Can you imagine the poor sap that is sitting with his face just about 1.3 feet away from his screen with a TV card on his/her computer watching the big fight or some huge sports event?
"I have a cramp in my neck and I haven't moved out of this uncomfortable position in 3 hours but MY GOD... It looks like I'm gonna get sacked when they rush the quarterback! The chiropractor bills are worth it!"
"Want some chips?"
"I can barely BREATHE without the image distorting, let alone eat man!"
Let's hope they improve this before unleashing it on the masses.
For God's sake, stop hitting back and turn the other cheek.
Actually it's interesting to note this reference in the bible, as people seem to forget the context of the time this quote was made.
During this time much of the "known world" was conquered by the Roman Empire, and the areas around Jerusalem were no exception. During those times of the empire, slavery was legal. However, the legal way to punish a slave was to slap the slave across the cheek with the back of the right hand (after all, the left was only fit to wipe one's ass with.) If they struck in any other way, it was recognizing that the person being struck was your equal.
By "turning the other cheek", you were forcing the person to strike you in a way that made him recognize you as his equal. You weren't being merciful or good, you were FLAT OUT TAUNTING the person striking you. No pun intended, but it was a backhanded way at spreading the message that no man is better than another.
(This one should replace the one that is empty. Gotta love it when your friend accidentally clicks submit before you post.)
"Microsoft would lose a lot of money," Rischel said. "Right now, Microsoft can set the price of Office products based on knowing their large clients don't have an alternative." Open formats "would create a market for other products" and competitive pricing.
The issue here that really comes out to play is that this is a customizable language. There are some groups trying to put together a standard, but as far as I can tell if they invent their own standard they're within their right.
Can't help but state the obvious here... XML is now targeted. It is in Java's position, only as far as I know without any licensing issues. Oasis might help to standardize for anyone in the open-source community, but M$ is clearly making sure they get everything else before others do.
It's like the article says, Office is thier cash cow. They're not going to let some open source movement mess with it. Not when they can make more money.
"Innovation is in Apple's DNA, so the protection of trade secrets is crucial to our success. Our policy is to take legal actions where necessary to preserve the confidentiality of our intellectual property," Apple said in a prepared statement.
So... the guy broke an NDA concerning the DNA and now faces a DA because he didn't CYA!
"If that quarter went to those who wrote the linux source contained on the disk (or even just split between Linus and the FSF), I doubt that you'd complain."
I'm so not going into that one right now. I'll save that for when I stop by to get the money you owe me.;-)
"Public spaces can provide a commons, but they shouldn't subsidize the per-person renumeration. Simply paying for the cost of the middleman is sufficient deduction for "my tax dollars.""
No one should have to pay a per-person renumeration. If I buy a book or CD, I should be able to loan that book or CD without anyone having to pay a fee for the use of the item. After all, I paid for a copy and short of illegally reproducing it I should be able to do with it as I see fit.
Now... since the issue here is e-books, I admit that I don't know much about them. However it would seem to me that the information should be able to be stored on some kind of disk that could be treated, in the end, just like a book. I don't know if this is how it's being done now, but it does make logical sense. Have a small data card like a compactflash or smartmedia card with the book stored on it and sell it for the price of the book.
And Bookstores aren't going to vanish because of public libraries. If that was going to happen it would have happened by now. People with the money for it go out and pay for the book so they have it for their libraries because it benefits them more to own the book.
At any rate, I'm tired and have a migraine. On top of this I have much work to do. We'll talk more on this subject later.
Hmm... if a book costs $5 to get on the library shelves and the author gets $0.25 from each read, once it's been read twenty times they make pure profit... and that could even be paid for out of the pockets of the readers without too much trouble.
Yes, but one of the points of borrowing books at the library is that (as long as you pay the late fees if you go overdue) you get the use of the book for free. It may be something that could be "paid for out of the pockets of the readers without too much trouble", but it would be much the same as suddenly being charged a quarter to download the linux source off of a public universities public servers, as tax dollars also go to support public universities. You could be very much able to pay it but it is the principle of the thing.
Says MS boss for shared source program, Jason Matusow, "There has been a lot of hype about open source code in the software industry as well as in the media. Linux might grab headlines, but being able to look at source code doesn't bring any benefits to an average end-user, though it might increase the trust level."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the benefits of open source the fact that DEVELOPERS can make FIXES that benefit the average end-user? Is this not one of the reasons WHY it increases trust?
I would not be surprised one bit if M$ follows this tactic with India and any other large industrialized nation seeking a computer implementation that isn't already under their control. It makes those countries think that they are being helped by a corporation that is only doing it to gain marketshare.
Windows does have the ability to shift around a job's priority, but to my knowledge this only works with Windows 2000/XP and has to be done at the start of the program. I could be wrong though.
"I love *nix! Now I just have to wait for NWN and UT2003 for Linux and I shall be happy!"
I don't know what that first thing is, but UT2k3 is out for linux. In fact, the default game comes with a linux installer on the first disk. The installer is buggy though and will, among other things, prompt for disk 2 when it means disk 1, disk 3 for disk 2, disk 1 for disk 3, and take a millenia for the game to install. Now, on my system I found it ran reasonably well save one minor problem... since the CPU was relatively underpowered for the game (Thunderbird 900) and therefore the sound lagged behind the rest of the game 3 seconds.
"Ah, see what happens when by geek friends leave me to set the damn thing up by myself?"
Ah, see what happens when you don't ask your geek friends for help setting the machine up?;-)
As far as WINE goes, I've never really gotten too interested in setting it up honestly. If I want games it's easier to either get the linux binaries (if available) or to just boot into Windows for that.
Just summing up what I've read so far...
on
Trident XP4 Reviewed
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· Score: 5, Informative
It seems that Trident want's back into the GPU mainstream. They developed this card, the XP4, and are releasing it to benchmarkers early for reviewing purposes as many card makers do.
In one review, we have extremetech maxing up the resolutions and detail levels of some heavy hitting games, in addition to a 3dmark benchmark, against two of the biggest cards out there. These cards are at least twice the MSRP of this card. Extremetech then complains that the inexpensive card with beta drivers doesn't tread water against the established champs.
In a different review, anandtech set the resolution to something normal (how many gamers out there actually run the game at 1600x1200?) and they show the card as giving fluid performance, even beating the Radeon 9000 in one map. Albeit still behind the other two cards reviewed on some tests, they do mention that the drivers are beta and that finalized they will probably make the card perform much better.
I've been noticing that extremetech's reviews seem really, well, extreme. At least from my perception they will give good reviews to what can keep pace with the top cards or exceed the top card - and at times seems to focus on the war between NVidia and ATI for the title of Supreme cardmaker.
But how long ago was it that both of these companies were in Trident's situation? How long ago was it that these companies were struggling against 3dfx?
Like many before me ahve said, wait and see. This card could turn out to be the best card price for performance wise. It could come out and have the mobile version do everything else in. It could come out and be complete crap against whatever new cards the twin titans come out with.
I've seen Linux--as UNIX is OS X, probably more--crawl on things that Windows _on the same machine_ has no problem with.
Did you check to make sure that hdparm is taking full advantage of your HD and that the kernel is using optimized instruction sets for your processor instead of generic 386 sets?
Sure, KDE could be to blame
This is why I don't really like kde. I much prefer IceWM or GNUStep if I want a speed-demon. They may look more dated but they run much faster and use less resources. If you're looking for something "prettier" then go with GNOME. At least this is MY personal preference.
An UNIX is more stable, and probably IS faster in a few specific or low-overhead (GUI et al) apps (note: I just haven't had the chance to see this firsthand, so I won't claim to know that it is.), but being UNIX doesn't automatically grant you a speed boost over Windows or anything else.
Well, as I said before this probably has more to do with your individual optimizations. Have Tom or I look at the machine. There are _STABLE_ tweaks that most systems don't do in order to insure vanilla hardware compatability. I've found that if hdparm isn't tweaked properly the hard disk access time, and therefore any apps that do any sort of I/O work, are slowed dramatically.
It is a logical choice. If they stripped away Windows in that equasion they'd lose too many customers, but at the same time people come to expect nowadays that computer makers will switch to "other crap" to save money anyways.
But it's more than that. They're going with Sun Microsystems. Sun and M$ have locked horns over MANY things in the past, Java licensing being one of the biggies.
They didn't just kick them in the nuts. From a politics standpoint they just had their genitals smashed by a topless midget with a sledgehammer baby!!!
Where does Hooter's find them? Where do any nightclubs find them? Perhaps if people at movie theaters were TIPPED like waitresses at bars and resturants they'd have more than just PFY's working theaters.
Think of it this way... You're sitting in a comfy leather chair in an air conditioned arena. The replay of you bringing in the winning flag-capture is flashing on one of the giant screens at the front of the arena. A waiter/watress brings you the vat of scotch you ordered, and you slowly nurse it whilst clamoring with your local clanmates as you ready for the next match...
It'd be like going to the clubs, only slightly better in that no obnoxious idiots would look at you funny for just sitting at the bar soaking in the scenes and sounds.
This will only be really successful if they can make the gaming experience people get at home better. They have to offer things like cigars, drinks (free refils on sodas), snacks, and whatnot. Furthermore, if they REALLY want the bucks from the men of that age bracket, have cute women be the waitresses. Think about it. What horny male gamer 21+ wouldn't like to game in a big comfy chair while an attractive woman brings them drinks and their success is trumpeted to all there? I'd be there in a heartbeat.
Without the ammeneties though, say it's just a movie theater converted to an arena for gaming, and all they do for you is give you a terminal and some time. That will fail. There has to be a draw.
"If you're able to install a distribution of Linux (effectively) then you damn straight should be able to put together a computer (Then come with well documented instructions!!)?"
Well, yes. Pretty much everyone I know who can install linux and actually get something that works when they're done can build their own PCs. There is a big difference between the computer's marketed use is and what the/. crowd could/would do with it.
"It just seems you "consumers" (rather then savvy geeks) need brand recognition to get by with your life."
I build my computers, my guitars, and many other things around my apartment. I've never really needed any sort of brand name on my products, just a good cost/performance ratio. So, outside of trying to trigger a flame war, I don't know why you would throw in that comment.
That will work for people who know computers well enough to build them, but the average person doesn't really know too much on how to make one.
Everyone knows the old addage you get what you pay for. When I worked selling computers though, there were two types of customers. There was the type that wanted the best hardware they could get, price be damned, and there was the type that just wanted to type stuff up and surf the net, and those people really only wanted to spend what they had to.
By offering customers a(cheap) linux solution which allows them to type up papers and surf the internet, you are answering the computer needs of a signifigant marketshare. By putting Linux in thier hands, you're enabling them to see that there's more to the world than bargain basement e-machines running the latest M$ operating system, and for around 33% - 50% of the cost of one of those e-machines.
Well, first let's factor in one thing. The majority of people developing open source software are NOT paid for their efforts. They have to hold down jobs like the rest of us.
Now, from that, factor in the actual time to write the base code of the application, the time it takes to patch and fix any bugs reported to the developers, not to mention the time taken to (god forbid) live their daily lives. Writing the actual interface becomes doing the bare necessity to make the bulk of the code work.
Perhaps if they were paid to do nothing but sit at home and code for 8 hours a day on their projects they'd be more useable. In the meantime, since they are (largely) unpaid for their coding efforts don't expect something that's going to be as sleek and sexy looking as something you can buy on a shelf.
If people in the open source community (users or coders) are upset by this fact, then I encourage them for the betterment of the movement to grab their fav. language and their favorite open source program and produce something better for the interface, open source the interface, and make it available as well.
I disagree for one small point...
If you make things too difficult, people start to write things down. The person that would need to write stuff down is not going to think about a secure place to hide this information, they're going to want it right by thier computer. Anyone who can get to that computer then can also get by the security, making it useless.
Even if it's a very non-informative talk that takes 5 minutes, as long as it reminds developers of this small point it's done it's job.
A note on usability and security from my exp...
on
Secure Interaction Design
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· Score: 4, Interesting
What seems like an eternity ago myself and a friend were the admins of a beowulf cluster for a university physics department. Often times the user themselves would destroy any system security even before things like the interface was an issue. I can't tell you the number of times I'd walk into the lab where the cluster was stored only to find that someone using the machine logged into the mother node as root, left the machine sitting open to the world in an unlocked lab for 8 hour spans, taped the root password to the monitor, and then insisted that the highest priority we face be tightening up security, because they were having issues that the firewall wasn't detecting. ~growls~ At any rate... back to the debate between useability and security.
In my opinion, it's rare that I've seen anything blend robust power with a simple user interface. Usually in order to make things "more intuitive" for the user they've stripped down a lot of the options from the user. The logic behind this was that if the user has fewer choices, there's less the user has to know or think about when configuring something. On the other side of the coin, I've seen programs that are completely customizable, but you spend three days RTFMing trying to figure out why it doesn't work only to find out that the hexidecimal error message its spitting out is because there is a hidden space where there shouldnt be or some other small syntax error in a 30 page text configuration file.
The best ways that I've seen usability and functionality blended (which is the same as useability vs. any function such as security) have been when the simple choices were offered, but with an option right next to the choice to allow for greater customization of that specific choice.
Anyways, I've probably ranted enough for now. Best get back to work.
When I clicked on the link to the article, I had to laugh.
Right above the headline touting "Intel releases fastest processor ever" or something to that effect was a "AMD Me" ad saying that the AMD's did more instructions per clock cycle than competitors.
I feel this sudden urge to make a joke about performing illegal operations and Microsoft, but after a while you just start to wait expectantly for the legal ones.
So, once again, Microsoft has performed an illegal operation and will not be shut down. Look on the bright side of this one though. This one is actually minorly entertaining from the stupidity factor. You sit back and wonder about a few things.
1.) Which ececutive woke up one morning and said "I know what we can do to drum up buisness! Lets annoy and confuse people by having a bunch of people in butterfly costumes litter a section of a major metropolis! Customers will be SO impressed with our superior marketing that they'll switch ISP's in the DROVES!!!"
2.) How much it costs to get someone to throw dignity out the window and skate through NYC in a brightly colored butterfly costume.
3.) How they were able to find so MANY people willing to skate through NYC in a brightly colored butterfly costume.
4.) How hard did the judge laugh/cry while in his chambers that with all the dealings with Microsoft in court, he had to deal with this part, as opposed to something possibly weighty and constructive like the antitrust dealings.
and finally...
5.) We know they paid the $50.00 fine and cleaned it up, but how much was it to buy the dignities of all the skaters, pay for the actual cellophane ads, buy/rent the butterfly costumes, and pay for the lawyers time in the courtroom that bought them such a low fine. When you think about ALL that, it was a little more expensive for their little ad campaign. Was it still cheaper than a TV ad? Probably. But still, I'm actually curious as to the $$ ammount M$ pays people for a slice of dignity and a few minutes ot time on skates...
...both in the article and in the responses I've poured through so far. This is my two cents. I claim neither to be a linux guru or a complete newbie, so here goes.
I tried installing Debian when 2.2r4 was the stable release and 3.0 was still, at best, a beta. This was roughly two years after I started using Linux. It had come recommended to me from several other linux friends for it's rock-hard stability and lack of dependency hell, which was a nightmare at that point. After trying to install several times, I could not get anything working and was naturally frustrated. So I had chucked it and gone back to what I've always liked as my distro, Red Hat.
I read the article, and I read many reviews which claimed that Debian was NOT a distribution which was aimed at home users and therefore an easy installer was not needed. Personally, I think a lot of that could be fixed by offering a choice at boot-up between the old installer for seasoned debian users and a newer graphical installer for new users. Just writing off newbies in the design of your installer is not the best idea if you have a reputation for being the best linux out there for stability.
The other point that the author of the first review made I take a bit of an opposite stance with. The author rips into debian because packages were out of date. Well, to my knowledge (and I could be way off base here) most debian developers are developers not because they're being paid to, but because it's their hobby, thier passion, what they just love to do. Most developers then have a life far outside of just developing solutions for the OS. They have jobs, SO's, Families, friends... things that might just take priority to making sure the latest version of random_package_X is default in the OS. The reviewer is upset because the installer is not as polished as Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandrake. Well, that figures. Those three distributions have a paid staff whose JOB it is to make sure things are polished and looking nice. People SHOULD take that into account.
If developers are doing this in thier spare moments they are, of course, going to give top priority to things like bug fixes and stability issues, which is probably WHY it has the stability it does. People who want to see if they can make a better installer should contact Debian and see if they can get some better info on how exactly they can assist.
Everyone gets upset about e-mail spam, but there is one thing that you have to take into account. Every day thousands of companies are sending americans unrequested commercial solicitations via the USPS.
Now, here becomes the question... are spammers protected by the same laws that enable companies to send you junk mail? If they are then it's something you just have to delete every day, like throwing out junk mail. If not, can those companies that send junk-mail be fined on similar grounds?
Something slightly thought-provoking if you think about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you imagine the poor sap that is sitting with his face just about 1.3 feet away from his screen with a TV card on his/her computer watching the big fight or some huge sports event?
"I have a cramp in my neck and I haven't moved out of this uncomfortable position in 3 hours but MY GOD... It looks like I'm gonna get sacked when they rush the quarterback! The chiropractor bills are worth it!"
"Want some chips?"
"I can barely BREATHE without the image distorting, let alone eat man!"
Let's hope they improve this before unleashing it on the masses.
During this time much of the "known world" was conquered by the Roman Empire, and the areas around Jerusalem were no exception. During those times of the empire, slavery was legal. However, the legal way to punish a slave was to slap the slave across the cheek with the back of the right hand (after all, the left was only fit to wipe one's ass with.) If they struck in any other way, it was recognizing that the person being struck was your equal.
By "turning the other cheek", you were forcing the person to strike you in a way that made him recognize you as his equal. You weren't being merciful or good, you were FLAT OUT TAUNTING the person striking you. No pun intended, but it was a backhanded way at spreading the message that no man is better than another.
The issue here that really comes out to play is that this is a customizable language. There are some groups trying to put together a standard, but as far as I can tell if they invent their own standard they're within their right.
Can't help but state the obvious here... XML is now targeted. It is in Java's position, only as far as I know without any licensing issues. Oasis might help to standardize for anyone in the open-source community, but M$ is clearly making sure they get everything else before others do.
It's like the article says, Office is thier cash cow. They're not going to let some open source movement mess with it. Not when they can make more money.
So... the guy broke an NDA concerning the DNA and now faces a DA because he didn't CYA!
"If that quarter went to those who wrote the linux source contained on the disk (or even just split between Linus and the FSF), I doubt that you'd complain."
;-)
I'm so not going into that one right now. I'll save that for when I stop by to get the money you owe me.
"Public spaces can provide a commons, but they shouldn't subsidize the per-person renumeration. Simply paying for the cost of the middleman is sufficient deduction for "my tax dollars.""
No one should have to pay a per-person renumeration. If I buy a book or CD, I should be able to loan that book or CD without anyone having to pay a fee for the use of the item. After all, I paid for a copy and short of illegally reproducing it I should be able to do with it as I see fit.
Now... since the issue here is e-books, I admit that I don't know much about them. However it would seem to me that the information should be able to be stored on some kind of disk that could be treated, in the end, just like a book. I don't know if this is how it's being done now, but it does make logical sense. Have a small data card like a compactflash or smartmedia card with the book stored on it and sell it for the price of the book.
And Bookstores aren't going to vanish because of public libraries. If that was going to happen it would have happened by now. People with the money for it go out and pay for the book so they have it for their libraries because it benefits them more to own the book.
At any rate, I'm tired and have a migraine. On top of this I have much work to do. We'll talk more on this subject later.
I would not be surprised one bit if M$ follows this tactic with India and any other large industrialized nation seeking a computer implementation that isn't already under their control. It makes those countries think that they are being helped by a corporation that is only doing it to gain marketshare.
I agree. That was not flamebait.
Windows does have the ability to shift around a job's priority, but to my knowledge this only works with Windows 2000/XP and has to be done at the start of the program. I could be wrong though.
"I love *nix! Now I just have to wait for NWN and UT2003 for Linux and I shall be happy!"
I don't know what that first thing is, but UT2k3 is out for linux. In fact, the default game comes with a linux installer on the first disk. The installer is buggy though and will, among other things, prompt for disk 2 when it means disk 1, disk 3 for disk 2, disk 1 for disk 3, and take a millenia for the game to install. Now, on my system I found it ran reasonably well save one minor problem... since the CPU was relatively underpowered for the game (Thunderbird 900) and therefore the sound lagged behind the rest of the game 3 seconds.
But it is out there.
"Ah, see what happens when by geek friends leave me to set the damn thing up by myself?"
;-)
Ah, see what happens when you don't ask your geek friends for help setting the machine up?
As far as WINE goes, I've never really gotten too interested in setting it up honestly. If I want games it's easier to either get the linux binaries (if available) or to just boot into Windows for that.
It seems that Trident want's back into the GPU mainstream. They developed this card, the XP4, and are releasing it to benchmarkers early for reviewing purposes as many card makers do.
In one review, we have extremetech maxing up the resolutions and detail levels of some heavy hitting games, in addition to a 3dmark benchmark, against two of the biggest cards out there. These cards are at least twice the MSRP of this card. Extremetech then complains that the inexpensive card with beta drivers doesn't tread water against the established champs.
In a different review, anandtech set the resolution to something normal (how many gamers out there actually run the game at 1600x1200?) and they show the card as giving fluid performance, even beating the Radeon 9000 in one map. Albeit still behind the other two cards reviewed on some tests, they do mention that the drivers are beta and that finalized they will probably make the card perform much better.
I've been noticing that extremetech's reviews seem really, well, extreme. At least from my perception they will give good reviews to what can keep pace with the top cards or exceed the top card - and at times seems to focus on the war between NVidia and ATI for the title of Supreme cardmaker.
But how long ago was it that both of these companies were in Trident's situation? How long ago was it that these companies were struggling against 3dfx?
Like many before me ahve said, wait and see. This card could turn out to be the best card price for performance wise. It could come out and have the mobile version do everything else in. It could come out and be complete crap against whatever new cards the twin titans come out with.
Did you check to make sure that hdparm is taking full advantage of your HD and that the kernel is using optimized instruction sets for your processor instead of generic 386 sets?
This is why I don't really like kde. I much prefer IceWM or GNUStep if I want a speed-demon. They may look more dated but they run much faster and use less resources. If you're looking for something "prettier" then go with GNOME. At least this is MY personal preference.
Well, as I said before this probably has more to do with your individual optimizations. Have Tom or I look at the machine. There are _STABLE_ tweaks that most systems don't do in order to insure vanilla hardware compatability. I've found that if hdparm isn't tweaked properly the hard disk access time, and therefore any apps that do any sort of I/O work, are slowed dramatically.
It is a logical choice. If they stripped away Windows in that equasion they'd lose too many customers, but at the same time people come to expect nowadays that computer makers will switch to "other crap" to save money anyways. But it's more than that. They're going with Sun Microsystems. Sun and M$ have locked horns over MANY things in the past, Java licensing being one of the biggies. They didn't just kick them in the nuts. From a politics standpoint they just had their genitals smashed by a topless midget with a sledgehammer baby!!!
Where does Hooter's find them? Where do any nightclubs find them? Perhaps if people at movie theaters were TIPPED like waitresses at bars and resturants they'd have more than just PFY's working theaters.
Think of it this way... You're sitting in a comfy leather chair in an air conditioned arena. The replay of you bringing in the winning flag-capture is flashing on one of the giant screens at the front of the arena. A waiter/watress brings you the vat of scotch you ordered, and you slowly nurse it whilst clamoring with your local clanmates as you ready for the next match...
It'd be like going to the clubs, only slightly better in that no obnoxious idiots would look at you funny for just sitting at the bar soaking in the scenes and sounds.
This will only be really successful if they can make the gaming experience people get at home better. They have to offer things like cigars, drinks (free refils on sodas), snacks, and whatnot. Furthermore, if they REALLY want the bucks from the men of that age bracket, have cute women be the waitresses. Think about it. What horny male gamer 21+ wouldn't like to game in a big comfy chair while an attractive woman brings them drinks and their success is trumpeted to all there? I'd be there in a heartbeat.
Without the ammeneties though, say it's just a movie theater converted to an arena for gaming, and all they do for you is give you a terminal and some time. That will fail. There has to be a draw.
Well, yes. Pretty much everyone I know who can install linux and actually get something that works when they're done can build their own PCs. There is a big difference between the computer's marketed use is and what the
I build my computers, my guitars, and many other things around my apartment. I've never really needed any sort of brand name on my products, just a good cost/performance ratio. So, outside of trying to trigger a flame war, I don't know why you would throw in that comment.
One small point...
That will work for people who know computers well enough to build them, but the average person doesn't really know too much on how to make one.
Everyone knows the old addage you get what you pay for. When I worked selling computers though, there were two types of customers. There was the type that wanted the best hardware they could get, price be damned, and there was the type that just wanted to type stuff up and surf the net, and those people really only wanted to spend what they had to.
By offering customers a(cheap) linux solution which allows them to type up papers and surf the internet, you are answering the computer needs of a signifigant marketshare. By putting Linux in thier hands, you're enabling them to see that there's more to the world than bargain basement e-machines running the latest M$ operating system, and for around 33% - 50% of the cost of one of those e-machines.
Well, first let's factor in one thing. The majority of people developing open source software are NOT paid for their efforts. They have to hold down jobs like the rest of us.
Now, from that, factor in the actual time to write the base code of the application, the time it takes to patch and fix any bugs reported to the developers, not to mention the time taken to (god forbid) live their daily lives. Writing the actual interface becomes doing the bare necessity to make the bulk of the code work.
Perhaps if they were paid to do nothing but sit at home and code for 8 hours a day on their projects they'd be more useable. In the meantime, since they are (largely) unpaid for their coding efforts don't expect something that's going to be as sleek and sexy looking as something you can buy on a shelf.
If people in the open source community (users or coders) are upset by this fact, then I encourage them for the betterment of the movement to grab their fav. language and their favorite open source program and produce something better for the interface, open source the interface, and make it available as well.
I disagree for one small point... If you make things too difficult, people start to write things down. The person that would need to write stuff down is not going to think about a secure place to hide this information, they're going to want it right by thier computer. Anyone who can get to that computer then can also get by the security, making it useless. Even if it's a very non-informative talk that takes 5 minutes, as long as it reminds developers of this small point it's done it's job.
What seems like an eternity ago myself and a friend were the admins of a beowulf cluster for a university physics department. Often times the user themselves would destroy any system security even before things like the interface was an issue. I can't tell you the number of times I'd walk into the lab where the cluster was stored only to find that someone using the machine logged into the mother node as root, left the machine sitting open to the world in an unlocked lab for 8 hour spans, taped the root password to the monitor, and then insisted that the highest priority we face be tightening up security, because they were having issues that the firewall wasn't detecting. ~growls~ At any rate... back to the debate between useability and security.
In my opinion, it's rare that I've seen anything blend robust power with a simple user interface. Usually in order to make things "more intuitive" for the user they've stripped down a lot of the options from the user. The logic behind this was that if the user has fewer choices, there's less the user has to know or think about when configuring something. On the other side of the coin, I've seen programs that are completely customizable, but you spend three days RTFMing trying to figure out why it doesn't work only to find out that the hexidecimal error message its spitting out is because there is a hidden space where there shouldnt be or some other small syntax error in a 30 page text configuration file.
The best ways that I've seen usability and functionality blended (which is the same as useability vs. any function such as security) have been when the simple choices were offered, but with an option right next to the choice to allow for greater customization of that specific choice.
Anyways, I've probably ranted enough for now. Best get back to work.
When I clicked on the link to the article, I had to laugh.
Right above the headline touting "Intel releases fastest processor ever" or something to that effect was a "AMD Me" ad saying that the AMD's did more instructions per clock cycle than competitors.
I feel this sudden urge to make a joke about performing illegal operations and Microsoft, but after a while you just start to wait expectantly for the legal ones. So, once again, Microsoft has performed an illegal operation and will not be shut down. Look on the bright side of this one though. This one is actually minorly entertaining from the stupidity factor. You sit back and wonder about a few things. 1.) Which ececutive woke up one morning and said "I know what we can do to drum up buisness! Lets annoy and confuse people by having a bunch of people in butterfly costumes litter a section of a major metropolis! Customers will be SO impressed with our superior marketing that they'll switch ISP's in the DROVES!!!" 2.) How much it costs to get someone to throw dignity out the window and skate through NYC in a brightly colored butterfly costume. 3.) How they were able to find so MANY people willing to skate through NYC in a brightly colored butterfly costume. 4.) How hard did the judge laugh/cry while in his chambers that with all the dealings with Microsoft in court, he had to deal with this part, as opposed to something possibly weighty and constructive like the antitrust dealings. and finally... 5.) We know they paid the $50.00 fine and cleaned it up, but how much was it to buy the dignities of all the skaters, pay for the actual cellophane ads, buy/rent the butterfly costumes, and pay for the lawyers time in the courtroom that bought them such a low fine. When you think about ALL that, it was a little more expensive for their little ad campaign. Was it still cheaper than a TV ad? Probably. But still, I'm actually curious as to the $$ ammount M$ pays people for a slice of dignity and a few minutes ot time on skates...
...both in the article and in the responses I've poured through so far. This is my two cents. I claim neither to be a linux guru or a complete newbie, so here goes.
I tried installing Debian when 2.2r4 was the stable release and 3.0 was still, at best, a beta. This was roughly two years after I started using Linux. It had come recommended to me from several other linux friends for it's rock-hard stability and lack of dependency hell, which was a nightmare at that point. After trying to install several times, I could not get anything working and was naturally frustrated. So I had chucked it and gone back to what I've always liked as my distro, Red Hat.
I read the article, and I read many reviews which claimed that Debian was NOT a distribution which was aimed at home users and therefore an easy installer was not needed. Personally, I think a lot of that could be fixed by offering a choice at boot-up between the old installer for seasoned debian users and a newer graphical installer for new users. Just writing off newbies in the design of your installer is not the best idea if you have a reputation for being the best linux out there for stability.
The other point that the author of the first review made I take a bit of an opposite stance with. The author rips into debian because packages were out of date. Well, to my knowledge (and I could be way off base here) most debian developers are developers not because they're being paid to, but because it's their hobby, thier passion, what they just love to do. Most developers then have a life far outside of just developing solutions for the OS. They have jobs, SO's, Families, friends... things that might just take priority to making sure the latest version of random_package_X is default in the OS. The reviewer is upset because the installer is not as polished as Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandrake. Well, that figures. Those three distributions have a paid staff whose JOB it is to make sure things are polished and looking nice. People SHOULD take that into account.
If developers are doing this in thier spare moments they are, of course, going to give top priority to things like bug fixes and stability issues, which is probably WHY it has the stability it does. People who want to see if they can make a better installer should contact Debian and see if they can get some better info on how exactly they can assist.
Everyone gets upset about e-mail spam, but there is one thing that you have to take into account. Every day thousands of companies are sending americans unrequested commercial solicitations via the USPS.
Now, here becomes the question... are spammers protected by the same laws that enable companies to send you junk mail? If they are then it's something you just have to delete every day, like throwing out junk mail. If not, can those companies that send junk-mail be fined on similar grounds?
Something slightly thought-provoking if you think about it.
It almost makes you wonder how many people out there called 911 because they thought the TiVo was going to burn down thier house...