It's all messed up. When I was a kid, one of our Girl Scout leaders beat her daughter in front of all us, and Child Services wouldn't do anything about it, now they're harrassing innocent parents? WTF.
Yea you can send invites in google calendar, but the "availability" features aren't there yet. BUT in their "compare editions" page http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/editio ns.html [google.com]
it states that "Shared Calendar Resources" are available in the purchased edition. I havn't tried it so I can't really comment.
In the free edition, you can share calendars with eachother and then they can see what you're doing. I'm not sure if there's a specific busy or available feature, but if you see "Sara's History Class" on your calendar you can figure out that she's busy. It gets a little confusing with more than 4 or 5 calendars shared, but you can hide/view any number of calendars you want so you can leave the ones hidden that you don't need to see all the time.
No, not really. Yes, the graphics hardware in the N64 was superior to the PS1, but that's only part of the story. The PS1-era Final Fantasy games relied heavily on prerendered textures and full motion video sequences, and there was quite simply not enough storage space on Nintendo's cartridge format to accomodate them.
The PS1 FFs looked like shit outside of FMV. FF7 even looked like shit during most of the FMV because it was all blocky. You're right that it would have been a different game on the N64, but it would have been prettier (not that I'm saying that would have been a good idea, but they certainly didn't go with PS1 because it had the prettiest hardware).
I wouldn't hold my breath, personally. From all accounts, Final Fantasy XIII is already well into production, and is all but committed to the PS3 at this stage. The announcement that Dragon Quest IX would be released for the DS occurred simultaneously with the confirmation of the game's existence.
I said that FFXIII would be released on the PS3. I was saying that other Final Fantasies (spinoffs and possibly FFXIV) will go to the Wii.
Square is remaking FFI for PSP because that's about the only system that doesn't have it yet.
They also don't necessarily release for the prettiest console. N64 was prettier than PS1, Gamecube was prettier than PS2. However, they already were on Sony's bandwagon before anyone realized the PS3 would have problems selling, and they'll release FFXIII for PS3 because they've already done a lot of work on it that would have to be completely scrapped if they went to Wii. If the Wii continues to kick the PS3's ass in sales though, they might not stick with it. They moved Dragon Quest to the DS, so moving FF to the Wii wouldn't be that much of a shock.
### That means 83% don't
How many of those are gamers? How many of the other 17% with HD-TVs are?
Did you notice that Nintendo is targeting non-gamers with the Wii?
Nintendo can't compete against Microsoft and Sony with just another console but with kiddie games. So, they've made a console for non-gamers, casual gamers, and gamers who grew up and can't spend 4 hours a day gaming. These people do not have HDTV.
You are right, but you are also arguing against a zealot. The Nintendo fans are diehards and they exult in any Nintendo success. Also, they seem weirdly convinced that great graphics and fantastic gameplay are mutually exclusive.
Actually, it's more that great graphics and an affordable system are mutually exclusive. I don't have $500 or $600 to spend on a game system. Even if I get a 360 (I like it, but it's still a little too expensive) it doesn't look all that impressive on a standard TV (I've heard some games don't even size the text to be legible on SD) and I just do not have the money for an HDTV. However, the Wii is perfect for my old TV. That's why I'm a Nintendo fan. I still play my ps2, though.
Employees choosing to use IM and gmail, could cause those requirements to be circumvented.
Same with employees using the copier, printer, fax machine, or *drum roll* a pencil and piece of paper. If someone wants to circumvent some security measure they will.
At some point you have to trust your employees. If you can't trust them, then why hire them in the first place?
The difference with IT is that while you might have employees who would never ever sell or give out sensitive data, you still can't trust that they could never ever download a virus or spyware that would do that for them
Why is data so unsecured that the receptionist who plugs in her iPod can somehow get access to identity/medical histories? That's not the fault of the iPod or the receptionist.
An iPod could have a virus/keylogger/spyware/whatever, and whatever information the receptionist (or data entry minion, or whoever has an iPod) works with as a part of her job can then be comprimised. It's not that she'd suddenly gain access to things she shouldn't, but that things that she does have and need access to need to be secured.
Yes, because no one ever has trouble getting a wifi card to work under Linux. Or printer drivers working under OSX. In fact, surprising though it may be to you, getting drivers to work is often one of the biggest difficulties of installing Linux.
Linux doesn't have drivers for everything, but it's on the right track. I've had over the years an IBM laptop, Compaq laptop, and two Dell desktops (not counting ones I've built myself), all came with Windows of course, and all of their default hardware works 100% with Linux, even the wireless cards that came with the laptops. I had to install 3d drivers for the video cards on the desktops, but that was as simple as running EasyUbuntu and checking if I had nvidia or ati. Fresh installs of Linux on all my machines are completely usable instantly, despite being made for Windows, while fresh Windows installs don't even recognize the ethernet ports, let alone a display above 800x600, wireless, sound, printers, AAAHHHH!
Not that all is happy in the Linux world. Finding a wireless card for my desktop has been a nightmare. My USB wireless didn't work, ok, I'll find one that's compatible. Bought it. Didn't work. Oh, I have to buy the right version because some have different chipsets? Ok. Went to the Free Software Foundation's website, bought the card they recommended, double and triple checked the exact model number and everything was what they recommended, AND IT DOESN'T WORK! Went to Ubuntu Forums. Oh, here's the driver source you can recompile it. OMG, if the driver's open source why isn't it included!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!!
But, in general, I like the Linux concept of including drivers so you don't have to spend your time tracking them down. Now if they just had more drivers so that everything was up and running hassle-free it would be perfect.
What are the "must have" games for the Wii? Seriously. I'm aware of Zelda, but ehh, I don't have much time to actually *play* a lot, so I'd probably get bored of it.
If you don't have a lot of time, Wii Sports and Wii Play are obvious, but I love Wario Ware. It's crazy fun, single player or multiplayer. Raymond is also good, it has a fun single player mode and you can unlock two-player games. Elebits is also supposed to be really good, I want to get that, and Excite Truck is fun. As far as your wife goes, many Wii games are interesting enough and simple enough to play that they'll get her attention and she might even start playing. I'd get the Wii if I were you; I really think you'd like it.
I've said it from the beginning... nobody is going to want to spend years waving around a semi-accurate remote to play games that look like they were written 5 years ago. It just ain't gonna happen. This is the kind of thing that starts collecting dust a few weeks after Christmas. I keep playing my PS2 because it's a good platform, there are good games, and it looks and sounds better with each new game. When I sit down to play, I sometimes play for 4 hours a a time, every day, for weeks at a time (until I'm done with whatever it is I'm playing). I can't imagine doing that with the gimmick-y Wii. It just doesn't have the staying power of a more traditional gameing platform (like the PS2). Wii did real well out of the gates, but it's going to lose most of its steam before the games even begin to hit the PS3 platform.
Your PS2 games looked and sounded better over a 6 year time frame. The Wii will look and sound better and have a wider selection of games over the years. What good games did the PS2 have by the February after release? Not many. The Wii has barely just begun, and with its head start (in sales) over the PS3 this will not be another PS2 vs Gamecube situation.
Linux has 5, none of them simple. Give me something simple that doesn't involve typing sudo something, something and I'll take to it. Why should I have to deal with the source code at all? I get open source products in windows I get an installer than installs the application and puts the source files into a folder for me. I like that.
You don't have to deal with the source code. You don't have to type sudo (though you do have to enter your password when prompted). You open up your package manager, type the name of what you want in the search box and it comes up (unless it doesn't, but there's thousands and thousands of programs in the repositories that you can use until you're comfortable enough with the OS that you can find others) and then you click on it and it installs. Check out CNR for an example of a really user friendly package manager.
Cause, meet effect. How easy is it for someone to create a closed-source application (Tool of the devil, I know) they charge money for (Anti-Christ! Burn!) and distribute it in a way that's easily installable on most linux systems?
Stick a deb and an rpm on a CD. Charge for the CD. You could also put it in a commercial repository. Linspire's CNR will soon be available for all the major distros, and it handles payment.
There's a number of ways that software developers can make their programs installable on as many distros as possible without having as many installers. Some use autopackage, some use klik, some wrote their program in java and put it in a.jar file, some skip installing and just put the program and the files in a zip file so the user can extract it and run it where ever they want. Different solutions work for different people.
I haven't tried installing anything on Slackware for several years now, so I have no idea of the current state of their package management. Last I heard, though, DSL was based on Debian and could be configured to use the same apt repositories. As for FreeBSD, you're unlikely to find a better package and dependency management system than portupgrade on any Linux system.
I was meaning for newbies. A newbie on DSL will likely not be able to find the command line and figure out how to apt-get install, as opposed to on Ubuntu where installing is done in a GUI by default. I should have phrased that wrong, I didn't mean to imply they suck, I meant that if a newbie was on them and couldn't understand what to do then they should switch to a more newbie-friendly distro.
Last time I tried Ubuntu apt-get package_i_want failed to locate the program more than half the time.
When you use the command line you have to make sure you spell the package name exactly right, for example "sudo apt-get install flash" won't work, but "sudo apt-get install flash-nonfree" does. Synaptic has a really good search feature that I use when i don't know the exact name. If Ubuntu really doesn't have half the programs you want, then what programs do you use and how do you normally get them?
Relying on distros for your software has lead to the sad state we're in now. I don't rely on Microsoft to hand stamp and prepare every piece of software I used on Windows, and I certainly shouldn't have to do the same on my Linux machine. Until we get a method by which I download a file, click on it, and install a program (regardless of which distro I'm running or which version of GTK I'm running), Linux will lag behind. SEVERELY.
I personally like the package management system. I like having one place to look for software for my system, software that I know has been tested with the programs I likely have on my system, software that I know will update with the rest of my system, software I know isn't spyware. It sounds like it wouldn't work too well, but it really works rather well since there are so many programs in the repositories. Even for the programs that don't want/can't be in the repositories, there's ways for people to install those easily as well. There's java programs that install easily regardless of your Linux, there's autopackage, and some developers just put the program and all the files in a zip file that you can extract and then run where ever you want. There are solutions, they probably need better development, but they're not in terrible shape and that's not the most pressing issue for Linux. Much more important is getting the software people really want on Linux (or at least working really well and easy with wine) and making really good oss equivalents to proprietary software (we need something better than gimp to compare to photoshop) and we also need more device drivers, especially wireless. Those are much more important than package management.
Wine is in the repositories of pretty much every distribution that has repositories (and actually, Oracle is in Ubuntu's repository). As for the specific Windows applications, the discussion is package management, not what programs are available for Linux. If you are very attached to Windows apps that don't work with Wine, then unfortunetly Linux is not for you. We should continue to complain to software developers to make Linux ports and make our own equivalant programs, but that's a seperate issue from the best ways for users to install the software that is for Linux.
Your mother is just used to Windows, it's not that it's easy. Tell me, would it be easier to teach a complete newbie to click Applications->Add New Programs->Games (for example) and then choose among the ones that come up, or go to Google, type "games" and then figure out which ones are actual games, not spyware, and free? Then find the setup.exe, download it, remember where they downloaded it, then install?
and do not confront the newbie with stuff like vi/emacs, kernels, shells and window managers unless he _deliberately_ looks after them.
Unless, of course, the newbie does want to install a software package that doesn't come pre-installed with the distro chosen.
In Ubuntu (the distro I'm most familar with) to install new programs a newbie would go to Applications->Add New Programs and that would open a simplified version of Synaptic (they can go to the full version of Synaptic by clicking Advanced) that only had the basic programs for a newbie. Games, chat clients, extra email clients and web browser, divided into basic categories like Games and Internet. There's no alternative kernels, shells, desktop environments, etc (those you have to go to Synaptic for). Even once you go in Synaptic, you don't have to pick a new kernel, it still has categories so they can just click the categories like Games and Web Development and stuff they understand, or just search for specifically what they want. So, no, newbies don't have to worry about the nuts and bolts of their distro.
I actually know a guy who purchased a brand-new copy of Vista for the computer he just built. Of course, he also unplugged all his fans when he was afraid that his power supply wasn't strong enough, so he's not exactly bright.
That's a remarkably stupid question. Because Networker or Oracle, for example, are not included with their distributions, perhaps? No distribution includes any replacement for those.
That comes under #3 in the GP post. No, repositories can't have absolutely everything, but they maintain almost every application for desktop use and a basic user shouldn't need to install things outside the repository. If you're installing Networker and/or Oracle, you're well beyond a basic desktop user and should be able to install things not provided by your distro. If those programs are still too difficult to install, then you should contact the makers of them and tell them that.
Agreed. Multiple package formats are a non-starter, and shouldn't even be a consideration. The LSB has standardized on a subset of RPM, and that should be the universal package format. The Debian-based distros are harming the package standardization processes, and should learn to play with the other children. Debian's strength is not in the.deb package format, but in the package management tools. Those same tools will still be available upon switching the the LSB RPM format, so I don't see Debian's hangup about cooperating with the LSB.
Why should the Debian-based distros scrap their package format? There's just as many if not more users of Debian-based distros than there are Red Hat based distros, so why is it that the Debian distros have to do all the work to change? Couldn't you just as easily accuse the Red Hat distros of not playing with the other children because they don't want to switch to.deb?
Software installation needs to be simple as: click on package, enter password to authorize installation, use newly installed software.
If you use a package manager, that is how installing programs on Linux is.
Why do Linux fundamentalists believe that all users are idiots and they should go somewhere else? Until the majority of Linux users and developers get past this mentality we will never see Linux accepted into the main stream desktop market. Yes, most general users can find all the software they need in a single distro, but most users don't know Ubuntu from Fedora from SUSE. If they pick a distro that doesn't include a software package that they want it shouldn't require uninstalling the OS and installing a new one.
If a user picks Fedora or Ubuntu or SuSe, then they should be able to find just about anything they need in their distro's package manager. They all include alternative web browsers, chat clients, games, KDE/GNOME/XFCE, programming tools, image editing software (as best as it gets in Linux), wine, and even different file managers and shells and stuff that average users would never care about switching from the default. If a newbie picks Slackware or DSL or FreeBSD and figure out what to do or how to install programs, then yes, they should switch to a more mainstream and newbie-friendly distro. But there's not that much differences in what's in the repositories of the main distros, so they shouldn't need to switch from Fedora to Ubuntu because of what packages are available.
Distros shouldn't have to include every single piece of software that a user might want also. If they stopped doing this distros wouldn't require 5+ CDs or a DVD or two. Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate having most of the programs I will need available on a set of five CDs, but this shouldn't be a requirement of distros.
It's not a requirement of distros. Ubuntu and other distros are available on single CDs, with all of the rest of their programs available in the repositories, so you only have to download multiple CD or DVDs if you're installing to a computer without internet or if you just like having all that stuff offline.
The first time grandma needs to go download dependencies means Linux has failed on the consumer desktop.
Why would "grandma" need to install a program outside of her package manager anyways? Assuming Grandma is not some former UNIX programmer who likes to tweak everything under the sun (there's a few grandmas like that), but just some basic user with basic user needs of email, word processing, simple games, etc, then installing stuff on Linux will actually be easier for her than installing on Windows. Most repositories have thousands of programs, and I can't imagine anything a newbie would need that's not in the repositories of the major distros. I'm a geek and I don't even install that many packages outside repositories. With CNR coming to a variety of distros, even RPM distros, that just means more programs available for people without compiling from source and hunting down things over the internet. "The Year of the Linux Desktop" is just a silly catchphrase, but Linux is getting easier and easier for people.
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It's all messed up. When I was a kid, one of our Girl Scout leaders beat her daughter in front of all us, and Child Services wouldn't do anything about it, now they're harrassing innocent parents? WTF.
That's a great sig for that post. Kittens are cute and fuzzy, remember to beat your kids! :D
I said that FFXIII would be released on the PS3. I was saying that other Final Fantasies (spinoffs and possibly FFXIV) will go to the Wii.
Square is remaking FFI for PSP because that's about the only system that doesn't have it yet.
They also don't necessarily release for the prettiest console. N64 was prettier than PS1, Gamecube was prettier than PS2. However, they already were on Sony's bandwagon before anyone realized the PS3 would have problems selling, and they'll release FFXIII for PS3 because they've already done a lot of work on it that would have to be completely scrapped if they went to Wii. If the Wii continues to kick the PS3's ass in sales though, they might not stick with it. They moved Dragon Quest to the DS, so moving FF to the Wii wouldn't be that much of a shock.
Nintendo can't compete against Microsoft and Sony with just another console but with kiddie games. So, they've made a console for non-gamers, casual gamers, and gamers who grew up and can't spend 4 hours a day gaming. These people do not have HDTV.
Not that all is happy in the Linux world. Finding a wireless card for my desktop has been a nightmare. My USB wireless didn't work, ok, I'll find one that's compatible. Bought it. Didn't work. Oh, I have to buy the right version because some have different chipsets? Ok. Went to the Free Software Foundation's website, bought the card they recommended, double and triple checked the exact model number and everything was what they recommended, AND IT DOESN'T WORK! Went to Ubuntu Forums. Oh, here's the driver source you can recompile it. OMG, if the driver's open source why isn't it included!!! AAAAHHHHH!!!!!
But, in general, I like the Linux concept of including drivers so you don't have to spend your time tracking them down. Now if they just had more drivers so that everything was up and running hassle-free it would be perfect.
There's a number of ways that software developers can make their programs installable on as many distros as possible without having as many installers. Some use autopackage, some use klik, some wrote their program in java and put it in a .jar file, some skip installing and just put the program and the files in a zip file so the user can extract it and run it where ever they want. Different solutions work for different people.
I personally like the package management system. I like having one place to look for software for my system, software that I know has been tested with the programs I likely have on my system, software that I know will update with the rest of my system, software I know isn't spyware. It sounds like it wouldn't work too well, but it really works rather well since there are so many programs in the repositories. Even for the programs that don't want/can't be in the repositories, there's ways for people to install those easily as well. There's java programs that install easily regardless of your Linux, there's autopackage, and some developers just put the program and all the files in a zip file that you can extract and then run where ever you want. There are solutions, they probably need better development, but they're not in terrible shape and that's not the most pressing issue for Linux. Much more important is getting the software people really want on Linux (or at least working really well and easy with wine) and making really good oss equivalents to proprietary software (we need something better than gimp to compare to photoshop) and we also need more device drivers, especially wireless. Those are much more important than package management.
Wine is in the repositories of pretty much every distribution that has repositories (and actually, Oracle is in Ubuntu's repository). As for the specific Windows applications, the discussion is package management, not what programs are available for Linux. If you are very attached to Windows apps that don't work with Wine, then unfortunetly Linux is not for you. We should continue to complain to software developers to make Linux ports and make our own equivalant programs, but that's a seperate issue from the best ways for users to install the software that is for Linux.
Your mother is just used to Windows, it's not that it's easy. Tell me, would it be easier to teach a complete newbie to click Applications->Add New Programs->Games (for example) and then choose among the ones that come up, or go to Google, type "games" and then figure out which ones are actual games, not spyware, and free? Then find the setup.exe, download it, remember where they downloaded it, then install?
If you use a package manager, that is how installing programs on Linux is.