tech. merits. plus, with such emphasis placed on tech, there is money to spend. so it's a desired job.
most teachers are not technolgoically proficient. they will only tecah what they know. thus, if say Word has helped them write a worksheet out better, they will have the kids use that.
most principals are not too tech savvy, and most, sadly, are concerned with appearnaces. thus, "kids using comptuers" sounds great. and it plays well in the press.
finding good technological people is hard. face it, schools don't pay as well. sure, there are lots of other benefits to schools, but money is not #1. and even though we are in a slow IT sector, most tech poeple hired in schools got their jobs during the boom, and are not likely to leave. plus, replacing people in a school district is VERY HARD (another "benefit")
education is awash with fads. cooperative learning, authentic assessment, whole language, you name it, it's there. technology is just another "fad" in education. "we're using technology", sound wonderful. eduaction is a place horrible for new "ideas" that sound great, and work for shit. nobody ever bothers to, nor actaully cares to, look for resutls.
relating to point one, companies will easily throw around freebies in return for purchases. i have seen district tech people brag about their getting tons of software (oh, i don't konw, xp pro, vs.net, office xp, etc). or, those damn software catalogs say buy 10, get three title free.
import staement.controversial.*;
many teachers(remember i am a public school teacher), lets face it, have a very easy job. having them bang away on a computer for a few days, especially if there's a lab tech in there, makes it a piece of cake.
it's not that technolgoy should not be in schools. i am finishing a masters in instructional technology. it's just that beaurocratic problems and inertia make change damn near impossible. for instance, are district had spent lots of money on an netrworking infrastructure, moving towards, as our former, now retired, (and clueless) tech admin said "fewer, more powerful, servers". this at the time that that the indsutry was moving towards more, smaller, servers, disrtributed computing. so did we change. no, inertia. so, get to your school boards, they are elected you know, and demand accountability.
ever notice how the left always screams "bush this, bush that, he's taking over the world, destroying freedom, etc." and never provide a shred of evidence. when you provide a reasoned, educated piece that clearly shows the truth, you are called a facist.
The ease of use just isn't quite on the same level as Microsoft and Apple.
that too is subjective. if all you know is windows, than aqua will be a PITA. for example, the taskbar (and no, a little black arrow on the dock doesn't count). all the features in windows are there in kde/gnome. as for ease of use, it isn't OS's per se, but apps. the truth here is that windows apps, in particular office, are notoriously bad. for instance, the drop down menu toolbar button. really intuitive!! driving a stick shift is hard,until yo do it for a while. then driving an auto is boring. ease of use is another dose of FUD. hell, open mozilla. can you find the address bar, the back/forward/reload buttons? fine. open OO.org. can you find the save button, the open button, anywyas, you get the idea.
OO.org is fairly easy to use. hell, if you're such an imbecile that you can't figure it out, well, your boss deserves you. plus, how many companies really "train" their employees. i know that inmy school district, we spend very little on teacher training for office, yet it is the "standard". hell, we get all kinds of.doc email attachments that are simply a freakin one paragraph note. most people use about 1/100th of the features of word, OR OO writer.
ah, the hell with it. too many damn posts from idiots who have never used linux. or think that installation and usage are the same thing. ever try installing windows?
There's a difference, though, between university students and academics running Linux, and your average office secretary running Linux. It's a difference which I think will still take a long time to erode.
Really? If a business hires complete imbeciles who can't learn to use OO.org, than that's their problem. And what about the office secretary who opens up the latest email virus? In my school, we made a switch several years ago to "PC's" from macs. The teachers migrated because they HAD TO. Bottom line. I have several old boxen in my classroom that i turned into xclients. seventh grade students have no problem using OO.org, mozilla, etc. and i can lock them down. the truth is that linux is more than ready for the desktop. it is ignorant comments like that and FUD that keep it from wider adoption.
I still use linux for many things. But I found that OS X makes developing LAMP applications very easy, and I have iMovie for movies of my kids. No, OS X isn't going to appeal to (linux)kernel hackers. But it appeals to those of us who want to run Apache/MySQL, etc., on a real UNIX environemnt. Plus, there is not one laptop out there besides my iBook that weighs less than 5 pounds, and can actually rest on my lap for hours. Plus, battery life is awesome.
what the fuck is.NET? is a runtime, a platform, a toolkit, an API set, desert topping, or a floor polish? i don't think you can compare.NET and java. java is a specific language that includes a specific runtime interpreter, a specific UI kit, and specific API's. microsoft has been obfuscative with.NET. nobody i think knows exactly what it is. i guess that makes it a harder target?
There is nothing stopping someone else from building a competing OS and selling it.
microsoft has used its position in very similar ways. how about oem contracts that strictly forbid any competing OS's, or that require all new computers be sold with windows. it's not just about building and selling. think BeOS. also, wherever there is a potential market, especially if it leverages windows' position, they set out to destroy the company/software. they did this with netscape, they are doing this with real player, they did it with WordPerfect, and they did it with Novell NetWare. We all know what they did with netscape, and most konw about real, but by hiding specific API's, OLE never worked quite right in WP, AND, they required volume license and oem deals to include Office or works. and there are specific incompatibilities with Novell NetWare that make implementing a novell network a PITA. i know, my school district is still trying to get it right. there are parallels between the two.
a long time ago, a company named reynolds was the only producer/developer of aluminum. not only that, but they were going around the world buying up all thye bauxite mines they could find. the feds stepped in and the final decision forced them to set up a whole, new company, (ALuminum COmpany of America, or ALCOA), give them plant and equipment, AND had to forfeit to them some bauxite mines. one of the motivations for this was that aluminum was considered a necessary material, not just for war, but for manufacturing.
while i don't like government intrusion, there is a very important issue to consider. with its already established monopoly, and many abuses thereof, microsoft has gone way beyond the scope of normal business activity. this is not only a case of insuring competition, but prevents control of the market in a vital sector. economists from all sides, in particular free market champion milton friedman, argue that the role of government in the economy is to prevent monopolies and protect the market system. this doesn't pick winners and losers, just makes sure that the odds are even.
since i am a teacher, i have seen education go from macs to pc's. windows is not, nor ever was easy. what happened? people had to learn to use windows. it simply was what they were given in their classrooms, labs, etc. why linux needs to be, or needs to not be, like windows, is not the issue. windows arrived as cheaper and good enough. linux is both, and in fact far more than good enough. but, what makes it hard is that most people don't even really know windows, they don't want to learn something different. i have a handful of x cleints my room and the students have no problem using OO writer, mozilla, etc. they just don't know the difference. it doesn't matter if its KDE or GNOME, or in my clients, IceWM (now that looks like windows, and i control every icon on the toolbar and menu!!) you put a linux box in front of an experienced user, they will USE it just fine. (i am not talking about configuring. that is different.) in front of an inexperienced user, the learning is just as long as windows.
give m$ some credit. maybe they can't pull it off. so they cut their losses, just give it up. better this than a security and bug filled nightmare.
Re:PHP resolves some shortcomings of Perl
on
Professional PHP4
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· Score: 1
Portability. I can take PHP code off my Linux box and plop it onto an IIS server, or even one of those new Macintosh servers and have it run without having to change a single line of code. Try doing this with Perl! Its as though it was written in assembly, Perl requires that much rewriting.
what exactly are you doing in perl that requires so much rewrite. unless your doing some system level admin, where perl is built around unix, for web functionality, there should be no problems. the only problem that i have found on win32 perl is that iis sometimes doesn't handle user permissions and read/write access as it should. for instance, if not properly configured, a cgi script can read and write files out side its parent directory. i was working on my school's web site, and added one too many../'s and well, major oops. shouldn't be allowed to do that. otherwise, all the perl ran exactly as written on iis or bsd/apache.
if you read gibbons' rise and fall of roman empire, you will see many striking similarities to the US. i am a history teacher by trade, a geek by wishful thinking. mr. stein hits the nail on the head. sorry if what he says offends you, but it is true.
like the romans, we have political corruption at every level, social debauchery and immorality is the norm, we have no respeoct for the rule of law, and no respect for ourselves. we have a fractured culture, are becoming a mix of disparate, competing groups, hoping to score at the public trough.
to the foreign/. readers, you might find this gleeful. fine. this article concerns america. sadly, we shot ourselves in the foot. can we heal. yes. last election looks like we are on our way. maybe there is hope.
Re:solution for one of the problems..
on
The New IT Crisis
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· Score: 1
Why does the common secretary need a full-powered PC on her desk anyway?
the biggest problem for linux adoption, forgetting for a moment the onerous oem licenses, is that people know windows. it wasn't easy to learn, and in fact, they don't really "know" windows. they kinda know how to do what they need to, and most people are technophobic anyways. anything new scares the hell out of 'em. i see it all the time where i teach. but...
my students, who haven't been thoroughly borged by redmonditis, have no problem using my x clients in my room. i say, here's the web browser (mozilla) and here's where you type (OO writer). some ask but most just go about getting done their work. and that is the key. we can't, shouldn't, try to beat windows by doing windows. ain't gonna work. be better at being linux.
gee they're not in the black? let me see, they release a product like MNF, and they put it up for download, and they have it listed for $1990 at mandrakestore.com. well no shit they're not profitable. 2 grand or free, let me see...
i have been a mandrake user since 7.0, as well as 7.2, 8.1, and 9.0 all of whcih i bought, and which i love. it is awesome. anyways, why can't a company create a value added product to gpl software. for instance, the mandrake wizards are awesome, if yo haven't tried them, they blow anything in windows away, like network card setup, video res., and even printers. for instance, at my school, we have a bunch of HP laser jets, and they all run jet direct. just had printerdrake auto find all the TCP printers, found them, auto configured them, yada yada. now, that is awesome shit. and they give it away. and they're still not profitable, no shit.
I don't think Linux is going to be successful as a desktop replacement.
damn, i've been using linux as my sole desktop for almost three years. well, maybe he's right. maybe linux isn't a desktop replacement, maybe it's just a desktop improvement!!! of course, if more people used linux, then maybe they need to buy prepbuilt linux appliances, they could install/configure on their own...hmmm.......
buy a refurb. yo can get awesome laotptops on ebay from reputable dealers that have no os, for well under a grand. whatthe hell, are you running UT2003? i have an old ctx k6-2 300, with 128mb and an upgraded 6gb hdd. runs linux great. plus, on those occasions when i have access, i get a remote x session via wireless (or wired) and run p3 speed.
you still pay per seat licenses for office, are locked into closed formats, and by EULA, can't run office XP on anything but windows OS. i'm more impressed by the work at transgaming. getting games onto linux will spur linux desktop growth at home. crossover is a great project, but it does little to promote linux. sorry.
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sure, most desktop holes go unexploited. it's not the personal desktop that crackers go after. let's face it, compromise one desktop, get one CC#. compromise a server, get hundreds, thousands, etc. the cost of windows server holes, glitches, etc., is untold millions. how many extra hours have been spent (and charged!!) to patch and then reconfigure, then repatch and reconfigure, update and reupdate, install, reinstall, because some gaping hole in IIS, Exchange, etc. plus, how about the downtime, and all the other problems that windows servers have cost businesses. and really, desktop exploits go untapped. gee, really. and how mny problems were caused by some worker bee opening up that j-lo.exe file in Outlook? this if FUD.
many teachers(remember i am a public school teacher), lets face it, have a very easy job. having them bang away on a computer for a few days, especially if there's a lab tech in there, makes it a piece of cake.
it's not that technolgoy should not be in schools. i am finishing a masters in instructional technology. it's just that beaurocratic problems and inertia make change damn near impossible. for instance, are district had spent lots of money on an netrworking infrastructure, moving towards, as our former, now retired, (and clueless) tech admin said "fewer, more powerful, servers". this at the time that that the indsutry was moving towards more, smaller, servers, disrtributed computing. so did we change. no, inertia. so, get to your school boards, they are elected you know, and demand accountability.
ever notice how the left always screams "bush this, bush that, he's taking over the world, destroying freedom, etc." and never provide a shred of evidence. when you provide a reasoned, educated piece that clearly shows the truth, you are called a facist.
The ease of use just isn't quite on the same level as Microsoft and Apple.
that too is subjective. if all you know is windows, than aqua will be a PITA. for example, the taskbar (and no, a little black arrow on the dock doesn't count). all the features in windows are there in kde/gnome. as for ease of use, it isn't OS's per se, but apps. the truth here is that windows apps, in particular office, are notoriously bad. for instance, the drop down menu toolbar button. really intuitive!! driving a stick shift is hard,until yo do it for a while. then driving an auto is boring. ease of use is another dose of FUD. hell, open mozilla. can you find the address bar, the back/forward/reload buttons? fine. open OO.org. can you find the save button, the open button, anywyas, you get the idea.
OO.org is fairly easy to use. hell, if you're such an imbecile that you can't figure it out, well, your boss deserves you. plus, how many companies really "train" their employees. i know that inmy school district, we spend very little on teacher training for office, yet it is the "standard". hell, we get all kinds of .doc email attachments that are simply a freakin one paragraph note. most people use about 1/100th of the features of word, OR OO writer.
ah, the hell with it. too many damn posts from idiots who have never used linux. or think that installation and usage are the same thing. ever try installing windows?
you're right. i got alcoa and reynolds backwards. but the principle stil applies.
I still use linux for many things. But I found that OS X makes developing LAMP applications very easy, and I have iMovie for movies of my kids. No, OS X isn't going to appeal to (linux)kernel hackers. But it appeals to those of us who want to run Apache/MySQL, etc., on a real UNIX environemnt. Plus, there is not one laptop out there besides my iBook that weighs less than 5 pounds, and can actually rest on my lap for hours. Plus, battery life is awesome.
what the fuck is .NET? is a runtime, a platform, a toolkit, an API set, desert topping, or a floor polish? i don't think you can compare .NET and java. java is a specific language that includes a specific runtime interpreter, a specific UI kit, and specific API's. microsoft has been obfuscative with .NET. nobody i think knows exactly what it is. i guess that makes it a harder target?
a long time ago, a company named reynolds was the only producer/developer of aluminum. not only that, but they were going around the world buying up all thye bauxite mines they could find. the feds stepped in and the final decision forced them to set up a whole, new company, (ALuminum COmpany of America, or ALCOA), give them plant and equipment, AND had to forfeit to them some bauxite mines. one of the motivations for this was that aluminum was considered a necessary material, not just for war, but for manufacturing.
while i don't like government intrusion, there is a very important issue to consider. with its already established monopoly, and many abuses thereof, microsoft has gone way beyond the scope of normal business activity. this is not only a case of insuring competition, but prevents control of the market in a vital sector. economists from all sides, in particular free market champion milton friedman, argue that the role of government in the economy is to prevent monopolies and protect the market system. this doesn't pick winners and losers, just makes sure that the odds are even.
since i am a teacher, i have seen education go from macs to pc's. windows is not, nor ever was easy. what happened? people had to learn to use windows. it simply was what they were given in their classrooms, labs, etc. why linux needs to be, or needs to not be, like windows, is not the issue. windows arrived as cheaper and good enough. linux is both, and in fact far more than good enough. but, what makes it hard is that most people don't even really know windows, they don't want to learn something different. i have a handful of x cleints my room and the students have no problem using OO writer, mozilla, etc. they just don't know the difference. it doesn't matter if its KDE or GNOME, or in my clients, IceWM (now that looks like windows, and i control every icon on the toolbar and menu!!) you put a linux box in front of an experienced user, they will USE it just fine. (i am not talking about configuring. that is different.) in front of an inexperienced user, the learning is just as long as windows.
grow up.
give m$ some credit. maybe they can't pull it off. so they cut their losses, just give it up. better this than a security and bug filled nightmare.
if you read gibbons' rise and fall of roman empire, you will see many striking similarities to the US. i am a history teacher by trade, a geek by wishful thinking. mr. stein hits the nail on the head. sorry if what he says offends you, but it is true.
/. readers, you might find this gleeful. fine. this article concerns america. sadly, we shot ourselves in the foot. can we heal. yes. last election looks like we are on our way. maybe there is hope.
like the romans, we have political corruption at every level, social debauchery and immorality is the norm, we have no respeoct for the rule of law, and no respect for ourselves. we have a fractured culture, are becoming a mix of disparate, competing groups, hoping to score at the public trough.
to the foreign
the biggest problem for linux adoption, forgetting for a moment the onerous oem licenses, is that people know windows. it wasn't easy to learn, and in fact, they don't really "know" windows. they kinda know how to do what they need to, and most people are technophobic anyways. anything new scares the hell out of 'em. i see it all the time where i teach. but...
my students, who haven't been thoroughly borged by redmonditis, have no problem using my x clients in my room. i say, here's the web browser (mozilla) and here's where you type (OO writer). some ask but most just go about getting done their work. and that is the key. we can't, shouldn't, try to beat windows by doing windows. ain't gonna work. be better at being linux.
gee they're not in the black? let me see, they release a product like MNF, and they put it up for download, and they have it listed for $1990 at mandrakestore.com. well no shit they're not profitable. 2 grand or free, let me see...
i have been a mandrake user since 7.0, as well as 7.2, 8.1, and 9.0 all of whcih i bought, and which i love. it is awesome. anyways, why can't a company create a value added product to gpl software. for instance, the mandrake wizards are awesome, if yo haven't tried them, they blow anything in windows away, like network card setup, video res., and even printers. for instance, at my school, we have a bunch of HP laser jets, and they all run jet direct. just had printerdrake auto find all the TCP printers, found them, auto configured them, yada yada. now, that is awesome shit. and they give it away. and they're still not profitable, no shit.
exactly where?
buy a refurb. yo can get awesome laotptops on ebay from reputable dealers that have no os, for well under a grand. whatthe hell, are you running UT2003? i have an old ctx k6-2 300, with 128mb and an upgraded 6gb hdd. runs linux great. plus, on those occasions when i have access, i get a remote x session via wireless (or wired) and run p3 speed.
you still pay per seat licenses for office, are locked into closed formats, and by EULA, can't run office XP on anything but windows OS. i'm more impressed by the work at transgaming. getting games onto linux will spur linux desktop growth at home. crossover is a great project, but it does little to promote linux. sorry.
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