Sure, but there's apathetic, and being incapable of doing what you want/need the tool to do. Some examples, I'm well informed on computers, but have no specific knowledge about cars or car electronics.
I recently bought a new car. I needed two things, one a reliable car and a stereo that I could line in multiple styles of MP3 players (none are iPods). I did not buy a GM car. Why? Because I asked around trusted mechanics, looked at consumer reports, and though over my experiances with GM products that my parents had. Now, by buying a Subaru, I got a car that is well rated in consumer reports, other people I know vouch for being quite reliable vs a GM and I was able to swap out the stereo because it's modular - unlike many newer GM cars that use the stereo for a bunch of processing for the dash lights etc. I was also able to get the perfect stereo for my needs installed by professionals without voiding any warrenty (I was told this was OK by the dealer).
My point in that long, rambling example, is that when I choose a tool, I do a little research on it. I asked people knowledgable in the subject about whether I'd be able to do what I needed the tool to do with that product.
Even buying a flathead screwdriver can be worth some thought before grabbing a random one. If you just get the walmart special, you'll likely get one that will meet most needs. The issue a responsible consumer should consider is do their needs for that screwdriver fit the generic expected needs?
While few manufacturers of any product outright lie about what it can do, even the most ethical advertisement and sales representative likely cannot tell you the best product for your needs. You have to know what you want to do with a tool, and you need to be involved in the buying process. If you don't know what you're going to do with a wheelbarrow, you might buy a garden one when you were planning on hauling bags of concrete. When it collapses under the load, it isn't the manufacturers fault.
Likewise with a computer - just buying "a computer" will likely not meet your needs.
About the only thing that ever even claimed to be close to a sort of "bittorrent for websites" was Freenet, but it never did work fast, and I think they changed it quite a bit in 0.7.
I wonder if anyone has thought about working out something like that but without all the anonominity and encryption overhead?
Of course with either you still have a lot of copyright issues, anything put on there would have to have some sort of license that allowed duplicating at least for the service.
Sure, why not. I'll think they are a little stupid as I can just get around anything that isn't asking for a password before sending me info, but hey whatever they like.
I'd say two things - One, it requires you to check for more things and have more complex code as different versions of a browser will support different features so you end up checking for IE5, IE6, IE7, FF1, FF2, Safari whatever, hopefully Opera 7,8,9 and whoever else shows up.
Or... you could have a single check does feature X exist. So potentially a lot less if statements...
Second, when Opera 9.5 comes out and supports new features, or FF3 comes out supporting new features, above you get to rework the page with *yet more* browsers. Feature checking can be left alone and automagically works with newer browsers. It also works with browsers you don't specifically write code for (like possibly Opera etc).
I generally don't think much of a webdev that will send me a browser unsupported page when I say I'm Opera, but if I change one setting to say I'm Firefox, now it works...
But this only breeds the inverse battle: "I'm looking for an app that does X and will save us money, but I need to install 4 or 5 different trials." Which is, of course, a perfectly justified use of time. That's great but in general users should be coming to us saying "I need to do X with my computer." and then we will figure out how to accomplish that in a hopefully cost effective, scalable and safe way.
I have no problem explaning complexity to most managers, and the vast majority of managerial people I deal with understand the complexity. The random new worker or old employee on the other hand often has no idea what may be entailed by their request and often claims they have no idea what we're talking about. I can see that being an issue, but I have trouble having patience with people who cannot seem to answer "What does the error message say exactly?" or "Could you please tell me what you are trying to do and what happens?" when asked to expound on a trouble ticket like "Can't Shutdown".
The reason we've blocked Skype is because A) per GB bandwidth charges B) Supernodes/passthrough etc C) EULA is untenable for us D) enough doubt regarding just what it's doing at a low level over and over again. Maybe FUD but there's lots of stuff like Asterix gateways, EVO, standard SIP that don't have this so why risk it?
The problem is every user and department figures their needs are the most important with immediate response necessary. This isn't possible in most IT departments because they don't have several people per department they have to support.
We try to be responsive to users, but there's only so much time in a day, and when a user refuses to read the online documentation on how to clean up their roaming profile for the 10th time, and just want's IT to do it then they need to be a little patient and lock their machine rather than logging out till we can do the cleanup.
When we discussed the major database + client update and whether we would do it for v2008 or v2009 and agreed on v2009 version, don't be suprised that we balk at a sudden "How much work would it really take to jump into the 2008 version?" with something like "We could get on that about when the 2009 version comes out".
Then you have the people who complain about being unable to install software when our policies are clear that they need to run it past their supervisor first and then submit a request to finance + IT for funding and install. (Not entirely our policy, money is an issue) No, we aren't going to make you a local admin. Bonus points for realizing the requested software is already installed on the machine anyway!
Then there's the set of users who don't understand Scope of Support, I.E. you can use your personal laptop if you want, but we can't put software on it for you and we will not fix it for you. Except for the special cases where management decides we can and we will...
Somewhere in here we actually need to look at Vista, EL5, Server 2003/2008, replacing edge netgear switches with HP managed switches oh and working in concert on some things with another unit plus about 50 things I don't know about.
Lastly, what were these "Side Projects"? How do you think IT figures out if a new product will help you or not (or were you looking for a "There's this product I'd like to read about and maybe play with for an hour. I don't rightly know if it's going to be useful or not as I haven't done anything yet but wanted to ask permission to find out if I need to ask permission to do a test run with it.")?
I'm not saying IT should not be a service group. I am saying that there is often more things going on then just the website and it might take a little while to update. Especially if we recommended a Wiki so *you* could do the updates and you decided that was a bad idea.
Yea, that's one of the main new features in 9.5. I expect it will also sync to Opera Mobile/Mini and the Wii and DS versions as well (well, once 9.5 core is released to them).
I use proxomitron so no auto update, but it's actually quite rare that anything that isn't text ads gets through. I get the whole flashblock in any browser on Windows and have had it since ~2002.
I've just never been so paranoid regarding scripts that I wanted to have to allow each one. I can only imagine it's like the worst parody of Vista's Allow/Deny - or try using CoreForce for a while... I just have dangerous stuff filtered by prox, and what gets through can rarely even crash Opera forget about attack the system.
I really don't know what downthemall does for me as I have been using Getright for many years - since maybe 1998.
It all comes down again to what you're used to, and I don't see FF or Opera really enticing many users of the other.
You can change it to something else, go to the preferences, search, select the engine, click edit, details and check use as default engine. Well hidden I'll admit but I've been hacking the ini for years before the preference editor was there.
You can run greasemonkey scripts in Opera as UserJS or find equivelents. For collapsing whitespace there is userCSS for much of that. Depending on the OS of course there are external programs that work quite well, I use proxomitron for instance on Windows. YMMV of course for any solution.
I think one of the main new features coming to 9.5 is bookmarks sync + more, but I don't think that will include plugins (flash etc). I hope they manage to get the UI settings sync in there but who knows at this point. Of course this is to go to their phone and wii browser as well so some of the desktop stuff wouldn't really transfer.
That said I certainly know how browsers can feel slow because you know one and have to figure out another.
Hmm. I'm a windows IT professional and Opera works good enough for me with MSDN though I expect it depends on what you are doing. I've been able to get product keys, and chat with support which is all I really use from MSDN.
Then again, I don't really expect much to work with Microsoft and try and get away from their products as much as I can.
Look at the first instance of the word. Press F3. Notice how the bright green highlight moves? Personally I hate having every match of a word on a page highlighted, I guess there must be a significant percentage for the compromise they used.
Middle Click on a bookmark is oft requested and I'm really not sure why it's so difficult they haven't been able to put it in in 3 major releases - something to do with their menu system (most windows apps don't recieve anything but leftclicks in menu widgets), it's related to the somewhat weak toolbar system. I also don't understand why everything *but* toolbars can be drag + dropped...
If you care enough you can edit menu.ini and change the behavior of the menu items but for some reason Opera likes to keep things in the same tab. That said, for the longest time I couldn't figure out how to *get* tabs in Firefox as it seems to default to using separate windows for most everything (unless I explicitly use a tab).
Then again, I'm not a Firefox user as I find Opera's defaults of mouse guestures, tab abilities and MDI far more sensible than Firefox's extremely limited and basic browser. It all comes down to preference which is why I'm so glad Opera keeps going.
The thing I always see is that there is little reason for any user comfortable with either Opera or Firefox to switch to the other. If you're unhappy, then of course look - and it probably makes sense to check out features to see if something is killer - but in general since I first learned of Phoenix there was never any real draw.
Now that I've used Firefox 2.x for a while at work I still primarily use Opera save for some Firefox only web consoles (and they are few). Why? Because I'm not interested in messing with extensions. I may be the only "power user" IT guy who doesn't want to spend time with extensions, but there it is. I'm so used to Opera + Proxomitron that I really can't see any benefit to spending time to change to Firefox.
Likewise, someone used to Firefox would likely not want to spend the effort to re-create that in Opera or learn proxomitron or privoxy or whatever for some gains in rendering speed.
The big market might be IE users, or people who don't use extensions on Firefox. They might see gains in Opera, I can see gains possible with Opera Sync if it works for everything by final (with exclusions possible). That would save me a bunch of effort migrating between home and work and laptop.
I am a heavy user. Personally, I have no problem with the above suggestion - like cellphones, provide tiers that the ISP can afford and clearly mark the limits/restrictions.
Most of the heavy users are unhappy simply because they feel ripped off in that they were given no expectation by the ISP that there is a limit or that specific traffic is "bad".
It's also annoying because there is a difference in understanding for most people in the TOS, that is, "best effort" would preclude intentionally degrading performance in most users minds. It's like the turnpike - most people understand there may be traffic accidents that slow you down, but feel more annoyed if you can't be bothered to put up signs a few exits back about construction.
Let me just say that I can't speak to the install as it's been up and running since before I started working at my current position. However, the user interface is abysmal. I think there might be one person who knows how to use the web interface. The web interface is PAINFULLY slow. Everyone uses our e-mail gateway. I can search my 7,000 + past e-mail history in Thunderbird / IMAP much faster and simpler than using RT's interface.
I can't think of a web interface I've seen that's as bad. Using RT's web interface reminds me of the discussions I've heard regarding Lotus Notes!
Maybe some of it is how we've (failed?) to set up RT.
Wait, you are saying how the windows work *isn't* the job of the Window Manager? Why should this be duplicated for each app? Heck, there are small applications which do add a pin to the top functionality, so it isn't/shouldn't/doesn't have to be app by app.
That's all right, I get a subscription to Experts Exchange at work, possibly one of the better Windows support areas (if you pay). A user has bluescreens happening randomly, at least every day. All the hardware checks out.
He's told to install a driver verifier, set up special pooled mode and reboot. Then the machine bluescreens, he uploads a minidump, and the inclusive result is a driver is breaking (maybe an old printer driver). In this case he was led through as much techie hell as any Linux problem I've seen, and the result is either reinstall or remove drivers one by one and hope for the best. As they still aren't sure which driver is the problem, a reinstall isn't guaranteed to fix the issue anyway.
I can't say that this is typical, but with Windows, if the standard scan for viruses doesn't work, it all too quickly degenerates into this, which is as complex (maybe more so as the logs are unreadable without special tools here) as any Linux troubleshooting.
Apparently they are trying to Macify Opera in 9.5, no idea what that would do perse.
I think there's three sets of people, and it might be difficult to make them all happy. That is, people who are switching, and want to have some of their programs be familiar. Then there are people who use multiple OSs all day, but the same browser/e-mail etc to do the work.
Those two groups probably like having their apps work the same everywhere, they're not stumbling as much as they switch.
The last group (and probably the largest) is people who use one platform. They usually want an app to "fit in" to the OS and have the same expected shortcuts etc. (Well as much as Windows or Linux historically have any real expected defaults etc)
For programs like Opera, it seems to it should be pretty easy to default to fitting in on a platform, with a quick enough setup option to behave like on whatver platform you might enjoy. On Windows anyway, I can certainly change out toolbars and shortcuts easily enough.
Why wouldn't you pre-customize your deployment to look like whatever you wanted, with Opera or Firefox or IE or whatever? I certainly wouldn't just push a default install and hope for the best.
I see keypass talked up a lot - how does it compare to keywallet? It certainly is more actively maintained, but it looks far more complex, and it's never clear to me if it can do the multiple fields at once like KeyWallet does.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, but there's apathetic, and being incapable of doing what you want/need the tool to do. Some examples, I'm well informed on computers, but have no specific knowledge about cars or car electronics.
I recently bought a new car. I needed two things, one a reliable car and a stereo that I could line in multiple styles of MP3 players (none are iPods). I did not buy a GM car. Why? Because I asked around trusted mechanics, looked at consumer reports, and though over my experiances with GM products that my parents had. Now, by buying a Subaru, I got a car that is well rated in consumer reports, other people I know vouch for being quite reliable vs a GM and I was able to swap out the stereo because it's modular - unlike many newer GM cars that use the stereo for a bunch of processing for the dash lights etc. I was also able to get the perfect stereo for my needs installed by professionals without voiding any warrenty (I was told this was OK by the dealer).
My point in that long, rambling example, is that when I choose a tool, I do a little research on it. I asked people knowledgable in the subject about whether I'd be able to do what I needed the tool to do with that product.
Even buying a flathead screwdriver can be worth some thought before grabbing a random one. If you just get the walmart special, you'll likely get one that will meet most needs. The issue a responsible consumer should consider is do their needs for that screwdriver fit the generic expected needs?
While few manufacturers of any product outright lie about what it can do, even the most ethical advertisement and sales representative likely cannot tell you the best product for your needs. You have to know what you want to do with a tool, and you need to be involved in the buying process. If you don't know what you're going to do with a wheelbarrow, you might buy a garden one when you were planning on hauling bags of concrete. When it collapses under the load, it isn't the manufacturers fault.
Likewise with a computer - just buying "a computer" will likely not meet your needs.
About the only thing that ever even claimed to be close to a sort of "bittorrent for websites" was Freenet, but it never did work fast, and I think they changed it quite a bit in 0.7.
I wonder if anyone has thought about working out something like that but without all the anonominity and encryption overhead?
Of course with either you still have a lot of copyright issues, anything put on there would have to have some sort of license that allowed duplicating at least for the service.
You have sent $15.00 USD to wraymond@hotmail.com. An email has been sent to the recipient.
Keep fighting the good fight.
Sure, why not. I'll think they are a little stupid as I can just get around anything that isn't asking for a password before sending me info, but hey whatever they like.
I'd say two things - One, it requires you to check for more things and have more complex code as different versions of a browser will support different features so you end up checking for IE5, IE6, IE7, FF1, FF2, Safari whatever, hopefully Opera 7,8,9 and whoever else shows up.
...
Or... you could have a single check does feature X exist. So potentially a lot less if statements
Second, when Opera 9.5 comes out and supports new features, or FF3 comes out supporting new features, above you get to rework the page with *yet more* browsers. Feature checking can be left alone and automagically works with newer browsers. It also works with browsers you don't specifically write code for (like possibly Opera etc).
I generally don't think much of a webdev that will send me a browser unsupported page when I say I'm Opera, but if I change one setting to say I'm Firefox, now it works...
I have no problem explaning complexity to most managers, and the vast majority of managerial people I deal with understand the complexity. The random new worker or old employee on the other hand often has no idea what may be entailed by their request and often claims they have no idea what we're talking about. I can see that being an issue, but I have trouble having patience with people who cannot seem to answer "What does the error message say exactly?" or "Could you please tell me what you are trying to do and what happens?" when asked to expound on a trouble ticket like "Can't Shutdown".
The reason we've blocked Skype is because
A) per GB bandwidth charges
B) Supernodes/passthrough etc
C) EULA is untenable for us
D) enough doubt regarding just what it's doing at a low level over and over again. Maybe FUD but there's lots of stuff like Asterix gateways, EVO, standard SIP that don't have this so why risk it?
The problem is every user and department figures their needs are the most important with immediate response necessary. This isn't possible in most IT departments because they don't have several people per department they have to support.
We try to be responsive to users, but there's only so much time in a day, and when a user refuses to read the online documentation on how to clean up their roaming profile for the 10th time, and just want's IT to do it then they need to be a little patient and lock their machine rather than logging out till we can do the cleanup.
When we discussed the major database + client update and whether we would do it for v2008 or v2009 and agreed on v2009 version, don't be suprised that we balk at a sudden "How much work would it really take to jump into the 2008 version?" with something like "We could get on that about when the 2009 version comes out".
Then you have the people who complain about being unable to install software when our policies are clear that they need to run it past their supervisor first and then submit a request to finance + IT for funding and install. (Not entirely our policy, money is an issue) No, we aren't going to make you a local admin. Bonus points for realizing the requested software is already installed on the machine anyway!
Then there's the set of users who don't understand Scope of Support, I.E. you can use your personal laptop if you want, but we can't put software on it for you and we will not fix it for you. Except for the special cases where management decides we can and we will...
Somewhere in here we actually need to look at Vista, EL5, Server 2003/2008, replacing edge netgear switches with HP managed switches oh and working in concert on some things with another unit plus about 50 things I don't know about.
Lastly, what were these "Side Projects"? How do you think IT figures out if a new product will help you or not (or were you looking for a "There's this product I'd like to read about and maybe play with for an hour. I don't rightly know if it's going to be useful or not as I haven't done anything yet but wanted to ask permission to find out if I need to ask permission to do a test run with it.")?
I'm not saying IT should not be a service group. I am saying that there is often more things going on then just the website and it might take a little while to update. Especially if we recommended a Wiki so *you* could do the updates and you decided that was a bad idea.
Yea, that's one of the main new features in 9.5. I expect it will also sync to Opera Mobile/Mini and the Wii and DS versions as well (well, once 9.5 core is released to them).
I use proxomitron so no auto update, but it's actually quite rare that anything that isn't text ads gets through. I get the whole flashblock in any browser on Windows and have had it since ~2002.
I've just never been so paranoid regarding scripts that I wanted to have to allow each one. I can only imagine it's like the worst parody of Vista's Allow/Deny - or try using CoreForce for a while... I just have dangerous stuff filtered by prox, and what gets through can rarely even crash Opera forget about attack the system.
I really don't know what downthemall does for me as I have been using Getright for many years - since maybe 1998.
It all comes down again to what you're used to, and I don't see FF or Opera really enticing many users of the other.
You can change it to something else, go to the preferences, search, select the engine, click edit, details and check use as default engine. Well hidden I'll admit but I've been hacking the ini for years before the preference editor was there.
You can run greasemonkey scripts in Opera as UserJS or find equivelents. For collapsing whitespace there is userCSS for much of that. Depending on the OS of course there are external programs that work quite well, I use proxomitron for instance on Windows. YMMV of course for any solution.
I think one of the main new features coming to 9.5 is bookmarks sync + more, but I don't think that will include plugins (flash etc). I hope they manage to get the UI settings sync in there but who knows at this point. Of course this is to go to their phone and wii browser as well so some of the desktop stuff wouldn't really transfer.
That said I certainly know how browsers can feel slow because you know one and have to figure out another.
Hmm. I'm a windows IT professional and Opera works good enough for me with MSDN though I expect it depends on what you are doing. I've been able to get product keys, and chat with support which is all I really use from MSDN.
Then again, I don't really expect much to work with Microsoft and try and get away from their products as much as I can.
Look at the first instance of the word. Press F3. Notice how the bright green highlight moves? Personally I hate having every match of a word on a page highlighted, I guess there must be a significant percentage for the compromise they used.
Middle Click on a bookmark is oft requested and I'm really not sure why it's so difficult they haven't been able to put it in in 3 major releases - something to do with their menu system (most windows apps don't recieve anything but leftclicks in menu widgets), it's related to the somewhat weak toolbar system. I also don't understand why everything *but* toolbars can be drag + dropped...
If you care enough you can edit menu.ini and change the behavior of the menu items but for some reason Opera likes to keep things in the same tab. That said, for the longest time I couldn't figure out how to *get* tabs in Firefox as it seems to default to using separate windows for most everything (unless I explicitly use a tab).
Then again, I'm not a Firefox user as I find Opera's defaults of mouse guestures, tab abilities and MDI far more sensible than Firefox's extremely limited and basic browser. It all comes down to preference which is why I'm so glad Opera keeps going.
The thing I always see is that there is little reason for any user comfortable with either Opera or Firefox to switch to the other. If you're unhappy, then of course look - and it probably makes sense to check out features to see if something is killer - but in general since I first learned of Phoenix there was never any real draw.
Now that I've used Firefox 2.x for a while at work I still primarily use Opera save for some Firefox only web consoles (and they are few). Why? Because I'm not interested in messing with extensions. I may be the only "power user" IT guy who doesn't want to spend time with extensions, but there it is. I'm so used to Opera + Proxomitron that I really can't see any benefit to spending time to change to Firefox.
Likewise, someone used to Firefox would likely not want to spend the effort to re-create that in Opera or learn proxomitron or privoxy or whatever for some gains in rendering speed.
The big market might be IE users, or people who don't use extensions on Firefox. They might see gains in Opera, I can see gains possible with Opera Sync if it works for everything by final (with exclusions possible). That would save me a bunch of effort migrating between home and work and laptop.
I am a heavy user. Personally, I have no problem with the above suggestion - like cellphones, provide tiers that the ISP can afford and clearly mark the limits/restrictions.
Most of the heavy users are unhappy simply because they feel ripped off in that they were given no expectation by the ISP that there is a limit or that specific traffic is "bad".
It's also annoying because there is a difference in understanding for most people in the TOS, that is, "best effort" would preclude intentionally degrading performance in most users minds. It's like the turnpike - most people understand there may be traffic accidents that slow you down, but feel more annoyed if you can't be bothered to put up signs a few exits back about construction.
Ummm, like PhraseExpress? http://www.phraseexpress.com/docs4/09/shop.php I know I've seen others that are similar for years.
That alone is at version 4... If they applied for a patent in 2000 why isn't there a more well known product?
I block the Get Firefox buttons!
Let me just say that I can't speak to the install as it's been up and running since before I started working at my current position. However, the user interface is abysmal. I think there might be one person who knows how to use the web interface. The web interface is PAINFULLY slow. Everyone uses our e-mail gateway. I can search my 7,000 + past e-mail history in Thunderbird / IMAP much faster and simpler than using RT's interface.
I can't think of a web interface I've seen that's as bad. Using RT's web interface reminds me of the discussions I've heard regarding Lotus Notes!
Maybe some of it is how we've (failed?) to set up RT.
Wait, you are saying how the windows work *isn't* the job of the Window Manager? Why should this be duplicated for each app? Heck, there are small applications which do add a pin to the top functionality, so it isn't/shouldn't/doesn't have to be app by app.
That's all right, I get a subscription to Experts Exchange at work, possibly one of the better Windows support areas (if you pay). A user has bluescreens happening randomly, at least every day. All the hardware checks out.
He's told to install a driver verifier, set up special pooled mode and reboot. Then the machine bluescreens, he uploads a minidump, and the inclusive result is a driver is breaking (maybe an old printer driver). In this case he was led through as much techie hell as any Linux problem I've seen, and the result is either reinstall or remove drivers one by one and hope for the best. As they still aren't sure which driver is the problem, a reinstall isn't guaranteed to fix the issue anyway.
I can't say that this is typical, but with Windows, if the standard scan for viruses doesn't work, it all too quickly degenerates into this, which is as complex (maybe more so as the logs are unreadable without special tools here) as any Linux troubleshooting.
Apparently they are trying to Macify Opera in 9.5, no idea what that would do perse.
I think there's three sets of people, and it might be difficult to make them all happy. That is, people who are switching, and want to have some of their programs be familiar. Then there are people who use multiple OSs all day, but the same browser/e-mail etc to do the work.
Those two groups probably like having their apps work the same everywhere, they're not stumbling as much as they switch.
The last group (and probably the largest) is people who use one platform. They usually want an app to "fit in" to the OS and have the same expected shortcuts etc. (Well as much as Windows or Linux historically have any real expected defaults etc)
For programs like Opera, it seems to it should be pretty easy to default to fitting in on a platform, with a quick enough setup option to behave like on whatver platform you might enjoy. On Windows anyway, I can certainly change out toolbars and shortcuts easily enough.
Why wouldn't you pre-customize your deployment to look like whatever you wanted, with Opera or Firefox or IE or whatever? I certainly wouldn't just push a default install and hope for the best.
I see keypass talked up a lot - how does it compare to keywallet? It certainly is more actively maintained, but it looks far more complex, and it's never clear to me if it can do the multiple fields at once like KeyWallet does.