I used a company laptop and had a lot of personal stuff on it. On my last day I had only a few hours to get my stuff off of the laptop before they wiped it. Also, if you work for the government or a government contractor, once you access a classified network or have classified stuff on your laptop, that laptop belongs to the government.
It takes a couple of clicks to disable the extension (especially since everyone knows about it now:)), so what's the big deal? OSS needs some way of generating revenue. There really is little privacy in the world today... what with cell phones, ezpass, online banking, etc...The only way to be truly private is to "opt-out" of technology -- get rid of your cell phones, computers, ezpass,,pay your bills with "snail-mail", nix twitter, facebook, e-harmony, myspace, etc...
Actually, the key to Apple's success not so much that they include non-techies in their design process (they probably do), but that they haven't laid off their human-factors scientists. Sometimes users don't even know what would make their lives easier, but psychologists trained in human factors do. I recently "bit the bullet" and bought a MacBook (which was about $600.00 more expensive than a comparable Dell or Acer laptop), and have fallen in love with the machine. I'm fascinated by the "little things" that Apple has done: like making the touchpad larger and making it a button -- I've always hated touchpads on laptops, but this one is so well thought out that I don't ever use a mouse with the MacBook. I had a dramatic example of Apple's practical ingenuity when my dog suddenly ran across the room, right through my son's and mine power cords -- My son's Acer laptop went crashing to the floor, while the Macbook's power cord neatly detached from the machine (it connects to the machine via a small magnetic connector). I don't think a lay-person thought up these things. Every day I discover something like this about the Mac, and I wonder why other companies don't follow Apple's lead (patents??). You see this with the iPhone, also, where other phones have tried but can't seem to get the "touch and feel" quite right. I think it also should be noted that Apple is first and foremost a "hardware" company, not a software company -- they don't market MAC OS X -- they market Macs. Perhaps a Linux distribution should hook up with a good hardware company, create a really nice innovative machine and "brand it". I think this would especially work since Linux comes with so many useful professional apps (like Open Office Suite, Gimp, Firefox, Banshee etc...) you would get a "ready to go" machine right out of the box. I have Ubuntu running on my MacBook (VMWare Fusion rocks!!) and it's a dream combination. I can't wait for those "I'm an Ubuntu" commercials:)
With laptops becoming lighter and more powerful, and cell phones getting more powerful, it seems that the netbook is filling a very small niche. I for one can't see any use for a netbook, now. Just having a portable web-browser with a few productivity apps is served very well by my iPhone. As for incredible all-around computing power with good portability -- I have a 13" Macbook running Mac OS-X and Ubuntu (I'll probably put XP or Vista on it, too). The comments about Linux are puzzling -- I haven't run into anyone who has had as much trouble with Linux as with Vista. I think that most of those who purchase netbooks may be computer novices who don't know what Linux is, and may have returned their netbooks without even trying it. I've seen a netbook with an 8Gb flashdrive, no CD drive and 2 usbports selling for over $300.00, and then I saw a really small laptop (Acer I think) with a 120Gb harddrive and CD drive and many usb drives for almost the same price. What gives? It makes be think that the whole netbook thing is a scam.
Strange. My 9 and 12 year-old sons have been using Ubuntu for 2 years with no complaints. Of course the younger generation is very computer literate and probably find much more things "intuitive" than most adults... I don't understand this author's statement that he couldn't find a way to upgrade to ubuntu 8.10 from 8.04 using Upgrade Manager. I remember the Upgrade Manager telling me that an upgrade was a available, and I upgraded to 8.10 with one click --Much, much easier than upgrading any version of Windows (anybody remember trying to upgrade from Windows ME to 'anything'). Most apps found on the web, (if not in a repository found by the Synaptic Package Manager or Add/Remove) will list the exact apt-get command you have to type, even though 90% of the time just typing apt-get install followed by the application name will do the trick. I also didn't understand his problem with OpenOffice. It seems strange that he's found so many things confusing. It seems that 5 minutes on the Ubuntu homepage or a few minutes with Google would have clarified everything for him. When I switched my "family computer" from Windows 2000 to Ubuntu, my kids hardly noticed, except to positively state that they liked Ubuntu more than Win 2000 (it seemed more like Windows XP to them). Ironically, when my ex-wife switch her "family computer" to Vista from XP, all hell broke loose, even to the extent that the kids insisted on coming over to my house to use the Ubuntu Machine to do their schoolwork (my 9-year-old son prefers OpenOffice , and my 12-year-old MS Office under WINE, rather than Office 2007, which they refuse to use). The package Management under Ubuntu is actually a wonderful thing. A co-worker of mine recently tried to uninstall Office 2003 and managed to "brick" his PC (and he's a computer professional). He spent a whole day just to get his PC usable again. When I referred him to a Microsoft support site that deals with this problem, he didn't bother to try "their solution" and just resigned himself to leave Office installed. Also, just recently on Slashdot, there was reference to Bill Gates's own frustration trying to install MovieMaker on Windows. I'm a longtime Windows user, and I have to save that the only time I've run into the type of frustration I've had installing, uninstalling or upgrading on Windows with Ubuntu, was when I've tried to install certain Windows programs on WINE (like "Command and Conquer 3"). The only other complaint I have with Ubuntu is that I can't easily sync my iPod Touch (not without downgrading the firmware and jailbreaking it). For the life of me, I can't understand why Apple hasn't made this easy (by perhaps providing an iTunes for Linux). Anyway, I've found that those of my friends who have switched to Ubuntu call me for help much less frequently that those of my friends who have gone to Vista. My experience is that younger users (like my kids and teenagers) seem to find much many more things "intuitive" than adults (after all, they're growing up with modern technology). Senior Citizen Newbies find Windows, MACs and Ubuntu equally challenging or easy (depending on the Senior).
Perhaps this survey only concentrated on iPhone users and not iPod Touch users. Perhaps those who have iPhones are not as interested in apps as they are in communication. I've found that most iPod Touch users (of which I and my 12-year-old son are) usually fill up there iPods with multiple pages of apps. Though I have bought apps, I would say that most of the apps I have are free. I had jailbroken my iPod Touch previous to the creation of the app store. If the app store didn't offer free apps along with the paid ones, it's possible I would have kept my iPod jailbroken. I haven't tired of many apps, and I use some apps everyday (like Chess Genius, iSports, iReversi, Sudoku, Facebook, WorldWiki, Maps, Stocks, etc...). Other apps like Guitar Chords aren't really the kind of app you use everyday, but are nice to have when you need them. So I dispute the claims of this survey. I think "we" are very much into appstore apps. I wonder if these are the findings of a envious HP iPaq owner or a "Zune Person"...
Just last night I was watching my 12-year-old son running media player, while browsing the web looking for cool wallpapers, while writing a story, while downloading a video, while playing othello, while having an IM window open...and I noticed a few apps minimized... Of course, this was on my Ubuntu machine, but I think my 8-year-old had 5 or 6 things running on his Acer laptop running Vista. If they had an OS than would only run 3 apps at a time, they would think it was broken (they thought Windows 2000 was broken for other reasons... no complaints about XP, though, and Vista's been okay since the first Service Patch, but they like Ubuntu the best -- they say it's a lot like XP(!?!)). I've never understood the strategy of marketing a crappy, crippled, "toy" OS, so that one can charge money for it with the rationale that their real OS is so much more expensive. It's especially puzzling when one considers that one can get a very powerful professional OS for free, with a bunch of great free applications. Does Microsoft have a human factors department? I guess they have gotten away with these strategies for so long, they've forgotten how to develop something that people really want.
I think that tests are perfectly reasonable for a technical job. Most of the IT positions I have obtained required me to take a test. The problem is that too many candidates embellish their resumes (or outright lie), and then cost a project time and money when they find themselves "over their head" technically. Many firms will hire through agencies because they expect that the agency will thoroughly "vet" the candidate. I've found a wide range of knowledge and talent when interviewing programmers. More often than not I've found that candidates with Master's Degrees in CompSci know all the buzzwords, but can't write a line a code. Also, testing can help one realistically evaluate a talent that may not have an advanced degree or formal experience. I've discovered "genius" programmers who don't even have a B.S..Also, testing can reveal how current a candidates's skills are, and also how proficient they are. There's a big difference between someone who has been coding every day for 5 years, and someone who has been doing "systems enginering" or "project management" -- though their resumes may show similar experience or education. Sometimes, you need a hardcore "coder". Such a person might find a "test" stupid and unnecessary, but won't flinch at taking it. On the other hand, if I were looking for someone who could code fast and effortlessly, I may hesitate to take a chance on someone who would refuse to take a simple technical test.
I actually thought the commercial was about shoes. I was thinking "this is the worst shoe commercial I've ever seen" when the Windows logo flashed on the screen. Who thought this was an acceptable ad?? -- Oh, the same people who brought us Vista. The Mojave project ads are pretty bad, too (reminds me of IBM's old OS2 Warp ads). To be sure, advertisement for an Operating System is hard, since most people really don't know what an OS is. But was this an OS ad?? A Microsoft Ad?? A Bill Gates for VP ad?? What is this ad's purpose?? To show how weird Bill Gates is?
I've had a lot of experience with ISP support, with Adelphia (before they collapsed), Comcast (before I switched) and now Verizon. I'm a computer engineer, so if I call the ISP it's usually because I've figured out that the problem is at their end, and I can tell them what to do to fix it, yet I've found myself getting very, very, very frustrated and angry at the absurdity that I've encountered. In one case, after a half-hour of maneuvering through the maddening computer prompts (press 1, press 3, press 7 etc...) to speak to a human being, I got a support person who gave me the standard "reboot your computer and reset your modem". After a few minutes of first humoring him, and then another few minutes of walking through steps I knew were not the problem, I tried to explain to him what the problem was and what he had to do. He obviously had no idea about IP addresses, default gateways, DSN or what "ping" meant -- and after pretending to listen to me, he said that I needed to call "Lynksys". I said "okay", hung up, and immediately called back, went through the same scenario with another support person, who told me "you have to call Microsoft". I said "okay" hung up and immediately called back, and after maneuvering through the prompts again to get a human, I got a support person who (after suggesting that I reboot and rest my modem) listened to what I had to say, appeared to understand everything and had my internet running again in under 5 minutes. All told, however, I was on the phone for about 3 hours, and you have to realize how maddening it is when after to finally get to the prompt that says "press 7 if you are having connectivity problems", you're put on hold and every minute the recording tells you to try going to their website!! I know few people who have my patience or restraint (and it took every bit of that restraint to avoid letting out my frustration on that third support person[the one who finally helped] when she told me to try rebooting and resetting the modem) so I can just imagine what a layperson must feel. I remember having a technician come to my house to set up the internet service who kept trying different modems (saying "I can't believe all these are defective') before I intervened and set it up myself. I think that ISPs are overwhelmed with service calls, are understaffed, and suffer from a wide discrepancy of skill-sets amongst their personnel. The use of computer prompting to carry some of this burden is what gives computer prompting a bad name. I wouldn't be surprised if the actress actually did threaten the technician -- ISP support seems designed to coerce otherwise normal, well-adjusted persons to become homicidal, suicidal and paranoid.
I'm not surprised that "community distros" are becoming more popular in the business setting. I've always been skeptical of Linux's ability to steal market share from Windows, but I've just recently installed Ubuntu 8.0.4 on a home computer and work computer. I'm astonished. It's stable, installation was easy (easier than Windows XP or Vista), package management was easy, and device drivers were plentiful (device detection was perfect). At work, the OpenOffice Suite, Netbeans, Java, and Eclipse were adequate to perform all my work (inoperability with my colleagues using comparable Windows apps was good). At home, again, I thought I would probably finding myself switching back to windows to do certain things, but that hasn't been the case (I haven't tried to manage my iPod yet, though). I think it may actually be easier for business to move from XP to Ubuntu, than to go to Vista. I know that my brother, a CEO, recently upgraded his home computers, replacing his two XP machines with a MAC and a Vista Box. He's found it easier to get used to the MAC than Vista. I'm sure he would find Ubuntu easier than Vista.
THe truely interesting thing being missed is that JCS or Kuru, is on the upswing here in America. Ppl are missing that. We have had NONE until recent time and it is appearing all over. Slowly.
And JCS is indistinguishable from MCD, the difference being that JCS is a genetic disease, where one has a gene that codes for defective prions, rather than defective prions being introduced in one's system by ingesting neural material from an infected mammal. An increase in JCS in Britain was what tipped the Brits that something strange was happening, as the sick people were not related to each other.
You understand how MCD is spread, right? You also understand that it's illegal to feed cattle beef protein, right? You understand there have been 3 (1 imported from Canada) cases in the US in all of history, right? You understand there are some 35 million cattle brought to market yearly in the US, right?
Do the math. We have the safest bovine industry on the planet.
Well, I would say that there have only been 3 cases of MCD DETECTED in the US. That doesn't mean that there haven't been many more cases, ESPECIALLY since there are 35 million cattle brought to market and most of them aren't tested:) Given the long incubation period of the disease and the fact that the disease can easily be mis-diagnosed as Parkinson's, Alzheimers' or Jacob-Cruzfeld Syndrome -- there's really no way one can assert how many cases of MCD there have or haven't been in the US or how many people have been affected. Another complication is that there are people that are immune to MCD, because their brains don't accumulate copper. There seems no reason why brains should accumulate copper, but most seem to, and "good prions" seem to have kept copper-accumulating brains from becoming extinct.
Actually, it's quite possible the appeals court doesn't entirely understand the nature of the disease, or it's method of detection. The incubation period really pertains to the amount of time before the disease becomes apparent through the appearance of symptoms. The disease agent can be detected much sooner. The disease agent is a protein called a prion, which in it's "normal" form exists in the brains of most mammals and aids in the "metabolism" of copper in the brain. The protein can exists in a different "shape" which doesn't perform it's life-saving function. Unfortunately, if molecules of this "straightened-out" prion exists in or gets introduced into the brain, it converts the good prions into bad prions. It takes a while for enough good prions to be converted before not enough good prions exist for the copper removing function to be affected, and then a while longer before accumulation of copper in the brain starts creating "holes" in the brain, and then a while longer before enough holes in the brain start causing "trouble" (Parkinson, Alzheimer like symptoms). This accounts for the "long incubation time". I'm not sure how the USDA kits tests for the disease, but if it's based on the detection of prions, then it would seem that detection of the disease is rather unrelated to the incubation period of the disease. A good book on the nature of Mad Cow Disease is "The Pathological Protein" by Philip Yam. You may not want to read it if you want to retain your taste for Beef. Because the disease agent is a protein and not a virus or bacterium, it can't be attacked in the way that we attack most disease that are DNA based. Also, the disease can be transmitted between species. Anyone who really begins to understand the threat of "prion based" diseases will begin to understand why the Brits destroyed their Beef industry some years ago, rather than take the risk, and why Japan tests all of their Beef. Granted the mechanism I've described is "just a theory", but it's got a lot of empirical evidence to support it. I have to be honest, though, and mention that more than a few scientists are still holding out hoping that a virus may be found to account for the disease. But read the Yam's book. I think anyone who does read it will probably go over to the side that wants American Beef to be 100% tested.
The problem with these schemes by Microsoft is that they more often than not inconvenience legitimate owners of valid licenses. I've had more than a few cases of valid installations of Windows "deactivate". It's doubtful that WGA is "bulletproof" and won't flag some legitimate licenses as invalid and screw-up a loyal Windows users' system. Also, for those who really pirate Windows (are there that many pirates out there??), hacking around WGA is child's play. I think that this will turn more people off than stop pirates. I've been using Ubuntu 8.0.4, and I'm very pleased. I have no problem exchanging documents with Windows users, and since I'm doing development in Java, there's no incompatibility there either, since even the Windows guys are using NetBEans and Eclipse...Is there really much pirating going around that Microsoft has to waste programming resources to combat it? From what I see, people want to BUY XP. Microsoft could probably stop XP from being stolen altogether, if they just continued making it easy for OEMs to offer it, and continued support.
When I was a teen (a long, long time ago) I greatly enjoyed Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit Will Travel". Asimov's Robot Anthologies: "I, Robot" and "The Rest Of The Robots" were excellent. I don't know any young fan of Sci-Fi that didn't find Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" fantastic. I found the two next books in the series "Speaker For The Dead" and "Xenocide" to be 2 of the best books I've ever read in any genre.
I think that this decision time could vary widely between different individuals and different "groups". After years of "blitz" chess, I find that my decision-making must be mostly based on pattern-recognition and specialized memory, because the choices of plans and moves when I play "3 seconds/move" on ICC (Internet Chess Club) or "72 Hours/move" on ItsYourTurn.com, do not differ much at all. In a way, this may validate their findings as much as dispute them...(I can't decide:)
If it's got Linux installed on it, you know that the hardware it's got is supported by Linux. Nothing worse than buying a new computer and finding out it's got some chipset or other that Linux doesn't work with yet. Most Linux distros today support a wide range of hardware options, so I think that with a "run-of-the-mill" Dell there wouldn't be much danger of say, Ubuntu not working with the hardware. If I wanted to install Linux on a Windows PC, I'd probably go to Staples or BestBuy and pop a Live-CD of my favorite distro into one of their displayed PCs and check out the hardware compatibility that way. I'm sure that the store personnel won't mind this, especially if it means a sale.
It is doubtful that Linux will take over the low-end PC market. Most people buy their PCs at large retailers (like Staples, Circuit City, Best Buy, and the soon-to-be-defunct COMPUSA), order them online from a company like DELL, or from a small local computer store. Few of these venues provide and/or promote machines with Linux pre-installed. The average consumer has a very vague idea of what an Operating system is. While many lay-people realize that Macintoshes and PCs are "different", very, very few understand the distinctions between OS X, OS 9, Windows XP, Vista, etc... and are even less literate about the myriad Linux distributions. Very, very few lay-people have even heard of Linux, so they don't even think about asking for it when shopping for a PC. The retailers pose even a bigger problem -- while shopping for a PC recently (helping a senior-citizen friend of mine) Best Buy and Circuit City wanted $400.00 to "downgrade" the PCs they were selling to Windows XP. Linux wasn't even an option. Another factor is that people are used to doing things a certain way, so there's a lot of resistance to radical change. Many are finding Vista difficult to deal with (actually, Ubuntu may be easier for an XP user to transition to than Vista -- but that's a different issue). Also, there's just not any killer apps that mandate Linux. Sure, Wine can run a lot of Windows apps, but then that begs the question "Why run windows on a Linux machine, when you can just get a Windows machine?". The fact that PCs are cheap and that Linux is "free" doesn't really give Linux as big an advantage as many think. Price isn't as important as exposure. Go to any mall and ask any 50 random people about Linux and I guarantee that you will get 40 - 50 blank stares. Then, in that same mall, try and find someplace selling PCs with Linux pre-installed. This is not an indication that Linux is about to take over any market.
I saw this story on CNN, and I was puzzled. The toy in question is a craft toy that has beads that when sprayed with water stick together. It's for kids 4-years-old and older. In Australia, a 10-year-old ATE dozens of the beads !! They showed a video of the recovered girl and her Mom. The girl didn't seem retarded, so my question is : WHY IS A TEN YEAR OLD EATING HER TOYS !?? Doesn't the consumer bear any responsibility for their actions? Does every toy manufacturer have to make sure that their products are edible?? What about iPods? Both my 7-year-old and 10-year-old have iPods -- can they eat them? If they eat their iPods and die, should Apple recall all iPods??
I also am a new Vista user -- I've had to learn to deal with it, since I have my own business apart from my full-time engineering job and most of my clients that have bought new computers have bought them with Vista. The main problem with Vista is that most mature users (let's say, between the ages of 40 and 80 -- I'm 54) have gotten quite used to XP, which, in my experience is the 2nd most popular Microsoft OS ever ( Win 2000 being the most popular, Win ME being the least), and have a steeper learning curve than going from 2000 to XP. Users who first complained about being "forced" to upgrade to XP, stopped complaining once they actually starting using it, and found it actually was a terrific OS. The paradigm shift in Vista, is a bit too much, especially since many users don't understand why some things that were not a problem were changed. Did the GUI have to change so much?? It's seems like there was a major "geek-fest" at Microsoft, with a bunch of engineers saying "isn't this cool", not taking into consideration that the average user doesn't care about "cool", they care about getting their work or "play" done. One client of mine immediately went out and spent $90.00 on Nero software because he found the "rip and burn" of media player so unintuitive (is Microsoft trying to be more like Apple ?!?). The change in the user interface this time is as great or greater than the change when we jumped from Win 3.11 to Win 95, but it's arguably NOT an improvement, but seems an attempt to force a paradigm change that "somebody" thinks is important. It's also objectionable that Vista is being forced on us like no previous OS. The stores around here want an extra $400.00 (!!) if you want to buy a new computer with XP instead of Vista. Come to think of it, I wonder if I can get $200.00 knocked of the price of the PC if I get it with no OS all, and then load Ubuntu?
It appears that Safari handles it's screen location differerently than other browsers. When I use JS Pager ( a nifty virtual desktop app ), Safari crashes on startup with one of those Windows messsages "...has encountered a problem and must close..." etc... If I exit JS Pager, then Safari runs fine. I then installed Microsoft's PowerToy's Desktop Manager. Safari doesn't crash, but it appears on all of the virtual desktops.
Okay. I've finally got Safari on Windows to work. It seems that if the Windows User's account name has non-ascii charcaters in it, then Safari will crash on start-up. I didn't think my username had any non-ascii characters in it ( it's only 3 letters: edd), but I decided to create another user account with a 6-letter (all lower-case) username, and guess what, Safari started with no problems!!? Now that I can actually use the browser, I can honestly evaluate it. It definitely DOES NOT SUCK. In fact, it is blazing fast. It's extremely attractive looking, and has a smooth, "MAC-like" feel to it. So maybe I will get an iPhone, after all. So far, the browser seems to work pretty well, and it hasn't crashed yet under my new user name. Apple should fix this silly crashing on startup fproblem quickly, or a lot of users without my patience and persistence will simply dismiss Safari on Windows as garbage (as I first did). This is actually a slick and fast (easily the fastest) browser. So far, Safari on WIndows seems far superior to Safari on the MAC. Safari on the MAC is still pretty buggy, whereas it seems that once you get Safari on WIndows to work, it's fairly stable. So I have to retract my previous negative statements about this browser, though I still feel that Apple should have tested this beta a little better before making it available in a state where most users would find it unusable.
If all of those people who downloaded Safari for Windows, actually installed and tried to use it, then fans of Firefox or IE have nothing to worry about. The Safari Beta can't even browse a website. It looks nice, right before it crashes. This is the worst piece of crap Apple has put out since the Apple III. Actually it's the worst piece of crap Apple has ever put out.
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I used a company laptop and had a lot of personal stuff on it. On my last day I had only a few hours to get my stuff off of the laptop before they wiped it. Also, if you work for the government or a government contractor, once you access a classified network or have classified stuff on your laptop, that laptop belongs to the government.
It takes a couple of clicks to disable the extension (especially since everyone knows about it now :)), so what's the big deal? OSS needs some way of generating revenue. There really is little privacy in the world today... what with cell phones, ezpass, online banking, etc...The only way to be truly private is to "opt-out" of technology -- get rid of your cell phones, computers, ezpass, ,pay your bills with "snail-mail", nix twitter, facebook, e-harmony, myspace, etc...
Actually, the key to Apple's success not so much that they include non-techies in their design process (they probably do), but that they haven't laid off their human-factors scientists. Sometimes users don't even know what would make their lives easier, but psychologists trained in human factors do. I recently "bit the bullet" and bought a MacBook (which was about $600.00 more expensive than a comparable Dell or Acer laptop), and have fallen in love with the machine. I'm fascinated by the "little things" that Apple has done: like making the touchpad larger and making it a button -- I've always hated touchpads on laptops, but this one is so well thought out that I don't ever use a mouse with the MacBook. I had a dramatic example of Apple's practical ingenuity when my dog suddenly ran across the room, right through my son's and mine power cords -- My son's Acer laptop went crashing to the floor, while the Macbook's power cord neatly detached from the machine (it connects to the machine via a small magnetic connector). I don't think a lay-person thought up these things. Every day I discover something like this about the Mac, and I wonder why other companies don't follow Apple's lead (patents??). You see this with the iPhone, also, where other phones have tried but can't seem to get the "touch and feel" quite right. I think it also should be noted that Apple is first and foremost a "hardware" company, not a software company -- they don't market MAC OS X -- they market Macs. Perhaps a Linux distribution should hook up with a good hardware company, create a really nice innovative machine and "brand it". I think this would especially work since Linux comes with so many useful professional apps (like Open Office Suite, Gimp, Firefox, Banshee etc...) you would get a "ready to go" machine right out of the box. I have Ubuntu running on my MacBook (VMWare Fusion rocks!!) and it's a dream combination. I can't wait for those "I'm an Ubuntu" commercials :)
With laptops becoming lighter and more powerful, and cell phones getting more powerful, it seems that the netbook is filling a very small niche. I for one can't see any use for a netbook, now. Just having a portable web-browser with a few productivity apps is served very well by my iPhone. As for incredible all-around computing power with good portability -- I have a 13" Macbook running Mac OS-X and Ubuntu (I'll probably put XP or Vista on it, too). The comments about Linux are puzzling -- I haven't run into anyone who has had as much trouble with Linux as with Vista. I think that most of those who purchase netbooks may be computer novices who don't know what Linux is, and may have returned their netbooks without even trying it. I've seen a netbook with an 8Gb flashdrive, no CD drive and 2 usbports selling for over $300.00, and then I saw a really small laptop (Acer I think) with a 120Gb harddrive and CD drive and many usb drives for almost the same price. What gives? It makes be think that the whole netbook thing is a scam.
Strange. My 9 and 12 year-old sons have been using Ubuntu for 2 years with no complaints. Of course the younger generation is very computer literate and probably find much more things "intuitive" than most adults... I don't understand this author's statement that he couldn't find a way to upgrade to ubuntu 8.10 from 8.04 using Upgrade Manager. I remember the Upgrade Manager telling me that an upgrade was a available, and I upgraded to 8.10 with one click --Much, much easier than upgrading any version of Windows (anybody remember trying to upgrade from Windows ME to 'anything'). Most apps found on the web, (if not in a repository found by the Synaptic Package Manager or Add/Remove) will list the exact apt-get command you have to type, even though 90% of the time just typing apt-get install followed by the application name will do the trick. I also didn't understand his problem with OpenOffice. It seems strange that he's found so many things confusing. It seems that 5 minutes on the Ubuntu homepage or a few minutes with Google would have clarified everything for him. When I switched my "family computer" from Windows 2000 to Ubuntu, my kids hardly noticed, except to positively state that they liked Ubuntu more than Win 2000 (it seemed more like Windows XP to them). Ironically, when my ex-wife switch her "family computer" to Vista from XP, all hell broke loose, even to the extent that the kids insisted on coming over to my house to use the Ubuntu Machine to do their schoolwork (my 9-year-old son prefers OpenOffice , and my 12-year-old MS Office under WINE, rather than Office 2007, which they refuse to use). The package Management under Ubuntu is actually a wonderful thing. A co-worker of mine recently tried to uninstall Office 2003 and managed to "brick" his PC (and he's a computer professional). He spent a whole day just to get his PC usable again. When I referred him to a Microsoft support site that deals with this problem, he didn't bother to try "their solution" and just resigned himself to leave Office installed. Also, just recently on Slashdot, there was reference to Bill Gates's own frustration trying to install MovieMaker on Windows. I'm a longtime Windows user, and I have to save that the only time I've run into the type of frustration I've had installing, uninstalling or upgrading on Windows with Ubuntu, was when I've tried to install certain Windows programs on WINE (like "Command and Conquer 3"). The only other complaint I have with Ubuntu is that I can't easily sync my iPod Touch (not without downgrading the firmware and jailbreaking it). For the life of me, I can't understand why Apple hasn't made this easy (by perhaps providing an iTunes for Linux). Anyway, I've found that those of my friends who have switched to Ubuntu call me for help much less frequently that those of my friends who have gone to Vista. My experience is that younger users (like my kids and teenagers) seem to find much many more things "intuitive" than adults (after all, they're growing up with modern technology). Senior Citizen Newbies find Windows, MACs and Ubuntu equally challenging or easy (depending on the Senior).
Perhaps this survey only concentrated on iPhone users and not iPod Touch users. Perhaps those who have iPhones are not as interested in apps as they are in communication. I've found that most iPod Touch users (of which I and my 12-year-old son are) usually fill up there iPods with multiple pages of apps. Though I have bought apps, I would say that most of the apps I have are free. I had jailbroken my iPod Touch previous to the creation of the app store. If the app store didn't offer free apps along with the paid ones, it's possible I would have kept my iPod jailbroken. I haven't tired of many apps, and I use some apps everyday (like Chess Genius, iSports, iReversi, Sudoku, Facebook, WorldWiki, Maps, Stocks, etc...). Other apps like Guitar Chords aren't really the kind of app you use everyday, but are nice to have when you need them. So I dispute the claims of this survey. I think "we" are very much into appstore apps. I wonder if these are the findings of a envious HP iPaq owner or a "Zune Person"...
Just last night I was watching my 12-year-old son running media player, while browsing the web looking for cool wallpapers, while writing a story, while downloading a video, while playing othello, while having an IM window open...and I noticed a few apps minimized... Of course, this was on my Ubuntu machine, but I think my 8-year-old had 5 or 6 things running on his Acer laptop running Vista. If they had an OS than would only run 3 apps at a time, they would think it was broken (they thought Windows 2000 was broken for other reasons... no complaints about XP, though, and Vista's been okay since the first Service Patch, but they like Ubuntu the best -- they say it's a lot like XP(!?!)). I've never understood the strategy of marketing a crappy, crippled, "toy" OS, so that one can charge money for it with the rationale that their real OS is so much more expensive. It's especially puzzling when one considers that one can get a very powerful professional OS for free, with a bunch of great free applications. Does Microsoft have a human factors department? I guess they have gotten away with these strategies for so long, they've forgotten how to develop something that people really want.
I think that tests are perfectly reasonable for a technical job. Most of the IT positions I have obtained required me to take a test. The problem is that too many candidates embellish their resumes (or outright lie), and then cost a project time and money when they find themselves "over their head" technically. Many firms will hire through agencies because they expect that the agency will thoroughly "vet" the candidate. I've found a wide range of knowledge and talent when interviewing programmers. More often than not I've found that candidates with Master's Degrees in CompSci know all the buzzwords, but can't write a line a code. Also, testing can help one realistically evaluate a talent that may not have an advanced degree or formal experience. I've discovered "genius" programmers who don't even have a B.S..Also, testing can reveal how current a candidates's skills are, and also how proficient they are. There's a big difference between someone who has been coding every day for 5 years, and someone who has been doing "systems enginering" or "project management" -- though their resumes may show similar experience or education. Sometimes, you need a hardcore "coder". Such a person might find a "test" stupid and unnecessary, but won't flinch at taking it. On the other hand, if I were looking for someone who could code fast and effortlessly, I may hesitate to take a chance on someone who would refuse to take a simple technical test.
I actually thought the commercial was about shoes. I was thinking "this is the worst shoe commercial I've ever seen" when the Windows logo flashed on the screen. Who thought this was an acceptable ad?? -- Oh, the same people who brought us Vista. The Mojave project ads are pretty bad, too (reminds me of IBM's old OS2 Warp ads). To be sure, advertisement for an Operating System is hard, since most people really don't know what an OS is. But was this an OS ad?? A Microsoft Ad?? A Bill Gates for VP ad?? What is this ad's purpose?? To show how weird Bill Gates is?
I've had a lot of experience with ISP support, with Adelphia (before they collapsed), Comcast (before I switched) and now Verizon. I'm a computer engineer, so if I call the ISP it's usually because I've figured out that the problem is at their end, and I can tell them what to do to fix it, yet I've found myself getting very, very, very frustrated and angry at the absurdity that I've encountered. In one case, after a half-hour of maneuvering through the maddening computer prompts (press 1, press 3, press 7 etc...) to speak to a human being, I got a support person who gave me the standard "reboot your computer and reset your modem". After a few minutes of first humoring him, and then another few minutes of walking through steps I knew were not the problem, I tried to explain to him what the problem was and what he had to do. He obviously had no idea about IP addresses, default gateways, DSN or what "ping" meant -- and after pretending to listen to me, he said that I needed to call "Lynksys". I said "okay", hung up, and immediately called back, went through the same scenario with another support person, who told me "you have to call Microsoft". I said "okay" hung up and immediately called back, and after maneuvering through the prompts again to get a human, I got a support person who (after suggesting that I reboot and rest my modem) listened to what I had to say, appeared to understand everything and had my internet running again in under 5 minutes. All told, however, I was on the phone for about 3 hours, and you have to realize how maddening it is when after to finally get to the prompt that says "press 7 if you are having connectivity problems", you're put on hold and every minute the recording tells you to try going to their website!! I know few people who have my patience or restraint (and it took every bit of that restraint to avoid letting out my frustration on that third support person[the one who finally helped] when she told me to try rebooting and resetting the modem) so I can just imagine what a layperson must feel. I remember having a technician come to my house to set up the internet service who kept trying different modems (saying "I can't believe all these are defective') before I intervened and set it up myself. I think that ISPs are overwhelmed with service calls, are understaffed, and suffer from a wide discrepancy of skill-sets amongst their personnel. The use of computer prompting to carry some of this burden is what gives computer prompting a bad name. I wouldn't be surprised if the actress actually did threaten the technician -- ISP support seems designed to coerce otherwise normal, well-adjusted persons to become homicidal, suicidal and paranoid.
I'm not surprised that "community distros" are becoming more popular in the business setting. I've always been skeptical of Linux's ability to steal market share from Windows, but I've just recently installed Ubuntu 8.0.4 on a home computer and work computer. I'm astonished. It's stable, installation was easy (easier than Windows XP or Vista), package management was easy, and device drivers were plentiful (device detection was perfect). At work, the OpenOffice Suite, Netbeans, Java, and Eclipse were adequate to perform all my work (inoperability with my colleagues using comparable Windows apps was good). At home, again, I thought I would probably finding myself switching back to windows to do certain things, but that hasn't been the case (I haven't tried to manage my iPod yet, though). I think it may actually be easier for business to move from XP to Ubuntu, than to go to Vista. I know that my brother, a CEO, recently upgraded his home computers, replacing his two XP machines with a MAC and a Vista Box. He's found it easier to get used to the MAC than Vista. I'm sure he would find Ubuntu easier than Vista.
THe truely interesting thing being missed is that JCS or Kuru, is on the upswing here in America. Ppl are missing that. We have had NONE until recent time and it is appearing all over. Slowly.
And JCS is indistinguishable from MCD, the difference being that JCS is a genetic disease, where one has a gene that codes for defective prions, rather than defective prions being introduced in one's system by ingesting neural material from an infected mammal. An increase in JCS in Britain was what tipped the Brits that something strange was happening, as the sick people were not related to each other.
You understand how MCD is spread, right? You also understand that it's illegal to feed cattle beef protein, right? You understand there have been 3 (1 imported from Canada) cases in the US in all of history, right? You understand there are some 35 million cattle brought to market yearly in the US, right?
Do the math. We have the safest bovine industry on the planet.
Well, I would say that there have only been 3 cases of MCD DETECTED in the US. That doesn't mean that there haven't been many more cases, ESPECIALLY since there are 35 million cattle brought to market and most of them aren't tested :) Given the long incubation period of the disease and the fact that the disease can easily be mis-diagnosed as Parkinson's, Alzheimers' or Jacob-Cruzfeld Syndrome -- there's really no way one can assert how many cases of MCD there have or haven't been in the US or how many people have been affected. Another complication is that there are people that are immune to MCD, because their brains don't accumulate copper. There seems no reason why brains should accumulate copper, but most seem to, and "good prions" seem to have kept copper-accumulating brains from becoming extinct.
Actually, it's quite possible the appeals court doesn't entirely understand the nature of the disease, or it's method of detection. The incubation period really pertains to the amount of time before the disease becomes apparent through the appearance of symptoms. The disease agent can be detected much sooner. The disease agent is a protein called a prion, which in it's "normal" form exists in the brains of most mammals and aids in the "metabolism" of copper in the brain. The protein can exists in a different "shape" which doesn't perform it's life-saving function. Unfortunately, if molecules of this "straightened-out" prion exists in or gets introduced into the brain, it converts the good prions into bad prions. It takes a while for enough good prions to be converted before not enough good prions exist for the copper removing function to be affected, and then a while longer before accumulation of copper in the brain starts creating "holes" in the brain, and then a while longer before enough holes in the brain start causing "trouble" (Parkinson, Alzheimer like symptoms). This accounts for the "long incubation time". I'm not sure how the USDA kits tests for the disease, but if it's based on the detection of prions, then it would seem that detection of the disease is rather unrelated to the incubation period of the disease. A good book on the nature of Mad Cow Disease is "The Pathological Protein" by Philip Yam. You may not want to read it if you want to retain your taste for Beef. Because the disease agent is a protein and not a virus or bacterium, it can't be attacked in the way that we attack most disease that are DNA based. Also, the disease can be transmitted between species. Anyone who really begins to understand the threat of "prion based" diseases will begin to understand why the Brits destroyed their Beef industry some years ago, rather than take the risk, and why Japan tests all of their Beef. Granted the mechanism I've described is "just a theory", but it's got a lot of empirical evidence to support it. I have to be honest, though, and mention that more than a few scientists are still holding out hoping that a virus may be found to account for the disease. But read the Yam's book. I think anyone who does read it will probably go over to the side that wants American Beef to be 100% tested.
The problem with these schemes by Microsoft is that they more often than not inconvenience legitimate owners of valid licenses. I've had more than a few cases of valid installations of Windows "deactivate". It's doubtful that WGA is "bulletproof" and won't flag some legitimate licenses as invalid and screw-up a loyal Windows users' system. Also, for those who really pirate Windows (are there that many pirates out there??), hacking around WGA is child's play. I think that this will turn more people off than stop pirates. I've been using Ubuntu 8.0.4, and I'm very pleased. I have no problem exchanging documents with Windows users, and since I'm doing development in Java, there's no incompatibility there either, since even the Windows guys are using NetBEans and Eclipse...Is there really much pirating going around that Microsoft has to waste programming resources to combat it? From what I see, people want to BUY XP. Microsoft could probably stop XP from being stolen altogether, if they just continued making it easy for OEMs to offer it, and continued support.
When I was a teen (a long, long time ago) I greatly enjoyed Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit Will Travel". Asimov's Robot Anthologies: "I, Robot" and "The Rest Of The Robots" were excellent. I don't know any young fan of Sci-Fi that didn't find Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" fantastic. I found the two next books in the series "Speaker For The Dead" and "Xenocide" to be 2 of the best books I've ever read in any genre.
I think that this decision time could vary widely between different individuals and different "groups". After years of "blitz" chess, I find that my decision-making must be mostly based on pattern-recognition and specialized memory, because the choices of plans and moves when I play "3 seconds/move" on ICC (Internet Chess Club) or "72 Hours/move" on ItsYourTurn.com, do not differ much at all. In a way, this may validate their findings as much as dispute them...(I can't decide :)
It is doubtful that Linux will take over the low-end PC market. Most people buy their PCs at large retailers (like Staples, Circuit City, Best Buy, and the soon-to-be-defunct COMPUSA), order them online from a company like DELL, or from a small local computer store. Few of these venues provide and/or promote machines with Linux pre-installed. The average consumer has a very vague idea of what an Operating system is. While many lay-people realize that Macintoshes and PCs are "different", very, very few understand the distinctions between OS X, OS 9, Windows XP, Vista, etc... and are even less literate about the myriad Linux distributions. Very, very few lay-people have even heard of Linux, so they don't even think about asking for it when shopping for a PC. The retailers pose even a bigger problem -- while shopping for a PC recently (helping a senior-citizen friend of mine) Best Buy and Circuit City wanted $400.00 to "downgrade" the PCs they were selling to Windows XP. Linux wasn't even an option. Another factor is that people are used to doing things a certain way, so there's a lot of resistance to radical change. Many are finding Vista difficult to deal with (actually, Ubuntu may be easier for an XP user to transition to than Vista -- but that's a different issue).
Also, there's just not any killer apps that mandate Linux. Sure, Wine can run a lot of Windows apps, but then that begs the question "Why run windows on a Linux machine, when you can just get a Windows machine?". The fact that PCs are cheap and that Linux is "free" doesn't really give Linux as big an advantage as many think. Price isn't as important as exposure. Go to any mall and ask any 50 random people about Linux and I guarantee that you will get 40 - 50 blank stares. Then, in that same mall, try and find someplace selling PCs with Linux pre-installed. This is not an indication that Linux is about to take over any market.
I saw this story on CNN, and I was puzzled. The toy in question is a craft toy that has beads that when sprayed with water stick together. It's for kids 4-years-old and older. In Australia, a 10-year-old ATE dozens of the beads !! They showed a video of the recovered girl and her Mom. The girl didn't seem retarded, so my question is : WHY IS A TEN YEAR OLD EATING HER TOYS !?? Doesn't the consumer bear any responsibility for their actions? Does every toy manufacturer have to make sure that their products are edible??
What about iPods? Both my 7-year-old and 10-year-old have iPods -- can they eat them? If they eat their iPods and die, should Apple recall all iPods??
I also am a new Vista user -- I've had to learn to deal with it, since I have my own business apart from my full-time engineering job and most of my clients that have bought new computers have bought them with Vista. The main problem with Vista is that most mature users (let's say, between the ages of 40 and 80 -- I'm 54) have gotten quite used to XP, which, in my experience is the 2nd most popular Microsoft OS ever ( Win 2000 being the most popular, Win ME being the least), and have a steeper learning curve than going from 2000 to XP. Users who first complained about being "forced" to upgrade to XP, stopped complaining once they actually starting using it, and found it actually was a terrific OS. The paradigm shift in Vista, is a bit too much, especially since many users don't understand why some things that were not a problem were changed. Did the GUI have to change so much?? It's seems like there was a major "geek-fest" at Microsoft, with a bunch of engineers saying "isn't this cool", not taking into consideration that the average user doesn't care about "cool", they care about getting their work or "play" done. One client of mine immediately went out and spent $90.00 on Nero software because he found the "rip and burn" of media player so unintuitive (is Microsoft trying to be more like Apple ?!?). The change in the user interface this time is as great or greater than the change when we jumped from Win 3.11 to Win 95, but it's arguably NOT an improvement, but seems an attempt to force a paradigm change that "somebody" thinks is important. It's also objectionable that Vista is being forced on us like no previous OS. The stores around here want an extra $400.00 (!!) if you want to buy a new computer with XP instead of Vista. Come to think of it, I wonder if I can get $200.00 knocked of the price of the PC if I get it with no OS all, and then load Ubuntu?
It appears that Safari handles it's screen location differerently than other browsers. When I use JS Pager ( a nifty virtual desktop app ), Safari crashes on startup with one of those Windows messsages "...has encountered a problem and must close..." etc... If I exit JS Pager, then Safari runs fine. I then installed Microsoft's PowerToy's Desktop Manager. Safari doesn't crash, but it appears on all of the virtual desktops.
Now that I got Safari to work under one user name, it now runs on all accounts. Strange. This is actually a great browser, once you get it to work.
Okay. I've finally got Safari on Windows to work. It seems that if the Windows User's account name has non-ascii charcaters in it, then Safari will crash on start-up. I didn't think my username had any non-ascii characters in it ( it's only 3 letters: edd), but I decided to create another user account with a 6-letter (all lower-case) username, and guess what, Safari started with no problems!!? Now that I can actually use the browser, I can honestly evaluate it. It definitely DOES NOT SUCK. In fact, it is blazing fast. It's extremely attractive looking, and has a smooth, "MAC-like" feel to it. So maybe I will get an iPhone, after all. So far, the browser seems to work pretty well, and it hasn't crashed yet under my new user name. Apple should fix this silly crashing on startup fproblem quickly, or a lot of users without my patience and persistence will simply dismiss Safari on Windows as garbage (as I first did). This is actually a slick and fast (easily the fastest) browser. So far, Safari on WIndows seems far superior to Safari on the MAC. Safari on the MAC is still pretty buggy, whereas it seems that once you get Safari on WIndows to work, it's fairly stable. So I have to retract my previous negative statements about this browser, though I still feel that Apple should have tested this beta a little better before making it available in a state where most users would find it unusable.
If all of those people who downloaded Safari for Windows, actually installed and tried to use it, then fans of Firefox or IE have nothing to worry about. The Safari Beta can't even browse a website. It looks nice, right before it crashes. This is the worst piece of crap Apple has put out since the Apple III. Actually it's the worst piece of crap Apple has ever put out.