Great, it looks cool. But I won't be really impressed until they can do it *with* tactile input.
I had a little think about that, and I wonder if an small targeted electric/static charge could be used to simulate a touch sensation, or perhaps find a way to manipulate water vapour (or something else?) in the air - eg flash freeze a very thin layer just before finger "contact". I'm just pulling this out of my ass, but there must be a way of doing it...
You put it well enough yourself - "they just want something easy that works." Most customers want a computer/internet/email - they couldn't care less if it's Windows or Mac or Linux or BeOS or whatever OS is popular today.
The main requirement is that it runs their apps, and if those apps aren't available under Linux, eg MYOB/Games/DTP, then Windows is probably what they need. Otherwise, Linux with an office suite will probably do just fine, and cost less.
I'm not advocating Linux for little stores because it's OSS or because GNU is the shiznit or because I personally like it, I'm advocating it because it can be cheaper and just as effective for many desktop customers.
In KDE right click the desktop, choose "New Harddrive Device" choose the windows partition you want to mount, click "OK".... you now have a desktop icon for that device.
Wha? Whoever coded that needs a kick up the ass. How about "New Disk Shortcut" or "Add Disk to Desktop" or similar. K.I.S.S. Most newbs don't even know what "device" means in techie-speak.
It sounds like there's still a fair amount of room for usability improvement...
Yeh, as a Linux geek that's no biggy for me, but for a store trying to crack the market it's Hard.
My off-the-top-of-my-head answers:
a) Another RedHat/Debian derivative with a slick UI and otherwise minimal install. Leveraging the existing work, but without the bloat that plauges many current distros (Granny doesn't need a database server). I know Yet Another Distro sounds daft, but really I'm just talking about themeing, desktop setup, and thoughtful package selection/installation. It's nothing that couldn't be done with a tweaked installer or set of RPMs applied to a minimal RH install. Probably RedHat so that...
b) Stores without Linux knowledge can buy it from RedHat's certification programme, or contract support to people who are "known good" in that OS.
I think that's an education / support issue. I'd guess 90% of Linux apps are only available online, so if they're looking in Walmart they're out of luck. Similarly for the Mac, most stores won't have titles for them either - instead, Mac users will often go to 1 or 2 stores that meet their needs.
I think the stores need to either teach users where/how to find software (eg, look on the distro CDs, or Fresh RPMs, etc) or "productize" them, and have a few rows of CDs with useful apps on them.
It actually reminds me of the ol' Amiga days, where you couldn't easily buy apps off the shelf, but you could get dodgy compilation disks from the guy across town, with screeds of apps on them. That worked for me, but no good for Joe Public... I'd give it another year or two for the marketing machine to catch up and start delivering some of the better stuff in boxed form. Either that or Wine / Installshield will get their act together so most apps will Just Work. Hmmm. Maybe.Net (read MONO) isn't such a bad thing for Linux afterall.
they don't know enough and would rather be able to call up microsoft when something goes wrong
Is that a US market thing? In all my days of doing IT, I've never heard of anyone getting telephone support from MicroSoft. Over here, it seems to be sales only, and "call your vendor" if you have OS troubles.
Parts of the market seem to be missing the point that software such as a consumer level OS and office software have little value these days. You really can't sell them by and of themselves. Photoshop has value, maybe Access does too, but Powerpoint, Excel, and Word are just expected - kinda like a webbrowser.
Most non-geeks think of Office as Windows, and of IE as The Internet, for example. You sell Joe Punter a Computer, not Hardware + OS + Applications. The sooner little stores like this "get it" the better. If they set a demo machine up with a slick looking Gnome2 interface (no RedHat doesn't count as slick:P), OpenOffice, Moz, and Gaim, then put it beside WinXP + Office for $300(?) more, then people would buy it. Maybe it takes a certain amount of customisation that isn't in the current distros, but 30 minutes on art.gnome.org should provide a nice looking UI - and to most folks, the UI is the Computer.
Selling it to people with the "It's Free and Therefore Good" argument is pointless. Sell it with "It Works and Costs Less" and you might get somewhere.
Also, try selling SOHO networks to leverage that into places Windows Server won't go - eg, Linux Server + 3 Linxu Workstations (diskless/netbooting is even better from a TCO and upgrade viewpoint).
I'll bet that there's someone on the fringes of every smart organization who is as think as two short planks. They'll be the ones trying to make a quick buck out of insider information, and they'll be the ones dumb enough to get caught easily.
Is my understand that when dealing with french people you must always be polite, when starting a conversation (we Brasilians usualy don't require these formalities).
You've nailed an important point there. Not specific to the French, this is a BIG THING when travelling, and it's something folks who don't leave home rarely have to deal with.
People have different cultures with different ideas about how to behave. Ever heard the term "Loud American" or "Arrogant Swede" or any number of similar phrases? Most of the time, it's simply cultural differences that you weren't aware of. What's rude to you might be perfectly normal to me, and vice-versa.
Just something to think about next time your travelling or dealing with a foreigner.
Funny, isn't it? One million dollars from DARPA to build a high-speed autonomous killing machine. Zero dollars from NASA to build a high-speed autonomous planetary exploration machine.
I agree completely, but I still think this is where they will go with it. Trouble is that they are in no hurry to get into court... I wish IBM, RedHat and SuSE would haul them off for creating unjustified doubt towards their products and for harrassing their customers.
Any other industry would deal with it to find a reasonable solution for all parties, or go to court and duke it out to get it sorted, but this is just stagnating and festering. It's turning into a bad case of herpes - annoying, unslightly, and it just won't go away.
The fundamental problem with all of this is that IMHO recoding wouldn't actually help that much. Sure, it would sort out any simple Copyright issues, but not the generic "IP" bullshit that these guys will be chasing. They will claim that since it is a work-alike, then it is a derivative work. Or that the process being implemented is their "IP" beef rather than the code itself, which as stated previously is covered under copyright.
That's why MS is getting up and making noise about their "IP" being everywhere - they're trying very very hard to take it past copyright and patent issues into the realm of general ideas. I suspect we are reaching a crossroads where we have to decide if we want IP laws at all, or if we want an industry where creativity and competition is allowed.
I keep thinking of code as art. Imagine if back in the day someone said that paintings of fruit in a bowl is their idea and you can't paint that anymore, and then someone else said, pictures of the sea are their idea, and so on. Real soon, creating your own interpretation of a scene (or a problem, to us coders) just isn't possible without getting your ass sued or paying "idea tax". I don't want this to happen to my industry - and with the OSS attacks, it's happening to my hobby as well.
Personally, I don't give a rats about downloading music for free, but I am PISSED that the RIAA has been given the right to harrass private citizens at will. I hope they (inadvertantly) supoena the asshats that gave them this power.
It amazes me that a lot more people don't use this
I've been computing since ZX-81 days, and this is the first I've heard of it. Better software is all well and good, but not if no-one knows about it - It probably doesn't help needing to run it under Wine (the CLI version!) on Linux either... Ports are on the To-Do list.
Props to Grandparent post for finally letting the masses know about it.
They run an external 12V adapter and an internal PSU, so you'll get away with a standard 12V line. The easiest way to wire audio is to use phono->RCA adapter cables, and of course, you'd be running line-level so you need an Amp - but that's assumed if you're building something flash. It's got std PC Audio so you can use the line-in to get sounds into it. If you're serious about sound quality, go buy an M-Audio USB sound card instead.
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Great, it looks cool. But I won't be really impressed until they can do it *with* tactile input.
I had a little think about that, and I wonder if an small targeted electric/static charge could be used to simulate a touch sensation, or perhaps find a way to manipulate water vapour (or something else?) in the air - eg flash freeze a very thin layer just before finger "contact". I'm just pulling this out of my ass, but there must be a way of doing it...
You put it well enough yourself - "they just want something easy that works." Most customers want a computer/internet/email - they couldn't care less if it's Windows or Mac or Linux or BeOS or whatever OS is popular today.
The main requirement is that it runs their apps, and if those apps aren't available under Linux, eg MYOB/Games/DTP, then Windows is probably what they need. Otherwise, Linux with an office suite will probably do just fine, and cost less.
I'm not advocating Linux for little stores because it's OSS or because GNU is the shiznit or because I personally like it, I'm advocating it because it can be cheaper and just as effective for many desktop customers.
"Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get."
- Frederick Douglass
Translation: It's OK for us to rip you off, but you can't rip us off.
In KDE right click the desktop, choose "New Harddrive Device" choose the windows partition you want to mount, click "OK".... you now have a desktop icon for that device.
Wha? Whoever coded that needs a kick up the ass. How about "New Disk Shortcut" or "Add Disk to Desktop" or similar. K.I.S.S. Most newbs don't even know what "device" means in techie-speak.
It sounds like there's still a fair amount of room for usability improvement...
Yeh, as a Linux geek that's no biggy for me, but for a store trying to crack the market it's Hard.
My off-the-top-of-my-head answers:
a) Another RedHat/Debian derivative with a slick UI and otherwise minimal install. Leveraging the existing work, but without the bloat that plauges many current distros (Granny doesn't need a database server). I know Yet Another Distro sounds daft, but really I'm just talking about themeing, desktop setup, and thoughtful package selection/installation. It's nothing that couldn't be done with a tweaked installer or set of RPMs applied to a minimal RH install. Probably RedHat so that...
b) Stores without Linux knowledge can buy it from RedHat's certification programme, or contract support to people who are "known good" in that OS.
I think that's an education / support issue. I'd guess 90% of Linux apps are only available online, so if they're looking in Walmart they're out of luck. Similarly for the Mac, most stores won't have titles for them either - instead, Mac users will often go to 1 or 2 stores that meet their needs.
I think the stores need to either teach users where/how to find software (eg, look on the distro CDs, or Fresh RPMs, etc) or "productize" them, and have a few rows of CDs with useful apps on them.
It actually reminds me of the ol' Amiga days, where you couldn't easily buy apps off the shelf, but you could get dodgy compilation disks from the guy across town, with screeds of apps on them. That worked for me, but no good for Joe Public... I'd give it another year or two for the marketing machine to catch up and start delivering some of the better stuff in boxed form. Either that or Wine / Installshield will get their act together so most apps will Just Work. Hmmm. Maybe .Net (read MONO) isn't such a bad thing for Linux afterall.
You mean I'm the only idiot that paid for Windows?
No wonder you posted anonymously...
they don't know enough and would rather be able to call up microsoft when something goes wrong
Is that a US market thing? In all my days of doing IT, I've never heard of anyone getting telephone support from MicroSoft. Over here, it seems to be sales only, and "call your vendor" if you have OS troubles.
Parts of the market seem to be missing the point that software such as a consumer level OS and office software have little value these days. You really can't sell them by and of themselves. Photoshop has value, maybe Access does too, but Powerpoint, Excel, and Word are just expected - kinda like a webbrowser.
Most non-geeks think of Office as Windows, and of IE as The Internet, for example. You sell Joe Punter a Computer, not Hardware + OS + Applications. The sooner little stores like this "get it" the better. If they set a demo machine up with a slick looking Gnome2 interface (no RedHat doesn't count as slick :P), OpenOffice, Moz, and Gaim, then put it beside WinXP + Office for $300(?) more, then people would buy it. Maybe it takes a certain amount of customisation that isn't in the current distros, but 30 minutes on art.gnome.org should provide a nice looking UI - and to most folks, the UI is the Computer.
Selling it to people with the "It's Free and Therefore Good" argument is pointless. Sell it with "It Works and Costs Less" and you might get somewhere.
Also, try selling SOHO networks to leverage that into places Windows Server won't go - eg, Linux Server + 3 Linxu Workstations (diskless/netbooting is even better from a TCO and upgrade viewpoint).
It's turkey time. Gobble, gobble.
I hope their security is up to scratch...
I'll bet that there's someone on the fringes of every smart organization who is as think as two short planks. They'll be the ones trying to make a quick buck out of insider information, and they'll be the ones dumb enough to get caught easily.
I guess that says something about the effectiveness of advertising...
Why? It's not like anyone else will get it.
...but how do you hack scripts in Vi with a funky cell-phone kepad? And maybe someone will implement TXT compatible shell expansion?
It's a cool idea whose time has come, but I think it'll be an emergency tool rather than a new way to work.
You're making the exact political argument that I illuded to in my original message:
I think you mean alluded.
illude - To play upon by artifice; to deceive; to mock; to excite and disappoint the hopes of.
allude - To make an indirect reference.
This post brought to you by Grammar-Nazis-R-Us.
Is my understand that when dealing with french people you must always be polite, when starting a conversation (we Brasilians usualy don't require these formalities).
You've nailed an important point there. Not specific to the French, this is a BIG THING when travelling, and it's something folks who don't leave home rarely have to deal with.
People have different cultures with different ideas about how to behave. Ever heard the term "Loud American" or "Arrogant Swede" or any number of similar phrases? Most of the time, it's simply cultural differences that you weren't aware of. What's rude to you might be perfectly normal to me, and vice-versa.
Just something to think about next time your travelling or dealing with a foreigner.
Funny, isn't it? One million dollars from DARPA to build a high-speed autonomous killing machine. Zero dollars from NASA to build a high-speed autonomous planetary exploration machine.
Nice to see where US government priorities lie.
I agree completely, but I still think this is where they will go with it. Trouble is that they are in no hurry to get into court... I wish IBM, RedHat and SuSE would haul them off for creating unjustified doubt towards their products and for harrassing their customers.
Any other industry would deal with it to find a reasonable solution for all parties, or go to court and duke it out to get it sorted, but this is just stagnating and festering. It's turning into a bad case of herpes - annoying, unslightly, and it just won't go away.
The fundamental problem with all of this is that IMHO recoding wouldn't actually help that much. Sure, it would sort out any simple Copyright issues, but not the generic "IP" bullshit that these guys will be chasing. They will claim that since it is a work-alike, then it is a derivative work. Or that the process being implemented is their "IP" beef rather than the code itself, which as stated previously is covered under copyright.
That's why MS is getting up and making noise about their "IP" being everywhere - they're trying very very hard to take it past copyright and patent issues into the realm of general ideas. I suspect we are reaching a crossroads where we have to decide if we want IP laws at all, or if we want an industry where creativity and competition is allowed.
I keep thinking of code as art. Imagine if back in the day someone said that paintings of fruit in a bowl is their idea and you can't paint that anymore, and then someone else said, pictures of the sea are their idea, and so on. Real soon, creating your own interpretation of a scene (or a problem, to us coders) just isn't possible without getting your ass sued or paying "idea tax". I don't want this to happen to my industry - and with the OSS attacks, it's happening to my hobby as well.
Nope, plaid box is taken. A plaid box is a a box for converting ma bell's pulse-phone lines to touch-tone lines.
More boxes than you can shake a handset at.
Personally, I don't give a rats about downloading music for free, but I am PISSED that the RIAA has been given the right to harrass private citizens at will. I hope they (inadvertantly) supoena the asshats that gave them this power.
It amazes me that a lot more people don't use this
I've been computing since ZX-81 days, and this is the first I've heard of it. Better software is all well and good, but not if no-one knows about it - It probably doesn't help needing to run it under Wine (the CLI version!) on Linux either... Ports are on the To-Do list.
Props to Grandparent post for finally letting the masses know about it.
I'll take a tzero thanks.
They run an external 12V adapter and an internal PSU, so you'll get away with a standard 12V line. The easiest way to wire audio is to use phono->RCA adapter cables, and of course, you'd be running line-level so you need an Amp - but that's assumed if you're building something flash. It's got std PC Audio so you can use the line-in to get sounds into it. If you're serious about sound quality, go buy an M-Audio USB sound card instead.