Now, a google OS. What does it solve? What does it get them? especially if they're giving it away for free? If they give it away for free - corporations won't use it. Corporations are all about accountability - and having Microsoft around as an expensive and pervasive fall guy is a proven business model. Google can't afford to give away that kind of support - so no way corporations use it.
Sounds like you've just debunked the RedHat business model!;)
Except that RH is making money... there's nothing that would keep Google from following the same model. Free to use, support for a fee.
Furthermore, Mitchell reports that retailers are making the process easier, by printing rebate forms and receipt copies at the register,
Why don't they take it one step further and file it for us as well? Then we can just take the rebate off at the register? I don't mind paying sales tax on the full price.
Agile methods, properly used, are the best way I know to improve product quality, keep a handle on what everyone's doing , and improve the developer's skills.
It's not a silver bullet but a very useful tool. Even if you don't adopt them wholesale, you should take a "survey course" to see what it's all about. Pick a few of the practices and try them out. See what works for you.
At the risk of sounding like a shill, check out my book (or one like it) to a quick intro some agile methods.
It allows serious developers to focus on programming and software design, rather than painstakingly maintaining their computer system(s). After all, productivity is a must these days, and Ubuntu does much to increase it.
Bump.
This is very true. I know a lot of very smart people moving to Macs because "everything just works".
I'm not quite ready to pay the Mac tax yet... Kubuntu gets me a heck of a lot closer than RH or any other distro I've used.
I agree with a lot of you're saying. I suspect if we sat down to talk about it we'd end up on the same page.
My daily meetings are 1 to 2 minutes per person. This keeps this ~really~ short. If people start spinning off into private discussions, I ask them to take it "offline" and get together after the group meeting.
It's a surprisingly good way to let me catch little issues before they become big issues.
I don't like walk around managing for two reasons.
The first I don't like walking around all day.:)
The other reason is that developers work better without interruptions.
I think a manager's job description should include ~preventing~ disruptions, not being the one causing them by dropping in at random during the day and demanding a status report.
I practice meetings that are very similar to the Scrum daily meetings. Everyone answers three questions. What did you do yesterday, what problems did you have and what do intend to do today?
Rather than embarrassing people into lying about status, I find it's a good way for me (or other senior team members) to spot problems and help get them solved.
It's not so much about micromanaging but communication. People are going to misunderstand. We're human, it happens. But talking (or meeting) frequently helps to catch those miscommunications more quickly. If meet monthly, how much time is wasted on the wrong tasks?
I've been in and out of managment, development and testing and it's the best way I've found to run a team.
But then again, everyone's different and every team is different. Just because it works for me doesn't mean it has to work for you.
I got her using Gimp for some basic graphics and she was not longer happy with her "slow" 1700+ box.:) She's also wanting to get Photoshop and I told her it needed the power. heh...
I just bought my wife a dual core (3800 model) and it's just as responsive as my dual Opteron. I'm seriously considering selling my dual CPU box and getting a dual core myself just to have fewer fans in the box and generate less heat.
I had been considering an Intel dual core but it sounds like I need to aim for an AMD instead.
When the law was passed, Congress mandated the register of copyrights revisit the anti-circumvention section every three years to make sure consumers have proper access to materials they purchased -- even if content creators have them locked down. If the copyright office finds instances where copy protection prevents fair use of the work, then those copy protections can be legally circumvented."
So... making a backup copy for when my kids destroy the CD/DVD (or when my hard drive crashes) isn't fair use?
Wouldn't it be funny if.Net (with Mono) actually delivered on the promise of Java? That is to say, bringing software to the Linux platform from traditional MS developers?
Given that Java was a new language, maybe the migration from MS developers wasn't all that great... but now, with Mono, MS developers can move right over.
In Germany, at the start of major industrial thinking, they did an experiment. They called in all the workers, and told them that some scientists would be playing with things at the factory and that there would be changes. Then they called them in and said that they would be raising the temperature at work - then productivity went up. To be sure, they called everyone in and told them they would be lowering the temp. They lowered it, and productivity went up. "Odd," they thought. This went on and on with them calling meetings, making changes and having productivity go up. Finally they started interviewing the workers at length about why they were working harder and why they felt they were being more effective. They all said they liked how they felt the company kept them informed of all the plans...
And how do they know what an illegal copy looks like? Are they deleting every song on my computer that doesn't have DRM on it?
So the kid with 20 gigs of music he copied off of his CD collection is going to be ~really~ upset when he finds out his Mom ran this program on his computer and wiped out his ~legal~ music collection.
And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.'
Not saying we don't have issues we need to address as well... but isn't that an interesting co-incidence?
I've tried to sell him on that but his stance is that none of his staff wants to look foolish in front of a client because they can't open a Word doc or an Excel spreadsheet. Everyone has to be able to exchange documents with clients seemlessly.
We're planning on putting in a Linux box with Subversion on it for document management... if I can't infect him one way, I'll get him another!;) (kidding!)
That's offensive. Just because I'm pointing out some obvious deficiencies does not mean I have some evil agenda.
Your original posting ~was~ offensive. Go back and re-read it. Your first post talks about changing screen resolutions requiring a shell (which it doesn't). But you respond in the second post with a comment on changing drivers. That's a completely different topic. (btw, NVidia drivers can be installed with apt-get.)
You said you needed to use a shell to install a printer, a statement you obviously knew to be incorrect. Not close to wrong, flat out wrong, and you knew it judging from your second post. You meant it's difficult to add additional print drivers and the process isn't documented. Good point. If you'd said that in the first post I wouldn't have responded.
You have valid critiques in your most recent post but you didn't phrased them politely (or accurately it seems) in your first post.
Offer solid critiques that actually say what you mean and someone might listen to you and fix the problems you've run into.
btw, I've burned the ISO. The latest Kubuntu (5.10) is very nice, but more of a refinement so far. But still, very nice, as I've come to expect from them.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like you've just debunked the RedHat business model! ;)
Except that RH is making money... there's nothing that would keep Google from following the same model. Free to use, support for a fee.
hmmmmm..... Can Google/AOL both distribute ten bajillion CDs ~and~ do no evil? ;)
Why don't they take it one step further and file it for us as well? Then we can just take the rebate off at the register? I don't mind paying sales tax on the full price.
First, Scrum is a lot more than daily meetings. That's one practice among half a dozen.
Second, a Scrum daily meeting is 1 to 2 minutes per developer. If they're meeting for 30 minutes, the teams are too big.
It's not a silver bullet but a very useful tool. Even if you don't adopt them wholesale, you should take a "survey course" to see what it's all about. Pick a few of the practices and try them out. See what works for you.
At the risk of sounding like a shill, check out my book (or one like it) to a quick intro some agile methods.
http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/prj/
Bump.
This is very true. I know a lot of very smart people moving to Macs because "everything just works".
I'm not quite ready to pay the Mac tax yet... Kubuntu gets me a heck of a lot closer than RH or any other distro I've used.
Just cracking it isn't enough. They have to then sift through gigs of data to look for evidence. And that's ignoring stegnography.
Excellent point. I agree
My daily meetings are 1 to 2 minutes per person. This keeps this ~really~ short. If people start spinning off into private discussions, I ask them to take it "offline" and get together after the group meeting.
It's a surprisingly good way to let me catch little issues before they become big issues.
I don't like walk around managing for two reasons.
The first I don't like walking around all day. :)
The other reason is that developers work better without interruptions. I think a manager's job description should include ~preventing~ disruptions, not being the one causing them by dropping in at random during the day and demanding a status report.
I practice meetings that are very similar to the Scrum daily meetings. Everyone answers three questions. What did you do yesterday, what problems did you have and what do intend to do today?
Rather than embarrassing people into lying about status, I find it's a good way for me (or other senior team members) to spot problems and help get them solved.
It's not so much about micromanaging but communication. People are going to misunderstand. We're human, it happens. But talking (or meeting) frequently helps to catch those miscommunications more quickly. If meet monthly, how much time is wasted on the wrong tasks?
I've been in and out of managment, development and testing and it's the best way I've found to run a team.
But then again, everyone's different and every team is different. Just because it works for me doesn't mean it has to work for you.
A public, prioritized task list for the project and (if needed) each person... so there are no secrets and no rabbit trails
Have a manager/tech lead who codes at least half time so they understand what's going on with the project and the team
heh... that's what every says... ~someone~ in your social "group" has to be the one who sleeps with the liar. But it won't be you? :)
Just like not backing up the computer... sure, lots of people have problems but it'll never happen to me!
You would rather China have a say in the administration of the internet?
I got her using Gimp for some basic graphics and she was not longer happy with her "slow" 1700+ box. :) She's also wanting to get Photoshop and I told her it needed the power. heh...
I had been considering an Intel dual core but it sounds like I need to aim for an AMD instead.
Riiiiight.... and what happened to the previous three owners?
heh heh... you had to ask, didn't you? :)
Also, SourceForge
Basic tools. Source code management, build systems.
Leadership techniques about getting people to work with you when you aren't paying them and can't fire them.
So... making a backup copy for when my kids destroy the CD/DVD (or when my hard drive crashes) isn't fair use?
Given that Java was a new language, maybe the migration from MS developers wasn't all that great... but now, with Mono, MS developers can move right over.
The Hawthorne Effect. Very cool idea.
http://www.jaredrichardson.net/blog/2005/08/14#haw thorne-effect/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect/
So the kid with 20 gigs of music he copied off of his CD collection is going to be ~really~ upset when he finds out his Mom ran this program on his computer and wiped out his ~legal~ music collection.
Not saying we don't have issues we need to address as well... but isn't that an interesting co-incidence?
However, there are several Linux distros that do what you want out of the box. Have you looked at smoothwall (http://www.smoothwall.org/) or coyote (http://www.coyotelinux.com/)?
We're planning on putting in a Linux box with Subversion on it for document management... if I can't infect him one way, I'll get him another! ;) (kidding!)
Your original posting ~was~ offensive. Go back and re-read it. Your first post talks about changing screen resolutions requiring a shell (which it doesn't). But you respond in the second post with a comment on changing drivers. That's a completely different topic. (btw, NVidia drivers can be installed with apt-get.)
You said you needed to use a shell to install a printer, a statement you obviously knew to be incorrect. Not close to wrong, flat out wrong, and you knew it judging from your second post. You meant it's difficult to add additional print drivers and the process isn't documented. Good point. If you'd said that in the first post I wouldn't have responded.
You have valid critiques in your most recent post but you didn't phrased them politely (or accurately it seems) in your first post.
Offer solid critiques that actually say what you mean and someone might listen to you and fix the problems you've run into.
btw, I've burned the ISO. The latest Kubuntu (5.10) is very nice, but more of a refinement so far. But still, very nice, as I've come to expect from them. :)