You probably remember watching Mr. Wizard's World in the '80s. I remember watching Watch Mr. Wizard in the '50s. He inspired not one, but two generations, and that's something to be proud of!
Spam is unsolicited commercial email. If you opt in to a mailing list, you have agreed to receive mail from that list. If you don't like it, opt out; if they don't take you off the list in a reasonable length of time, then, and only then, they're spamming you. The OP specified that the default is opt out, which means that anybody receiving those emails went out of their way to ask for them. If they don't want to receive them any more they should just opt out, but complaining that they're being spammed is easier and doesn't require them to think.
Actually, I was referring to the big, vocal, Professional Liberals in general, as compared to the garden-variety liberals that make up the rank and file. I'm not a Canadian and don't know enough about Canadian politics to have made the distinction you refer to.
No, they're simply hoping that Liberal guilt and the belief that we have to compensate them for things that happened generations ago will override common sense. Just like Blacks demanding southern Whites give them money to compensate for their ancestors being slaves. Hell, if that's fair, then every, single Jewish man, woman and child in the world deserves money from the Egyptians!
Maybe after this museum opens some atheist tour group so do the same thing...take tours through Ken's "museum" and provide scientific narrative to dispute his biblical nonsense.
Intelligent Design groups get way with their propaganda because the museums believe in free speech, and allow them to have their say. Do you really think that these fundamentalists will allow pro-evolution groups to spread their propaganda in the Creationist Museum? To them, free speech only applies when it's in their favor, not their opponents.
I used to run across this all the time when I did phone support for an ISP. The slash (AKA "forward slash") is the one under the question mark on your keyboard, the backslash is the other one. I'd also tell them, sometimes, "Slash is what you use for a fraction," although I once had an arrogant luser tell me, "I don't do fractions."
Your router implements a service called NAT which allows one address to be shared among many computers. You can have one Internet Address and have multiple computers connected to the Internet through the router.
And how, except for the analogy to a phone system, is that different from what I said? Your way brings in technical terms that the caller doesn't know, mine doesn't. As far as knowing what a PBX/Centrix system is, I ask first. Even people who've never worked with them have experience calling companies that have one public phone number and many extensions, and can easily get the picture.
I think the main trouble here is that you think there's One True Way to do everything, and I'm flexible enough to find out what a caller knows and fit my explanation to that. If so, there will never be a meeting of the minds here.
The number of people that want Linux on their laptop is small, the market supports my view.
The market is small because such a thing has never been offered before. We'll not know for sure how many people want Linux on their laptop until several months after Dell starts selling them. My vision may be myopic, but your mind is closed like a steel trap that's rusted shut. What you know, you may know well. (I can't tell.) What you don't already know, you don't even suspect exists. Has it ever occurred to you that it might be you that's wrong?
This is why you use Firefox, to disable ActiveX. You also use a better firewall than that provided with XP; one that warns you when a program wants to "call home" and allows you to decide if you're going to let it.
I think you and I are focusing on two different aspects of the router. I'm only interested in that part that the average ISP customer needs to understand why they need a router to connect three or four computers to their DSL/cable modem, and my analogy's just fine for that. They neither need to know, nor would understand your far more technical explanation of things they're not interested in. As I've been saying, I know my audience, I know what they need, what they can understand and how to explain that to them, things you clearly not only don't know, you don't even suspect.
So, what you're saying is that you can't always get exactly the same experience from Linux that you do from Windows or Mac, and that therefore, you shouldn't use Linux. Even if, as my post pointed out, you don't need any of the things that you might have difficulty with, don't use it because you don't have them right out of the box. (In some cases, granted, not at all.) You're asking what happens when Mom needs a plugin that's not available for Linux? Well, if having those plugins is such a deal-breaker for her, Linux isn't right for her. For somebody who uses their laptop for business only and doesn't need all that glitz, or the malware that goes with them, Linux might be just what they want on their laptop. Instead of looking at the worst (or best) case possible, try asking yourself what the most likely result is and I think you'll see that for those who'd want Linux on their laptop, it's a good choice.
I can't help but feel that you think the lack of DVD support and/or the lack of some of the codecs is going to be an absolute deal breaker for most of the people who might buy this. As many others have pointed out, the support's easy to find and install. However, what you're not even considering is that not everybody who buys these will want or need that support. Some of them will go to business people who want a laptop that just works and is guaranteed to stay free of viruses, trojans, addware and other junk. As long as they have something like OpenOffice that can read/write MS Office files they won't care, because it will do what they need. Not everybody thinks that multi-media is a crucial capability in a cheap laptop.
Re:Is it going to be completely Ubuntu?
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It's actually very simple to deal with multiple repositories and hardware compatibility: "If it didn't come from the Dell repository, we don't support it."
Of course I'm not doing tech support on Slashdot. However, unlike you, I'm well aware that the topic is communicating with non-technical people. I'm using analogies that they can understand. Of course, like all analogies, they're not completely accurate, but the ones I use gave my callers the information they needed. I very seriously doubt that the highly-technical explanations you'd have given would have done the same; in fact, I doubt they'd have been understood at all, or that you'd have been kept working on the phones for very long because you don't seem to have the ability to communicate well with callers. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you have the tech skills, but if you can't make the callers understand what they need, it doesn't matter how much you know.
AIUI, it can be much more than that. The Bern Convention specifies life plus fifty years. If you publish something at twenty and live to be ninety, that's 120 years of royalties. Now that we've signed off on the convention, that's what we've got, like it or not.
Of course it's not really what a router does, but it's close enough that somebody who barely knows how to handle a mouse is going to understand it, and that's the important thing here. BTW, that was Dial-up, ISDN, cable, DSL and satellite if you don't mind. About the only type of connections I didn't work with were T1 an up.
That means, "there is no arguing matters of taste." If it fits your taste, there's nothing I could say to change your mind, and I shouldn't try. As a further example, if you like hip-hop and I love big band swing, neither of us is going to change the other's mind and there's no point in arguing about which is better. If you like Starbucks, that's all that matters for you.
No, a PBX or Centrix setup allows you to have one phone number connecting to a large number of internal extensions, just as a router allows you to have one public IP address and a full subnet of internal ones.
De gustibus non disputatum est, of course. I'm sure there must be people who like it, although I was under the impression that their primary customers were people who didn't know what good coffee tastes like. If you enjoy it, fine; go for it! Knock your socks off! Drink it all down, because I won't want any, and none of the many friends I have who know what good coffee is will, either.
Of course it is. However, I didn't know the number and didn't want to be accused of exaggerating. Also, that AC was claiming that I was wrong because my guesstamite was low, and that's Just Not True.
Personally, I'd rather have Folgers. It, at least, isn't over-roasted, burnt and bitter. A friend recently came up with the best description of all: he calls them Charbucks.
Exactly. I've done ISP tech support, and I've had to learn how to explain things to callers in ways they can understand. IP addresses are phone numbers, routers are PBX/Centrix machines and DNS is the Internet equivalent of calling Information. It may take a little while, but come up with some easy to understand every-day analogies for your technology and they'll get the picture. Remember: no matter how clueless they are when it comes to technology, they're not as stupid as they sometimes seem.
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You probably remember watching Mr. Wizard's World in the '80s. I remember watching Watch Mr. Wizard in the '50s. He inspired not one, but two generations, and that's something to be proud of!
Spam is unsolicited commercial email. If you opt in to a mailing list, you have agreed to receive mail from that list. If you don't like it, opt out; if they don't take you off the list in a reasonable length of time, then, and only then, they're spamming you. The OP specified that the default is opt out, which means that anybody receiving those emails went out of their way to ask for them. If they don't want to receive them any more they should just opt out, but complaining that they're being spammed is easier and doesn't require them to think.
All your format are belong to us!
Actually, I was referring to the big, vocal, Professional Liberals in general, as compared to the garden-variety liberals that make up the rank and file. I'm not a Canadian and don't know enough about Canadian politics to have made the distinction you refer to.
No, they're simply hoping that Liberal guilt and the belief that we have to compensate them for things that happened generations ago will override common sense. Just like Blacks demanding southern Whites give them money to compensate for their ancestors being slaves. Hell, if that's fair, then every, single Jewish man, woman and child in the world deserves money from the Egyptians!
Intelligent Design groups get way with their propaganda because the museums believe in free speech, and allow them to have their say. Do you really think that these fundamentalists will allow pro-evolution groups to spread their propaganda in the Creationist Museum? To them, free speech only applies when it's in their favor, not their opponents.
I used to run across this all the time when I did phone support for an ISP. The slash (AKA "forward slash") is the one under the question mark on your keyboard, the backslash is the other one. I'd also tell them, sometimes, "Slash is what you use for a fraction," although I once had an arrogant luser tell me, "I don't do fractions."
And how, except for the analogy to a phone system, is that different from what I said? Your way brings in technical terms that the caller doesn't know, mine doesn't. As far as knowing what a PBX/Centrix system is, I ask first. Even people who've never worked with them have experience calling companies that have one public phone number and many extensions, and can easily get the picture.
I think the main trouble here is that you think there's One True Way to do everything, and I'm flexible enough to find out what a caller knows and fit my explanation to that. If so, there will never be a meeting of the minds here.
The market is small because such a thing has never been offered before. We'll not know for sure how many people want Linux on their laptop until several months after Dell starts selling them. My vision may be myopic, but your mind is closed like a steel trap that's rusted shut. What you know, you may know well. (I can't tell.) What you don't already know, you don't even suspect exists. Has it ever occurred to you that it might be you that's wrong?
This is why you use Firefox, to disable ActiveX. You also use a better firewall than that provided with XP; one that warns you when a program wants to "call home" and allows you to decide if you're going to let it.
I think you and I are focusing on two different aspects of the router. I'm only interested in that part that the average ISP customer needs to understand why they need a router to connect three or four computers to their DSL/cable modem, and my analogy's just fine for that. They neither need to know, nor would understand your far more technical explanation of things they're not interested in. As I've been saying, I know my audience, I know what they need, what they can understand and how to explain that to them, things you clearly not only don't know, you don't even suspect.
So, what you're saying is that you can't always get exactly the same experience from Linux that you do from Windows or Mac, and that therefore, you shouldn't use Linux. Even if, as my post pointed out, you don't need any of the things that you might have difficulty with, don't use it because you don't have them right out of the box. (In some cases, granted, not at all.) You're asking what happens when Mom needs a plugin that's not available for Linux? Well, if having those plugins is such a deal-breaker for her, Linux isn't right for her. For somebody who uses their laptop for business only and doesn't need all that glitz, or the malware that goes with them, Linux might be just what they want on their laptop. Instead of looking at the worst (or best) case possible, try asking yourself what the most likely result is and I think you'll see that for those who'd want Linux on their laptop, it's a good choice.
I can't help but feel that you think the lack of DVD support and/or the lack of some of the codecs is going to be an absolute deal breaker for most of the people who might buy this. As many others have pointed out, the support's easy to find and install. However, what you're not even considering is that not everybody who buys these will want or need that support. Some of them will go to business people who want a laptop that just works and is guaranteed to stay free of viruses, trojans, addware and other junk. As long as they have something like OpenOffice that can read/write MS Office files they won't care, because it will do what they need. Not everybody thinks that multi-media is a crucial capability in a cheap laptop.
It's actually very simple to deal with multiple repositories and hardware compatibility: "If it didn't come from the Dell repository, we don't support it."
Of course I'm not doing tech support on Slashdot. However, unlike you, I'm well aware that the topic is communicating with non-technical people. I'm using analogies that they can understand. Of course, like all analogies, they're not completely accurate, but the ones I use gave my callers the information they needed. I very seriously doubt that the highly-technical explanations you'd have given would have done the same; in fact, I doubt they'd have been understood at all, or that you'd have been kept working on the phones for very long because you don't seem to have the ability to communicate well with callers. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure you have the tech skills, but if you can't make the callers understand what they need, it doesn't matter how much you know.
Either that, or I have a much better understanding of what my callers can follow and what they need to know.
AIUI, it can be much more than that. The Bern Convention specifies life plus fifty years. If you publish something at twenty and live to be ninety, that's 120 years of royalties. Now that we've signed off on the convention, that's what we've got, like it or not.
Of course it's not really what a router does, but it's close enough that somebody who barely knows how to handle a mouse is going to understand it, and that's the important thing here. BTW, that was Dial-up, ISDN, cable, DSL and satellite if you don't mind. About the only type of connections I didn't work with were T1 an up.
That means, "there is no arguing matters of taste." If it fits your taste, there's nothing I could say to change your mind, and I shouldn't try. As a further example, if you like hip-hop and I love big band swing, neither of us is going to change the other's mind and there's no point in arguing about which is better. If you like Starbucks, that's all that matters for you.
No, a PBX or Centrix setup allows you to have one phone number connecting to a large number of internal extensions, just as a router allows you to have one public IP address and a full subnet of internal ones.
De gustibus non disputatum est, of course. I'm sure there must be people who like it, although I was under the impression that their primary customers were people who didn't know what good coffee tastes like. If you enjoy it, fine; go for it! Knock your socks off! Drink it all down, because I won't want any, and none of the many friends I have who know what good coffee is will, either.
Of course it is. However, I didn't know the number and didn't want to be accused of exaggerating. Also, that AC was claiming that I was wrong because my guesstamite was low, and that's Just Not True.
Personally, I'd rather have Folgers. It, at least, isn't over-roasted, burnt and bitter. A friend recently came up with the best description of all: he calls them Charbucks.
Exactly. I've done ISP tech support, and I've had to learn how to explain things to callers in ways they can understand. IP addresses are phone numbers, routers are PBX/Centrix machines and DNS is the Internet equivalent of calling Information. It may take a little while, but come up with some easy to understand every-day analogies for your technology and they'll get the picture. Remember: no matter how clueless they are when it comes to technology, they're not as stupid as they sometimes seem.
Last time I looked, 200,000 was larger than 10,000. Instead of proving me wrong, you've demonstrated how right I am.