I think this whole issue shows more about people's attitude to change than anything else. IMHO The majority of the world fears change, yet change is the one thing in life you can absolutely guarantee. Being a change junkie, I love the new spatial nautilus:-D
One thing Windows XP doesn't provide is a "Workspace switcher" or pager the quality of GNOME's. The one you can donwload with the Power Toys isn't very good. For instance, being able to drag and drop windows onto your desktops is a feature I would be very sore to lose.
I am sure you've all seen these, which sit on the top corner of your monitor. Its amazing how much more relaxed you feel when you know what is creeping up behind you...
I agree OpenOffice.org is getting good, but Calc falls _way_ short of Excel. I work for the local council as a finance technician. I could go into all the details, but calc just doesn't measure up. It needs a lot of work to become anywhere near as productive as the latest versions of Excel. I use Slackware at home, so this isn't any sort of bias towards Microsoft. I would love to use OpenOffice, but for any kind of spreadsheet power user, Calc (of all the applications this is the most important) needs a lot more tweaking yet IMO.
Have you ever asked why people make suggestions in an inappropriate or assualting way? Because their emails have been ignored, their opinions are never asked and the most basic of information is not passed on to the people who need it the most.
There is an excellent BBC T.V. series called "Back To The Floor", where the Managing Directors/C.E.O.s of large companies go to work at the ground level of their companies. EVERY one of these managers was amazed by what they saw. The people actually doing the job got to tell the boss where and how the company was going wrong. They knew because they were the ones doing the job. The boss didn't know because not matter how many times they tried to offer help and advice to their managers, they were ignored as they weren't seen as capable of making such insights. Every one of these managers saw that their employees at the lowest level could still offer insight into the company that a whole board of directors never could. They marched right back into that meeting on their return and asked a lot of hard questions. You could see in every managers face the whole gammut of their emotions. Annoyed because they were going to have to make changes and concessions to employees they thought they had managed to bury. Scorn for the boss because he had taken their comments on board and now wanted to know why the present management had not come up with/passed on these ideas.
If you have a contract with Dell which prevents your IT department developing solutions in house, what makes you think that this is necessarily the best thing for your company? How can IT be short sighted or uninformed when its you that hasn't told them about your deal with Dell?
Comparing business to war you missed the most obvious comparison. To win a war you need to be either the most unscrupulous party, vastly outnumber your enemy, have a greater fire power or have a vsit from lady luck; just as in business. Its all about money, which has nothing to do with intelligence. That doens't mean anyone who earns a lot of money isn't intelligent, it means you don't have to be intelligent to earn a lot of money. I won't bother to state the cases there.
OBVIOUSLY I am overstating, but I couldn't help it when such a blatant Troll is modded to 5 Informative, and I replied rather than using all five of my mod points to remove your post. I have worked for some monsters in the past, fortunately I am now in a position (a mere Finance Technician) where my work and skills are valued by my manager.
No doubt I will have wished I had said "Hell to my Karma..." after this...
Rather amusing to see that this link doesn't work in my Mozilla which has the latest version of the Real Player plugin and works fine with the BBC's website. Shame on you IBM! We need to start a campaign against browser "auto-detection"...
This all depends on how you define desktop. Most companies probably don't want their employees playing games or watching movies during worktime. IMHO "entertainment" wouldn't warrant very highly on the criteria for most companies' OS needs.
Does anybody know how much involvement the Chinese Government has with Red Flag? It seems to me that the principles of open source software sit uneasily with censorship.
Simo Hayha. Finland. 1939 - 1940.
A member of the 34th Infantry Regiment and a farmer by trade, Simo Hayha became a most feared sniper during the 1939-40 (30 November 1939 14 March 1940) Winter invasion of Finland by the Soviet Union. Using nothing more than an iron sighted Mosin-Nagant Model 28, Simo is credited with killing 505 Russians during a nine month period - a feat still unmatched today by any sniper in any conflict.
MOD PARENT UP! +1 Informative.
Thats a free game included in Windows... kill the pop ups! Like that game in the arcade where you have have hit things with a mallet...
Whilst working for an Outdoor Clothing company I was fortunate enough to be involved in the selection process for store manager positions. We had one outstanding C.V. which immediately went into the "Interview" pile. Under the additional accomplishments section was:-
Some people make their own Access databases but the IT people really hate that - you know how it goes: individual makes DB in Access, time passes, undocumented and poorly implemented Access database becomes the lynchpin of a Ward, originator leave, everyone's up shit creek.
I work for my local council as a finance technician and our IT people refuse to allow anyone to implement Access databases other than for personal use (not everyone has Access installed). I take your point about poorly implemented databases. However, quite often the best solution is an Access database. But even when I fully document a database and work through many revisions to find the simplest solution, I can find no one willing to allow me to show them how it works, however much they rave on about how good a program it is, or profess to be a database expert. The issue is further complicated by our Departmental IT Manager who insists on telling everyone you cannot share Excel spreadsheets between users. I relish such challenges at work:-), and find using Access to co-ordinate my own efforts and using Excel to collect and distribute the best solution. A developmental license might help, but then I wouldn't be able to simply jump in and create quick changes.
IMHO this is where the open source world is lacking. I use Slackware at home by choice and would love to use a *NIX desktop at work but without Excel and Access, I would be lost. Yes, Gnumeric is good. It does translate quite well. But it simply isn't anywhere near as user friendly as Excel. I can't remember specifics, but many of the things I do in Excel which added up to save me hours every day just aren't there in Gnumeric or any of the other open source equivalents. The same with Access. I know how much better a SQL/php database would be for my needs, but the learning curve is far too great for me to take on at the moment, especially as Access is such a great tool for quickly managing information for a single user. The backbone of our network is Unix based with mixture of NT/2000/XP desktops. I can see us migrating to a *NIX desktop in the future, and I can see the already slow machine that is a local council grinding to a halt. Are there any other *NIX acolytes out there in the current climate and shuddering at the though of their colleagues being faced with Gnome/Gnumeric or KDE/Calc?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah and they are the underdogs!
read Neuromancer by William Gibson.
How do you know it was "Banksy"?
I think this whole issue shows more about people's attitude to change than anything else. IMHO The majority of the world fears change, yet change is the one thing in life you can absolutely guarantee. Being a change junkie, I love the new spatial nautilus :-D
One thing Windows XP doesn't provide is a "Workspace switcher" or pager the quality of GNOME's. The one you can donwload with the Power Toys isn't very good. For instance, being able to drag and drop windows onto your desktops is a feature I would be very sore to lose.
I am sure you've all seen these, which sit on the top corner of your monitor. Its amazing how much more relaxed you feel when you know what is creeping up behind you...
I agree OpenOffice.org is getting good, but Calc falls _way_ short of Excel. I work for the local council as a finance technician. I could go into all the details, but calc just doesn't measure up. It needs a lot of work to become anywhere near as productive as the latest versions of Excel. I use Slackware at home, so this isn't any sort of bias towards Microsoft. I would love to use OpenOffice, but for any kind of spreadsheet power user, Calc (of all the applications this is the most important) needs a lot more tweaking yet IMO.
Have you ever asked why people make suggestions in an inappropriate or assualting way? Because their emails have been ignored, their opinions are never asked and the most basic of information is not passed on to the people who need it the most.
There is an excellent BBC T.V. series called "Back To The Floor", where the Managing Directors/C.E.O.s of large companies go to work at the ground level of their companies. EVERY one of these managers was amazed by what they saw. The people actually doing the job got to tell the boss where and how the company was going wrong. They knew because they were the ones doing the job. The boss didn't know because not matter how many times they tried to offer help and advice to their managers, they were ignored as they weren't seen as capable of making such insights. Every one of these managers saw that their employees at the lowest level could still offer insight into the company that a whole board of directors never could. They marched right back into that meeting on their return and asked a lot of hard questions. You could see in every managers face the whole gammut of their emotions. Annoyed because they were going to have to make changes and concessions to employees they thought they had managed to bury. Scorn for the boss because he had taken their comments on board and now wanted to know why the present management had not come up with/passed on these ideas.
If you have a contract with Dell which prevents your IT department developing solutions in house, what makes you think that this is necessarily the best thing for your company? How can IT be short sighted or uninformed when its you that hasn't told them about your deal with Dell?
Comparing business to war you missed the most obvious comparison. To win a war you need to be either the most unscrupulous party, vastly outnumber your enemy, have a greater fire power or have a vsit from lady luck; just as in business. Its all about money, which has nothing to do with intelligence. That doens't mean anyone who earns a lot of money isn't intelligent, it means you don't have to be intelligent to earn a lot of money. I won't bother to state the cases there.
OBVIOUSLY I am overstating, but I couldn't help it when such a blatant Troll is modded to 5 Informative, and I replied rather than using all five of my mod points to remove your post. I have worked for some monsters in the past, fortunately I am now in a position (a mere Finance Technician) where my work and skills are valued by my manager.
No doubt I will have wished I had said "Hell to my Karma..." after this...
This is about the BBC story, not Slashdot discussions. How many "unfounded and baseless claims about Microsoft" have you seen on the BBC website?
...and not even the fountain pen or the Bic has been mighty enough to see off its predecessor the pencil!
Rather amusing to see that this link doesn't work in my Mozilla which has the latest version of the Real Player plugin and works fine with the BBC's website. Shame on you IBM! We need to start a campaign against browser "auto-detection"...
This all depends on how you define desktop. Most companies probably don't want their employees playing games or watching movies during worktime. IMHO "entertainment" wouldn't warrant very highly on the criteria for most companies' OS needs.
Does anybody know how much involvement the Chinese Government has with Red Flag? It seems to me that the principles of open source software sit uneasily with censorship.
And my personal favourite:- 2001 in lego?
See the results: brickfilms
I was thinking the very same myself but doesn't the unix philosophy still allow you to use whichever kernel you want?
Not forgetting...
Simo Hayha. Finland. 1939 - 1940. A member of the 34th Infantry Regiment and a farmer by trade, Simo Hayha became a most feared sniper during the 1939-40 (30 November 1939 14 March 1940) Winter invasion of Finland by the Soviet Union. Using nothing more than an iron sighted Mosin-Nagant Model 28, Simo is credited with killing 505 Russians during a nine month period - a feat still unmatched today by any sniper in any conflict.
snipercountry.com/sniphistory
MOD PARENT UP! +1 Informative. Thats a free game included in Windows... kill the pop ups! Like that game in the arcade where you have have hit things with a mallet...
Of course it won't make the "uncensored" phones any more popular with the kids...
...might want to try this:-
Xshok
Sorry if its been posted before, I didn't find anything in the search.
U.K. Disco Dancing Champion
Some people make their own Access databases but the IT people really hate that - you know how it goes: individual makes DB in Access, time passes, undocumented and poorly implemented Access database becomes the lynchpin of a Ward, originator leave, everyone's up shit creek.
:-), and find using Access to co-ordinate my own efforts and using Excel to collect and distribute the best solution. A developmental license might help, but then I wouldn't be able to simply jump in and create quick changes.
I work for my local council as a finance technician and our IT people refuse to allow anyone to implement Access databases other than for personal use (not everyone has Access installed). I take your point about poorly implemented databases. However, quite often the best solution is an Access database. But even when I fully document a database and work through many revisions to find the simplest solution, I can find no one willing to allow me to show them how it works, however much they rave on about how good a program it is, or profess to be a database expert. The issue is further complicated by our Departmental IT Manager who insists on telling everyone you cannot share Excel spreadsheets between users. I relish such challenges at work
IMHO this is where the open source world is lacking. I use Slackware at home by choice and would love to use a *NIX desktop at work but without Excel and Access, I would be lost. Yes, Gnumeric is good. It does translate quite well. But it simply isn't anywhere near as user friendly as Excel. I can't remember specifics, but many of the things I do in Excel which added up to save me hours every day just aren't there in Gnumeric or any of the other open source equivalents. The same with Access. I know how much better a SQL/php database would be for my needs, but the learning curve is far too great for me to take on at the moment, especially as Access is such a great tool for quickly managing information for a single user. The backbone of our network is Unix based with mixture of NT/2000/XP desktops. I can see us migrating to a *NIX desktop in the future, and I can see the already slow machine that is a local council grinding to a halt. Are there any other *NIX acolytes out there in the current climate and shuddering at the though of their colleagues being faced with Gnome/Gnumeric or KDE/Calc?