Thanks. Voice of reason, I was suprised by all those people commenting after the article who had tried the Microsoft way and gotten bitten. I didnt think people would even think of doing that, when free and easy (and robust) technologies already exist. I guess this explains it all: Co-worker: "I finally installed Debian, Apache and PostGres" it really is working! Now I am ready to buy the real version" and he didnt mean support either.
LOL this is the thing that just kills me, if you suspect any system of fragmentation you dont need a defragment tool, you simply copy the content out and move them back in. Fairly straight forward, and easy to do in a Nix envrionment I might add.
The difference is, of course, that those patents in physical items are not changing the way you use them. Would you enjoy your world where patents are connected to licenses so that your electric razor is not allowed outside the borders of your country? Would you like it if the razor stopped working if you no longer were using it in approved homes? How about if you could not reuse anything inside of it for a different purpose? I could go oon, but I think we get the point that patents are not black and white, and in that context, we have to make choices that benefit us from a consumers perspective.
This is anecdotal and I will counter: My laptop has a wireless Intel chipset. I dual boot. There is no driver available for windows from Microsoft or Intel that will allow me to use WPA encryption. However, WPA is available with no configuration other then entering the key when using Linux.
The windows shell sucks, and the gui leaves a lot to be desired. There are so many features in KDE I take for granted that working on a windows box (I use win 7) is just painful.
No I should be pissed. I should be pissed because they are trying to set a standard to maximize thier stranglehold on a pay to play codec. You can bable all you want about markets and costs and why doesnt someone pay up and blah blah blah. I look at it this way: Microsoft has a fancy little mathmatical formula. Thats nice, how about we all use this neat little formula? After all, like all math it was built on the backs of others? Since we live in a silly world that can claim exclusive rights to little formulas we have to argue that its worthwhile to not play with those that dont like to share interesting mathmatical descoveries, and we stick to our own. And thats the issue, a effort by them to lock in a codec to eliminate other possibilities.
Sigh. Were you not around when they did this crap before? They have a stake in keeping the web video codec standard as H.264. They are not interested in doing this as good design. The Anti-Microsoft bias is here for a reason, they have a long history of screwing over thier enemies and limiting thier own customers choices as a consequence.
Think about the software versions. If it were windows, you could have the latest application as soon as it came out if you wanted to, it isnt tied to the distrobution. Since most people use the packages supplied by thier distro rather than rolling their own, a rolling release means that you can get the newer software while avoiding dependency hell because the package maintainers already took care of that for you.
I kept rolling along with Debian Sid for years, and even though during major changes (such as KDE 3 to 4) it can be trying, it works pretty well. And its fun to get new software on a daily basis.
Because 1. You were not forced to upgrade Ubuntu, 2. You could test the upgrade or create a burnable DVD of your environment to revert to, or 3. Switch distros while saving all of your own data (and preferences if you wish). You have options, its your data, its your freedom to use the software in ways that arent always expected.
On a side note: Sorry to hear about the Ubuntu. As with any upgrade its best to be prepared with backups. I havent experienced pain from Ubuntu lately but I dont trust it to desktop environments other than laptops.
I am lured to productivity and for file management and application integration, KDE outshines them all by a wide margin. It has the standard fare: multiple desktops, Expose, etc. But it also has features like combining several pplications into one window as tabs, push to back and max horz/vert. Rename is smart, copying is smart, titlebars and dialog boxes are nice and small too. They also are the only desktop to get single clicking right (bye bye carpal tunnel windows). I use Gnome on the Laptop, LXDE or XFCE on the Netbook and in the VM, and KDE for the workstation. When I am serious about getting productive and I have a nice big fat monitor, there is only one choice: KDE.
If there is one thing I have learned using MIcrosoft products (and subsequently banning them from my home and business truth be told) is that in the end Microsoft software will bite you hard at some point. Sometimes its a policy change, sometimes a compatibility change, sometimes a virus, but in the end it will hurt. They will continue to promise a rosy picture of the future, and continue to dazzle in the short term, but then the pain will happen again, and the only way off the crazy train that is Microsoft is look behind the curtain and get out while you still can.
Most databases are designed and modeled. The registry never was. It is not a database, even if Microsoft claims it is. The neatest thing about it is that you can hide data there that even windows cant see.
Thanks for mentioning single click. Love it. Drives me crazy that other desktop environments are a mix of single and double click. Setting windows to single click is not the same as KDE's version.
After so many years of using KDE with KDE apps I have come to expect my desktop manager to do a lot more then your assertion above. I want it to handle boring things like making external folders (sftp) feel native, that copy to clipboard and paste anywhere should just work, that drag and drop is anything and everything. I want filetypes to magically just know what I want from them, and right clicking to be very context sensitive. I want windows to give me info but not be in my way. KDE gives me that, like no other desktop environment ever has (group workload into 1 window: firefox, folder, music app: YES!). Unfortunately it always takes a while to learn the little tricks and default configuration of most distros is less then desirable.
Easy? Itunes syncing is anything but easy. I have several applications that work so much better then itunes and make it very easy to manage music. Apple made it suck becuase they wouldnt let us have a folder AND a syncing mechanism.
Nope. Companies want to put a big fat 300 megabyte driver/installer/spyware/bloatware/adware/multifunction/multilanguage/application driver on your computer.
Take a look at my printer interface, and my scanner interface on Linux. It is always basically the same. And its small and lightweight. And I like it that way.
And these too many apps that dont have counterparts are what?
The Office debate is just tired. I see it from the other side, MSOffice is the fragile annoying ugly step child. Try writing 3000 page documents with embedded spreadsheets and several database connections with Word. Or try updating all of your presentations using a command line pipe and a for-next script.
I moved Linux into the office in 2001 and into the home shortly thereafter, mostly due to the limitations of the windows environment.
If its possible to put labor into finding a market, then put more labor in shipping to the market you are a bottom feeder? Really? I am concerned over many of the negatives of capitalism, but it seems like a huge stretch to compare this guy to a grud dealer.
Huh? You do know how many people go to garage sales and thrift stores with prices of items in their heads about how much they will get for something elsewhere? This practice is as old as dirt. (Salt?). The labour involved is his cost. This is why you can have a very valuable piece of Artwork that is worth one price at your garage sale, another at a consignment store, and yet another at an Auction. Each has a cost both in money and time.
Powershell is ridiculously slow.I mean insanely slow. Using both, I find powershells concept intriguing but saying it will call.NET objects doesnt add much in the end either.
I hate iTunes. Really. Hate it. Bloated, slow, and I can't stand syncing. Its not intuitive, and what pisses me off the most, is that I already have much better music management software, making it useless for me anyways. The iPhone I like, but the iPod part just blows, thanks mostly due to its need for iTunes.
Slashdot Mirror
Recoll rocks had to say it.
For images I used Kde's Digikam and the search can be location, like images, a sketch (so so results for now), time period, and tags. Nice.
Thanks. Voice of reason, I was suprised by all those people commenting after the article who had tried the Microsoft way and gotten bitten. I didnt think people would even think of doing that, when free and easy (and robust) technologies already exist. I guess this explains it all: Co-worker: "I finally installed Debian, Apache and PostGres" it really is working! Now I am ready to buy the real version" and he didnt mean support either.
LOL this is the thing that just kills me, if you suspect any system of fragmentation you dont need a defragment tool, you simply copy the content out and move them back in. Fairly straight forward, and easy to do in a Nix envrionment I might add.
The difference is, of course, that those patents in physical items are not changing the way you use them. Would you enjoy your world where patents are connected to licenses so that your electric razor is not allowed outside the borders of your country? Would you like it if the razor stopped working if you no longer were using it in approved homes? How about if you could not reuse anything inside of it for a different purpose? I could go oon, but I think we get the point that patents are not black and white, and in that context, we have to make choices that benefit us from a consumers perspective.
This is anecdotal and I will counter:
My laptop has a wireless Intel chipset. I dual boot. There is no driver available for windows from Microsoft or Intel that will allow me to use WPA encryption. However, WPA is available with no configuration other then entering the key when using Linux.
The windows shell sucks, and the gui leaves a lot to be desired. There are so many features in KDE I take for granted that working on a windows box (I use win 7) is just painful.
No I should be pissed. I should be pissed because they are trying to set a standard to maximize thier stranglehold on a pay to play codec. You can bable all you want about markets and costs and why doesnt someone pay up and blah blah blah. I look at it this way: Microsoft has a fancy little mathmatical formula. Thats nice, how about we all use this neat little formula? After all, like all math it was built on the backs of others? Since we live in a silly world that can claim exclusive rights to little formulas we have to argue that its worthwhile to not play with those that dont like to share interesting mathmatical descoveries, and we stick to our own. And thats the issue, a effort by them to lock in a codec to eliminate other possibilities.
Sigh. Were you not around when they did this crap before? They have a stake in keeping the web video codec standard as H.264. They are not interested in doing this as good design. The Anti-Microsoft bias is here for a reason, they have a long history of screwing over thier enemies and limiting thier own customers choices as a consequence.
Think about the software versions. If it were windows, you could have the latest application as soon as it came out if you wanted to, it isnt tied to the distrobution. Since most people use the packages supplied by thier distro rather than rolling their own, a rolling release means that you can get the newer software while avoiding dependency hell because the package maintainers already took care of that for you.
I kept rolling along with Debian Sid for years, and even though during major changes (such as KDE 3 to 4) it can be trying, it works pretty well. And its fun to get new software on a daily basis.
Because 1. You were not forced to upgrade Ubuntu, 2. You could test the upgrade or create a burnable DVD of your environment to revert to, or 3. Switch distros while saving all of your own data (and preferences if you wish). You have options, its your data, its your freedom to use the software in ways that arent always expected.
On a side note: Sorry to hear about the Ubuntu. As with any upgrade its best to be prepared with backups. I havent experienced pain from Ubuntu lately but I dont trust it to desktop environments other than laptops.
I am lured to productivity and for file management and application integration, KDE outshines them all by a wide margin. It has the standard fare: multiple desktops, Expose, etc. But it also has features like combining several pplications into one window as tabs, push to back and max horz/vert. Rename is smart, copying is smart, titlebars and dialog boxes are nice and small too. They also are the only desktop to get single clicking right (bye bye carpal tunnel windows).
I use Gnome on the Laptop, LXDE or XFCE on the Netbook and in the VM, and KDE for the workstation. When I am serious about getting productive and I have a nice big fat monitor, there is only one choice: KDE.
If there is one thing I have learned using MIcrosoft products (and subsequently banning them from my home and business truth be told) is that in the end Microsoft software will bite you hard at some point. Sometimes its a policy change, sometimes a compatibility change, sometimes a virus, but in the end it will hurt. They will continue to promise a rosy picture of the future, and continue to dazzle in the short term, but then the pain will happen again, and the only way off the crazy train that is Microsoft is look behind the curtain and get out while you still can.
Most databases are designed and modeled. The registry never was. It is not a database, even if Microsoft claims it is. The neatest thing about it is that you can hide data there that even windows cant see.
You havent had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Macaffee then.
Thanks for mentioning single click. Love it. Drives me crazy that other desktop environments are a mix of single and double click. Setting windows to single click is not the same as KDE's version.
After so many years of using KDE with KDE apps I have come to expect my desktop manager to do a lot more then your assertion above. I want it to handle boring things like making external folders (sftp) feel native, that copy to clipboard and paste anywhere should just work, that drag and drop is anything and everything. I want filetypes to magically just know what I want from them, and right clicking to be very context sensitive. I want windows to give me info but not be in my way. KDE gives me that, like no other desktop environment ever has (group workload into 1 window: firefox, folder, music app: YES!). Unfortunately it always takes a while to learn the little tricks and default configuration of most distros is less then desirable.
Easy? Itunes syncing is anything but easy. I have several applications that work so much better then itunes and make it very easy to manage music. Apple made it suck becuase they wouldnt let us have a folder AND a syncing mechanism.
Nope. Companies want to put a big fat 300 megabyte driver/installer/spyware/bloatware/adware/multifunction/multilanguage/application driver on your computer.
Take a look at my printer interface, and my scanner interface on Linux. It is always basically the same. And its small and lightweight. And I like it that way.
And these too many apps that dont have counterparts are what?
The Office debate is just tired. I see it from the other side, MSOffice is the fragile annoying ugly step child. Try writing 3000 page documents with embedded spreadsheets and several database connections with Word. Or try updating all of your presentations using a command line pipe and a for-next script.
I moved Linux into the office in 2001 and into the home shortly thereafter, mostly due to the limitations of the windows environment.
If its possible to put labor into finding a market, then put more labor in shipping to the market you are a bottom feeder? Really? I am concerned over many of the negatives of capitalism, but it seems like a huge stretch to compare this guy to a grud dealer.
Dont forget that the shipping of said books also puts money into the economy.
Huh? You do know how many people go to garage sales and thrift stores with prices of items in their heads about how much they will get for something elsewhere? This practice is as old as dirt. (Salt?). The labour involved is his cost. This is why you can have a very valuable piece of Artwork that is worth one price at your garage sale, another at a consignment store, and yet another at an Auction. Each has a cost both in money and time.
Sharepoint sucks. Lets get it on the table. It does allow bad decisions and wasted pages using it like a giant folder, but it still just plain sucks.
Powershell is ridiculously slow.I mean insanely slow. Using both, I find powershells concept intriguing but saying it will call .NET objects doesnt add much in the end either.
I hate iTunes. Really. Hate it. Bloated, slow, and I can't stand syncing. Its not intuitive, and what pisses me off the most, is that I already have much better music management software, making it useless for me anyways. The iPhone I like, but the iPod part just blows, thanks mostly due to its need for iTunes.