Most cell phone companies have a "1 minute minimum" on all inbound calls whether you answer or not. I remember one month with Sprint where I almost ran out of minutes - so naturally I turned off my phone for the last few days.
I still got "overage fees" because the inbound calls to my voicemail charged exactly one minute each.
So if I used a phone-dialer and called you 50,000 times (then hanging up immediately), I could probably still cost you a significant amount of money. 50,000 isn't unreasonable if it takes 40 seconds to go to voicemail and you don't think to call and have my number blocked. If you give up and hang up the phone, I could make 500,000 calls in a month. (Theoretically)
I'll bet the cell company would rebate the fees though if you complained about it.
Seriously, listen to what your saying. Most people are novice user's. They do not know how to untar a file, they do not know what a binary is, or how to compile. they need to learn these things.
Most computer users know how to open a zip file. Most computer users know how to open an execuatble. Most computer users know how to install a program.
Those who can do these things do not need overly dumbed down interfaces. However, if a computer user cannot do these things, then the over-bloated and slightly odd "Microsoft" way is not intuituive - so things are hard to just "figure out."
There is no need for me to review the non-intuitive things about Windows, but not everyone needs to be a programmer to make good use of a computer. In fact, if the operating system is designed with this idea in mind, anyone can use a computer. Some programs go thr route of enabling "advanced" options. I say, just make the interface intuitive. In an intuitive interface, anyone can find anything common and uncommon tasks can be found with some logical probing.
I just saw an awesome Linux/IBM commercial during the superbowl. I usually just watch for the commercials - so I am pretty apathetic about the game. But when I saw the commercial come up, I stood up and screamed...
Half of the people at the campus-wide superbowl party turned around and looked at me like I was insane, while the Comp Sci club all raised their fists in the air in victory.
It is good to have allies with deep pockets. Let's just hope it stays this way.
I am using the technical term which my university chooses to describe my degree plan by. We offer 6 degrees (just counting undergrads) which could theoretically fall under the category of theology. "Theology" is just too broad a term to be used to specify a degree plan at a Christian university.
The only problems I have ever had with Gentoo (my personal preference) is that it is a pain if you have an over-zealous IT dept. I have trouble making the connections I need to download the sources. But other than that I enjoy using it. Often if you finde a package which is "broken," you can just come back in a day or so after re-syncing and someone will have fixed it.
Hmmm, google is your friend. This page covers all three keys, but here is a little description of each:
The main intent of the Scroll Lock key was to allow scrolling of screen text up, down and presumably sideways using the arrow keys in the days before large displays and graphical scroll bars. You can see where this might have been handy in the DOS era, when screen output typically was limited to 80 characters wide by 25 rows deep. For some types of programs, spreadsheets being the obvious example, it's still handy now.
In layman's terms [...], "You can make a multitasking program manager monitor a specific location in your computer's hardware so it can do something cool, such as letting the user switch tasks, when the SysReq key is pressed." As it turned out, the developers of Windows didn't use SysReq when implementing task switching. Some new keyboards no longer feature this key, and its days seem numbered.
The Pause/Break key was used in the DOS command line environment to pause scrolling of text on the screen, which could, depending on the program and its method of text output to the screen, have the effect of pausing program execution.
...add more memory to it & interface it with I/O video glasses, I could program in (take snapshots) of my buisness contacts and associate it with useful information. The glasses run a video feed to the little pc, pc recognizes the face, outputs information to the (tinted) glasses.
Auto-update via. WiFi basend on new "inteligence"... ?
I would say this is a rediculous idea... but then again, I wasn't expecting people to be wearing computers inside their shirt collars.
While I don't think it's good for PR for the Linux crowd to be explicitly associated with any viruses, I would rather see this type of virus than one which does serious damage!
Any besides, I got a good chuckle out of reading the description on Symantec's website.
I saw Fry's Electronics doing something similar with ThizOS (I believe it was called). I didn't really know a whole lot about ThizOS, and I don't really know a lot about FreeDOS, but as long as I am not paying the Microsoft tax I say more power to them!
Consequently, you might want to take note that Fry's has since then begun taking their Linux desktops out of the stores. (According to a computer dept. manager) They claim that the mechines were too hard to support. I hope Dell isn't forced down that road.
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Most cell phone companies have a "1 minute minimum" on all inbound calls whether you answer or not. I remember one month with Sprint where I almost ran out of minutes - so naturally I turned off my phone for the last few days.
I still got "overage fees" because the inbound calls to my voicemail charged exactly one minute each.
So if I used a phone-dialer and called you 50,000 times (then hanging up immediately), I could probably still cost you a significant amount of money. 50,000 isn't unreasonable if it takes 40 seconds to go to voicemail and you don't think to call and have my number blocked. If you give up and hang up the phone, I could make 500,000 calls in a month. (Theoretically)
I'll bet the cell company would rebate the fees though if you complained about it.
Most computer users know how to open a zip file.
Most computer users know how to open an execuatble.
Most computer users know how to install a program.
Those who can do these things do not need overly dumbed down interfaces. However, if a computer user cannot do these things, then the over-bloated and slightly odd "Microsoft" way is not intuituive - so things are hard to just "figure out."
There is no need for me to review the non-intuitive things about Windows, but not everyone needs to be a programmer to make good use of a computer. In fact, if the operating system is designed with this idea in mind, anyone can use a computer. Some programs go thr route of enabling "advanced" options. I say, just make the interface intuitive. In an intuitive interface, anyone can find anything common and uncommon tasks can be found with some logical probing.
Haha,
/thought/ of K++ in years. Thanks for the chuckle.
I haven't even
I just saw an awesome Linux/IBM commercial during the superbowl. I usually just watch for the commercials - so I am pretty apathetic about the game. But when I saw the commercial come up, I stood up and screamed...
Half of the people at the campus-wide superbowl party turned around and looked at me like I was insane, while the Comp Sci club all raised their fists in the air in victory.
It is good to have allies with deep pockets. Let's just hope it stays this way.
I am using the technical term which my university chooses to describe my degree plan by. We offer 6 degrees (just counting undergrads) which could theoretically fall under the category of theology. "Theology" is just too broad a term to be used to specify a degree plan at a Christian university.
The only problems I have ever had with Gentoo (my personal preference) is that it is a pain if you have an over-zealous IT dept. I have trouble making the connections I need to download the sources. But other than that I enjoy using it. Often if you finde a package which is "broken," you can just come back in a day or so after re-syncing and someone will have fixed it.
...wait until the price drops, then go to second-hand places (who will likely have to drop prices as well) and get one there.
Use the built in networking for an interface and if you really feel like it, you can just plug it into a tv and use it that way.
After that, it's just a quick Stage 3 from GentooX, and I am on my way to the cheapest server I have ever built. (~$60)
I wouldn't buy much of anything from Microsoft, but I could justify a second-hand purchase for these kinds of savings.
Hahaha,
I know. They are on opposite sides of the spectrum I will admit...
But what I realy wanna do in life is go into ministry, but I'll never graduate if I don't take all these CompSci classes to raise my GPA!
Hmmm, google is your friend. This page covers all three keys, but here is a little description of each:
The main intent of the Scroll Lock key was to allow scrolling of screen text up, down and presumably sideways using the arrow keys in the days before large displays and graphical scroll bars. You can see where this might have been handy in the DOS era, when screen output typically was limited to 80 characters wide by 25 rows deep. For some types of programs, spreadsheets being the obvious example, it's still handy now.
In layman's terms [...], "You can make a multitasking program manager monitor a specific location in your computer's hardware so it can do something cool, such as letting the user switch tasks, when the SysReq key is pressed." As it turned out, the developers of Windows didn't use SysReq when implementing task switching. Some new keyboards no longer feature this key, and its days seem numbered.
The Pause/Break key was used in the DOS command line environment to pause scrolling of text on the screen, which could, depending on the program and its method of text output to the screen, have the effect of pausing program execution.
...add more memory to it & interface it with I/O video glasses, I could program in (take snapshots) of my buisness contacts and associate it with useful information. The glasses run a video feed to the little pc, pc recognizes the face, outputs information to the (tinted) glasses.
Auto-update via. WiFi basend on new "inteligence"... ?
I would say this is a rediculous idea... but then again, I wasn't expecting people to be wearing computers inside their shirt collars.
While I don't think it's good for PR for the Linux crowd to be explicitly associated with any viruses, I would rather see this type of virus than one which does serious damage!
Any besides, I got a good chuckle out of reading the description on Symantec's website.
I saw Fry's Electronics doing something similar with ThizOS (I believe it was called). I didn't really know a whole lot about ThizOS, and I don't really know a lot about FreeDOS, but as long as I am not paying the Microsoft tax I say more power to them!
Consequently, you might want to take note that Fry's has since then begun taking their Linux desktops out of the stores. (According to a computer dept. manager) They claim that the mechines were too hard to support. I hope Dell isn't forced down that road.